Famous Spanish Directors

Pedro Almodovar is a Spanish screenwriter, filmmaker, and former actor. Regarded as one of the most successful Spanish filmmakers of all time, Almodovar has two Academy Awards, two Golden Globe Awards, and five British Academy Film Awards under his belt. His films are characterized by complex narratives, irreverent humor, and great music.

Luis Buñuel was a Spanish-Mexican filmmaker with a brilliant career spanning almost half a century. He worked in France, Mexico, and Spain and directed films spanning various genres. His filmmaking technique was strongly influenced by mise-en-scène. He was hailed as a leader of avant-garde surrealism and is considered one of the top directors of the 20th century.  

Federico García Lorca was a Spanish poet, playwright, and theater director. He was a prominent member of the Generation of '27, a group of poets who essentially worked with avant-garde forms of art and poetry. He was homosexual and had a love affair with sculptor Emilio Aladrén. He mysteriously disappeared at the beginning of the Spanish Civil War.

Nacho Vidal is a Spanish pornographic actor, producer, director, writer, and camera operator. A protégé of popular Italian pornographic actor Rocco Siffredi, Vidal has appeared in more than 1,500 films. Over the course of his career, Vidal has won several awards like XBIZ Awards and Ninfa Awards. In 2012, he was made an inductee of the AVN Hall of Fame.

Jordi Mollà is a Spanish actor, writer, filmmaker, and artist. A critically acclaimed actor, Mollà has been thrice nominated for the prestigious Goya Award for Best Actor. His portrayal of Daniel in the 1997 Spanish drama film, The Lucky Star, earned him a Butaca Award. A self-taught painter, Mollà showcased his works at the Carmen de la Guerra in 2002.

Álex Pina is a Spanish TV personality, writer, producer, director, and series creator. He is best known for creating one of the most popular heist crime drama series of all time, Money Heist. In 2019, Pina was named in The Hollywood Reporter magazine's Top International Showrunners of the Year list.

Xavier Cugat was a Spanish musician and bandleader. He studied classical violin as a child and began working in silent films to support his family. He grew up to become a successful musician and played a leading role in the spread of Latin music. Besides music, he was also a cartoonist and a restaurateur. He was married five times. 

Jaume Collet-Serra is a Spanish-American filmmaker best known for directing horror films like House of Wax, The Shallows, and Orphan. He is also known for his association with Liam Neeson, who has played important roles in many of Collet-Serra's films like Unknown, Run All Night, and The Commuter. 

Juan Antonio Bayona is a Spanish film director. He is known for directing films across genres, including horror, drama, science fiction, and fantasy. He studied at the Escola Superior de Cinema i Audiovisuals de Catalunya (ESCAC) before beginning his career. He won the Goya Best Director Award for the disaster film The Impossible.  

Sergio Peris-Mencheta is a Spanish actor and theatre director. Apart from films, Peris-Mencheta has also appeared in many TV series and plays. A former rugby player, Sergio Peris-Mencheta gave up on his sports career to become an actor. He got his major breakthrough in 1998 when he landed an important role in a TV series titled Al salir de clase.

Juan Diego Botto is an Argentine-Spanish actor and writer. He is known for his portrayal of Iñaqui in the 1999 comedy-drama film Sobreviviré. In 2008, he was honored at the Cairo Film Festival with the Best Actor Award for his performance in a Greek biographical film titled El Greco. Juan Diego Botto is also renowned for his work in theatre.    

Alejandro Amenabar is a Spanish-Chilean music composer, screenwriter, and film director. An influential and respected personality in the Spanish film industry, Amenabar has won nine Goya Awards and two European Film Awards among many other prestigious awards. 

Spanish director, screenwriter, producer, actor, cinematographer, editor, musician and composer Jesús Franco Manera, considered as a cult director by both critics and public, is most reputed as a director of exploitation and B-movies. His expansive career spanning over five decades saw him writing, directing, producing and acting in around 173 feature films.

Renowned Spanish director Carlos Saura is known for his iconic films, which include the Academy Award-nominated Carmen and Tango. The son of a concert pianist mother, he specialized in dance dramas and tragedies. He has also included his childhood memories of the Spanish Civil War in his works.

Writer, director and actor Nacho Vigalondo began his journey in 2001 with Código 7, not only writing and directing the short film, but also playing the part of Tipo in it. He received an Academy award nomination with his next work, 7:35 in the Morning.  Among his better known works are Timecrimes (2007), Extraterrestrial (2011) and Colossal (2016).

Known for her roles in the popular television series like Locked Up and in films like Isla Bonita and Lejos del mar, Olivia Delcan is a popular Spanish actress, who is proficient in English, Spanish and Catalan. An alumnus from William Esper Studio (Manhattan) and William Layton Studio (Madrid), she also wrote and directed a play entitled About Last Night

Javier Ambrossi is a Spanish actor, writer, and director. Ambrossi is renowned for creating the musical La llamada, which he also directed. He then went on to adapt the musical into a film titled Holy Camp, which he directed along with his partner Javier Calvo. In 2017, he was named in the most important LGBT people list by El Mundo.

Spanish filmmaker and actor Santiago Segura Silva is best known for writing, directing and starring in the popular film series Torrente. He rose to fame with Torrente, el brazo tonto de la ley, the first film of the series, which emerged as the highest-grossing Spanish film of all time, later surpassed by its sequel Torrente 2: Misión en Marbella.   

Torbe is a Spanish actor, producer, director, and businessman. He is known for his association with the online porn industry and has even appeared in several porn films. His success in the porn industry earned him opportunities to appear in mainstream films like Torrente 3: El protector. A controversial personality, Torbe has been accused of sex trafficking among other offenses.

Isabel Coixet is a Spanish film director renowned for her filmmaking technique. Counted among the most prolific directors of contemporary Spain, Coixet has won several prestigious awards, such as Goya Awards, Forqué Awards, and Butaca Awards. A multi-talented personality, Isabel Coixet is also credited with founding a production company named Miss Wasabi Films.

Cecilia Gessa is a Spanish actress, director, producer, and former pornographic actress. Gessa, who was born into an artistic family, received training in acting, dancing, and singing. Apart from being a film personality, Cecilia Gessa also directs and manages her own event management company named Gessas’ Events Company.

The Goya Award-winning director of cult films such as The Day of the Beast and Dance with the Devil, Álex de la Iglesia deals with macabre themes and dark comedy. Initially a comic book artist, he worked as a TV show decorator and art director before stepping into filmmaking.

David Trueba is a Spanish film director, novelist, and screenwriter. He is known for directing movies like The Good Life, Madrid, 1987, and Living Is Easy with Eyes Closed. The younger brother of Oscar-winning filmmaker Fernando Trueba, David Trueba has also directed several TV series. He is also known as the ex-husband of popular Spanish actress Ariadna Gil.

Aldo Sambrell was a Spanish actor, producer, and director. Between 1961 and 1996, Sambrell appeared in more than 150 films. Aldo Sambrell is best remembered for playing henchmen and other minor characters in various Western films, such as the Man with No Name Trilogy, Once Upon a Time in the West, and 100 Rifles.

Best remembered for reinventing the film noir genre, director Jean Negulesco earned the tag of "the first real master of CinemaScope.” Born in Romania, he later moved to Paris, where he worked as a stage designer and painter. His Oscar-nominated direction in Johnny Belinda made him popular in Hollywood.

Tristán Ulloa is a Spanish actor, director, and writer. His portrayal of Javi in the 1998 film Mensaka, earned him the Toulouse Cinespaña award for Best Actor and a nomination at the Goya Awards. He is also known for his performance in the critically acclaimed film Sex and Lucia, for which he received a Goya Award nomination for Best Actor. 

Fernando Soto is a Spanish actor who has taken part in several theatre and film productions. He has also appeared in many TV series like Isabel, Hospital Central, and Money Heist. Apart from being an actor, Fernando Soto is also a director; he has directed plays like Rafael Spregelburd's La estupidez and Najwa Nimry's Drac Pack.

Rodrigo Cortés is a Spanish film producer, director, writer, editor, and screenwriter. His 2010 English-language psychological thriller film Buried earned him international recognition as the film was premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. Rodrigo Cortés is also known for directing the 2012 supernatural thriller film Red Lights, which starred popular actors like Robert De Niro, Sigourney Weaver, and Cillian Murphy.

Best known for his war novels, such as The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, Vicente Blasco Ibáñez was a prominent member of the Spanish Generation of ’98 movement. Though he had been elected to the parliament, he later went into self-exile. Many of his novels were later adapted into films.

Bigas Luna was a Spanish film director, designer, and artist whose works are characterized by a strong emphasis on the erotic. He was internationally known and made films in Spanish, Catalan, Italian, French, and English. Besides his career in the show business, he also ran an organic farm with his wife. He died of cancer in 2013. 

Best known as the director of the Goya Award- and Academy Award-winning Spanish film Belle Époque, filmmaker Fernando Trueba initially worked as a film critic for El Pais. He also launched the journal Casablanca. His first foray in to animation, Chico and Rita, too was a huge success.

Spanish-born French author and playwright Fernando Arrabal is best known for his absurdist plays. While he initially studied law, he later switched to drama. He has written and directed films such as Viva la Muerte, and his characters are often murderers or prostitutes amid cruel and pornographic themes.

Argentine operatic tenor Jose Cura initially trained as an orchestral conductor but later soared to fame with his roles in operas such as Verdi’s Otello and Stiffelio. With Cavalleria Rusticana, he became the second tenor in the history of the Metropolitan Opera to make his debut on the opening night.

Renowned Spanish filmmaker Miguel Morayta had fought for the Republicans during the Spanish Civil War but left Spain to move to eventually settle in Mexico, where he revolutionized filmmaking. He gathered experience as both a technician and a director and ended up directing over 80 films, such as Amor perdido.