His debut as a film director in 1951 was with the comedy
That Happy Couple in which he worked with
Juan Antonio Bardem. With Bardem, he is considered to be one of
Spanish film renovators after the Spanish Civil War. They cofounded a film magazine,
Objetivo, in 1953, which existed until 1956. The magazine contributed to the struggle for a censorship-free cinema in
Francoist Spain. and the black comedy
The Executioner (1963), an acclaimed critical portrait about the
capital punishment which stars
Nino Manfredi. Characteristic of his films are their sense of irony, the satires of different social and political situations and the use of the
long take full of superimposed characters and dialogues. Since
Welcome Mr. Marshall!, he introduced a mention to the
Austro-Hungarian Empire in his films as a private joke. During the Francoist State, his ability to outwit the censors allowed him to make daring projects such as
The Rocket from Calabuch (1956), starring
Edmund Gwenn, and
Miracles of Thursday (1957), with
Richard Basehart in the lead role. His film
Plácido (1961), a black comedy about poverty in which he collaborated for the first time with screenwriter
Rafael Azcona, received a nomination for the
Academy Award for
Best Foreign Language Film.
Plácido also entered into the
1962 Cannes Film Festival, as well as
Long Live the Bride and Groom in
1970. '' in summer 1984, Sos del Rey Católico. In 1973 he filmed '''' (Life Size, 1974), a French-Italian-Spanish coproduction about a married man (
Michel Piccoli) who falls in love with a female
mannequin, which was not released in Spain until 1978 due to
Franco's censorship. Its premiere in Italy provoked a demonstration by feminists who accused the film of presenting women as objects. However, other women defended it. This was followed by
La escopeta nacional (1978),
Patrimonio nacional (1981), which entered into the
1981 Cannes Film Festival, and
Nacional III (1982), a satirical trilogy about the Leguineches, an impoverished aristocratic family. His 1985 film
La vaquilla (The Heifer), a comedy about the Civil War, was the
highest-grossing Spanish film in Spain at the time. Other films include the period comedy
Boyfriend in Sight (1954), the Argentine production
Las Pirañas (1967), and
Moors and Christians (1987), his last collaboration with Azcona. In 1968, he was head of the jury at the
18th Berlin International Film Festival. At the
Karlovy Vary International Film Festival he won a prize as one of the world's ten most prominent film directors. In the mid-70s he became director of the erotic literature collection ''''. From 1978 to 1982 he was president of the
Filmoteca Española. In 1986 Berlanga was a key figure in the creation of the
Spanish Film Academy and received the
Prince of Asturias Award for the Arts "for collecting in all his work, with exemplary independence, a critical and smiling analysis of Spanish society." His accolades also include the (
Premio Nacional de Cinematografía) in 1980 and the Italian Commendatore Order, the
Gold Medal of Merit in the Fine Arts (
Medalla de Oro de las Bellas Artes) in 1982, the Number One award for European cinema at the film festival in Rimini in 1985, the membership at the
Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando in 1988, the
honorary doctorate of the
Complutense University of Madrid in 1989, the
Goya Award for Best Director for his 1993 comedy
Everyone Off to Jail, the honorary doctorate of the
University of Valencia in 1997, and the Gold
Medal of Merit in Labour (
Medalla al Mérito en el Trabajo) in 2002. ==Personal life and death==