Curator Watchlist
A richly emotional melodrama about grief, chosen family, and the women who hold each other together. It’s funny, tender, and deeply compassionate, with vivid performances and Almodóvar’s signature color-saturated style.
Where to watch: Buy
Fri · 1h 41m
Director: Pedro Almodóvar
Starring: Cecilia Roth, Marisa Paredes, Candela Peña
Following the tragic death of her teenage son, Manuela travels from Madrid to Barcelona in an attempt to contact the long-estranged father the boy never knew. She reunites with an old friend, an outspoken transgender sex worker, and befriends a troubled actress and a pregnant, HIV-positive nun.
Pedro Almodóvar
Cecilia Roth, Marisa Paredes, Candela Peña
A richly emotional melodrama about grief, chosen family, and the women who hold each other together. It’s funny, tender, and deeply compassionate, with vivid performances and Almodóvar’s signature color-saturated style.
Pedro Almodóvar turns grief into a story of connection, reinvention, and survival. What begins as a mother’s search after a devastating loss expands into a luminous ensemble about women caring for one another across class, age, sexuality, and circumstance. The film is emotionally expansive without losing its intimacy, and it moves with the confidence of a director who trusts feeling as much as plot.
The performances are a major part of the film’s power, especially Cecilia Roth’s deeply humane Manuela and the vivid supporting characters around her. Almodóvar’s eye for color, costume, and theatrical framing gives the movie a heightened beauty, but the emotion is never decorative. Beneath the wit and melodrama is a sincere meditation on motherhood, performance, identity, and the ways people become family.
It’s one of those films that feels both deeply specific and broadly generous. The story is full of pain, but it never collapses into despair; instead, it finds dignity in care, solidarity, and survival. If you respond to cinema that is emotionally direct, queer in spirit, and alive with personality, this is essential viewing.
maria (4★) · 5320 likes
love me some strong women being there for each other, penélope cruz and fucking gorgeous colors
Zā (Vanity Rex) (4.5★) · 4702 likes
Fuck. She did that. And she did that. Then she did that. But also, she did that. They all did that. I love everything.
Hari Nef · 4282 likes
[hits blunt] women who do not tell the truth are cinema itself
mary (5★) · 3551 likes
AND THEY'RE ALL MOTHERS
Sara Clements (4.5★) · 3492 likes
Pedro Almodóvar truly created one of cinema’s most beautiful and moving odes to women
A compassionate, emotionally intricate Almodóvar drama about care, intimacy, and the blurred lines between devotion and identity.
Another warm, richly textured story of women supporting one another through loss, secrets, and survival.
A mature, emotionally layered Almodóvar film about reinvention, loneliness, and the private lives of women.
A classic backstage drama about performance, ambition, and the shifting power among women in the theater world.
An interwoven drama of grief, motherhood, and emotional inheritance with a similarly elegiac mood.
A sensual, emotionally forceful drama centered on a woman’s voice, desire, and self-definition.
A stylized, mournful film about memory, femininity, and the mystery of women as seen from the outside.
A raw, compassionate portrait of a mother’s struggle and sacrifice, with strong emotional and social undercurrents.
An expansive story of women building resilience and love in the face of trauma and oppression.
A devastating, important drama about gender, identity, and the costs of social cruelty.
A landmark portrait of queer and trans community, performance, and chosen family, with deep cultural resonance.
A tense, emotionally surprising film that engages identity, desire, and transformation.
grief and mourning, motherhood, chosen family, female solidarity, trans identity, performance and acting, HIV/AIDS, caregiving
melodrama, queer cinema, Spanish cinema, ensemble drama, grief, motherhood, female friendship, trans representation, AIDS-era drama, stylized visuals