Nuevo Cine Mexicano in 10 films
From the early 1990s Mexican filmmakers moved from small domestic hits to the festivals of Cannes and Venice. These ten films go from a magical-realist crowd-pleaser to the black-and-white memory of Roma.
- 1Like Water for Chocolate 1991Alfonso Arau · IMDb 7.1A youngest daughter forbidden to marry pours her feelings into her cooking. Arau's magical-realist hit, from Laura Esquivel's novel, showed that Mexican films could find a large audience abroad again.
Next: Cronos
Del Toro makes his first feature a horror film, and the Mexican revival turns from period romance to genre. - 2Cronos 1993Guillermo del Toro · IMDb 6.7An antique dealer finds a strange golden device that changes him. Del Toro's first feature already has his mix of horror, tenderness and baroque detail.
Next: Herod's Law
From fantasy we move to politics: Estrada uses black comedy to attack the system that governed Mexico for decades. - 3Herod's Law 2000Luis Estrada · IMDb 7.7A minor official becomes mayor of a poor village in the 1940s and learns how power really works. Estrada's bitter satire of the long one-party rule of the PRI.
Next: Y Tu Mamá También
Politics stays in the background, but Cuarón brings it into a warm, youthful road movie that crossed borders and defined the new decade. - 4Y Tu Mamá También 2001Alfonso Cuarón · IMDb 7.7Two teenage friends and an older woman take a road trip across Mexico. Cuarón's film is funny and sexual, while a narrator quietly shows the poverty and politics around the three.
Next: Japón
A very different road: where Cuarón is lively and talkative, Reygadas is slow, quiet and often silent, and Mexico's art cinema finds a new voice. - 5Japón 2002Carlos Reygadas · IMDb 6.8A man travels to a remote canyon village with the plan to end his life. Reygadas's debut brought a slow, sensual and uncompromising style to Mexican cinema.
Next: Pan's Labyrinth
Del Toro returns, now with a fuller budget and a deeper theme, as fantasy and history meet in Spain. - 6Pan's Labyrinth 2006Guillermo del Toro · IMDb 8.2In Spain in 1944, a girl finds a fairy-tale world while her stepfather hunts rebels. Del Toro joins fantasy and the brutality of the Franco years.
Next: Silent Light
Reygadas moves from the city to a religious farming community, and the style becomes even more patient and spiritual. - 7Silent Light 2007Carlos Reygadas · IMDb 7.2A married man in a Mennonite community in northern Mexico falls in love with another woman. Reygadas turns to long takes and a Low German-speaking cast for a film of great calm.
Next: Heli
The quiet of the countryside gives way to fear, as a new generation of directors turns to the violence of the drug war. - 8Heli 2013Amat Escalante · IMDb 6.8A young man's family is drawn into the drug war. Escalante shows violence in a direct, unflinching way, far from the warm humanism of the early 2000s.
Next: Güeros
After Heli's darkness, a lighter and more playful debut shows a younger Mexico City and a love for French New Wave tricks. - 9Güeros 2014Alonso Ruizpalacios · IMDb 7.5Two brothers drive across Mexico City in 1999, during a student strike, looking for a legendary musician. Ruizpalacios's black-and-white debut is playful and full of film love.
Next: Roma
The circle closes: Cuarón, whose Y Tu Mamá También opened the era, returns to Mexico with a personal, quiet and carefully built film. - 10Roma 2018Alfonso Cuarón · IMDb 7.6A year in the life of a domestic worker in a middle-class Mexico City household in 1970 and 1971. Cuarón looks back at his own childhood in black and white.
Where next: the school page lists many more films, and the Czechoslovak New Wave guide shows another young generation using humour and form to speak about its country.
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