Pedro Almodóvar

Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar's deeply personal films gleefully combine elements of melodrama, comedy, and mystery in the service of highly theatrical characters fighting for, and against, their true desires. After spending his childhood at a religious boarding school, Almodóvar joined the vibrant alternative art scene that flourished in Madrid after the fall of Francisco Franco; his early work, including the sexually adventurous Labyrinth of Passion, established his candy-colored aesthetic and affinity for expressive, flamboyant female characters. In 1988, the openly gay director broke onto the global film scene with the Oscar-nominated Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, an airy feminist comedy starring longtime collaborator Carmen Maura, and later explored the explosive, devastating consequences of repressed passion in dramatic movies such as The Flower of My Secret and High Heels. Almodóvar followed up the massive global success of '99's All About My Mother, which delves into the tempestuous waters of matriarchal grief and acceptance, with Talk to Her's bittersweet love story and, later, Volver, a magical-realist drama starring Penélope Cruz as a defiantly headstrong sister, mother, and murder accomplice. The Skin I Live In, an uncharacteristic detour into queasy horror territory, is yet another, larger-than-life Almodóvar production that explores the common threads of love, freedom, and desire that bind the world together.