Spanish films about palace intrigues

This colourful feature debut from experienced producer Luis Miñarro offers an almost hallucinatory look at the world of Amadeo of Savoy, who was king of an ungovernable Spain for two years around 1870. This intriguing episode is transformed into a plea for beauty, creativity and joy. The film functions as a metaphor for contemporary Spain and its ongoing state of crisis.

A wide-ranging, energetic period piece tracing the rise of the Protestant Henry of Navarre as he goes from battlefield warrior to France's beloved King Henri IV. Director Jo Baier's epic is a classically entertaining adventure, albeit one with more than a little bloodshed and frequent bawdy sexual interludes. In late 16th-century France, Catholics and Protestant Huguenots were at war. Seemingly seeking peace, the French dowager queen, Catherine de Medici summons Henry to her court to have him marry her daughter, uniting the two warring factions. However, the Catholics slaughter the Protestant wedding guests in what became known as the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre and Henry-now married-must use all his guile to both stay alive and maneuver for the throne. [Written by Palm Springs International Film Festival]

A look at the relationship between Marie Antoinette and one of her readers during the final days of the French Revolution.

Nearly twenty years after the events of "The Girl of Your Dreams", in the 1950s, Macarena Granada, who has become a Hollywood star, returns to Spain to film a blockbuster about Queen Isabella I of Castile.

On a rainy morning six armed men in disguise rob a bank in Valencia .But what seemed like an easy heist quickly goes wrong with nothing unfolding as planned, and mistrust quickly builds between the two leaders of the gang.

In 1901, Marcela Gracia Ibeas took on the identity of Mario Sánchez to marry her lover of fifteen years, Elisa Sanchez Loriga.

Toro (Spanish for "Bull") is a young con man and the right hand of Romano, a powerful mob boss in Torremolinos, Málaga (Andalusia, south to Spain). After Toro decides to leave Romano to get a life free of crime, his last sting fails, resulting one of his brothers dead and he sent to jail. Five years later, Romano realizes that López, Toro's older brother, is robbing him money from his tourism business and he orders to kidnap Diana, López's little daughter, until this one get back the money. Without options, López visits Toro, now a touristic driver with the third grade prison close to get the parole, who only wants to be free to marry his girlfriend Estrella. When Toro accepts to help López and both meet Romano looking for a solution, Toro ends attacking Romano's men and fleeing with Diana, trying to escape from Romano's revenge. But Romano starts a ruthless searching for they three, meanwhile Toro counts the hours to back the prison according to the third grade...

Everyone knows what to do if one morning the sky would be absolutely full of UFOs: run as fast as you can. However, what would happen if the invasion started while you are in the flat of the girl of your dreams, the one you have just met?

Toby, a cynical advertising director finds himself trapped in the outrageous delusions of an old Spanish shoe-maker who believes himself to be Don Quixote. In the course of their comic and increasingly surreal adventures, Toby is forced to confront the tragic repercussions of a film he made in his idealistic youth.

Tad is a celebrity archaeologist and adventurer just like his hero Max Mordon... in his dreams! In reality, Tad is a Chicago construction worker. One day, however, he is mistaken for a real professor and takes his place on a flight to Peru in search of the lost city of Paititi.

"The Invisible Guest” turns on a young businessman who wakes up in a hotel room locked from the inside with the dead body of his lover next to him. He hires a prestigious lawyer, and over one night they work together to clarify what happened in a frenetic race against time.

The film spans 30 years in Julieta’s life from a nostalgic 1985 where everything seems hopeful, to 2015 where her life appears to be beyond repair and she is on the verge of madness.

After finding a lump in one of her breasts, Magda goes to visit her doctor who gives her bad news: she needs a mastectomy, preceded by severe chemo treatments. While she ponders this ill fortune at a soccer game where her son Dani participates, she attracts the attention of talent scout Arturo, who is looking for talented young players to enroll them in the junior leagues.

A man imprisons the woman he's still obsessed with after years apart, then finds the tables turned on him.

Diego is a doctor so used to working in extreme situations that he has immunized himself to others' pain. He has switched off from his work, his partner and his commitment as a father. Over the course of a disturbing meeting, Diego is threatened with a gun. Hours later, he can only remember the sound of a bang and the strange feeling of having being hit with something more than a bullet. Diego has to take an irreversible decision which will affect his own life and that of his loved ones.

Spain, 1966. An English teacher who travels to Almería when he hears that John Lennon is making a film there befriends with a 16-year-old boy who has run away from home and a young girl who also seems to be running away from something.

Agents from diverse Spanish local police forces are called to form a special team.

Sira Quiroga is a young Spanish dressmaker engaged to a solid suitor when a suave typewriter salesman upends her life. Spain is being upended by a civil war and the new regime's growing alliances with Nazi Germany. Sira, smart, gutsy and resourceful with a Scarlett O'Hara-like ability to whip up designer duds on a moment's notice, Sira has spunk. Sira gains and loses a small fortune, is dumped by her cad of a lover in Morocco, runs guns to get the cash to start her life anew and becomes couturier to the Nazi wives stationed in Madrid. Urged on by her friend, the real-life British spy Rosalinda Fox, Sira, too, aids the British cause.

Basque Country, Spain, 1843. A police constable arrives at a small village in Álava to investigate a mysterious blacksmith who lives alone deep in the woods.

A hit man receives the assignment to kill a woman. But what seems as another job complicates when he is about to execute her, but does not. He will have to go after those who gave him the contract, for, in his profession, those who do not comply with their duty end up dead. But the question remains, why did he not kill the woman?

After a magical night together, Adri voluntarily turns himself into the psychiatric institution where Carla lives.

Amaia after breaking up with Rafa, falls in love with a Catalonian. Koldo, her father, goes to Sevilla to persuade Rafa to go to Catalonia and take Amaia's heart back.

Víctor is a child who is found casually roaming by a country road. His mother, Patricia, a well-known lawyer specialist in media trails, realizes about it and she goes to the hospital, where explains to the police that Víctor is deaf, and he's unable to talk, speaking using sign language. In the police headquarter Víctor explains that he was kidnapped by a strange man when we was entering to the school. The police identifies a possible suspect named Charlie, a man with money troubles and an 8-months pregnant wife who can't explain where he was when Víctor was kidnapped from the school. Seeing the inability of the police to arrest Charlie after some failed attempts to meet Víctor, Patricia contacts Raúl, Patricia's former love interest and Víctor's father, to ask him that he or a friends of him threat seriously Charlie. But when is discovered that Víctor made a false identification, Patricia tries to stop Raúl, starting a chain of events which consequences will be out of control...

A drama centered on a young woman who takes a summer job caring for a bed-ridden older man, and the intimate secrets they begin to share with one another.

Alma’s family has been producing quality olive oil in the Baix Maestrat area of Spain’s Castellón for generations. Yet changing pressures in the industry have made their traditional practices economically untenable, and the family is now in the mass-production poultry business. Alma’s grandfather has not spoken in years. Sadness envelopes him, and he no longer wants to eat. His sons—Alma’s father and uncle—are impatient with him, but Alma understands her grandfather. She realizes he has been grieving for a thousand-year-old olive tree that the family has uprooted and sold to pay some debts. (A sadly common reality in Castellón at present.) Unable to bear the idea that her grandfather could die without seeing this terrible wrong corrected, Alma undertakes a quixotic mission to locate the tree and return it to the family orchard, so that her grandfather may have peace in his final days.

Ferdinand, a little bull, prefers sitting quietly under a cork tree just smelling the flowers versus jumping around, snorting, and butting heads with other bulls. As Ferdinand grows big and strong, his temperament remains mellow, but one day five men come to choose the "biggest, fastest, roughest bull" for the bullfights in Madrid and Ferdinand is mistakenly chosen. Based on the classic 1936 children's book by Munro Leaf.

A mass suicide involving members of a cult takes place in the Canary Islands. Gabriel's younger sister, Cordelia, who he hasn't seen for years, was one of the cult followers. Gabriel decides to travel there and find out what happened.

Madrid, summer 2011. Economic crisis. 15-M movement and 1.5 million pilgrims waiting for the Pope’s arrival live side by side in a Madrid that’s hotter and more chaotic than ever. In this context, detectives Velarde and Alfaro must find what seems to be a serial killer. Their against-the-clock hunt will make them realise something they’d never imagined: neither of them are so very different from the killer.

When his son dies while hiking the famed Camino de Santiago pilgrimage route in the Pyrenees, Tom flies to France to claim the remains. Looking for insights into his estranged child’s life, he decides to complete the 500-mile mountain trek to Spain. Tom soon joins up with other travelers and realizes they’re all searching for something.

A group of people have just signed up to be camp Councillors at a foreign country. They expect the camp to be the place for a memorable summer. Instead, something strange is going on and some of the campers begin to act strange. Things go terribly wrong real fast as a terrible game of tag has the campers running for their lives or going after the campers.

Isabel is an actress recent in her 40 years old, unable to get new roles for movies or theaters, since then directors looking for younger women. She is married with the neurotic Ángel, a screenwriter who is working in his next cinema project with Susana, his producer and ex wife. After Isabel, Ángel, Susana and Carlos, Isabel's first husband, send away to them respective child to a school excursion, Isabel accepts to organize in her house a business dinner for Diego, an important Argentinian actor to negotiate his participation in the movie. During the dinner Carlos appears suddenly with a young girl called Álex, announcing their next wedding and moving to Brasil. But when a little time later Carlos dies unexpectedly, Ángel and Susana suspects of the guilty of Isabel, starting a series of events more maddened each time, along a long night where surprises seems not having end...

Roberto is an unemployed publicist who achieved success when he thought of a famous slogan: "Coca-Cola, the spark of life." Now he is a desperate man, trying to remember the happy days, back to the hotel where he spent the honeymoon with his wife. However, instead of the hotel, he finds a museum built around the Roman theater in the city. While walking through the ruins, he has an accident, an iron rod sticks into his head and leaves him completely paralyzed. If he tries to move he would die. Roberto becomes the focus of the media, which will change his life ...

Marcos Vela is a prestigious gastronomic journalist who accepts the request of an independent publisher to write an article on the recent emergence of the Clandestine Restaurants.

Sun from Chicago (USA) and Lucas from Mallorca (Spain) meet each other in a students's flat in Barcelona. They fall in love and try to enjoy it without thinking of their separation at the term's ending. Will their love prevail?

The protagonist is a young woman, Joan Prats suffering from agnosia, a strange, primary visual disease that is one of the neuropsychological disorders of perception. Although her eyes and ears are in perfect condition, her brain is not able to correctly interpret the stimuli it receives. Joan is the only person to know an industrial secret left behind by her late father and becomes the victim of a sinister plan to extract this information. Her captors plan to use her sensory condition to help extract the information that they so desperately want.

The tentative romance between a gentle Madrid labourer and a working single mother becomes a struggle for survival when the woman’s violent boyfriend returns from prison, in the gritty, suspenseful debut feature from Spanish actor Raúl Arévalo.

Arising out of the horror of the Spanish Civil War, a candidate for canonization is investigated by a journalist who discovers his own estranged father had a deep, dark and devastating connection to the saint's life.While researching the life of Josemaria Escriva, the controversial founder of Opus Dei, the young journalist Robert uncovers hidden stories of his estranged father Manolo, and is taken on a journey through the dark, terrible secrets of his family’s past.

Cristiano Ronaldo: The World at His Feet follows the footballer from his beginnings in Portugal, breakthrough start with Manchester United and current career at Real Madrid.

Two years after the murder of his son and father, a retired hitman sets in motion a carefully crafted revenge plan against the killer: his own brother.

Carlos, a bank executive, begins his morning routine by taking his kids to school. As he starts the car he receives an anonymous phone call informing him that there's a bomb under his seat. A stranger's voice tells him that he only has a few hours to gather together a large amount of cash: if he doesn't, his car will blow up.

Viridinia is preparing to start her life as a nun when she is sent, somewhat unwillingly, to visit to her aging uncle, Don Jaime. He supports her; but the two have met only once. Jaime thinks Viridinia resembles his dead wife. Virdinia has secretly despised this man all her life and finds her worst fears proven when Jaime grows determined to seduce his pure niece. Viridinia becomes undone as her uncle upends the plans she had made to join the convent.

Salamanca, Spain, 1936. In the early days of the military rebellion that began the Spanish Civil War (1936-39), writer Miguel de Unamuno supports the uprising in the hope that the prevailing political chaos will end. But when the confrontation becomes bloody, Unamuno must question his initial position.

While Havana is full of zombies hungry for human flesh, official media reported that the disturbances are caused by dissidents paid by the United States. Panic seizes all until Juan comes to the rescue: he discovers he can kill the undead destroying his brain, and decides to start a small business under the slogan "We kill your loved ones."

Madrid, the beginning of the century. One day, the police inspector Santos Trinidad coming home very drunk, is involved in a triple murder. But there is a witness who managed to escape and that could incriminate him. Santos undertakes an investigation to locate and eliminate the witness. Meanwhile, Chacón a judge in charge of investigating the triple murder, meticulously advances in the search for the murderer. Santos and Chacon soon discover that what seemed a simple case of drug trafficking is actually something far more dangerous.

A teenager finds her perfect life upended when she's stalked by a mysterious doppelganger who has her eyes set on assuming her identity.

After 15 years, Tomas, a not very succesfull writer, comes back to the village in Galicia where his family comes from, Arga, apparently to get an award. But he doesn't know the real reason why he is there, to end with an old curse that is been haunting the village for the last hundred years.

A plane is taken over by a mysterious virus. When the plane lands it is placed under quarantine. Now a group of survivors must band together to survive the quarantine.

Scandal erupts over a famous bullfighter's affair with a left-wing actress.

When Englishman Jonathan Harker visits the exotic castle of Count Dracula, he is entranced by the mysterious aristocrat. But upon learning that the count has sinister designs on his wife, Mina, Harker seeks help from vampire slayer Van Helsing.

In 1596, a Spanish girl, Isabel, is kidnapped by the English during the Capture of Cádiz and sent to England, where, already an adult woman, she falls in love with her kidnapper's son.