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Luis Buñuel
Highlighting the sly, subversive wit and cool but compassionate intelligence of the great Spanish director.
After kickstarting his career with a couple of controversial collaborations with Salvador Dalí – and both Un Chien andalou and L’Age d’or retain the capacity to shock audiences even today – the Spanish director Luis Buñuel established himself as the cinema’s preeminent surrealist with a series of superb films made in Mexico in the 1950s and early ’60s.
But Buñuel is best known for the films made after his return to Europe in the ’60s, where more generous budgets enabled him to work in colour with top cinematographers, with the brilliantly imaginative writer Jean-Claude Carrière, and with many of the biggest European stars of the time. Our films from Buñuel’s ‘mature’ period highlight his sly subversive wit, his cool but compassionate intelligence, and his astute understanding of the often perverse, irrational but always intriguing aspects of human fear and desire.
- Geoff Andrew
Belle de Jour Belle de Jour
Drama 1967 100 mins Director: Luis Buñuel
Luis Buñuel's provocative classic about a bored and neglected housewife (Catherine Deneuve) risks her reputation to take up a daring new hobby.
Buñuel in the Labyrinth of the Turtles Buñuel in the Labyrinth of the Turtles
Animation & Artists Moving Image 2018 81 mins Director: Salvador Simó
In a stranger-than-fiction tale befitting the master surrealist filmmaker himself, Buñuel in the Labyrinth of the Turtles tells the story of how Luis Buñuel made his third film.
Un Chien Andalou Un Chien Andalou
Animation & Artists Moving Image 1928 16 mins Silent Director: Luis Buñuel
A scabrous study of desire, the subconscious and anti-clericalism - Buñuel and Dalí’s provocative first film is a classic of Surrealist cinema.
The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie
Comedy 1972 97 mins Director: Luis Buñuel
Luis Buñuel's comedy follows a group of wealthy friends who, for increasingly absurd and fanciful reasons, cannot manage to have a meal.
Death in the Garden Death in the Garden
Action and Adventure 1956 99 mins Director: Luis Buñuel
A band of fugitives are forced to flee for their lives into the jungle in this subversive adventure tale from cinema's master provocateur, Luis Buñuel.
Speaking of Buñuel Speaking of Buñuel
Documentary 2000 99 mins Director: José Luis López Linares and Javier Rioyo
José Luis López-Linares and Javier Rioyo’s incisive documentary about Luis Buñuel.
Tristana Tristana
Drama 1970 95 mins Director: Luis Buñuel
A young orphan is sexually initiated by her older uncle, launching a cycle of imprisonment, hatred, and vengeance, in Luis Buñuel’s haunting study of sexual politics.