What is the best Mexican movie of all time?

By YPB Team

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?

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

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.

937pts

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.

833pts

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.

781pts

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.

781pts

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.

714pts

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.

624pts

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.

624pts

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.

499pts

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.

312pts

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.

312pts

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.

0pts

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.

0pts

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.

0pts

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.