The vast amount of options on the main streaming platforms sometimes produces a problem in itself: choosing a movie to watch. Sometimes users, tired of mainstream films or classics, spend minutes or even hours scrolling through hundreds of titles just to select a movie. In the meantime, you lose interest, and many decide to give up on what seems like an easy decision, simply choosing something to watch and enjoy the weekend.
To make this decision a little easier for you, those of us here at Voz Media have prepared this short list of films in Spanish that have been recognized by critics, awarded at festivals, and, most importantly, well-valued by the public.
"Wild Tales" (2014)
This dark comedy by Argentinian Damián Szifron presents six independent, captivating stories with high tension and an exceptional level of comedy complemented by a brilliant cast featuring Ricardo Darín, Leonardo Sbaraglia, Rita Cortese and other renowned Argentine actors.
Produced in Argentina and Spain, "Wild Tales" ("Relatos Salvajes" in Spanish) was nominated for best foreign language film at the 87th edition of the Oscars, in addition to winning various international awards.
On Rotten Tomatoes, specialized critics and the audience agree, giving it a high score of 94% and 92%, respectively.
The film is available on HBO and is 2 hours long. So each story, on average, lasts about 20 minutes. It is ideal to watch with the family and then debate the best story of the six. You'll find intense violence, ruthless revenge, reconciliation, and absurdly tragic but comic events.
Without giving too many spoilers, my favorite story, in particular, is the one starring Darín, who plays an engineer with problems in his personal life who carries out a brief crusade against the state bureaucracy. It is indeed a classic gem of Latin American cinema.
Below is the trailer for this Argentine-Spanish film.
"The Perfect Dictatorship" (2014)
Are you a fan of satire? I plead guilty.
"The Perfect Dictatorship" ("La dictadura perfecta" in Spanish), like the previous recommendation, is a satirical comedy directed by Mexican Luis Estrada.
However, unlike the previous one, behind this hilarious comedy, which narrates the intimate power relationship between the media and the Mexican government, lies a profound reflection on Mexico and its traditional political class system.
The title of the film is a reference to the reflection of the famous Peruvian writer Mario Vargas Llosa, who, in 1999, during a trip to the Latin American country, stated that the political system in Mexico, controlled almost entirely by the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), was in fact a perfect dictatorship.
"I do not believe that Mexico can be exonerated from that tradition of Latin American dictatorships (...) Mexico is the perfect dictatorship. The perfect dictatorship is not communism. It is not the USSR. It is not Fidel Castro. The perfect dictatorship is Mexico (...) It has the permanence, not of a man, but of a party that is immovable," Vargas Llosa said at the time.
Estrada's perfect dictatorship perfectly captures this phrase from Vargas Llosa. It is a brilliant criticism of the traditional Mexican press, of the culture of corruption within the country and also a demonstration of how the media manipulates and sets the agenda in public opinion to satisfy the interests of power.
By the way, if you are a fan of "Better Call Saul," you have an extra reason to see this movie: the role of Tony Dalton (Lalo Salamanca in BCS) as the director of a Mexican national television station.
The film is available on Netflix and runs for more than two hours. Below is the trailer.
"Society of the Snow" (2023)
This Spanish production, directed by Juan Antonio Bayona, stands out on this list for being a recent success.
The plot, in fact, is well known. It is about the tragedy in the Andes mountains in 1972, when flight 571 of the Uruguayan Air Force crashed in the mountain range, leaving dozens of victims and another dozen survivors who had to fight the bitter cold, hunger and thirst to survive. The incident became one of the most shocking and incredible survival feats in human history.
"Society of the Snow" ("La sociedad de la nieve" in Spanish) is not the first film to portray this tragedy; however, it is the film that has done the best job of narrating the story from the protagonist's point of view, with deep reflections and details about the lives of the survivors that make Bayona's work unmistakably moving.
Furthermore, two directorial decisions give added value to this film: the actors are Argentine and Uruguayan actors, unlike, for example, "Alive" (1993), and as a matter of fact, this adaptation is the first to use the real names of all the deceased passengers.
Furthermore, it is a production of unquestionable technical quality, with intense music and absolutely desperate, shocking and emotional moments.
It is available on Netflix, and on Rotten Tomatoes the reception has also been extraordinary: specialized critics give it a 91% and the audience an 87%.
Here is the trailer:
