Latin American cinema: 21 essential films
Weekly collection in the app for the week of September 18, 2026.
Mexico's "Three Amigos" (Guillermo del Toro, Alejandro González Iñárritu and Alfonso Cuarón), Brazil's Cinema Novo and its heirs, Argentina's New Wave, Chile's reckoning with the Pinochet years: this collection maps seventy years of Latin American film, from Luis Buñuel's Mexico City street children in Los Olvidados (1950) to the Wayuu crime saga Birds of Passage (2018).
These 21 films ran as the weekly theme in the I Like Movies Discover tab for the week of September 18, 2026, featuring City of God, during Hispanic Heritage Month. Alongside the famous titles it reaches for harder-to-find ones: Glauber Rocha's Black God, White Devil, Tomás Gutiérrez Alea's Memories of Underdevelopment and Carlos Reygadas's Silent Light.
The collection
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City of God 2002 Meirelles Two boys grow up in a Rio de Janeiro favela from the 1960s to the 1980s, one becoming a photographer and the other a feared drug lord; many of its young actors were cast from the favelas themselves. Cast: Alexandre Rodrigues, Leandro Firmino, Phellipe Haagensen -
Pan's Labyrinth 2006 del Toro In 1944 Spain, the young stepdaughter of a brutal Francoist captain escapes into a fairy-tale underworld where a faun sets her three tasks; Guillermo del Toro's dark fable won three Oscars. Cast: Ivana Baquero, Sergi López, Maribel Verdú -
Cronos 1993 del Toro An elderly antiques dealer in Mexico City finds a 16th-century clockwork device that grants eternal life at a vampiric cost, and a dying industrialist wants it; Guillermo del Toro's first feature. Cast: Federico Luppi, Ron Perlman, Claudio Brook -
Amores perros 2000 Iñárritu A car crash in Mexico City links three stories: a young man who enters his dog in dogfights, a model whose career is wrecked, and a hitman who lives with stray dogs; Alejandro González Iñárritu's first feature. Cast: Emilio Echevarría, Gael García Bernal, Goya Toledo -
Babel 2006 Iñárritu A rifle shot in the Moroccan desert sets off linked crises for an American couple on holiday, a Mexican nanny in California and a deaf teenager in Tokyo; Iñárritu's drama across three continents. Cast: Brad Pitt, Rinko Kikuchi, Adriana Barraza -
Sólo con Tu Pareja 1991 Cuarón A womanizing Mexico City copywriter is falsely told by a vengeful nurse that he has AIDS, just as he falls for his neighbor, a flight attendant; Alfonso Cuarón's first feature, a dark sex comedy. Cast: Daniel Giménez Cacho, Claudia Ramírez, Luis de Icaza -
Central Station 1998 Salles A cynical retired teacher who writes letters for illiterate people at Rio's central station reluctantly takes a boy across Brazil to find the father he has never met; Fernanda Montenegro was nominated for Best Actress. Cast: Fernanda Montenegro, Vinícius de Oliveira, Marília Pêra -
The Motorcycle Diaries 2004 Salles In 1952 a young medical student, Ernesto Guevara, and his friend Alberto Granado cross South America on an old motorcycle, a journey that changes how he sees the continent; Gael García Bernal plays the future Che. Cast: Gael García Bernal, Rodrigo de la Serna, Mercedes Morán -
Wild Tales 2014 Szifron Six standalone stories of ordinary Argentines pushed past breaking point, from road rage on a desert highway to a wedding that goes spectacularly wrong; Damián Szifron's black comedy. Cast: Ricardo Darín, Leonardo Sbaraglia, Érica Rivas -
The Secret in Their Eyes 2009 Campanella A retired Buenos Aires court investigator writes a novel about a 1974 rape and murder case he never let go of, and the colleague he loved; winner of the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film. Cast: Ricardo Darín, Soledad Villamil, Pablo Rago -
The Headless Woman 2008 Martel A wealthy dentist in northern Argentina hits something with her car on a lonely road and drives on, then drifts through the following days unsure whether she killed a dog or a boy; Lucrecia Martel's unsettling drama. Cast: María Onetto, Claudia Cantero, César Bordón -
Memories of Underdevelopment 1968 Alea A bourgeois writer stays in Havana after his family flees to Miami following the revolution, and watches the new Cuba with detachment and unease; Tomás Gutiérrez Alea mixes fiction with documentary footage. Cast: Sergio Corrieri, Daisy Granados, Eslinda Núñez -
Black God White Devil 1964 Rocha In Brazil's drought-stricken northeast, a cowherd who kills his boss follows first a messianic preacher and then a bandit, hunted by a hired killer of both; Glauber Rocha's landmark of the Cinema Novo movement. Cast: Geraldo del Rey, Yoná Magalhães, Othon Bastos -
Los Olvidados 1950 Buñuel A gang of street children in the slums of Mexico City drifts into theft and violence, led by a teenager escaped from reform school; Luis Buñuel's unsentimental drama, with one famous dream sequence. Cast: Estela Inda, Miguel Inclán, Alfonso Mejía -
Tony Manero 2008 Larraín In 1978 Santiago, under Pinochet, a middle-aged man obsessed with John Travolta's character in Saturday Night Fever will kill to win a TV lookalike contest; Pablo Larraín's bleak portrait of a country numbed by dictatorship. Cast: Alfredo Castro, Amparo Noguera, Paola Lattus -
No 2012 Larraín An advertising man is hired by the opposition for Chile's 1988 referendum on Pinochet's rule and sells the 'No' vote like a soft drink; Gael García Bernal, shot on 1980s video cameras to blend with archive footage. Cast: Gael García Bernal, Alfredo Castro, Néstor Cantillana -
Vidas Secas 1963 Pereira dos Santos A family of drifters, their dog Baleia among them, crosses the drought-stricken backlands of Brazil's northeast looking for work and somewhere to stay; Nelson Pereira dos Santos's spare Cinema Novo drama. Cast: Átila Iório, Maria Ribeiro, Baleia -
Silent Light 2007 Reygadas In a Mennonite farming community in northern Mexico, a married father falls in love with another woman, and his faith offers no way out; Carlos Reygadas cast Mennonites speaking their own Plautdietsch. Cast: Cornelio Wall, Miriam Toews, Maria Pankratz -
Birds of Passage 2018 Guerra & Gallego In 1970s Colombia, a Wayuu family grows rich selling marijuana to Americans, and tradition, honor and the drug trade tear them apart; from Ciro Guerra and Cristina Gallego, the team behind Embrace of the Serpent. Cast: José Acosta, Carmiña Martínez, Natalia Reyes -
Nostalgia for the Light 2010 Guzmán In Chile's Atacama Desert, astronomers search the sky for the origins of the universe while women search the ground for the remains of relatives killed under Pinochet; Patricio Guzmán's documentary essay. Cast: Gaspar Galaz, Lautaro Núñez, Luís Henríquez -
The Holy Mountain 1973 Jodorowsky A Christ-like thief joins an alchemist and seven powerful, corrupt figures on a quest to the summit of a sacred mountain to gain immortality; Alejandro Jodorowsky's surreal, provocative spectacle, shot in Mexico. Cast: Alejandro Jodorowsky, Horacio Salinas, Zamira Saunders
Keep your place
Several of these films are hard to come across by chance, especially the older Brazilian and Cuban titles. Save the collection to your watchlist in I Like Movies, mark each film as you see it, and rate it so the app learns which corner of the continent's cinema you want more of. Every Friday the Discover tab gets a new themed collection.
Questions people ask
Where should I start with Latin American cinema?
City of God, Amores perros and Pan's Labyrinth are the usual entry points, and all three come from the boom of the 2000s. From there, The Secret in Their Eyes and Wild Tales show Argentina, Central Station and Vidas Secas show Brazil, and No shows Chile.
Who are the Three Amigos of Mexican cinema?
Guillermo del Toro, Alejandro González Iñárritu and Alfonso Cuarón, three Mexican directors and friends who all went on to win the Oscar for Best Director. This collection includes del Toro's Cronos and Pan's Labyrinth, Iñárritu's Amores perros and Babel, and Cuarón's first feature, Sólo con Tu Pareja.
The week before: TIFF audience favorites: 21 films. The week after: Western movies: 21 essential films. See every weekly theme, or browse every guide, watch order and comparison.