What is the best Spanish movie of all time?

By YPB Team

From surrealist provocations to intimate character studies, from found-footage horror to Almodovar's emotional melodramas — Spanish cinema is impossible to pin down. Which film best represents it?

The Spirit of the Beehive

Víctor Erice's haunting 1973 meditation on childhood, imagination, and trauma, following a young girl in 1940 Castile who becomes obsessed with the Frankenstein monster.

1000pts

The Skin I Live In

Almodóvar's 2011 unsettling psychological thriller about a plastic surgeon who creates a synthetic skin and the captive woman inhabiting it, a Grand Guignol of identity and revenge.

803pts

All About My Mother

Pedro Almodóvar's 1999 Oscar-winning melodrama about a nurse who travels to Barcelona after her son's death, a warm, generous tribute to women and to performance itself.

787pts

The Sea Inside

Alejandro Amenábar's 2004 Oscar-winning drama based on the true story of quadriplegic Ramon Sampedro's 30-year campaign for the right to die, anchored by Javier Bardem's transformative performance.

562pts

Talk to Her

Almodóvar's 2002 unconventional love story connecting two men caring for comatose women, winning the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay for its daring emotional complexity.

449pts

Volver

Almodóvar's 2006 black comedy-melodrama set in La Mancha and Madrid, in which a woman deals with a family tragedy while her supposedly dead mother reappears.

449pts

The Others

Alejandro Amenábar's 2001 Gothic horror set in a fog-shrouded Jersey mansion, a masterclass in atmospheric dread that rewrites its central mystery with devastating elegance.

449pts

Open Your Eyes

Alejandro Amenábar's 1997 mind-bending sci-fi thriller about a handsome playboy whose face is disfigured, blurring the line between dream and reality in ever-tightening spirals.

449pts

Belle Époque

Fernando Trueba's Oscar-winning 1992 romantic comedy about a young army deserter sheltered by four vivacious sisters in pre-Civil War rural Spain, a sunlit celebration of love and freedom.

449pts

REC

Jaume Balagueró and Paco Plaza's 2007 found-footage horror set in a quarantined Barcelona apartment block, a breathless, expertly calibrated descent into chaos.

281pts

Tristana

Luis Buñuel's 1970 study of power, manipulation, and dark revenge in provincial Toledo, with Catherine Deneuve's most complex performance as the title ward-turned-avenger.

281pts

The Orphanage

Juan Antonio Bayona's 2007 haunted-house horror about a woman who returns to her childhood orphanage with her family, produced by Guillermo del Toro and drenched in grief and dread.

281pts

Viridiana

Luis Buñuel's 1961 anticlerical masterpiece about a novice nun whose piety is assaulted by her debauched uncle, featuring the scandalous Last Supper parody that got it banned in Spain.