# 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?

*By YPB Team · Published June 3, 2026 · https://youpick.best/ranking/what-is-the-best-mexican-movie-of-all-time*

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## Current results (no votes yet)

1. **Roma** — score 1000/1000
   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.
2. **Canoa** — score 909/1000
   Felipe Cazals's 1976 docudrama reconstructing the brutal 1968 lynching of university workers in San Miguel Canoa, a searing political film that shook Mexico.
3. **El Topo** — score 758/1000
   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.
4. **Amores Perros** — score 682/1000
   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.
5. **Like Water for Chocolate** — score 682/1000
   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.
6. **The Crime of Father Amaro** — score 584/1000
   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.
7. **The Holy Mountain** — score 454/1000
   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.
8. **The Devil's Backbone** — score 454/1000
   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.
9. **María Candelaria** — score 273/1000
   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.
10. **Macario** — score 1/1000
   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.
11. **Nuevo Orden** — score 1/1000
   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.
12. **Y Tu Mamá También** — score 1/1000
   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.
13. **Silent Light** — score 1/1000
   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.
14. **Cronos** — score 1/1000
   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.
15. **Battle in Heaven** — score 1/1000
   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.

Tags: movies, classics, mexico, all-time