Pedro Almodóvar

Director

September 25, 1949 (76 years)

Calzada de Calatrava, Ciudad Real, Castilla-La Mancha, Spain

Biography

Pedro Almodóvar Caballero (born September 25, 1949) is a Spanish film director, screenwriter and producer. Almodóvar is arguably the most successful and internationally known Spanish filmmaker of his generation. His films, marked by complex narratives, employ the codes of melodrama and use elements of pop culture, popular songs, irreverent humor, strong colors, glossy décor and LGBT themes. Desire, passion, family and identity are among Almodóvar’s most prevalent themes. His films enjoy a world…

Filmography

7.5

The Skin I Live In

A brilliant plastic surgeon creates a synthetic skin that withstands any kind of damage. His guinea pig: a mysterious and volatile woman who holds the key to his obsession.

6.8

Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!

After being released from a mental hospital, a troubled young man tracks down an actress he once had sex with and forces her into captivity, determined to make her part of his life.

6.5

Bitter Christmas

After her mother dies in December, advertising director Elsa immerses herself in work to cope. When a panic attack forces her to take a break, she decides to travel to Lanzarote with her friend Patricia. The story of these women run parallel to that of a screenwriter and film director, exploring how life and fiction are inseparably linked, sometimes painfully so.

7.0

Live Flesh

When Victor attempts to seduce Elena, all he gets for his trouble is a one-way, six-year ticket to prison, where he concentrates on strengthening his mind, his body... and his desire for vengeance on the man who put him there. After his release and still madly in love with her, Victor will stop at nothing to win her over even if means revenge, for Elena has married David, the cop who sent him to prison!

7.5

Volver

Three generations of women deal with family secrets while surviving the east wind, fire, insanity, superstition, lies and even death.

7.0

High Heels

After being estranged for 15 years, flamboyant actress Becky del Paramo re-enters her daughter Rebeca's life when she comes to perform a concert. Rebeca, she finds, is now married to one of Becky's ex-lovers, Manuel. The mother and daughter begin making up for lost time, when suddenly, a murder occurs...

7.6

All About My Mother

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.

7.4

Bad Education

When an old friend brings filmmaker Enrique Goded a semi-autobiographical script chronicling their adolescence, Enrique is forced to relive his youth spent at a Catholic boarding school. Weaving through past and present, the script follows a transvestite performer who reconnects with a grade school sweetheart. Spurred on by this chance encounter, the character reflects on her childhood sexual victimization and the trauma of closeting her sexual orientation.

7.4

Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown

After being dumped by her lover, Pepa finds her life and the lives of those around her spiraling out of control in a deliciously chaotic series of events.

6.7

The Room Next Door

Ingrid and Martha were close friends in their youth, when they worked together at the same magazine. Ingrid went on to become an autofiction novelist while Martha became a war reporter, and they were separated by the circumstances of life. After years of being out of touch, they meet again in an extreme but strangely sweet situation.

7.4

Pain and Glory

Salvador Mallo, a filmmaker in the twilight of his career, remembers his life: his mother, his lovers, the actors he worked with. The sixties in a small village in Valencia, the eighties in Madrid, the present, when he feels an immeasurable emptiness, facing his mortality, the incapability of continuing filming, the impossibility of separating creation from his own life. The need of narrating his past can be his salvation.

6.4

Kika

When American author Nicholas brings in a cosmetologist named Kika to prepare the corpse of his recently deceased son, she inadvertently revives the young man, then falls in love with him. Forces conspire against the couple, though, as Nicholas wants Kika for himself.

7.6

Talk to Her

Two men share an odd friendship while they care for two women who are both in deep comas.

6.8

Parallel Mothers

Two unmarried women who have become pregnant by accident and are about to give birth meet in a hospital room: Janis, in her late-thirties, unrepentant and happy; Ana, a teenager, remorseful and frightened.

7.1

Broken Embraces

Harry Caine, a blind writer, reaches this moment in time when he has to heal his wounds from 14 years back. He was then still known by his real name, Mateo Blanco, and directing his last movie.

6.7

Matador

A conflicted youth confesses to crimes he didn't commit while a man and woman aroused by death become obsessed with each other.

7.1

Law of Desire

Pablo, a successful film director, disappointed in his relationship with his young lover, Juan, concentrates in a new project, a monologue starring his transgender sister, Tina. Antonio, an uptight young man, falls possessively in love with the director and in his passion would stop at nothing to obtain the object of his desire.

6.8

The Flower of My Secret

Middle-aged romance author Leo writes under a pseudonym, since she despises her own work. At home, her husband, who works overseas, is distant both physically and emotionally. As she reevaluates her life and writing, Leo is led to an unexpected relationship with Ángel, a sensitive newspaper editor.

6.3

Strange Way of Life

After 25 years, a former hired gun visits his old colleague, now a small-town sheriff. Their past relationship is explored, as is how they reflect on it in the present.

7.0

Julieta

The film spans 30 years in Julieta’s life from a nostalgic 1985 where everything seems hopeful, to 2015 where her life appears to be beyond repair and she is on the verge of madness.