The best Penélope Cruz’s drama movies
Penélope Cruz Sánchez is a Spanish actress and model, signed at age 15, made her acting debut at 16 on television and her feature film debut the following year in Jamón, jamón (1992), to critical acclaim. Cruz achieved recognition for her lead roles in the 2001 films Vanilla Sky and Blow.
She has since built a successful career, appearing in films from a range of genres, from thrillers to family friendly holiday features. She has received critical acclaim for her roles in Volver (2006) and Nine (2009) receiving Golden Globe and Academy Award nominations for each. She won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in 2008 for Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008). She was the first Spanish actress in history to receive an Academy Award and the first Spanish actress to receive a star at the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Cruz has modeled for companies such as Mango, Ralph Lauren and L'Oréal. Penélope and her younger sister Mónica Cruz have designed items for Mango. Cruz has volunteered in Uganda and India; she donated her salary from The Hi-Lo Country to help fund the late nun's mission. A wax sculpture of Cruz will be placed in a premier spot in the Grevin Wax Museum in Paris.
Not Love, Just Frenzy
5.5/10
From the land of Almodovar comes a hot new film about drugs, sex & everything else!
Blow
7.5/10
A boy named George Jung grows up in a struggling family in the 1950's. His mother nags at her husband as he is trying to make a living for the family. It is finally revealed that George's father cannot make a living and the family goes bankrupt. George does not want the same thing to happen to him, and his friend Tuna, in the 1960's, suggests that he deal marijuana. He is a big hit in California in the 1960's, yet he goes to jail, where he finds out about the wonders of cocaine. As a result, when released, he gets rich by bringing cocaine to America. However, he soon pays the price.
Murder on the Orient Express
6.5/10
Genius Belgian detective Hercule Poirot investigates the murder of an American tycoon aboard the Orient Express train.
Parallel Mothers
7.1/10
Two unmarried women who have become pregnant by accident and are about to give birth meet in a hospital room: Janis, middle-aged, unrepentant and happy; Ana, a teenager, remorseful and frightened.
Sex and the City 2
4.5/10
Carrie, Charlotte, and Miranda are all married now, but they're still up for a little fun in the sun. When Samantha gets the chance to visit one of the most extravagant vacation destinations on the planet and offers to bring them all along, they surmise that a women-only retreat may be the perfect excuse to eschew their responsibilities and remember what life was like before they decided to settle down.
Sahara
6.1/10
Scouring the ocean depths for treasure-laden shipwrecks is business as usual for a thrill-seeking underwater adventurer and his wisecracking buddy. But when these two cross paths with a beautiful doctor, they find themselves on the ultimate treasure hunt.
Jamon Jamon
6.4/10
Jose Luis is an executive at his parents underwear factory where his girlfriend Sylvia works on the shop floor. When Sylvia becomes pregnant, Jose Luis promises her that he will marry her, most likely against the wishes of his parents. Jose Luis' mother is determined to break her son's engagement to a girl from a lower-class family, and hires Raul, a potential underwear model and would-be bullfighter to seduce Sylvia.
The Counselor
5.4/10
A lawyer finds himself in far over his head when he attempts to get involved in drug trafficking.
Loving Pablo
6.3/10
The film chronicles the rise and fall of the world's most feared drug lord Pablo Escobar and his volatile love affair with Colombia's most famous journalist Virginia Vallejo throughout a reign of terror that tore a country apart.
Open Your Eyes
7.7/10
A very handsome man finds the love of his life, but he suffers an accident and needs to have his face rebuilt by surgery after it is severely disfigured.
Volver
7.6/10
Raimunda lives and works in Madrid with her husband Paco and their daughter Paula. Raimunda's sister Sole lives nearby. The two sisters miss their mother Irene who died several years ago in a house fire along with their father. When a former neighbor from their hometown reports that she has seen the ghost of Irene, the daughters do not believe her. After a murder and a family tragedy, however, Irene's spirit materializes around her daughters to comfort them.
To Rome with Love
6.3/10
Four tales unfold in the Eternal City: While vacationing in Rome, architect John encounters a young man whose romantic woes remind him of a painful incident from his own youth; retired opera director Jerry discovers a mortician with an amazing voice, and he seizes the opportunity to rejuvenate his own flagging career; a young couple have separate romantic interludes; a spotlight shines on an ordinary man.
Live Flesh
7.3/10
A scorned ex-convict forces himself into the lives of the couple who put him behind bars.
Vicky Cristina Barcelona
7.1/10
Two girlfriends on a summer holiday in Spain become enamored with the same painter, unaware that his ex-wife, with whom he has a tempestuous relationship, is about to re-enter the picture.
Belle Époque
7.1/10
In 1931, a young soldier deserts from the army and falls into a country farm, where he is welcomed by the owner due to his political ideas. Manolo has four daughters, Fernando likes all of them and they like him, so he has to decide which one to love.
Official Competition
7/10
When a billionaire entrepreneur impulsively decides to create an iconic movie, he demands the best. Renowned filmmaker Lola Cuevas is recruited to mastermind this ambitious endeavour. Completing the all-star team are two actors with massive talent but even bigger egos: Hollywood heartthrob Félix Rivero and radical theatre actor Iván Torres. Both are legends, but not exactly best friends. Through a series of increasingly eccentric trials set by Lola, Félix and Iván must confront not only each other, but also their own legacies. Who will be left when the cameras finally start rolling?
Pain and Glory
7.5/10
Salvador Mallo, a filmmaker in the twilight of his career, remembers his life: his mother, his lovers, the actors he worked with. The sixties in a small village in Valencia, the eighties in Madrid, the present, when he feels an immeasurable emptiness, facing his mortality, the incapability of continuing filming, the impossibility of separating creation from his own life. The need of narrating his past can be his salvation.
Head in the Clouds
6.5/10
Gilda Bessé shares her Paris apartment with an Irish schoolteacher, Guy Malyon, and Mia, a refugee from Spain. As the world drifts toward war, Gilda defiantly pursues her hedonistic lifestyle and her burgeoning career as a photographer. But Guy and Mia feel impelled to join the fight against fascism, and the three friends are separated.
Noel
6.1/10
Christmas Eve in New York, and the lonely divorced publisher, Rose Collins, needs a miracle to improve the health of her mother, interned in a hospital with Alzheimers. She feels sorry for another patient and meets his visitor. Meanwhile, Nina Vasquez breaks her engagement with her beloved fiancé Mike due to his suffocating jealousy, but misses him. Mike is stalked by a stranger, bartender Artie Venzuela. The poor Jules arranges to spend Christmas Eve in the hospital, where he spent the best Christmas of his life when he was a teenager. The lives of some of these characters cross with others along the night.
Elegy
6.7/10
Cultural critic David Kepesh finds his life -- which he indicates is a state of "emancipated manhood" -- thrown into tragic disarray by Consuela Castillo, a well-mannered student who awakens a sense of sexual possessiveness in her teacher.
