In the wake of the Spanish Civil War, Luis García Berlanga revitalized his country’s film industry by puncturing the sanctimony of Franco-era culture. Though less well-known internationally than his iconoclastic compatriot Luis Buñuel or his filmmaking disciple Pedro Almodóvar, Berlanga—who would have turned one hundred this month—was renowned in his home country for his sardonic, censor-skirting attacks on political repression, economic neglect, and false piety, spiked with ebullient screwball rhythms that delighted mainstream audiences. Overflowing with vivid characters and brilliantly orchestrated moments of absurdist humor, these films and their daring provocations—including WELCOME MR. MARSHALL!’s sly antinationalist satire, PLÁCIDO’s masterful takedown of upper-class hypocrisy, and THE EXECUTIONER’s caustic attack on capital punishment—led Franco himself to declare, “Berlanga is not a Communist; he is worse than a Communist, he is a bad Spaniard.” A ringing endorsement if there ever was one!
Directed by Luis García Berlanga • 1953 • Spain
Starring Lolita Sevilla, Manolo Morán, José Isbert
A distant land shrouded in myth and rumor, America looms large in the cultural imagination of a quiet Castilian village, whose impressionable inhabitants dream of benefitting from the country’s pos...
Directed by Luis García Berlanga • 1954 • Spain
Starring Josette Arno, Jorge Vico, Julia Caba Alba
The often unruly in-betweenness of adolescence is the subject of this bittersweet comedy from director Luis García Berlanga. It’s the summer of 1918 and fifteen-year-old Loli (Josette Arno) has bee...
Directed by Luis García Berlanga • 1956 • Spain
Starring Edmund Gwenn, Valentina Cortese, Juan Calvo
In one of Luis García Berlanga’s gentlest comedies, an aging American scientist (Oscar winner Edmund Gwenn) goes incognito, trading in his career as a prominent atomic-bomb expert for a tranquil ...
Directed by Luis García Berlanga • 1957 • Spain
Starring Richard Basehart, José Isbert, Paola Stoppa
Looking for ways to boost the local economy, leaders in the village of Fuentecilla set their hopes on a medicinal spa that was once a popular destination but has since fallen on hard times. With ...
Directed by Luis García Berlanga • 1961 • Spain
Starring Cassen, José Luis López Vázquez, Elvira Quintillá
Widely considered one of the greatest works of Spanish cinema, this relentlessly paced satire chronicles an ill-advised charity campaign sweeping across a small industrial town on Christmas...
Directed by Luis García Berlanga • 1963 • Italy, Spain
Starring Nino Manfredi, Emma Penella, José Isbert
This masterpiece of black humor, beloved in Spain but too little seen elsewhere, threads a scathing critique of Franco-era values through a macabre farce about an undertaker who marries an ex...
Directed by Luis García Berlanga • 1967 • Spain
Starring Sonia Bruno, Rodolfo Bebán, Osvaldo Miranda
Luis García Berlanga’s follow-up to his masterpiece THE EXECUTIONER is a dark marital satire in which ignored housewife Carmen (Sonia Bruno) follows her mother’s advice and takes drastic action i...
Directed by Luis García Berlanga • 1970 • Spain
Starring José Luis López Vázquez, Laly Soldevila, José María Prada
In this black-comic sex farce, middle-aged bank clerk Leonardo (José Luis López Vázquez) travels to the Mediterranean tourist town of Sitges to marry his bride-to-be, Loli (Laly Sol...
Directed by Luis García Berlanga • 1981 • Spain
Starring Luis Escobar, Agustín González, Luis Ciges
Luis García Berlanga takes aim at the decadence of the Spanish ruling class in this irreverent ensemble comedy, the second of three popular comedies the director made about the noble Leguineche fa...
Directed by Luis García Berlanga • 1982 • Spain
Starring Luis Escobar, Luis Ciges, Agustín González
The third installment in Luis García Berlanga’s trilogy about the (mis)fortunes of the once wealthy, now destitute Leguineche family follows the Marquis of Leguineche (Luis Escobar) as he is force...
Directed by Luis García Berlanga • 1993 • Spain
Starring José Sazatornil, Agustín González, José Sacristán
Luis García Berlanga’s penultimate film is a raucous screwball satire in which a prison in Valencia hosts an event recognizing the political prisoners jailed during Franco’s reign. As an od...
