Luis Buñuel
1900 - 1983Often associated with the surrealist movement of the 1920s, Buñuel made films from the 1920s through the 1970s. He collaborated with prolific surrealist painter Salvador Dali creating the films Un Chien Andalou (1929), which was made in the silent era and L'Age d'Or (1930). The two films are seen as the birth of Cinematic surrealism. From 1947 to 1960 he developed his skills as a director filming in Mexico making grounded and human melodramas such as Gran Casino (1947), Los Olvidados (1950), and Él (1953). Here is where he gained the fundamentals of storytelling.
Buñel than transitioned into making artful, unconventional, surrealist, and political satirical films. He earned acclaim with the morally complex arthouse drama film Viridiana (1961) which criticized the Francoist dictatorship. The film won the Palme d'Or at the 1961 Cannes Film Festival. He then criticized political and social conditions in The Exterminating Angel (1962), and The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoise (1972) the later of which won the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film. He also directed Diary of a Chambermaid (1964), and Belle de Jour (1967), as well as his final film That Obscure Object of Desire (1977) the later of which earned the National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Director.
Buñel earned five Cannes Film Festival prizes, two Berlin International Film Festival prizes, and a BAFTA Award as well as nominations for two Academy Awards. Buñuel received numerous honors including National Prize for Arts and Sciences for Fine Arts in 1977, the Moscow International Film Festival Contribution to Cinema Prize in 1979, and the Career Golden Lion in 1982. He was nominated once for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1968. Seven of Buñuel's films are included in Sight & Sound's 2012 critics' poll of the top 250 films of all time.
The Young and the Damned
Luis Buñuel
Alfonso Mejía, Estela Inda
A group of juvenile delinquents live a violent, criminal life in the festering slums of Mexico City, among them the young Pedro, whose morality is gradually corrupted and destroyed by the others.
The Young and the Damned
Viridiana
Luis Buñuel
Silvia Pinal, Francisco Rabal
Viridiana is preparing to start her life as a nun when she is sent, somewhat unwillingly, to visit her aging uncle, Don Jaime. He supports her; but the two have met only once. Jaime thinks Viridiana resembles his dead wife. Viridiana has secretly despised this man all her life and finds her worst fears proven when Jaime grows determined to seduce his pure niece. Viridiana becomes undone as her uncle upends the plans she had made to join the convent.
Viridiana
That Obscure Object of Desire
Luis Buñuel
Carole Bouquet, Ángela Molina
After dumping a bucket of water on a beautiful young woman from the window of a train car, wealthy Frenchman Mathieu, regales his fellow passengers with the story of the dysfunctional relationship between himself and the young woman in question, a fiery 19-year-old flamenco dancer named Conchita. What follows is a tale of cruelty, depravity and lies -- the very building blocks of love.
That Obscure Object of Desire
The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie
Luis Buñuel
Fernando Rey, Delphine Seyrig
In Luis Buñuel’s deliciously satiric masterpiece, an upper-class sextet sits down to dinner but never eats, their attempts continually thwarted by a vaudevillian mixture of events both actual and imagined.
The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie
The Phantom of Liberty
Luis Buñuel
Adriana Asti, Milena Vukotić
This Surrealist film, with a title referencing the Communist Manifesto, strings together short incidents based on the life of director Luis Buñuel. Presented as chance encounters, these loosely related, intersecting situations, all without a consistent protagonist, reach from the 19th century to the 1970s. Touching briefly on subjects such as execution, pedophilia, incest, and sex, the film features an array of characters, including a sick father and incompetent police officers.
The Phantom of Liberty
Belle de Jour
Luis Buñuel
Catherine Deneuve, Jean Sorel
Beautiful young housewife Séverine Serizy cannot reconcile her masochistic fantasies with her everyday life alongside dutiful husband Pierre. When her lovestruck friend Henri mentions a secretive high-class brothel run by Madame Anais, Séverine begins to work there during the day under the name Belle de Jour. But when one of her clients grows possessive, she must try to go back to her normal life.
Belle de Jour
Ensayo de un crimen
Luis Buñuel
Ernesto Alonso, Miroslava
A bizarre black comedy about a man whose overwhelming ambition in life is to be a renowned serial killer of women, and will stop at nothing to achieve it - but not everything goes according to plan...
The Criminal Life of Archibaldo de la Cruz
There Are No Thieves in This Village
Alberto Isaac
Julián Pastor, Rocío Sagaón
When a young boy steals billiard balls from a local saloon, a stranger is charged with the crime. The local layabouts find there is no reason to hang out at the bar without being able to shoot pool, and the boy entertains thoughts of forming a gang to steal more billiard balls in hopes of making money.
There Are No Thieves in This Village
