1974–1979: Early work and short films In the early 1970s, Almodóvar became interested in experimental cinema and theatre. He collaborated with the vanguard theatrical group Los Goliardos, in which he played his first professional roles and met actress
Carmen Maura. Madrid's flourishing alternative cultural scene became the perfect scenario for Almodóvar's social talents. He was a crucial figure in
La Movida Madrileña (the Madrilenian Movement), a cultural renaissance that followed the death of Francisco Franco. Alongside Fabio McNamara, Almodóvar sang in a
glam rock parody duo. Almodóvar also penned various articles for major newspapers and magazines, such as
El País,
Diario 16 and
La Luna as well as contributing to comic strips, articles and stories in
counterculture magazines, such as
Star,
El Víbora and
Vibraciones. He published a novella,
Fuego en las entrañas (
Fire in the Guts) and kept writing stories that were eventually published in a compilation volume entitled
El sueño de la razón (
The Dream of Reason). Almodóvar bought his first camera, a
Super-8, with his first paycheck from Telefónica when he was 22 years old and began to make hand-held short films. Around 1974, he made his first short film, and by the end of the 1970s they were shown in
Madrid's night circuit and in
Barcelona. These shorts had overtly sexual narratives and no soundtrack:
Dos putas, o, Historia de amor que termina en boda (
Two Whores, or, A Love Story that Ends in Marriage) in 1974;
La caída de Sodoma (
The Fall of Sodom) in 1975;
Homenaje (
Homage) in 1976;
La estrella (
The Star) in 1977;
Sexo Va: Sexo viene (
Sex Comes and Goes); and
Complementos (Shorts) in 1978, his first film in
16mm. He remembers, "I showed them in bars, at parties... I could not add a soundtrack because it was very difficult. The magnetic strip was very poor, very thin. I remember that I became very famous in Madrid because, as the films had no sound, I took a cassette with music while I personally did the voices of all the characters, songs and dialogues". After four years of working with shorts in Super-8 format, Almodóvar made his first full-length film
Folle, folle, fólleme, Tim (
Fuck Me, Fuck Me, Fuck Me, Tim) in Super-8 in 1978, followed by his first 16 mm short
Salomé.
1980–1987: Rise to prominence '''
Pepi, Luci, Bom (1980)''' '''
Labyrinth of Passion (1982)''' His second feature
Labyrinth of Passion (1982) focuses on
nymphomaniac pop star, Sexila (Cecilia Roth), who falls in love with a gay middle-eastern prince, Riza Niro (Imanol Arias). Their unlikely destiny is to find one another, overcome their sexual preferences and live happily ever after on a tropical island. Framed in Madrid during La Movida Madrileña, between the dissolution of Franco's authoritarian regime and the onset of
AIDS consciousness,
Labyrinth of Passion caught the spirit of liberation in Madrid and it became a cult film. The film marked Almodóvar's first collaboration with cinematographer Ángel Luis Fernandez as well as the first of several collaborations with actor
Antonio Banderas.
Labyrinth of Passion premiered at the 1982 San Sebastian Film Festival and while the film received better reviews than its predecessor, Almodóvar later acknowledged: "I like the film even if it could have been better made. The main problem is that the story of the two leads is much less interesting than the stories of all the secondary characters. But precisely because there are so many secondary characters, there's a lot in the film I like". Hachuel set up Tesuaro Production and asked Almodóvar to keep Pascual in mind. Almodóvar had already written the script for
Dark Habits and was hesitant to cast Pascual in the leading role due to her limited acting experience. When she was cast, he felt it necessary to make changes to the script so his supporting cast were more prominent in the story. The film heralded a change in tone to somber
melodrama with comic elements. Pascual stars as Yolanda, a cabaret singer who seeks refuge in a convent of eccentric nuns, each of whom explores a different sin. This film has an almost all-female cast including Carmen Maura,
Julieta Serrano,
Marisa Paredes and
Chus Lampreave, actresses who Almodóvar would cast again in later films. This is Almodóvar's first film in which he used popular music to express emotion: in a pivotal scene, the mother superior and her protégé sing along with
Lucho Gatica's
bolero "
Encadenados".
Dark Habits premiered at the
Venice Film Festival and was surrounded in controversy due its subject matter. Despite religious critics being offended by the film, it went on to become a modest critical and commercial success, cementing Almodóvar's reputation as the
enfant terrible of the
Spanish cinema. '''
What Have I Done to Deserve This? (1984)'''
Carmen Maura stars in
What Have I Done to Deserve This?, Almodóvar's fourth film, as Gloria, an unhappy housewife who lives with her ungrateful husband Antonio (
Ángel de Andrés López), her mother in law (
Chus Lampreave), and her two teenage sons.
Verónica Forqué appears as her prostitute neighbor and confidante. Almodóvar has described his fourth film as a homage to
Italian neorealism, although this tribute also involves jokes about
paedophilia, prostitution, and a
telekinetic child. The film, set in the tower blocks around Madrid in post-Franco Spain, depicts female frustration and family breakdown, echoing
Jean-Luc Godard's
Two or Three Things I Know About Her and strong story plots from
Roald Dahl's
Lamb to the Slaughter and
Truman Capote's ''A Day's Work'', but with Almodóvar's unique approach to film making. '''
Matador (1986)''' Almodóvar's growing success caught the attention of emerging Spanish film producer
Andrés Vicente Gómez, who wanted to join forces to make his next film
Matador (1986). The film centres on the relationship between a former bullfighter and a murderous female lawyer, who both find sexual fulfillment through acts of murder. Written together with Spanish novelist
Jesús Ferrero,
Matador drew away from the naturalism and humour of the director's previous work into a deeper and darker terrain. Almodóvar cast several of his regulars actors in key roles: Antonio Banderas was hired for the role of Ángel, a bullfighting student who, after an attempted rape incident, falsely confesses to a series of murders that he did not commit; Julieta Serrano appears as Ángel's very religious mother; while Carmen Maura, Chus Lampreave, Verónica Forqué and Eusebio Poncela also appear in minor roles. Newcomers
Nacho Martínez and
Assumpta Serna, who would later work with Almodóvar again, had minor roles in the film.
Matador also marked the first time Almodóvar included a notable cinematic reference, using
King Vidor's 1946
Duel in the Sun in one scene. The film premiered in 1986 and drew some controversy due to its subject matter. Almodóvar justified his use of violence, explaining: "The moral of all my films is to get to a stage of greater freedom." He went on to note: "I have my own morality. And so do my films. If you see
Matador through the perspective of traditional morality, it's a dangerous film because it's just a celebration of killing.
Matador is like a legend. I don't try to be realistic; it's very abstract, so you don't feel identification with the things that are happening, but with the sensibility of this kind of romanticism." '''
The Law of Desire (1987)''' Following the success of
Matador, Almodóvar solidified his creative independence by starting his own production company,
El Deseo, together with his brother
Agustín Almodóvar in 1986. El Deseo's first major release was
Law of Desire (1987), a film about the complicated love triangle between a gay filmmaker (Eusebio Poncela), his transsexual sister (Carmen Maura), and a repressed murderously obsessive stalker (Antonio Banderas). Taking more risk from a visual standpoint, Almodóvar's growth as a filmmaker is clearly on display. In presenting the love triangle, Almodóvar drew away from most representations of homosexuals in films. The characters neither come out nor confront sexual guilt or homophobia; they are already liberated. The same can be said for the complex way he depicted transgender characters on screen. Almodóvar said about
The Law of Desire: "It's the key film in my life and career. It deals with my vision of desire, something that's both very hard and very human. By this I mean the absolute necessity of being desired and the fact that in the interplay of desires it's rare that two desires meet and correspond."
The Law of Desire made its premiere at the
Berlin International Film Festival in 1987, where it won the festival's first ever
Teddy Award, which recognises achievement in LGBT cinema. The film was a hit in art-house theatres and received much praise from critics.
1988–2002: Stardom and critical acclaim '''
Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (1988)''' Almodóvar's first major critical and commercial success internationally came with the release of
Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (1988).The film debuted at the 45th
Venice film festival. This feminist light comedy of rapid-fire dialogue and fast-paced action further established Almodóvar as a "women's director" in the same vein as
George Cukor and
Rainer Werner Fassbinder. Almodóvar has said that women make better characters: "women are more spectacular as dramatic subjects, they have a greater range of registers, etc."
Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown centres on Pepa (Carmen Maura), a woman who has been abruptly abandoned by her married boyfriend Iván (
Fernando Guillén). Over two days, Pepa frantically tries to track him down. In the course, she discovers some of his secrets and realises her true feelings. Almodóvar included many of his usual actors, including Antonio Banderas, Chus Lampreave,
Rossy de Palma, Kiti Mánver and Julieta Serrano as well as newcomer
María Barranco. The film was released in Spain in March 1988 and became a hit in the US, making more than $7 million when it was released later that same year, bringing Almodóvar to the attention of American audiences.
Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown won five
Goya Awards, Spain's top film honours, for
Best Film,
Best Original Screenplay, Best Editing (José Salcedo),
Best Actress (Maura), and
Best Supporting Actress (Barranco). The film won an award for best screenplay at the
Venice film festival and two awards at the
European Film Awards as well as being nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at the
BAFTAs and
Golden Globes. It also gave Almodóvar his first
Academy Award nomination for
Best Foreign Language Film. '''
Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! (1990)''' Almodóvar's next film marked the end of the collaboration between him and Carmen Maura, and the beginning of a fruitful collaboration with
Victoria Abril.
Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! (1990) tells the story about a recently released psychiatric patient, Ricky (Antonio Banderas), who kidnaps a porn star, Marina (Abril), in order to make her fall in love with him. Rather than populate the film with many characters, as in his previous films, here the story focuses on the compelling relationship at its center: the actress and her kidnapper literally struggling for power and desperate for love. The film's title line
Tie Me Up! is unexpectedly uttered by the actress as a genuine request. She does not know if she will try to escape or not, and when she realizes she has feelings for her captor, she prefers not to be given a chance. In spite of some dark elements,
Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! can be described as a romantic comedy and the director's most clear love story, with a plot similar to
William Wyler's thriller
The Collector.
Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! made its world premiere at the Berlin Film Festival to a polarized critical reaction. In the United States, the film received an X rating by the
Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), and the stigma attached to the X rating marginalized the distribution of the film in the country.
Miramax, who distributed the film in the US, filed a lawsuit against the MPAA over the X rating, but lost in court. However, in September 1990, the MPAA replaced the X rating with the
NC-17 rating. This was helpful to films of explicit nature, such as
Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!, that were previously categorized with pornography because of the X rating. '''
High Heels (1991)''' , star of
High Heels, at the 1993
César Awards in Paris
High Heels (1991) is built around the fractured relationship between a famous singer, Becky del Páramo (Marisa Paredes), and her news reporter daughter, Rebeca (Victoria Abril), as the pair get caught up in a murder mystery. Rebeca struggles with constantly being in her mother's shadow. The fact that Rebeca is married to Becky's former lover only adds to the tension between the two. The film was partly inspired by old Hollywood mother-daughter melodramas like
Stella Dallas,
Mildred Pierce,
Imitation of Life and particularly
Autumn Sonata, which is quoted directly in the film. Production took place in 1990; Almodóvar enlisted Alfredo Mayo to shoot the film as Jose Luis Alcaine was unavailable. Japanese composer
Ryuichi Sakamoto created a score that infused popular songs and
boleros.
High Heels also contains a prison yard dance sequence. While
High Heels was a box office success in Spain, the film received poor reviews from Spanish film critics due to its melodramatic approach and unsuspecting tonal shifts. The film got a better critical reception in Italy and France and won France's
César Award for Best Foreign Film. In the US, Miramax's lack of promotional effort was blamed for the film's underperformance in the country. It was however nominated for the Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Film. '''
Kika (1993)''' His next film
Kika (1993) centres on the good-hearted, but clueless, makeup artist named Kika (Verónica Forqué) who gets herself tangled in the lives of an American writer (Peter Coyote) and his stepson (Àlex Casanovas). A fashion conscious TV reporter (Victoria Abril), who is constantly in search of sensational stories, follows Kika's misadventures. Almodóvar used
Kika as a critique of
mass media, particularly its
sensationalism. The film is infamous for its rape scene that Almodóvar used for comic effect to set up a scathing commentary on the selfish and ruthless nature of media.
Kika made its premiere in 1993 and received very negative reviews from film critics worldwide; not just for its rape scene which was perceived as both misogynistic and exploitative, but also for its overall sloppiness. Almodóvar would later refer to the film as one of his weakest works. '''
The Flower of My Secret (1995)''' In
The Flower of My Secret (1995), the story focuses on Leo Macías (Marisa Paredes), a successful romance writer who has to confront both a professional and personal crisis. Estranged from her husband, a military officer who has volunteered for an international peacekeeping role in
Bosnia and Herzegovina to avoid her, Leo fights to hold on to a past that has already eluded her, not realising she has already set her future path by her own creativity and by supporting the creative efforts of others. This was the first time that Almodóvar utilized composer
Alberto Iglesias and cinematographer
Affonso Beato, who became key figures in some future films.
The Flower of My Secret is the transitional film between his earlier and later style. The film premiered in Spain in 1995 where, despite receiving 7 Goya Award nominations, was not initially well received by critics. '''
Live Flesh (1997)'''
Live Flesh (1997) was the first film by Almodóvar that had an adapted screenplay. Based on
Ruth Rendell's novel
Live Flesh, the film follows a man who is sent to prison after crippling a police officer and seeks redemption years later when he is released. Almodóvar decided to move the book's original setting of the UK to Spain, setting the action between 1970, when Franco declared a
state of emergency, to 1996, when Spain had completely shaken off the restrictions of the Franco regime.
Live Flesh marked Almodóvar's first collaboration with
Penélope Cruz, who plays the prostitute who gives birth to Victor. Additionally, Almodóvar cast
Javier Bardem as the police officer David and Liberto Rabal as Víctor, the criminal seeking redemption. Italian actress
Francesca Neri plays a former drug addict who sparks a complicated love triangle with David and Víctor.
Live Flesh premiered at the
New York Film Festival in 1997. The film did modestly well at the international box office and also earned Almodóvar his second BAFTA nomination for
Best Film Not in the English Language. '''
All About My Mother (1999)''' Almodóvar's next film,
All About My Mother (1999), grew out of a brief scene in
The Flower of My Secret. The premise revolves around a woman Manuela (Cecilia Roth), who loses her teenage son, Esteban (Eloy Azorín) in a tragic accident. Filled with grief, Manuela decides to track down Esteban's transgender mother, Lola (Toni Cantó), and notify her about the death of the son she never knew she had. Along the way Manuela encounters an old friend, Agrado (Antonia San Juan), and meets up with a pregnant nun, Rosa (Penélope Cruz). The film revisited Almodóvar's familiar themes of the power of sisterhood and of family. Almodóvar shot parts of the film in
Barcelona and used lush colors to emphasise the richness of the city. Dedicated to
Bette Davis,
Romy Schneider and
Gena Rowlands,
All About My Mother is steeped in theatricality, from its backstage setting to its plot, modeled on the works of
Federico García Lorca and
Tennessee Williams, to the characters' preoccupation with modes of performance. Almodóvar inserts a number of references to American cinema. One of the film's key scenes, where Manuela watches her son die, was inspired by
John Cassavetes' 1977 film
Opening Night. The film's title is also a nod to
All About Eve, which Manuela and her son are shown watching in the film. The
comic relief of the film centers on Agrado, a pre-operative transgender woman. In one scene, she tells the story of her body and its relationship to
plastic surgery and
silicone, culminating with a statement of her own philosophy: "you get to be more authentic the more you become like what you have dreamed of yourself".
All About My Mother opened at the
1999 Cannes Film Festival, where Almodóvar won both the
Best Director and the
Ecumenical Jury prizes. The film garnered a strong critical reception and grossed more than $67 million worldwide.
All About My Mother has accordingly received more awards and honours than any other film in the Spanish motion picture industry, including the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, the Golden Globe in the same category, the BAFTA Awards for
Best Direction and Best Film Not in the English Language as well as 6 Goyas in his native Spain. The film also won the
César Award for Best Film from the European Union and both the BAFTA Award and Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film. (right) at the première of
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street in
Madrid, in 2007
2004–2016: Established director '''
Bad Education (2004)''' Two years later, Almodóvar followed with
Bad Education (2004), tale of
child sexual abuse and mixed identities, starring
Gael García Bernal and
Fele Martínez. In the drama film, two children, Ignácio and Enrique, discover love, cinema, and fear in a religious school at the start of the 1960s.
Bad Education has a complex structure that not only uses
film within a film, but also stories that open up into other stories, real and imagined to narrate the same story: A tale of child molestation and its aftermath of faithlessness, creativity, despair, blackmail and murder.
Sexual abuse by
Catholic priests,
transsexuality,
drug use, and a
metafiction are also important themes and devices in the plot. Almodóvar used elements of
film noir, borrowing in particular from
Double Indemnity. The film's protagonist, Juan (Gael Garcia Bernal), was modeled largely on
Patricia Highsmith's most famous character,
Tom Ripley, as played by
Alain Delon in
René Clément's
Purple Noon. A criminal without scruples, but with an adorable face that betrays nothing of his true nature. Almodóvar explains : "He also represents a classic film noir character – the femme fatale. Which means that when other characters come into contact with him, he embodies fate, in the most tragic and noir sense of the word". Almodóvar claimed he worked on the film's screenplay for more than ten years before starting the film.
Bad Education premiered in March 2004 in Spain before opening in the
57th Cannes Film Festival, the first Spanish film to do so, two months later. The film grossed more than $40 million worldwide, despite its NC-17 rating in the US. It won the
GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding Film – Limited Release and was nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best Film Not in the English Language; it also received 7 European Film Award nominations and 4 Goya nominations. '''
Volver (2006)'''
Volver (2006), a mixture of comedy, family drama and ghost story, is set in part in
La Mancha (the director's native region) and follows the story of three generations of women in the same family who survive wind, fire, and even death. The film is an ode to female
resilience, where men are literally disposable.
Volver stars Penélope Cruz,
Lola Dueñas,
Blanca Portillo,
Yohana Cobo and Chus Lampreave in addition to reunited the director with Carmen Maura, who had appeared in several of his early films. The film was very personal to Almodóvar as he used elements of his own childhood to shape parts of the story. Many of the characters in the film were variations of people he knew from his small town. Using a colorful backdrop, the film tackled many complex themes such as sexual abuse, grief, secrets and death. The storyline of
Volver appears as both a novel and movie script in Almodóvar's earlier film
The Flower of My Secret. Many of Almodóvar's stylistic hallmarks are present: the stand-alone song (a rendition of the Argentinian
tango song "Volver"), references to
reality TV, and an homage to classic film (in this case
Luchino Visconti's
Bellissima).
Volver received a rapturous reception when it played at the
2006 Cannes Film Festival, where Almodóvar won the
Best Screenplay prize while the entire female ensemble won the
Best Actress prize. Penélope Cruz also received an Academy Award nomination for
Best Actress, making her the first Spanish woman ever to be nominated in that category.
Volver went on to earn several critical accolades and earned more than £85 million internationally, becoming Almodóvar's highest-grossing film worldwide. '''
Broken Embraces (2009)''' (left) and
Penélope Cruz at the premiere of
Broken Embraces at the
2009 Cannes Film Festival Almodóvar's next film,
Broken Embraces (2009) a romantic thriller which centres on a blind novelist, Harry Caine (Lluís Homar), who uses his works to recount both his former life as a filmmaker and the tragedy that took his sight. A key figure in Caine's past is Lena (Penélope Cruz), an aspiring actress who gets embroiled in a love triangle with Caine and a paranoid millionaire, Ernesto (
José Luis Gómez). The film has a complex structure, mixing past and present and film within a film. Almodóvar previously used this type of structure in
Talk to Her and
Bad Education. Jose Luis Alcaine was unable to take part in the production, so Almodóvar hired Mexican cinematographer
Rodrigo Prieto to shoot the film. Distinctive shading and shadows help to differentiate the various time periods within
Broken Embraces, as Almodóvar's narrative jumps between the early 1990s and the late 2000s.
Broken Embraces was accepted into the main selection at the
2009 Cannes Film Festival in competition for the
Palme d'Or, his third film to do so and fourth to screen at the festival. The film earned £30 million worldwide, and received critical acclaim among critics with
Roger Ebert giving the film his highest rating, 4 stars, writing, "Broken Embraces" is a voluptuary of a film, drunk on primary colors...using the devices of a
Hitchcock to distract us with surfaces while the sinister uncoils beneath. As it ravished me, I longed for a freeze frame to allow me to savor a shot." Despite the not receiving an
Academy Award nomination, the film was nominated for both the
British Academy Film Award and the
Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film. '''
The Skin I Live In (2011)''' Loosely based on the French novel
Tarantula by Thierry Jonquet,
The Skin I Live In (2011) is the director's first incursion into the psychological horror genre. Inspired to make his own horror film,
The Skin I Live In revolves around a plastic surgeon, Robert (Antonio Banderas), who becomes obsessed with creating skin that can withstand burns. Haunted by past tragedies, Robert believes that the key to his research is the patient who he mysteriously keeps prisoner in his mansion. The film marked a long-awaited reunion between Almodóvar and Antonio Banderas, reunited after 21 years. Penélope Cruz was initially slated for the role of the captive patient Vera Cruz, but she was unable to take part as she was pregnant with her first child. As a result,
Elena Anaya, who had appeared in
Talk to Her, was cast.
The Skin I Live In has many cinematic influences, most notably the French horror film
Eyes Without a Face directed by
Georges Franju,
The Skin I Live In received the
BAFTA Award for Best Film Not in the English Language and a
Golden Globe Award nomination in the same category. '''''I'm So Excited
(2013)' After a long period of dramatic and serious feature films, Almodóvar's next film was a comedy. ''
I'm So Excited'' (2013) is set almost entirely on an aircraft in flight, whose first-class passengers, pilots, and trio of gay stewards all try to deal with the fact that landing gears are malfunctioning. During the ordeal, they talk about love, themselves, and a plethora of things while getting drunk on Valencia cocktails. With its English title taken from a song by the Pointer Sisters, Almodóvar openly embraced the campy humor that was prominent in his early works. The film's cast was a mixture of Almodóvar regulars such as Cecilia Roth, Javier Cámara, and Lola Dueñas, Blanca Suárez and Paz Vega as well as Antonio Banderas and Penélope Cruz who make cameo appearances in the film's opening scene. Shot on a soundstage, Almodóvar amplified the campy tone by incorporating a dance number and oddball characters like Dueñas' virginal psychic. The film premiered in Spain in March 2013 and had its international release during the summer of that year. Despite mixed reviews from critics, the film did fairly well at the international box office. '''
Julieta (2016)''' For his 20th feature film, Almodóvar decided to return to drama and his "cinema of women".
Julieta (2016) stars
Emma Suárez and
Adriana Ugarte, who play the older and younger versions of the film's titular character, as well as regular
Rossy de Palma, who has a supporting role in the film. This film was originally titled
Silencio (
Silence) but the director changed the name to prevent confusion with
another recent release by that name. The film was released in April 2016 in Spain to positive reviews and received its international debut at the
2016 Cannes Film Festival. It was Almodóvar's fifth film to compete for the
Palme d'Or. The film was also selected by the
Spanish Academy as the entry for the
Best Foreign Language Film at the
89th Academy Awards, but it did not make the shortlist.
2019–present '''
Pain and Glory (2019)''' in 2020 Almodóvar's next film—
Pain and Glory (
Dolor y gloria)—was released in Spain on 22 March 2019 by
Sony Pictures Releasing. It first was selected to compete for the
Palme d'Or at the
2019 Cannes Film Festival. The film centers around an aging film director, played by
Antonio Banderas who is suffering from chronic illness and writer's block as he reflects on his life in flashbacks to his childhood.
Penelope Cruz plays Jacinta, the mother of the aging film director, in the film's flashbacks. Almodóvar has described the film as semi-autobiographical. The film was nominated for the
Academy Award for Best International Feature Film, though it ultimately lost to
Bong Joon-ho's
Parasite. '
Parallel Mothers
(2021) ' In July 2020, Agustín Almodóvar announced that his brother had finished the script for his next full-length feature
Parallel Mothers during the
COVID-19 pandemic lockdown. Starring
Penelope Cruz, the drama turns on two mothers who give birth the same day and follows their parallel lives over their first and second years raising their children. The film began shooting in February 2021 and opened the
78th Venice International Film Festival where Cruz won the
Volpi Cup for Best Actress. The film has received near universal acclaim with David Rooney of
The Hollywood Reporter writing, "It's a testament to the consummate gifts of one of the world's most treasured filmmakers — now entering the fifth decade of a career still going strong — that he can constantly delight your eye with no risk of losing your involvement in the emotional lives of characters he so clearly adores." The film has been nominated for the
Golden Globe Award and
Independent Spirit Award for Best International Film. The shoot delayed Almodóvar's previously announced feature-length adaptation of
Lucia Berlin's short story collection
A Manual for Cleaning Women starring
Cate Blanchett which had been set to be his first feature in English. '
The Last Dream
(2024) ' In 2024, Almodóvar published his first collection of short stories. Described by Almodóvar as a "fragmentary autobiography",
The Last Dream contains 12 stories that his assistant Lola García had archived – some of which are more than 50 years old and were written when Almodóvar was a teenager. at the
81st Venice International Film Festival '''
The Room Next Door (2024)''' Work on Almodóvar's film
The Room Next Door began in March 2024. Featuring
Tilda Swinton and
Julianne Moore, it marked Almodóvar's feature length English-language debut. The film won the
Golden Lion at the 2024 edition of the
Venice Film Festival, becoming the first Spanish film to win the prize. A "tragic comedy about gender", it will explore the story of a woman who is left by her lover in Christmas time. == Artistry ==