Berlanga didn’t set out to be a rebel, but his subversive cinema earned him a place as one of the greatest Spanish filmmakers of all time. Start with his black-comic masterpiece, THE EXECUTIONER.
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 • 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...