Top Films from Spain and Portugal

In compiling a list of the best films from Spain, Portugal, it became immediately clear that many essential films from the Iberian peninsula have had a decent amount of distribution. This is in stark contrast to films from Africa, Arab world and Hungary. Of course, Spanish and Portuguese films weren’t always as easily available. Until a decade ago, I hadn’t seen any films from Pere Portabella and only saw them after mubi.com showcased a selection of his works. Meanwhile, the quest to legally see any films from Pedro Costa was almost a 4 year personal quest and that only ended in 2010. Plus, I had not seen any of Paulo Rocha’s films until 2020.

Top 15 films from Spain and Portugal:

1. Muerte de un ciclista (Death of a Cyclist, 1955, Spain, Juan Antonio Bardem)
2. El Verdugo (The Executioner, 1963, Spain, Luis García Berlanga)
3. La Caza (The Hunt, 1966, Spain, Carlos Saura)
4. Mudar de Vida (Change of Life, 1966, Portugal, Paulo Rocha)
5. Volver (2006, Spain, Pedro Almodóvar)
6. O Sangue (Blood, 1989, Portugal, Pedro Costa)
7. El Espíritu de la Colmena (The Spirit of the Beehive, 1973, Spain, Victor Erice)
8. Viridiana (1961, Spain, Luis Buñuel)
9. La Mala Educación (Bad Education, 2004, Spain, Pedro Almodóvar)
10. O Estranho Caso de Angélica (The Strange Case of Angelica, 2010, Portugal, Manoel de Oliveira)
11. Vitalina Varela (2019, Portugal, Pedro Costa)
12. Todo Sobre Mi Madre (All About my Mother, 1999, Spain, Pedro Almodóvar)
13. Aquele Querido Mês de Agosto (Our Beloved Month of August, 2008, Portugal, Miguel Gomes)
14. Cuadecuc, vampir (1971, Spain, Pere Portebella)
15. Mistérios de Lisboa (Mysteries of Lisbon, 2010-11, Portugal, Raúl Ruiz)

Honourable mentions (as per year of release)

Lucía y el Sexo (Sex and Lucía, 2001, Spain, Julio Medem)
Juventude em Marcha (Colossal Youth, 2006, Portugal, Pedro Costa)
Dans la ville de Sylvia (In the City of Sylvia, 2007, Spain, José Luis Guerín)
A Fábrica de Nada (The Nothing Factory, 2017, Portugal, Pedro Pinho)
Dolor y Gloria (Pain and Glory, 2019, Spain, Pedro Almodóvar)

Note: Top 15 list submitted for Wonders in the Dark poll.

Paulo Rocha's Change of Life

 Change of Life (1966, Portugal, Paulo Rocha)

Over the last decade, there has been a rich supply of Portuguese films coming out yet I recall a time when it difficult to view many Portuguese films legally. The films of Pedro Costa were not yet available via Second Run or Criterion and many of the current New Wave of Portuguese Cinema directors such as Miguel Gomes (Our Beloved Month of August, Tabu, Arabian Nights trilogy), Pedro Pinho (The Nothing Factory) hadn’t directed their first film. The few films that were available were either by the legendary and highly prolific Manoel de Oliveira who kept on directing until his death in 2015 aged 106 years, an early João Pedro Rodrigues title (O Fantasma, Two Drifters, The Ornithologist), a sampling of some horror films, a few family dramas and the odd romantic comedy. This is why the recent viewing of Paulo Rocha’s brilliant 1966 film Change of Life feels like such a fundamental re-calibration of cinema in general.

Rocha’s first two features The Green Years (1963) and Change of Life (1966) have gone through a restoration supervised by Pedro Costa and are widely available across North America, both virtually (via Grasshopper film) and also via select few cinemas across US. The arrival of these two films in 2020 is a monumental event, made especially more important in a year when the release of new cinematic works has been paused.

As Robert Koehler aptly states in the new issue of Cinema Scope (article not online) that the release of these two films “..illustrates that anything like a complete history of cinema is an incomplete project”. 

Ela Bittencourt on the two films.

BAFICI held a retrospective of Rocha back in 2019. Mariángela Martínez Restrepo reports on this.

Glenn Kenny on Change of Life.

Kevin Jagernauth on The Green Years and Change of Life.