Four Films That Capture Pedro Almodóvar’s Brilliance

Earlier this month, Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar won the Venice Film Festival’s top prize, the Golden Lion, for his latest work, The Room Next Door.

The accolade will hardly surprise those familiar with Almodóvar’s cinema, a world that’s ripe with color and populated by larger-than-life women (more often than not played by Penélope Cruz), where telenovela plots twist and flip. His films, which revel in the richness and pain of motherhood and queerness, are full of life – though death is never far away.

For those yet to voyage into his oeuvre, here are four points of departure. No spoilers, we promise.

All About My Mother (1999)

Considered by many Almodóvar connoisseurs to be his best work, All About My Mother follows Manuela (played by Cecilia Roth), who, devastated by her teenage son’s death, returns to Barcelona to find his other parent – Lola (Toni Cantó), a trans woman who has HIV. Among those Manuela (re)connects with there is Sister Rosa (Penélope Cruz), a nun who Lola has impregnated; and Agrado (Antonia San Juan), a scene-stealing sex worker. Sounds bananas, but the result is hopeful and theatrical, and deservedly won the Oscar for best foreign language film in 1999 and the best director prize at Cannes for Almodóvar.

Volver (2006)

Murder. Cancer. Abandonment. Incest. Ghosts? Not the cheeriest subjects, but in Almodovar’s Volver, they make for a radiant film. At its center is Raimunda (Penélope Cruz), who is at once dazzlingly beautiful, completely exhausted by home and work, and burdened by horrifying traumas from her past. It’s a story that veers ever darker as tightly bound secrets are revealed, yet Almodóvar’s love for his female characters ensures their humanity always shines through.

Pain and Glory (2019)

A contemplative and deeply personal work, Antonio Banderas plays Salvador Mallo, a director who, adrift in life and succumbing to his ailments, turns to heroin to cope with his pain, before his past comes back to save him. (Banderas’ character is an avatar for Almodóvar himself; Banderas wears Almodovar’s clothes, and occupies his real house). It’s a melancholic film rendered in rainbow colors, with a touching performance by Cruz as Mallo’s exhausted mother, Jacinta.

Parallel Mothers (2021)

In case it isn’t clear: Pedro Almodóvar loves working with Penélope Cruz. She’s the actress most associated with Almodóvar, having starred in seven of his films dating back to 1997’s Live Flesh. In Parallel Mothers, Cruz’s performance as Janis Martínez, a photographer and expectant mother who hides a secret of her own while confronting the dark legacy of Spain’s Civil War, is among her strongest. It’s a brutal story, both politically and personally, but delivered in an empathic, elegant style that can only be Almodóvar’s.