The Angelika has long been a destination for international cinema, and one of our favorite European countries to look to for thought-provoking films is Spain. Thanks to groundbreaking directors like Pedro Almodovar and Guillermo Del Toro, there is no shortage of award-winning Spanish films you can watch to get a taste of Spanish culture. To reward the best Spanish films of each year, the Spanish Academy of Motion Pictures and Arts created the Goya Awards. The Goya Awards are Spain’s main national film awards, considered by many in Spain, and internationally, to be the Spanish equivalent of the American Academy Awards. The inaugural ceremony took place in 1987. You can see these great movies from Spanish directors, Goya Award nominees, winners and more all available to stream now on Angelika Anywhere.  

Labyrinth of Passion / Laberinto de pasiones, 1989, Spain

• Directed by Pedro Almodóvar
• Starring: Cecilia Roth, Antonio Banderas

Outrageous people, including a desperate empress and a terrorist with an acute sense of smell, seek happiness in Madrid. This early work from Director/Writer Pedro Almodóvar, his second feature film, “shows off the bright, gaudy visual style, the breezy manner and the exuberant energy that are [his] particular virtues” (New York Times). Rated 91% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes, LABYRINTH OF PASSION broke the mold with this wholly original work.

Movie Trivia: LABYRINTH OF PASSION was made only six years after the death of Fransicso Franco (who ruled over Spain from 1939 to 1975 as a dictator) when Spain was beginning to rediscover its artistic freedom.

Parallel Mothers / Madres paralelas, 2021, Spain

• Directed by Pedro Almodóvar
• Starring Penélope Cruz, Milena Smit

Two women, Janis (Penelope Cruz) and Ana (Milena Smit), coincide in a hospital room where they are going to give birth. Both are single and became pregnant by accident. Janis, middle-aged, doesn’t regret it and she is exultant. The other, Ana, an adolescent, is scared, repentant and traumatized. Janis tries to encourage her while they move like sleepwalkers along the hospital corridors. The few words they exchange in these hours will create a very close link between the two, which by chance develops and complicates, and changes their lives in a decisive way. “The central plot of “Parallel Mothers” is vintage Almodóvar: a skein of reversals, revelations, surprises and coincidences unraveled with style, wit and feeling.” – New York Times

Movie Trivia: There was a poster for PARALLEL MOTHERS over a decade ago in a scene of Almodóvar’s BROKEN EMBRACES (2009). He was already working on the script and had made a poster.

Penelope Cruz was nominated for Best Actress in a Leading Role for her performance as Janis in the film. 

Watch Parallel Mothers on Angelika Anywhere

Sex and Lucia / Lucía y el sexo, 2001, Spain

• Directed by Julio Medem
• Starring Paz Vega

After learning that her boyfriend, Lorenzo (Tristán Ulloa), a talented but troubled writer, may have committed suicide, the beautiful Lucía (Paz Vega) decides to escape to a remote Spanish island. When she arrives, she meets Carlos (Daniel Freire), a scuba diver, and Elena (Najwa Nimri), Lorenzo’s former lover. As the twisted story unfolds, Lucía learns more about Lorenzo’s tragic past, which may have been the inspiration for his latest novel – and the root of his depression.

Paz Vega won the Goya Award for Best New Actress for her breakout performance in the film in 2002. Sex and Lucia also won the Goya Award for Best Original Score this year, with Alberto Iglesias being nominated for his work on the film. 

Movie Trivia: They say “the island” many times in the film  but they don’t say its name. It is in fact, the tiny island of Fuerteventura, in the Canary Islands. Shooting locations included Fuerteventura and Madrid in Spain.

Watch Sex and Lucia on Angelika Anywhere

The Devil’s Backbone / El espinazo del diablo, 2001, Spain

• Directed by Guillermo del Toro
• Executive Producer Pedro Almodóvar

An elegant gothic tale of a haunted orphanage and the dark secrets that lie within the walls, two-time Academy Award winner Guillermo del Toro’s (PAN’S LABYRINTH, THE SHAPE OF WATER) iconic eerie beauty is ever-present in “The Devil’s Backbone”. With haunting performances from a young Fernando Tielve (PAN’S LABYRINTH, GOYA’S GHOSTS) and a 92% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes, this film is sure to send chills down your spine. New York Times raves, “Mr. del Toro provokes your screams and shudders, but he also earns your tears.”

Movie Trivia: The film came together when Guillermo del Toro bumped into Pedro Almodóvar at the 1994 Miami Film Festival where he had just shown Cronos (1992). Almodovar told del Toro that he had just seen his film and wanted to produce his next movie.

Watch The Devil’s Backbone on Angelika Anywhere

Here at the Angelia we are always on the lookout for exciting new films… here are some upcoming Spanish language films that are on our radar for 2023… 

21 Paradiso

• Director: Nestor Ruiz Medina

A grungy, hard-hitting and intimate exploration of that stormy emotional area where the need for love and cash collide, Nestor Ruiz Medina’s feature debut is the very definition of a movie with a compelling central idea which it then fails to work through. But despite the weaknesses of its barebones script, this tale of a young couple trying desperately to keep their beach-bum paradise alive hits the emotional spot often enough to make it worthwhile. 

20,000 Species of Bees

• Director: Estibaliz Urresola Solaguren

During a summer in a village house linked to beekeeping, an eight-year-old and her mother experience revelations that will change their lives forever.

20,000 Species of Bees had its world premiere on 22 February 2023 as part of the 73rd Berlin International Film Festival, in competition.

Tin&Tina

• Director Rueben Stein (named one of the TOP 10 Spanish Filmmakers On the Rise 2018 by Variety.)
• Starring Milena Smit (Parallel Mothers, 2021)

The movie is based on the suspense short film nominated for the Méliès d’Or (an award presented annually by the Méliès International Festivals Federation, an international network of genre film festivals from Europe) and the Best European Fantastic Short Film, winner of more than 30 awards and screened by more than 200 film festivals. It was defined by the critics as “a cult short film”.

The plot is set in early-1980s Spain. It tracks the plight of Adolfo and Lola (the latter of whom has endured an unwanted abortion plunging her into a crisis of faith), as well as Tin and Tina, two creepy orphan twin siblings educated under strict religious teachings in a convent, ensuingly adopted by Adolfo and Lola.

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