# What is the best Spanish movie of all time?

> 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?

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

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## Current results (no votes yet)

1. **The Spirit of the Beehive** — score 1000/1000
   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.
2. **The Skin I Live In** — score 727/1000
   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.
3. **All About My Mother** — score 704/1000
   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.
4. **The Sea Inside** — score 391/1000
   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.
5. **Belle Époque** — score 235/1000
   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.
6. **Volver** — score 235/1000
   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.
7. **Open Your Eyes** — score 235/1000
   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.
8. **Talk to Her** — score 235/1000
   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.
9. **The Others** — score 235/1000
   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.
10. **The Orphanage** — score 1/1000
   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.
11. **REC** — score 1/1000
   Jaume Balagueró and Paco Plaza's 2007 found-footage horror set in a quarantined Barcelona apartment block, a breathless, expertly calibrated descent into chaos.
12. **Tristana** — score 1/1000
   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.
13. **Viridiana** — score 1/1000
   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.

Tags: movies, spain, classics, all-time