One of our most popular, The 2020 Moro Spanish Film Festival was due to screen nationally from April 21 at Palace Cinemas, however, in light of the current closures the festival has sadly been postponed.

We can’t wait to celebrate the rich selection of extraordinarily moving Spanish films from this year’s selection, but until then, we’ve hand-picked some must-see cinematic gems from the past 20 years to lose yourself in (including where to find them!).

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Talk To Her (2002)

One of Pedro Almodovar’s most masterful melodramas which won an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay, this offbeat drama explores the friendship of two men brought together under unusual but strangely similar circumstances, as they care for two women who are both in comas. No other director can invite both tears and laughter with as much cinematic flair, quite like Almodovar.

Stream it on SBS On Demand.

Marshland (2014)

A couple of mismatched cops in the immediate post-Franco era investigate the brutal murders of two teenage girls in Alberto Rodriguez’s masterful neo-noir.

As narratively taut as it is richly atmospheric, Marshland keeps viewers guessing throughout this taught and richly nuanced procedural thriller.  Lovers of True Detective or David Fincher’s Zodiac, this one is for you.

Stream on SBS On Demand or Stan, or rent on iTunes, Google Play or Youtube.

Living Is Easy (With Eyes Closed) (2013)

Inspired by true events, writer/director David Trueba’s multi award-winning box office hit LIVING IS EASY (WITH EYES CLOSED) is a buoyant and heartfelt comedy set in conservative, Franco-era Spain, about a free-spirited English teacher’s quest to meet his idol, John Lennon, and the inspirational effect he has on two young people who share in the journey

Fuelled by the affecting backbeat of surging Beatles euphoria, and accompanied by a glorious, award-winning original score by the legendary Pat Metheny, this funny and deeply affecting film is both a farewell to an era of repression and a welcome to a new age, capturing the spirit of both the ’60s and of a nation aspiring to a better future.

Rent or purchase on iTunes, Google Play or Youtube.

Pan’s Labyrinth (2006)

The film that put director Guillermo del Toro on the international scene with 6 Academy Award nominations (and winner of three!), this audacious, technically spectacular and haunting fantasy-drama set in the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War details the strange journeys of an imaginative young girl who may be the mythical princess of an underground kingdom.

Pan’s Labyrinth is Alice in Wonderland for grown-ups, with the horrors of both reality and fantasy blended together into an extraordinary, spellbinding fable.

Rent or purchase on Apple iTunes or Microsoft Store.

Biutiful (2010)
Nominated for an Oscar for both Best Foreign Film and Best Actor (Javier Bardem), Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Biutiful follows the journey of Uxbal (Bardem), a conflicted man who struggles to reconcile fatherhood, love, spirituality, crime, guilt and mortality amidst the dangerous underworld of modern Barcelona.

Javier Bardem’s searing performance and Iñárritu’s extraordinary craftsmanship elevate this story into tragic yet poetic cinema at its best.

Stream on SBS On Demand or Stan, or rent on iTunes, Google Play or Youtube.