A bruising, propulsive ensemble tragedy that fuses crime, class tension, and emotional wreckage into one of the defining films of modern Mexican cinema. It’s messy in the best way: urgent, humane, and devastating, with a structure that keeps tightening the screws until the final impact lands hard.
Amores Perros
Where to watch: Buy
Movie · Drama · Thriller
Fri · 2h 34m
Director: Alejandro G. Iñárritu
Starring: Emilio Echevarría, Gael García Bernal, Goya Toledo
Overview
A fatalistic car crash in Mexico city sets off a chain of events in the lives of three people: a supermodel, a young man wanting to run off with his sister-in-law, and a homeless man.
Director
Alejandro G. Iñárritu
Cast
Emilio Echevarría, Gael García Bernal, Goya Toledo
Curator Review
Verdict
A bruising, propulsive ensemble tragedy that fuses crime, class tension, and emotional wreckage into one of the defining films of modern Mexican cinema. It’s messy in the best way: urgent, humane, and devastating, with a structure that keeps tightening the screws until the final impact lands hard.
Best for
Viewers who like interlocking stories and fatalistic crime dramas
Fans of gritty, emotionally intense filmmaking
People interested in contemporary Mexican cinema and urban social realism
Anyone drawn to films where violence and tenderness coexist
Skip if
You want a light or uplifting watch
You dislike nonlinear storytelling or shifting perspectives
Graphic cruelty toward animals or harsh violence is a dealbreaker
You prefer tidy resolutions and clear moral boundaries
Overview
Amores Perros is a collision movie in the deepest sense: cars, lives, classes, and private grief all slam into one another and keep reverberating. Alejandro G. Iñárritu turns a single crash into a portrait of Mexico City as a place where love, ambition, desperation, and survival are all tangled together. The film is rough-edged, but that roughness is part of its force.
Worth noting
What makes it endure is how alive it feels in the moment. The performances are raw, the camera is restless, and the editing gives each story its own pulse while still making the whole feel like one wound. It’s a film about people making terrible choices for understandable reasons, and about how quickly dignity can be stripped away.
Bottom line
The dog motif is not just provocation; it’s the film’s moral wiring. Loyalty, cruelty, instinct, and abandonment echo through every strand of the story. By the end, it feels less like a puzzle solved than a city’s pain briefly made visible.
Top Letterboxd reviews
Laura (5★) · 3650 likes
gael garcía bernal owns my soul
Alejandro Trejo (5★) · 3128 likes
"Decía mi abuela: Que si quieres hacer reír a Dios, cuéntale tus planes." La sangre mexicana se siente en cada momento. Una película tan sucia, tan cruda, tan angustiosa pero sobretodo tan humana, que llega a pegar en el corazoncito. Con una narración impecable, una dirección de enfoque inquieta que la hace efectiva, y un soundtrack que te dan ganas de llorar. Contada mediante personajes complejos en busca de una liberación personal, hasta que descubren que sus pecados son más… more
cocoimbrosciano (4★) · 2953 likes
Mexican's Pulp Fiction.
Luca (3.5★) · 2024 likes
Part one: “Wow, this is pretty great” Part two: “Wow, this is really okay” Part three: “Wow, part one was really good, huh?” This makes me so mad that Crash won best picture
Danny (4★) · 2014 likes
For those who love dogs, this is the film to watch.
Themes
interconnected lives, urban alienation, class divide, fate and chance, violence and consequence, love and betrayal, survival, moral collapse
Topics
ensemble drama, crime thriller, urban realism, nonlinear narrative, fatalism, gritty, social commentary, 2000s cinema, human cruelty