What is the best Mexican movie of all time?

Art-house surrealism, neorealist poverty portraits, and prestige Oscar winners sit alongside cult midnight movies and psychedelic odysseys in this survey of Mexican cinema. Where do you stand?

1. 1
   Roma

   Alfonso Cuarón's 2018 black-and-white autobiographical meditation on his Mexico City childhood, following a domestic worker through a year of personal and political upheaval — winner of three Oscars including Best Director.
   1000pts
2. 2
   Canoa

   Felipe Cazals's 1976 docudrama reconstructing the brutal 1968 lynching of university workers in San Miguel Canoa, a searing political film that shook Mexico.
   909pts
3. 3
   El Topo

   Alejandro Jodorowsky's 1970 surrealist acid-western following a black-clad gunslinger on a violent spiritual quest across an allegorical desert landscape, the original midnight-movie cult classic.
   758pts
4. 4
   Amores Perros

   Alejandro González Iñárritu's explosive 2000 debut — three interconnected stories set in motion by a Mexico City car crash — one of the defining films of the Mexican New Wave.
   682pts
5. 5
   Like Water for Chocolate

   Alfonso Arau's 1992 magical-realist romance based on Laura Esquivel's novel — a woman whose intense emotions infuse every dish she cooks — Mexico's most celebrated romantic film.
   682pts
6. 6
   The Crime of Father Amaro

   Carlos Carrera's 2002 controversial drama about a young Catholic priest who succumbs to temptation in a small Mexican town, one of the highest-grossing Mexican films at its time of release.
   584pts
7. 7
   The Holy Mountain

   Alejandro Jodorowsky's 1973 alchemical fever dream following an alchemist and nine disciples who abandon their earthly sins to conquer the Holy Mountain, a delirious assault on the senses.
   454pts
8. 8
   The Devil's Backbone

   Guillermo del Toro's 2001 ghost story set in a Republican orphanage during the Spanish Civil War, one of the finest haunted-house films ever made.
   454pts
9. 9
   María Candelaria

   Emilio Fernández's 1944 Golden Palm-winning poetic drama about an indigenous Xochimilco flower-seller persecuted by her community, with Gabriel Figueroa's ravishing black-and-white photography.
   273pts
10. 10
    Macario

    Roberto Gavaldón's 1960 masterwork — a poor Mexican woodcutter makes a pact with Death to gain the power to heal — Mexico's first Oscar-nominated foreign film and a jewel of Latin American cinema.
    1pts
11. 11
    Nuevo Orden

    Michel Franco's 2020 Silver Lion-winning dystopian thriller about a wealthy Mexico City wedding interrupted by a violent class uprising, brutal and purposefully provocative.
    1pts
12. 12
    Y Tu Mamá También

    Alfonso Cuarón's 2001 road movie about two Mexican teenagers and an older Spanish woman on a journey to a mythical beach, brimming with honesty about sex, class, and mortality.
    1pts
13. 13
    Silent Light

    Carlos Reygadas's 2007 minimalist drama about a Mennonite farmer in the Mexican countryside torn between his wife and his lover, shot with transcendent stillness and a miraculous final scene.
    1pts
14. 14
    Cronos

    Guillermo del Toro's 1993 debut feature — an antique dealer stumbles upon a mysterious golden device that grants eternal life and an insatiable thirst for blood — elegant, compassionate horror.
    1pts
15. 15
    Battle in Heaven

    Carlos Reygadas's 2005 hypnotic, sexually frank portrait of a Mexico City military driver and his bourgeois general's daughter, confronting guilt, desire, and class with unsparing directness.
    1pts