The 15 Best Films by Pedro Almodóvar

15. “Julieta”

Almodóvar so skillfully adapts the work of Canadian short story genius Alice Munro on “Julieta” (from her collection “Runaway”) that we can’t wait to see how he’ll take on fellow short story master Lucia Berlin with “Manual for Cleaning Women.” “Julieta” is a tale of regrets and might-have-beens. Emma Suárez plays the title character, a woman living in Madrid who bumps into her estranged daughter’s childhood best friend on the street — right as Julieta is on the precipice of a major life change by moving in with her boyfriend. The encounter sends Julieta tumbling into memories of her younger days, with Adriana Ugarte filling in for her more passionate previous self in flashbacks. “Julieta” is a melodrama in the classic Almodóvar sense, meaning one not filled with tears or heightened emotions but instead an elegant detailing of the chain of events that lead a person to become who they are in the world now — and that means a lot of ruing the past.

14. “The Skin I Live In”

Almodóvar’s gleefully demented spin on “Eyes Without a Face” stars Antonio Banderas as a plastic surgeon who’s developed a new artificial skin that can survive burns and other traumas. He himself is traumatized by the mangling of his wife in an auto accident, and in a sick twist on “Vertigo,” becomes obsessed with recreating her, testing his new invention on Vera (Elena Anaya), a young woman he’s keeping captive in his austerely constructed mansion. Almodóvar’s first flirtation with the horror genre doesn’t pack ghoulish jolts, but instead slices and dices his many cinematic fascinations — psychosexual mind games, the obsession with metamorphosis, and betrayal — for a creepy pastiche that, well, gets under the skin.

13. “The Human Voice”

Almodóvar’s 30-minute short film “The Human Voice,” based on Jean Cocteau’s 1930 play of the same name, is a one-woman powerhouse from Tilda Swinton as a jilted woman scorning her ex-lover, trashing his belongings, dabbling in pills, and devouring a delicious monologue and, eventually, the entire soundstage as it burns down around her. The film also served as the director’s first movie made completely in English, a primer of sorts for his upcoming Lucia Berlin adaptation “A Manual for Cleaning Women,” starring Cate Blanchett. It’s an experiment that succeeds completely: Swinton is decked out in one gorgeous outfit after another, pacing an art deco apartment lined wall to wall with  Almodóvarian easter eggs, including a copy of Berlin’s book on the coffee table. Swinton is not just a woman on the verge of a nervous breakdown — she’s fully having one, and it’s a joy to watch her burn the house down.

12. “Pain and Glory”

One of the Spanish auteur’s finest films is also his most personal, a colorful vivisection of the director’s life and work, his regrets and achievements. No doubt playing a version of the Academy Award–winning director himself, Antonio Banderas stars as Salvador Mallo, a filmmaker in creative crisis who begins experimenting with drugs in the lead-up to a local career retrospective of his work.

“Pain and Glory” features several breakouts in the cast, including Asier Etxeandia as Alberto, Salvador’s former onscreen muse who’s now a high-functioning heroin addict. Newcomer César Vicente plays the beguiling laborer Eduardo, who inspired Salvador’s sexual awakening as a child, as revealed in poignant, sexy flashbacks carefully stitched by Almodóvar’s editor Teresa Font. Penélope Cruz co-stars as the young Salvador’s mother. “Pain and Glory” features another achingly lovely score from Alberto Iglesias, who won Best Composer at Cannes, and pop-colored cinematography from Almodóvar’s trusted collaborator José Luis Alcaine.

11. “Parallel Mothers”

Pedro Almodóvar makes his most politically charged film to date with “Parallel Mothers,” an indictment of the horrors of the Francisco Franco regime wrought in personal terms as a switched-at-birth melodrama that sweeps you off your feet and into its lunacy. While you can see where the plot is headed from space, Penélope Cruz and newcomer Milena Smit render the familiar beats as unexpected — their dynamic ever shifting from the maternal to the erotic and back again. (This film is also a reminder of how skilled Almodóvar is at shaping the interpersonal dynamics between women: See the underrated “Julieta” as an example.) 

Together, the two women represent opposite ends of the spectrum of motherhood, but their identities are never fixed in place. Janis (Cruz) is resolute in childless middle age, and then suddenly welcoming to the possibility of an unexpected child, while Ana (Smit) is a scared teenager staring down the precipice of parenthood. This wildly entertaining movie is drenched in plenty of Almodóvar signatures: (yet again) a sumptuous score from Alberto Iglesias, (yet AGAIN) rich cinematography from José Luis Alcaine, and (YET AGAIN) a brief but potent Rossy de Palma as Janis’ fiery agent. All of the elements coalesce into a swoon-worthy whole, with Almodóvar mic dropping with surely the most haunting final shot of his entire career to remind us that the sins of the past are always inside the present, and that his filmmaking genius is far from done.

10. “Broken Embraces”

Penélope Cruz scorches in this 2009 Almodóvar melodrama that collages all of the director’s key fascinations. Alberto Iglesias’ Bernard Herrmann-esque score is quite possibly his best, undercutting the flamboyant drama onscreen (and, for the record, every Iglesias score is iconic music). As with this year’s “Pain and Glory,” past and present come into collision in “Broken Embraces,” as a blind screenwriter played by Lluís Homar recalls his burned love affair with a dead actress, played by Cruz.

9. “Law of Desire”

As a film centered on a love triangle involving two men and a trans woman, Almodóvar’s 1987 “Law of Desire” was way ahead of its time. Antonio Banderas plays the creepiest queer villain this side of Norman Bates, and he has an icky obsession with dissolute, falling-out-of-love filmmaker Pablo, played by Eusebio Poncela. Pablo’s sister, played by Carmen Maura, is equally troubled and becomes a pawn in their twisted game.

8. “Live Flesh”

Almodóvar’s 1997 “Live Flesh” is dark, dark, dark. Javier Bardem stars as a parapalegic former cop, whose wife (Francesca Neri) is the object of obsession of Victor (Liberto Raval) — and if you’ve seen “Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!” or “Law of Desire,” you know that in an Almodóvar movie, a jilted ex-lover turned stalker is someone you absolutely need to avoid. This sexually graphic movie careens between tones and genres — and its strangeness is impossible to resist.

7. “Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown”

Pedro Almodóvar’s hilarious and insane 1988 film “Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown” is the culmination and anticipation of all of the director’s favorite fetishes. In fact, “Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown” might as well be the title of his entire filmography. It’s also one of the most cathartic breakup movies ever. Pepa (Carmen Maura) is a television actress who comes hysterically unglued after her boyfriend dumps her out of the blue. From a bed set aflame by cigarettes to gazpacho spiked with sleeping pills, this film is packed with outrageous images, and it sets the stage for Almodóvar’s ensuing, and endless, obsession with damaged women.

6. “Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!”

“Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!” is the most darkly funny of Almodóvar’s early punk efforts as a queer director bursting onto the scene. Antonio Banderas once again plays a hot mentally ill person, who here takes a porn star (Victoria Abril) hostage in hopes that she will marry him. Think Martin Scorsese’s “The King of Comedy” but for the (even more) psychosexually damaged ilk. Most of the film is a quirky two-hander between Banderas and Abril — until it spirals into something else entirely, and something deeply sad. Backed by distributor Miramax, the film was instrumental in the MPAA’s transition from the X rating to NC-17 — which the film ultimately received. Elia Kazan was apparently a big fan of the film’s graphic sex scenes.

5. “Matador”

Almodóvar’s 1986 “Matador” is a sick movie. You know you’re in for it when the first scene of the film features a guy jerking off to a grisly montage of dying women from Mario Bava’s 1964 giallo slasher “Blood & Black Lace.” Almodóvar has publicly been hard on his own movie, and maybe because he’s embarassed at what a perverted shitshow it is. But make no mistake. While this movie is all about the conflation of sex and death, it has a lot to say about how we end up yolking those two driving forces, and revel in what results onscreen. The ending is as miserably bitter as any of Almodóvar’s gloomiest efforts — hold onto your hat.

4. “Volver”

The 21st-century stretch of Almodóvar’s career has found the director working at the peak of his powers, and 2006’s “Volver” is no exception. Penélope Cruz burns through the screen as Raimunda, a lower-middle-class housewife tasked with covering up her husband’s murder, and communicating with the (maybe) ghost of her mother who died (or did she?) in a fire. The film is generously stuffed with a rich cast of characters — from Blanca Portillo’s pot-smoking Agustina to Carmen Maura’s paranoid Irene — and bursts with mouthwatering primary colors thanks to cinematographer José Luis Alcaine.

3. “Talk to Her”

Almodóvar won the Best Original Screenplay Academy Award in 2003 for this sensuous and creepy story of two men, a nurse and a writer, who bond over the love they feel for two women in comas. It’s moving, shimmering, and perverse in the most Almodóvarian way. (Don’t forget the dirty movie-within-the-movie, featuring a shrunken man scaling a pair of enormous breasts and crawling inside a giant vagina.)

2. “All About My Mother”

Almodóvar rightly won the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar in 1999 for this luscious ode to the women and the films that have inspired him. The film is, in fact, as a title card explains, dedicated “to Bette Davis, Gena Rowlands, Romy Schneider…To all actresses who have played actresses, to all women who act, to men who act and become women, to all people who want to become mothers. To my mother.”

“All About My Mother” is Almodóvar nerding out over the great women of cinema, with one of the film’s chief turning points being a recreation of a scene from John Cassavetes’ backstage drama “Opening Night,” starring Gena Rowlands. What’s left to be said about this painfully gorgeous movie? It is a passionate and beautiful masterwork, and it will make you want to run home and hug your mom, and quite possibly your DVD collection.

1. “Bad Education”

The MPAA slapped the tantalizingly lurid spectacle “Bad Education” with an NC-17 in 2004, and it was probably the best thing that could’ve happened to Almodóvar in years, because this dazzling and horrifying masterpiece of a movie ended up earning more than $40 million globally, and $5 million in the U.S. It’s one of the highest-grossing NC-17 films of all time, right there behind “Showgirls,” “Henry & June,” and “The Cook, The Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover.”

“Bad Education” is a haunted hall of mirrors — explicit, deeply troubling, and unbearably sexy. (If you’re not chafing over Gael García Bernal in either of his dual roles, you don’t have a pulse.) Almodóvar never shies from playing with story structure, and here deploys the metanarrative technique to create a poison-darted valentine to the movies, and to desire itself. This is a film you want to drink, and devour, and it runs through the mind. While its key takeaways surrounding corruption in the Catholic church, molestation, trauma, and all manner of nasty business are deeply cynical, “Bad Education” is optimistic about the power of the movies. You walk out on a cloud.