Top 10 Mexican Films of All Time

Alejandro González Iñárritu's three-story linked narrative set in the chaos of Mexico City announced the New Mexican Cinema to the world and earned Mexico's first Academy Award nomination for Best Foreign Language Film since 1986. The film's hyperkinetic editing, Gustavo Santaolalla's score, and the raw portrayal of Mexico City's social strata remain some of the most vital filmmaking of the decade.

Guillermo del Toro's dark fantasy set in Francoist Spain, produced with Spanish investment but directed by Mexico's greatest visual storyteller, won three Academy Awards and is the most acclaimed Spanish-language fantasy film ever made. The Faun and Pale Man creature designs created by del Toro's long-time collaborator Mike Hill are the most original monster creations in contemporary cinema.

Pixar's Academy Award-winning animated film set in the Día de los Muertos tradition became the highest-grossing film in Mexican box office history and the most culturally influential portrayal of Mexican tradition in global cinema. The film's use of cempasúchil marigolds, ofrenda altars, and the fictional Land of the Dead dramatically increased international awareness of and respect for Mexican indigenous spiritual practice.

Alejandro Jodorowsky's psychedelic Mexican Western, financed and initially distributed by John Lennon, is the film most credited with creating the midnight movie cult screening culture that defined American alternative cinema through the 1970s. The film's surrealist imagery, spiritual allegory, and violence make it the most formally radical Mexican film ever produced.

Alfonso Cuarón's road movie following two teenage boys and an older woman traversing Mexico's Pacific coast is both the most erotic and the most politically acute film about class and national identity in Mexican cinema. The film's production was entirely in Mexico with a Mexican cast and crew, making it the most commercially successful purely domestic Mexican film of the 2000s.

Luis Buñuel's brutal neorealist masterpiece about juvenile delinquency in Mexico City's slums won the Best Director prize at Cannes and is universally cited by film scholars as the foundational work of Latin American social realist cinema. The Mexican government initially banned the film as an unflattering portrait of the country; Buñuel was briefly expelled from Mexico before international acclaim reversed both decisions.

Roberto Gavaldón's black-and-white fantasy about a poor woodcutter who makes a pact with Death to share a roasted turkey was Mexico's first Academy Award nominee for Best Foreign Language Film and is the most formally accomplished film of the Mexican Golden Age. Its portrayal of Día de los Muertos ritual and its moral allegory of greed directly influenced Pixar's Coco half a century later.

Alejandro González Iñárritu's multi-strand globe-spanning drama featuring Gael García Bernal in a pivotal Mexican sequence won the Best Director prize at Cannes and completes his trilogy of linked-narrative films begun with Amores Perros. The film's portrayal of the Mexico-US border and of the vulnerability of migrant domestic workers is one of the most politically resonant in Mexican-produced cinema.

Cary Joji Fukunaga's debut feature following a Honduran migrant and a Mara Salvatrucha gang member on the same northbound freight train through Mexico won the Sundance directing award and is the most authentic cinematic portrayal of Central American migration through Mexico ever produced. The film was made in Veracruz and Chiapas with non-professional local actors and has influenced every subsequent immigration drama set in the region.

Alejandro González Iñárritu's three-story linked narrative set in the chaos of Mexico City announced the New Mexican Cinema to the world and earned Mexico's first Academy Award nomination for Best Foreign Language Film since 1986. The film's hyperkinetic editing, Gustavo Santaolalla's score, and the raw portrayal of Mexico City's social strata remain some of the most vital filmmaking of the decade.

Guillermo del Toro's dark fantasy set in Francoist Spain, produced with Spanish investment but directed by Mexico's greatest visual storyteller, won three Academy Awards and is the most acclaimed Spanish-language fantasy film ever made. The Faun and Pale Man creature designs created by del Toro's long-time collaborator Mike Hill are the most original monster creations in contemporary cinema.

Pixar's Academy Award-winning animated film set in the Día de los Muertos tradition became the highest-grossing film in Mexican box office history and the most culturally influential portrayal of Mexican tradition in global cinema. The film's use of cempasúchil marigolds, ofrenda altars, and the fictional Land of the Dead dramatically increased international awareness of and respect for Mexican indigenous spiritual practice.

Alejandro Jodorowsky's psychedelic Mexican Western, financed and initially distributed by John Lennon, is the film most credited with creating the midnight movie cult screening culture that defined American alternative cinema through the 1970s. The film's surrealist imagery, spiritual allegory, and violence make it the most formally radical Mexican film ever produced.

Alfonso Cuarón's road movie following two teenage boys and an older woman traversing Mexico's Pacific coast is both the most erotic and the most politically acute film about class and national identity in Mexican cinema. The film's production was entirely in Mexico with a Mexican cast and crew, making it the most commercially successful purely domestic Mexican film of the 2000s.

Luis Buñuel's brutal neorealist masterpiece about juvenile delinquency in Mexico City's slums won the Best Director prize at Cannes and is universally cited by film scholars as the foundational work of Latin American social realist cinema. The Mexican government initially banned the film as an unflattering portrait of the country; Buñuel was briefly expelled from Mexico before international acclaim reversed both decisions.

Roberto Gavaldón's black-and-white fantasy about a poor woodcutter who makes a pact with Death to share a roasted turkey was Mexico's first Academy Award nominee for Best Foreign Language Film and is the most formally accomplished film of the Mexican Golden Age. Its portrayal of Día de los Muertos ritual and its moral allegory of greed directly influenced Pixar's Coco half a century later.

Alejandro González Iñárritu's multi-strand globe-spanning drama featuring Gael García Bernal in a pivotal Mexican sequence won the Best Director prize at Cannes and completes his trilogy of linked-narrative films begun with Amores Perros. The film's portrayal of the Mexico-US border and of the vulnerability of migrant domestic workers is one of the most politically resonant in Mexican-produced cinema.

Cary Joji Fukunaga's debut feature following a Honduran migrant and a Mara Salvatrucha gang member on the same northbound freight train through Mexico won the Sundance directing award and is the most authentic cinematic portrayal of Central American migration through Mexico ever produced. The film was made in Veracruz and Chiapas with non-professional local actors and has influenced every subsequent immigration drama set in the region.