Fernando Fernán Gómez

Criterion is proud to present Víctor Erice’s spellbinding THE SPIRIT OF THE BEEHIVE (EL ESPÍRITU DE LA COLMENA), widely regarded as the greatest Spanish film of the 1970s. In a small Castilian village in 1940, in the wake of the country’s devastating civil war, six-year-old Ana attends a traveling movie show of Frankenstein and becomes possessed by the memory of it. Produced as Franco’s long regime was nearing its end, THE SPIRIT OF THE BEEHIVE is a bewitching portrait of a child’s haunted inner life and one of the most visually arresting movies ever made.

In this expertly told coming-of-age story, a timid 8-year-old boy named Moncho befriends Don Gregorio, his elderly teacher, during the Spanish Civil War, and learns important life lessons.

A nihilistic trip through a pulp underworld of thugs, snitches, nightclub dames and black-gloved giallo-style murders in 1960’s New Orleans.

La turbulenta historia de dos mujeres, sus maridos y sus amantes, se contrasta con las alianzas dinásticas y los contrastes de clases en 1870.

Una grave cornada lo dejó cojo, pero la querencia de este famoso torero español de los años 50 por los toros y las mujeres marcó la faena de su vida.

One of Almodóvar’s most acclaimed and beloved films, All About My Mother won the Best Director award in Cannes and an Oscar®! An immaculate maximalist melodrama full of intense emotion, this love letter to actresses is brought to life by a fierce cast of Almodóvar regulars, including Penélope Cruz.

Throughout the late 1960s and into the 70s, the Italian giallo movement transported viewers to the far corners of the globe, from swinging San Francisco to the Soviet-occupied Prague. Only one, however, brought the genre's unique brand of bloody mayhem as far as Australia: director Flavio Mogherini (Delitto passionale)'s tragic and poetic 'The Pyjama Girl Case'. The body of a young woman is found on the beach, shot in the head, burned to hide her identity and dressed in distinctive yellow pyjamas. With the Sydney police stumped, former Inspector Timpson (Ray Milland, Dial M for Murder) comes out of retirement to crack the case. Treading where the "real" detectives can't, Timpson doggedly pieces together the sad story of Dutch immigrant Glenda Blythe (Dalila Di Lazzaro, Phenomena) and the unhappy chain of events which led to her grisly demise. Inspired by the real-life case which baffled the Australian police and continues to spark controversy and unanswered questions to this day, 'The Pyjama Girl Case' is a uniquely haunting latter-day giallo from the tail end of the genre's boom period, co-starring Michele Placido (director of Romanzo Criminale) and Howard Ross (The New York Ripper), and featuring a memorably melancholic score by veteran composer Riz Ortolani (Don't Torture a Duckling).