Barcelona is both a famously scenic city and a city which, beneath its beautiful exterior, is a complicated melting pot of culture, politics, and history. As such, it's no surprise that it has provided a setting to numerous standout films over the years, fiction and nonfiction, foreign and domestic.
6 movies that will bring Barcelona to life
Whether it's the architecture, the people, or the history you're most interested in Barcelona, you can certainly find films that showcase that aspect of this brilliantly multifaceted city.
'Land and Freedom' (1995)
One of the most important events in Barcelona's history was the Spanish Civil War. Catalonia was one of the bases of the republican, democratic government and war effort during the war, and many foreign fighters, motivated by anti-fascist and pro-socialist sentiment, travelled to Spain to risk their lives. Among the most famous international fighters in the Spanish Civil War were George Orwell and Ernest Hemingway; Orwell's experience was famously memorialized in his book, Homage to Catalonia.
Land and Freedom, known in Spanish as Tierra y Libertad, recounts a story of one of these fighters, a British communist who chooses to travel to Barcelona to take part in the war, joining the POUM militia, the same militia Orwell fought in in real life. Directed by Ken Loach, the film portrays the historical events and the many small- and large-scale ideological conflicts contained within them with care, and is a heartfelt depiction of a story that played out many times in Catalonia during the war.
'Vicky Cristina Barcelona' (2008)
Vicky Cristina Barcelona is an American romantic comedy-drama film made by Woody Allen and starring Javier Bardem, Scarlett Johansson, and Penélope Cruz. One of the most commercially successful and popular movies on this list, the film follows two American women in Barcelona for the summer, Vicky and Cristina, who become romantically entangled with a Spanish artist and his unstable ex-wife.
The movie won several awards, with particular acclaim going to Cruz, who won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance. Vicky Cristina Barcelona doesn't just use Barcelona as a setpiece, but highlights several elements of Catalan art and culture, such as paintings by the Catalan artist Agustí Puig and the architectural creations of Antoni Gaudí, including his Park Güell.
'En Construcción' (2001)
En Construcción (Work in Progress in English) is a documentary focusing on El Raval, formerly Barcelona's red-light district, as a section of it was redeveloped into a new apartment complex. The film focuses on the lives of several people who live and work in the neighborhood, and casts a harsh and honest light on some of Barcelona's internal conflicts and class struggles.
Despite its former reputation for being unsafe and criminal, El Raval is and has been an area of Barcelona with a life and character all its own. José Luis Guerín's En Construcción showcases this unique character and gives a true idea of the lives of the people who live there, and the ways in which development and tourism have impacted them.
'Todo Sobre Mi Madre' (1999)
Todo Sobre Mi Madre, titled All About My Mother in English, is a drama-comedy film which follows a mother whose teenage son is killed in a car accident; following his death, she travels to Barcelona to find her son's other parent, a transgender sex worker named Lola. Along the way, she encounters several other colorful characters of the city's nightlife.
The movie deals with the topics of AIDS and its impact on the city's LGBTQ community, exploring the characters' interpersonal and family relationships and the ways in which they connect to each other. It is one of several highly acclaimed movies by decorated Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar.
'Biutiful' (2010)
Another movie starring Javier Bardem, Biutiful is a psychological drama created by Alejandro González Iñárritu, also known for movies such as The Revenant. The movie follows a criminal living in Barcelona with his two young children who is diagnosed with cancer, and who hopes to find some closure and redemption in his life before he dies.
While the film is grim and not for everyone, it is also deeply heartfelt, and was nominated for two Academy Awards.
'L'Auberge Espagnole' (2002)
The Erasmus Programme is a European Union student exchange programme where students can choose to live and study in another EU country for a year. L'Auberge Espagnole, also known as The Spanish Apartment in English, is a Spanish-French film that follows an Erasmus student from France who goes to study in Barcelona for a year to learn Spanish, and finds himself living with many other international students who all speak different languages and have different customs.
The movie highlights Barcelona's status as a hub of cultural exchange and a highly multilingual city; a traveller in Barcelona might overhear Spanish, Catalan, English, French, and Russian all spoken in a single day. The Spanish Apartment emphasizes this aspect of the city, and the sort of surprising discoveries and new relationships that can develop from living in a foreign place.