Pedro Almodóvar Biography

Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar’s best known films internationally include Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (1988), Talk to Her (2002), Volver (2006) and Pain and Glory (2019).

He has also famously collaborated many times with Antonio Banderas and Penélope Cruz.

Almodóvar got his start in Madrid, writing for underground magazines and experimental theater and making short films in the 1970s.

By the mid-1980’s Almodóvar had a reputation for being sassy and prolific, and skilled at madcap romance comedies. The end of that decade saw the release of Matador (1986), Law of Desire (1987), Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, and Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! (1989).

He became an international star and one of Spain’s most famous filmmakers.

Since then Almodóvar has expanded his range to melodramas, often with long-suffering women at the center of his films.

His other features include All About My Mother (1999), Bad Education (2004), Volver (the film that earned an Oscar nomination for Penélope Cruz in 2007), The Skin I Live In (2001), Julieta (2016) and Pain and Glory (2019).

Almodóvar won an Oscar for his screenplay, Talk to Her, and was nominated as best director for that film.