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1974
- Dos Putas, o Historia de Amor que Termina en Boda. (Two whores, or love story which ends in wedding) (short) -Director
- La Caida de Sodoma (The Fall of Sodome) (short) -Director
1975
- El Sueno (The Dream) (short) -Director
- Homenaje (Homage) (short) -Director
- Blancor (Whiteness) (short) -Director
1976
- El Estrella (The Star) (short) -Director
- Muerte en la carretera (Death on the Road) (short) -Director
- Sea Caritativo (Be Charitable) (short) -Director
1977
- Complementos (Accessories) (short) -Director
- Sexo Va, Sexo Viene (Sex Comes and Goes) (short) -Director
A young man walking down the street bumps into a girl, making her drop all the bags and packages she is carrying. This encounter will start an aggressive and violent romance which will end up in sorrow from the young man's part. Desperate he consults a fortune-telling machine where he gets the fortune: "if you like women you should become one". He starts to wear drag and bumps into the girl again, who loves his new look and falls madly in love again.
1978
- Folle, Folle, Folleme Tim (Fuck, Fuck, Fuck me Tim) (short) -Director
A feature-length Super-8. This is a typical hard luch story where a poor girl who works in a general store, with a blind guitar-playing boyfriend. He becomes famous, she becomes blind... a typical photonovel melodrama.
- Salome (short) -Director
A 16 mm feature. Salome tels the story of the origin of the veil. Almodovar tells the story of how Salome appeared to Abraham and his son Isaac covered in veils. This is Almodovar's story of how women wear veils as a sign of respect for the church.
Pepi, Luci, Bom y otras chicas del monton (Spanish poster)
1980- Pepi, Luci, Bom y otras Chicas del Monton (Pepi, Luci, Bom) -Director, Screenwriter
After being raped by a policeman, Pepi decides to take revenge, but her target is not the policeman, but his wife Luci instead. Luci is however a woman with masochistic tastes, and when she meets Pepi's friend Bom, she finds her sadistic match. These three women then develop a friendship through outrageous antics, parties, concerts, wild games and casual outings... Almodóvar's feature debut proves to be as shocking as his later works.
Laberinto de Pasiones (Spanish poster)
Laberinto de Pasiones (US poster)
Pedro (left) and Paco Clavel singing in Laberinto de Pasiones.
1982- Laberinto de Pasiones (Labyrinth of Passions) -Performer, Director, Producer, Screnwriter, Designer, Performer (uncredited, cameo)
Sexilia is a pop star and nymphomaniac with a chronic hatred of the sun. Riza is the gay son of the emperor of Tiran. Both Sexilia and Riza are strolling in the Madrid Rastro, aiming to pick up boys. While Riza's mother is tracking him down, he enjoys amorous encounters with a porn queen and a Muslim freedom fighter. Riza finally meets Sexilia when she is performing with a punk band. They fall in love, but are unable to have sex.
Entre Tinieblas (Spanish poster)
1983- Entre Tinieblas (Sisters of Night or Dark Habits) -Director, Screenwiter, Song Composer, Performer (bus passenger)
Yolanda, a nightclub singer, tries to escape from a life of drugs and seeks refuge with gay nuns on dope in a Madrid convent. Their philosophy is: save the fellow men making their own same sins.
Que he hecho yo para merecer esto? (Spanish poster)
1984
- Trailer para Amantes de lo Prohibido (Trailer for Lovers of the Forbidden) (TV short) -Director
- Que He Hecho Yo Para Merecer Esto? (What have I done to deserve this?) -Director, Screenwriter, Performer (tv playback)
Gloria is a typical Madrid housewife living in an anonymous, run-down apartment block. Gloria has problems- her slovenly and disinterested taxi driver husband is obsessed with an ex-Nazi chanteuse; one of her two sons has discovered the benefits of dope dealing while the other is a promiscuous homosexual conducting affairs with his schoolmates' fathers. Things could not get much worse until a bizarre set of incidents leads her to a murder by ham-bone and a labyrinthine plot to forge Hitler's diaries!! Almodóvar's fourth feature film is a sharp, erotic and scabrously funny black comedy that displays a warm affection towards its characters and a surprisingly happy ending.
Matador (Spanish poster)
Matador (UK video cover)
1986- Matador -Director, Screenwriter
Ex-bullfighter Diego instructs his students in the corrida "the art of killing". Trainee bullfighter Angel, sexually repressed and mother-fixed, is taunted about his suspected homosexuality by Diego. After failing to assault the maestro's girlfriend, Angel unexpectedly and falsely confesses to two sets of murders and finds himself defended by lawyer Maria, the literal "Angel of Death" who kills partners at the point of consummation with a hat pin. Matador is a darkly comic and characteristically camp celebration of desire, religious repression and bullfighting. Almodóvar found inspiration in the Hollywood melodrama Duel in the Sun.
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UK
orders from amazon.co.uk -
La Ley del Deseo (US poster)
1987- La Ley del Deseo (The Law of Desire) -Director, Screenwriter, Song Composer, Score Composer, Performer (as shopkeeper)
Pablo, an arrogant gay film director, is caught up in complicated correspondence with the young man he loves but who may or may not love him, when he encounters Antonio, who abandons his heterosexuality to be closer to the director. Punctuated throughout with rich, incidental and offbeat humour, the film proceeds briskly towards its melodramatic conclusions. Like all of Almodóvar's films, there is always something to offend and delight everyone in this only-seen-to-believe picture.
Mujeres al Borde de un Ataque de Nervios (US poster)
Mujeres al Borde de un Ataque de Nervios (UK poster)
1988- Mujeres al Borde de un Ataque de Nervios (Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown) -Director, Screenwriter
Pepa awakes from a self-induced sleep to find that her long-term lover Ivan has gone, leaving only an answer-machine message and herself pregnant. Becoming nearly hysterical, Pepa, after a series of accidents, finds herself on the trail of Ivan's insane ex-wife Lucia, and discovers that Ivan has a twenty-year-old son Carlos!
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USA
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Atame (US poster)
1990- Atame (Tie me up!, tie me down!) -Director, Screenwriter
A mental patient kidnaps a former porn star/junkie, slaps her around, the ties her to a bed. His violent behaviour hides a peaceful desire: to marry her and have kids with her. A potential nightmare comes off as surprisingly tame for Almodóvar, though it still has his unpredictable black humour. Thought-provoking and energetically performed. Two scenes (one a loud but fairly explicit sex scene) earned Atame an X-rating.
Tacones Lejanos (Spanish poster)
Tacones Lejanos (US poster)
1991
- Madonna: Truth or Dare -Performer (as himself)
- Tacones Lejanos (High Heels) -Director, Screenwriter
Almodóvar concocts conflicts and intricacies in the relationship between famous, egocentric actress Becky and her TV newscaster daughter Rebecca. In order to revenge for her mother's negligence in her childhood, Rebecca gets married to her mother's former lover Manuel but when they reunite, Manuel rekindles the old flames with Becky.
Plenty of Almodovarian outlandish touches -check out that women's prison- and also some interesting and complicated views on celebrity and motherhood, both of which reappear and reinvent in All About My Mother.
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USA
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Accion Mutante
1992- Accion Mutante (Mutant Action) -Producer, Screenplay, Director (Associate)
In a future world ruled by good-looking people, a terrorist group of mutants leaded by Ramon Yarritu kidnap the daughter of Orujo, a rich businessman, to claim for the rights of the ugly people. Escaping from the police in their spaceship, Ramon tries to kill his gang in order to get all the ransom. The trip ends abruptly when they crash in Axturiax, the planet of the crazy miners where no woman lives.
Kika (US poster)
Kika (Spanish poster)
Kika (UK poster)
1993- Kika -Director, Screenplay
Wacky, very adult story about free-spirited makeup artist Kika (Veronica Forque, whose performance is positively infectious) and the men in her life, including an American expatriate writer (Peter Coyote) and a psychotic prison escapee. Almodóvar has given his favorite actress, Abril, the role of a lifetime: a tabloid TV hostess who cruises Madrid with a camera strapped to her head, seeking to capture criminal acts on videotape. Very funny, explicitly sexual film doesn't quite sustain its momentum to the end, but remains fresh and certainly different. Will undoubtedly shock those unfamiliar with Almodóvar.
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USA
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UK
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La Flor de Mi Secreto (US poster)
La Flor de Mi Secreto -Screenplay
1995- La Flor de Mi Secreto (The Flower of My Secret) -Director, Screenwriter
Leo (Marisa Paredes) leads a secret double life as an author of romantic fiction. However, her success as the best selling Amanda Gris hasn't brought her happiness and things are getting worse. Her husband does not love her, her best friend is strangely distracted and her mother and sister are too busy bickering to notice that anything's wrong.
Abandoned by her muse and seeking solace in the bottle since the collapse of her marriage, an unlikely rescuer sets her on a collision course to a new emotional entanglement.
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UK
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1996- Mi Nombre es Sombra (My Name is Shadows) -Associate Producer
Carne Tremula (US poster)
Carne Tremula (UK poster)
1997- Carne Tremula (Live Flesh) -Director, Screenwriter
Smitten son of a prostitute is jailed for accidentally shooting and paralyzing a cop during an altercation with a dishy drug user. Upon his release, he discovers that the woman is married to his victim! What might have been a melodramatic howler is instead Almodóvar's best feature since Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown. After a bumpy start, the film becomes a model of how to change moods.
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USA
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UK
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Todo Sobre Mi Madre (US poster)
Todo Sobre Mi Madre (UK poster)
1999- Todo Sobre Mi Madre (All About My Mother)- Director, Screenwriter
Not necessarily autobiographical, All About My Mother is the story of Manuela whose son is killed in a car accident. With desperation she travels to Barcelona to find his father who has no idea of their son. On the way of searching and self-discovery, Manuela meets up with an old friend of hers, a transvestite prostitute and a pregnant nun from whom she finds love again. When the father shows up, unexpected twist takes place which eventually draws her and those whom she meets into abyss of which only respect and dignity win. All About My Mother is a definite triumph, putting the energetic auteur that is Almodóvar back in top-rate form.
Read the Oscar report on All About My Mother
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USA
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UK
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Hable Con Ella (Spanish poster)
2002- Hable Con Ella (Talk to Her) -Director, Screenwriter
Almodovar explains: "Hable Con Ella is a narrator's film. Narrators of stories about themselves, men who speak to whomever can hear them, and above all those who cannot hear them"
