Mexico has long been a hotbed of creative fermentation in movie-making — mixing films that are at turns communistic, anarchic, or class-based in their conception. Mexico’slarge divides between rich and poor oftenbleed into films produced within the countries borders — which themselves often are featured prominently in Mexican films about border crossings and immigration. There is also an inherent hallucinogenic quality in many of the country’s standout films, which started at a time during McCarthyism in the U.S., when blacklisted directors and writers found refuge in Mexico, where they could be more experimental. Likewise, many of the most influential Mexican films have told stories from the perspective of the under-classes.
In the ’90s and early 2000s, a new generation of Mexican directors, including the likes of Guillermo del Toro, Alejandro Gonzales Ińárittu, and Alfonso Cuarón changed the tenor of movies coming out of Latin America, adopting filmmaking principles from the suddenly-burgeoning indie film scene in America.
Unlike in previous decades, Mexican filmmakers were now crossing over into huge careers in Hollywood, never more apparent than when Cuarón found himself at the helm ofGravityin 2013. Still, some of the best work by Mexican filmmakers has originated back home, where Cuarón himself has done some of his best work behind the camera.
The following are the ten greatest Mexican films ever made.
10Y Tu Mamá También (2001)
Y tu mamá tambiénwas a landmark film for Mexico, director Alfonso Cuarón, and actors Diego Luna and Gael Garcia Bernal (who both shot to fame in America after the career-elevating roles). Despite the film’s hypersexual plot, rife with sex scenes (even a steamymenáge à trois), it managed to have one of Mexico’s biggest domestic box-office openings, getting a limited release in the U.S. that led to an Oscar nomination for Best Original Screenplay (Cuarón and his brother penned the script).
For Cuarón, it led to huge jobs directingHarry Potterfilms, as well as large-budget science fiction movies likeChildren of MenandGravity. The director continues to work in both Mexico and America.
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9Cronos (1993)
Guillermo Del Toro has become one of the foremost purveyors of the macabre in film, cutting his teeth in Mexico with an early film that invented a new approach to the vampire film.Cronoswas one of the first vampire movies to do away with conventional tropes of the genre, opting for a more scientific approach to explaining eternal life that presaged films likeLet the Right One InandFrom Dusk Till Dawn.
Cronosbecame the Mexican entry for Best Foreign Language Film but didn’t receive a nomination. Still, it garnered notice for Del Toro, who has continued to mine original approaches to old horror genres in everything fromThe Shape of Waterto Pan’s Labyrinth. Del Toro has influenced many of the new crop of horror purveyors who take a more artistic approach to the genre, including Ryan Murphy ofAmerican Horror Storyfame.
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8Miss Bala (2019)
Miss Balawas a hyperbolic action film thatincorporated Mexico’s cartel strifeinto the story of a woman’s attempts to rise from obscurity via a beauty pageant in Baja, California. The film illuminates contrasts in lifestyle between Mexicans and Americans, as something as innocent as a pageant can spill into a nightmarish crime epic.
How the Film Became So Resonant
The film was the Mexican nominee for Best Foreign Film, but was only fully appreciated years later with an American remake of the same name. That didn’t quite live up to the fast-paced story-telling of the original, which unlike American films about the cartels, took a ground-level approach to the realities of the Mexican side of the drug wars.
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7Like Water for Chocolate (1992)
At a time when very few Mexican films were making an impression worldwide, a revelation dropped on arthouse movie theaters the world over in the form ofLike Water for Chocolate, which at the time became thehighest-grossingforeign-language film released in the United States. The film, adapted from a Mexican novel by Laura Esquivel, tells the story of Tita (Lumi Cavazos), a woman beset by emotions after she’s forced to care for her mother while her older sisters are allowed to wed.
Tita finds a way to magically infuse her emotions into her cooking, including by crying into her sister’s wedding cake as she bakes it. In turn, the entire wedding party are overcome by sadness upon eating it. While the film employs magical realism, it is also intertwined with Mexican history, as it takes place during the Mexican Revolution — which becomes a major plot device.
6Pan’s Labyrinth (2006)
Pan’s Labyrinth
An early glimpse into the now-ubiquitous talent of visionary Guillermo Del Toro,Pan’s Labyrinthwas the first film that he shot in Mexico that truly translated to international audiences. The dark fantasy made use of folkloric motifs, extrapolating them into a grandly haunting visual feast, replete with award-winning costumes and special effects.
Though the film was a joint Mexican/American production and takes plain in Spain, it was written, co-produced and directed by the Mexican filmmaker and author Del Toro. The film’s fantastical story takes place around a hidden labyrinth, where a faun lives and befriends a young girl. Del Toro’s perfect blend of practical effects and CGI create an otherworldly narrative within the historical backdrop of the Spanish Civil War.
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5Roma (2018)
The stark beauty ofRoma, in sumptuous black and white, was a step up for director Alfonso Cuarón, to that point mainly a director of action films from various genres.
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His earliest Mexican films hinted at his amazing artistry, butRomaappeared to be the film closest to his heart, a love letter to the indigenous Mixteco population in Mexico, many of whom lived lives of indentured servitude in D.F., personified by the authenticity of actress Yalitza Aparicio. Clearly Cuarón’s own upbringing bled into this film, and for his efforts he joined compatriots Iñárritu and Del Toro as Best Director Oscar winners that all hailed from the generation of Mexican filmakers. Bravo!
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4El Topo (1970)
You could argue this list could include only the films of Alejandro Jodorowsky, given how pervasive his influence on Mexican cinema (and the film world at large) has become over the years. Jodorowsky influenced everyone from other Mexican directors like Alfonso Cuarón, to cinema giants like David Lynch.
Arguably his most important and influential film,El Topo, vacillated between motifs of stark horror and undeniable beauty, making a psychedelic Western that combined disparate genres 20 years before Quentin Tarantino made that his calling card. Jodorowsky’s often abusive style of method acting and direction has made him a controversial figure more recently, as the director would stop at nothing to achieve his vision.
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3Amores Perros (2000)
Amores Perros
Amores Perros intertwines three distinct stories centered around a car accident in Mexico City, exploring themes of love, loss, and the human condition. The film delves into the lives of a young man involved in dogfighting, a model coping with her injuries, and a mysterious vagrant with a hidden past. It presents a gritty and unflinching portrayal of urban existence and human connectivity.
While Alejandro Iñárritu has become one of America’s most sought-after directors since moving to the States 20 years ago, some of his greatest work came early in his career, most memorably with his feature directorial debut,Amores Perros.
Iñárittu’s non-linear storytelling, Criterion-worthy cinematography by Rodrigo Prieto, and a visceral performance by then up-and-comer Gael Garcia Bernal helped create a huge buzz for the Mexican film during festival season — leading to an Oscar nomination that unfortunately came during the year the unforgettableCrouching Tiger, Hidden Dragonwas also released.
Still, Iñárritu had left his mark, and only 3 years later was directing a star-studded cast in21 Grams. Iñárritu has certainly been selective and deliberate in choosing his subsequent films, making a movie only 3 or 4 years with long periods of development and pre-production.
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2Los Olvidados (1950)
Los Olvidadosremains one of the most historically important and influential Mexican films to this day, directed by Luis Buñuel — a surrealist filmmaker who began his career working with the likes of painter Salvador Dalí.
Though Buñuel was born in Spain, his communist leanings eventually led him to Mexico (after being summarily blacklisted in the United States), where he could live and work among like-minded artists like Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo. Buñuel was commisioned to make a film by Mexican producer Óscar Dancigers about the lives of impoverished youth in Mexico City, which Buñuel obliged by writing and directing a social realist film that won him Best Director at the 1951 Cannes Film Festival.Los Olvidadoshas been called the Latin-American400 Blows, ranking with the greatest films to examine youth culture — a common theme in mid-century filmmaking.
1Macario (1960)
Macariowas the first Mexican film to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. Thesupernatural storytakes place in Colonial Mexico, on the eve ofDía de los Muertos, when the main character, Macario (Ignacio López Tarso), attempts to procure a whole turkey to eat by himself, before being tempted by the Devil, God, and then Death.
The 1960 film was a sort of New World take onThe Seventh Seal, but incorporates many staple aspects of Mexican culture and an unbelievable performance by Pina Pellicer as Macario’s wife. Most memorable about the film are it’s lavish and haunting sets and cinematography, that borrowed more from European filmmakers like Ingmar Bergman and Francois Truffaut than its American neighbors. Director Roberto Gavaldón, unlike many of his compatriots, stayed and worked in Mexico for the remainder of his prolific career.
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