Trivia

Composes the music for all his movies. Is a self-taught composer who learned to write music using a computer software.

Following his film Mar adentro (2004), he received a congratulation letter from Steven Spielberg, one of Amenabar's favorite directors.

He didn't finish his university studies due to one 4th grade subject, "Film writing". The last name of the professor who kept failing him is Castro, and that also the last name of the evil professor in his first long movie, Tesis (1996). Amenábar claims he used the last name inadvertedly at first, it was the university people who noticed the coincidence and asked him to change it. In the end he decided not to, although in the scripts he did write a different name, Gálvez. Incidentally, he has done the script writing in all of his movies so far.

Abre los ojos (1997) is his "remake" of Vértigo (1958), by Hitchcock. In fact, when the character of Sofia appears after hitting Cesar with a jar, it's the same shot of Kim Novak in Vertigo when she appears from the bathroom in the hotel - with green lights

His name appears in Tesis (1996), on a computer screen. When the main character checks the names of the buyers of the cameras, Amenábar is one of them.

His favorite directors are Steven Spielberg, James Cameron and Stanley Kubrick.

He's a great collector of soundtracks.

Invited to join AMPAS in 2005.

His films often deal with people struggling to make their intellect work in the face of the world around them.

Was friends in college with actor Mariano Alameda.