in 2005 After García Bernal's success in soap operas, Mexican director
Alejandro González Iñárritu offered García Bernal a part in his feature directorial debut,
Amores perros (2000). The film won rave reviews, and was nominated for an
Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. His next role was
Alfonso Cuarón's
Y tu mamá también (2001), which was a crossover success into American markets and gained him notice on the international stage, becoming the second-highest grossing Spanish language film in the United States. The next year, García Bernal went on to portray
Argentine revolutionary
Che Guevara in the 2002 TV miniseries
Fidel and the morally troubled Father Amaro in the Mexican box-office record-breaker
El crimen del Padre Amaro (2002). García Bernal again portrayed Che Guevara in
The Motorcycle Diaries (2004), an adaptation of a journal the 23-year-old Guevara wrote about his travels across South America. The film broke the box office record set 3 years prior by
Y tu mamá también, and garnered Bernal a
BAFTA nomination in 2005 for Best Performance by an Actor. He also did some theatre work, during this time, including a 2005 production of
Bodas de Sangre, by
Federico García Lorca, in the
Almeida Theatre in London. García Bernal has worked for acclaimed directors including González Iñárritu,
Pedro Almodóvar,
Walter Salles,
Alfonso Cuarón,
Michel Gondry, and Iciar Bollaín, among others. He has taken on roles in
English-language films, including the Gondry-directed
The Science of Sleep and
The King, for which he earned rave reviews. García Bernal directed his first feature film,
Déficit which was released in 2007. He was cast in the 2008 film
Blindness, an
adaptation of the 1995
novel of the same name by
José Saramago, winner of the Nobel Prize, about a society suffering an epidemic of blindness. As in the novel, the characters have only descriptions, no names or histories; while director
Fernando Meirelles said some actors were intimidated by the concept of playing such characters, With Gael,' he said, 'I never think about the past. I just think what my character wants. García Bernal again paired with Diego Luna in
Rudo y Cursi directed by
Carlos Cuarón. García Bernal and
Diego Luna own
Canana Films. The company recently joined with Golden Phoenix Productions to produce a number of television documentaries about the unsolved murders of more than 300 women in the border city of Ciudad Juarez. In May 2010, García Bernal did a cameo appearance as himself playing
Cristiano Ronaldo in
Ronaldo: The Movie for the
Nike advertisement,
Write the Future. In 2010, he co-directed with Marc Siver four short films in collaboration with
Amnesty International. The tetralogy, called "Los Invisibles", is about migrants from Central America in Mexico, their journey and risks, their hopes, and what they can contribute to Mexico, the US and the world. He directed the movies, did the interviews and also narrates the four short movies. He starred in
Even the Rain (2010), Spain's official entry for the
2011 Academy Awards. García Bernal narrated
Human Planet for Hispanic audiences, which premiered on
Discovery en Español on 25 April 2011 and aired on
Discovery Channel in Latin America on 12 May. For the third time García Bernal appeared with
Diego Luna in the American Spanish-language comedy film
Casa de mi padre, opposite
Will Ferrell, where he played a feared drug lord. García Bernal's next projects included a film adaptation of
José Agustín's
Ciudades Desiertas and the
Jon Stewart directorial biopic
Rosewater, in which he portrayed
Maziar Bahari to widespread critical acclaim. He was set to star in the
20th Century Fox reboot Zorro film called
Zorro Reborn. The script is by Glen Gers, Lee Shipman, and Brian McGeevy. In April 2014, he was announced as a member of the main competition jury at the
2014 Cannes Film Festival. In June 2014, he began production as the star of the dramatic comedy
Zoom, directed by Pedro Morelli. In 2014, he was cast in the lead role of Rodrigo de Souza in the
Amazon Studios comedy-drama television series
Mozart in the Jungle. His performance in the show was met with rave reviews, earning him a
Golden Globe Award in 2016. In 2016, he starred in two movies that were submitted for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film,
Desierto (Mexico) and
Neruda (Chile). In 2017, he was announced as a member of the U.S. Dramatic Jury at the
2017 Sundance Film Festival. That same year, he provided the voice of Héctor, an undead trickster and one of the main protagonists of the
Pixar animated film
Coco. García Bernal founded The Ambulante Documentary Film Festival, which works to bring documentary films to places where they are rarely shown, and helped to create the
Amnesty International Short Documentary Series Los Invisibles. For this work, he was awarded the
Washington Office on Latin America's Human Rights Award in 2011. In October 2019, García Bernal and Diego Luna announced they were joining the Creative Advisory Board for TV and Film development company
EXILE Content along with
Adam Grant. In 2021, García Bernal starred in the
M. Night Shyamalan thriller
Old. In November 2021, Bernal was cast in the
Disney+ special
Werewolf by Night by
Marvel Studios, based on
the comics character of the same name. In 2024, he starred alongside close friend and frequent collaborator
Diego Luna in the
Hulu original miniseries
La Máquina as the eponymous character. In 2025, García Bernal starred as
Ferdinand Magellan in the
epic historical drama film
Magellan, which was directed by
Lav Diaz; the film was an international co-production between the Philippines, Spain, Portugal, Taiwan, and France. The film premiered at the
2025 Cannes Film Festival and was announced as the Philippines' official submission for
Best International Feature Film at the 98th
Academy Awards. ==Personal life==