Superb Mexican Cinema
by I_A_G_T | created - 06 Jun 2020 | updated - 10 Jun 2020 | PublicAll of these films are superbly made. They show the capability that Mexican people have to create the purest form of art in cinema amidst a collapsing society. If you find this list, give some of these a watch. These films are carefully selected by me. The ones marked by a ★ are MUST-WATCH!
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1. Gueros (2014)
Not Rated | 106 min | Comedy, Drama
Tomas is too much for his lone mother so she sends him to live with his older brother Federico, aka Sombra, in Mexico City.
Director: Alonso Ruizpalacios | Stars: Tenoch Huerta, Sebastián Aguirre, Ilse Salas, Leonardo Ortizgris
Votes: 5,106
★ Avant-garde, light hearted film on the poetry of being a young person in Mexico City.
2. The Untamed (2016)
Not Rated | 98 min | Drama, Horror, Mystery
A couple in a troubled marriage locate a meteorite, initiating an encounter with a mysterious creature. Their lives are turned upside down by the discovery of the creature, which is a source of both pleasure and destruction.
Director: Amat Escalante | Stars: Ruth Ramos, Simone Bucio, Jesús Meza, Eden Villavicencio
Votes: 6,611 | Gross: $0.03M
A sort of Mexican retelling of Zulawski's Possession.
3. The Bastards (2008)
Not Rated | 90 min | Crime, Drama, Thriller
Jesus and Fausto, two low-paid Mexican laborers working illegally across the border in LA, are offered big money and a sawn-off shotgun to break into the home of a drug addicted single mother and take her hostage.
Director: Amat Escalante | Stars: Jesus Moises Rodriguez, Rubén Sosa, Nina Zavarin, Kenny Johnston
Votes: 1,518
★ Hanekesque film about two undocumented immigrants living and working in the U.S.
4. Daniel and Ana (2009)
Not Rated | 90 min | Drama, Thriller
Daniel and Ana, siblings and best friends, are forced to deal with unimaginable trauma after they are kidnapped and forced to have sex on camera.
Director: Michel Franco | Stars: Dario Yazbek Bernal, Marimar Vega, José María Torre, Monserrat Ontiveros
Votes: 1,958 | Gross: $0.00M
Notoriously disturbing film, yet perfectly made.
5. Silent Light (2007)
Not Rated | 136 min | Drama, Romance
In a Mennonite community in Mexico, a father's faith is tested when he falls in love with a new woman.
Director: Carlos Reygadas | Stars: Cornelio Wall, Miriam Toews, Maria Pankratz, Peter Wall
Votes: 6,838 | Gross: $0.05M
★ Poetic, perfectionist, magic-realist, heart wrenching film about a man having an affair and the toll it takes on his Mennonite family.
6. Strange But True (2017)
90 min | Drama
The story follows two garbage handlers, enamoured with each other, traipsing through the streets of Mexico City. The pair struggle to navigate away from a broken world, destined to get their hands dirtied.
Director: Michel Lipkes | Stars: Alberto Aguayo, Carlos Alvarado, Ernesto Bertaud, Alfredo Blanco
Votes: 100
★ A disturbing, superbly made thriller that feels like a nightmare. The type of film that one never forgets.
7. The Chosen Ones (2015)
Unrated | 105 min | Drama
Young Ulises falls in love with teen Sofia, even as he is forced to lure her into his family's prostitution ring. Now he will do anything to save her.
Director: David Pablos | Stars: Nancy Talamantes, Óscar Torres, Leidi Gutiérrez, José Santillán Cabuto
Votes: 2,102
★ As heart wrenching as it gets. A poetic film on the issue of forced prostitution in Mexico.
8. Amores Perros (2000)
R | 154 min | Drama, Thriller
An amateur dog fighter, a supermodel, and a derelict assassin, all separately struggling to find love, find their lives transformed by a devastating car wreck in Mexico City.
Director: Alejandro G. Iñárritu | Stars: Emilio Echevarría, Gael García Bernal, Goya Toledo, Álvaro Guerrero
Votes: 252,860 | Gross: $5.38M
★ Tells the disturbing story of three characters, and the way their worlds collide thanks to their dogs.
9. Babel (I) (2006)
R | 143 min | Drama
Tragedy strikes a married couple on vacation in the Moroccan desert, which jump starts an interlocking story involving four different families.
Director: Alejandro G. Iñárritu | Stars: Brad Pitt, Cate Blanchett, Gael García Bernal, Mohamed Akhzam
Votes: 317,118 | Gross: $34.30M
10. Time Share (2018)
TV-MA | 96 min | Drama, Mystery, Thriller
Two haunted family men join forces in a destructive crusade to rescue their families from a tropical paradise, after becoming convinced that an American timeshare conglomerate has a sinister plan to take their loved ones away.
Director: Sebastián Hofmann | Stars: Luis Gerardo Méndez, Miguel Rodarte, RJ Mitte, Cassandra Ciangherotti
Votes: 3,173
Dreamy, weird and unsettling, it's like reading a King's novel.
11. América (2018)
76 min | Documentary
América is a story of brothers confronting the chasm between adolescent yearning and adult realities when brought together to care for their ailing ninety-three year old grandmother.
Directors: Erick Stoll, Chase Whiteside | Star: América
Votes: 192
Lighthearted documentary about the life of two brothers and a senile lady. Takes the art of documentary filmmaking to an almost magical approach.
12. The Crime of Padre Amaro (2002)
R | 118 min | Drama, Romance
Politics and sexual passions threaten to corrupt a young, newly-ordained priest in a small Mexican town.
Director: Carlos Carrera | Stars: Gael García Bernal, Ana Claudia Talancón, Sancho Gracia, Angélica Aragón
Votes: 14,424 | Gross: $5.71M
13. And Your Mother Too (2001)
R | 106 min | Drama
In Mexico, two teenage boys and an older woman embark on a road trip and learn a thing or two about life and each other.
Director: Alfonso Cuarón | Stars: Maribel Verdú, Gael García Bernal, Daniel Giménez Cacho, Ana López Mercado
Votes: 128,871 | Gross: $13.62M
14. The Violin (2005)
Not Rated | 98 min | Drama, Music
In an unnamed Latin American country that closely resembles Mexico, the government fights a rural insurgency with torture, assault, rape, and murder. Soldiers descend on a town, cutting off... See full summary »
Director: Francisco Vargas | Stars: Ángel Tavira, Gerardo Taracena, Dagoberto Gama, Mario Garibaldi
Votes: 2,596 | Gross: $0.07M
15. Museo (2018)
128 min | Crime, Drama
In 1985, a group of criminals mock the security of the National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City to extract 140 pre-Hispanic pieces from their showcases.
Director: Alonso Ruizpalacios | Stars: Gael García Bernal, Leonardo Ortizgris, Alfredo Castro, Simon Russell Beale
Votes: 5,968 | Gross: $0.15M
16. Life Sentence (1979)
95 min | Crime, Drama, Thriller
A former felon is blackmailed by a corrupt policeman and forced to commit a crime.
Director: Arturo Ripstein | Stars: Pedro Armendáriz Jr., Narciso Busquets, Ernesto Gómez Cruz, Angélica Chain
Votes: 523
17. Devil's Freedom (2017)
TV-MA | 74 min | Documentary
A documentary about the violence in Mexico told from the word of those who have suffered the pain and those who make the pain.
Director: Everardo González
Votes: 957
18. Red Dawn (1990)
96 min | Drama, Thriller
A Claustrophobic experience which involves a Mexican middle class family into the atrocities made by wild and heartless army forces whose main objective seems to be students who do not permit the 1968's Olimpic games' to develop normally.
Director: Jorge Fons | Stars: Héctor Bonilla, María Rojo, Jorge Fegán, Ademar Arau
Votes: 2,035
★ Masterful depiction of the 1968 peaceful protesting student massacre perpetrated by the state.
19. Leap Year (2010)
Unrated | 94 min | Drama, Romance
Laura's personal life consists of one affair after another. She meets Arturo and the pair enter into an intense, violent sexual relationship. As days go by, Laura crosses out the days on a calendar, revealing her secret past to her lover.
Director: Michael Rowe | Stars: Mónica Del Carmen, Gustavo Sánchez Parra, Marco Zapata, Diego Chas
Votes: 2,797
20. Soleils Noirs (2018)
152 min | Documentary
An epic investigation into countless murders in Mexico. Presented in chapters, the film unfolds methodically through unsettling testimonials, sketching a portrait of an entire country ... See full summary »
Director: Julien Elie
Votes: 121
21. Guerrero (I) (2017)
115 min | Documentary
In the depths of the Sierra of Guerrero in Mexico, after the disappearance of the 43 students, we find the reaction of wounded civil society to seek an answer to the situation of abuse of authority mixed with poverty.
Director: Ludovic Bonleux
Votes: 31
Documentary on the disappearance of 43 students at the hands of the military, and the restless search of their families to find their remains. A crime that took place back in 2014, and to this day has not been solved and no one has been punished. "JUST TELL US, WHERE DID YOU HIDE THEIR BODIES?"
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