Gael Garcia Bernal is a Mexican actor and producer who burst onto the radar of American audiences in 2000 with his breakthrough performance in Alejandro González Iñárritu's film Amores Perros, which was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. He further cemented his crossover talent in Alfonso Cuarón's 2001 film Y Tu Mamá También. Since that time, Bernal has made his mark in films including Bad Education, The Motorcycle Diaries, Fidel, and Coco, along with headlining the critically acclaimed series Mozart in the Jungle.
Bernal was born in Guadalajara, Mexico to Patricia Bernal, an actress and former model, and Jose Angel Garcia, an actor and director; his stepfather is cinematographer Sergio Yazbek. In other words, acting and film are in his blood. Bernal began acting in telenovelas when he was one year old. He continued his work in these uniquely Mexican soap operas throughout his teen years. He enrolled in college in Mexico to study philosophy, but a student strike forced him to take a sabbatical, and he moved to London where he became the first Mexican accepted to study at the Central School of Speech and Drama. Bernal will lead Werewolf by Night, a Marvel Halloween special that will bring the actor into the MCU; in the meantime, take a look at his best movies.
6 Coco
Coco is a 2017 animated film from Pixar about a young boy in Mexico named Miguel who dreams of becoming a musician even though his family forbids it. He lives with his great-grandmother Coco, his parents, and his Abuelita, who are all shoemakers. Miguel idolizes a famous dead musician named Ernesto de la Cruz, and teaches himself to play guitar by watching de la Cruz's old movies. Gael Garcia Bernal plays Héctor, a charming trickster who is also Miguel's great-great-grandfather in the Land of the Dead. Héctor convinces Miguel to help him visit the Land of the Living in this emotional, vibrant, and beautiful animated movie.
5 Bad Education
Bad Education is a 2004 movie by the great filmmaker Pedro Almodovar about two childhood friends and lovers who are reunited in adulthood and caught up in a murder mystery. The film is set in Madrid in 1980. A young film director (Fele Martinez) receives a visit from an actor looking for work who claims to be his old boarding school friend and first love, Ignacio (Francisco Boria), who now goes by the name Angel Andrade.
He has the rights to a story called "The Visit," which tells the story of their time together in boarding school, and wants Enrique to make a film out of it. However, the man claiming to be Ignacio is really Juan (Gael Garcia Bernal). The NC-17 film is one of Almodovar's heaviest and most explicit, but is a visually striking manifestation of the director's frequent exploration of gender fluidity and the nature of memory. Bernal is incredible here, and pulls off from beautiful drag as well.
4 Old
Old is a 2021 film by M. Night Shyamalan and continues the director's consistent use of twists and turns to constantly throw viewers off guard. In what often feels like a body horror movie, a family goes on vacation to the beach and suddenly finds themselves aging rapidly alongside some other trapped vacationers.
Gael Garcia Bernal plays Guy Cappa. He and his wife Prisca (Vicky Krieps) are in the midst of a divorce and to cheer up their young children Maddox and Trent, the family goes to a tropical resort for their final family vacation. They go on an expedition to a secluded beach with other guests at their resort. After Maddox and Trent age rapidly into teenagers and one of the elderly guests dies, they figure out that the beach is aging them the equivalent of one year every 30 minutes. What follows is a disturbing exploration of aging and corporate greed, with a wonderfully melancholic and mature Bernal performance.
3 Motorcycle Diaries
Motorcycle Diaries is a 2004 biopic about the life of Marxist guerrilla leader Che Guevara (Gael Garcia Bernal). It is based on the diaries from 23-year-old Guevara's 1952 trip across South America via motorcycle. He made the ambitious trip with his friend Alberto Granada, with the two men wanting to see as much of Latin America as they could, planning to travel 8,700 miles in four and a half months. The result is a great coming-of-age movie and a somber meditation on the inescapable presence of politics, especially in Latin America, and solidified Bernal's international reputation as a striking leading man.
2 Amores Perros
Amores Perros is the 2000 feature film debut of director Alejandro González Iñárritu, and became the first in his 'hypertext' trilogy that was succeeded by 21 Grams and Babel. The title stems from a phrase that refers to relationships that are cursed, impossible, and foolish. As such, the film features three stories of people who are connected by a car accident in Mexico City. Gael Garcia Bernal plays Octavio, a man who is in love with his brother's wife Susana, and is upset about the fact that his brother abuses her. He attempts to convince her to leave his brother and go away with him.
1 Y Tu Mamá También
Y Tu Mamá También (And Your Mom Too), is a 2001 road trip film directed by Alfonso Cuarón. Gael Garcia Bernal and Diego Luna play two teenagers taking a road trip across Mexico with a beautiful woman in her late 20s (Maribel Verdu). The film is a subtle, slightly sad, but ultimately beautiful coming-of-age story set in 1999, a time of political and economic upheaval in Mexico when Vicente Fox Quesada was set to win the election for President of Mexico after the 70-year reign of presidents from the Institutional Revolutionary Party.
Despite this, Cuarón cleverly pushes the politics in the background of this tender story, allowing it to be seen from the eyes of actual citizens of different classes as they try to live their lives. The film led its director and Bernal to be heralded as two of the most important figures in the Nuevo Cine Mexicano (New Mexican Cinema) movement.