Vicky Cristina Barcelona (Woody Allen, 2008)

Penélope Cruz and Javier Bardem in Vicky Cristina Barcelona

Cast: Rebecca Hall, Scarlett Johansson, Javier Bardem, Penélope Cruz, Chris Messina, Patricia Clarkson, Kevin Dunn, Christopher Evan Welch (voice). Screenplay: Woody Allen. Cinematography: Javier Aguiressarobe. Production design: Alain Bainée. Film editing: Alisa Lepselter. 

There are no surprises in Woody Allen's Vicky Cristina Barcelona. It's the oft-told tale of Americans abroad, experiencing culture shock when their preconceptions about life don't mesh with those in other parts of the world. In this case, it's two young women, Rebecca Hall's somewhat uptight Vicky and Scarlett Johansson's more free-spirited Cristina, who get caught up in the relationship between a sexy Spanish painter, Juan Antonio (Javier Bardem), and his volatile ex-wife, Maria Elena (Penélope Cruz). Triangles and even quadrangles form among them. Allen supplies a narrator (Christopher Evan Welch) who sounds very much like Woody Allen, but he's not really necessary unless you've never seen one of his movies before. It's late-career Allen, and one of the few to be both critically and commercially successful, winning an Oscar for Cruz's vivid performance. 

Belle Époque (Fernando Trueba, 1992)

Miriam Díaz Aroca, Maribel Verdú, Penélope Cruz, and Ariadna Gil in Belle Époque

Cast: Jorge Sanz, Fernando Fernán-Gómez, Maribel Verdú, Ariadna Gil, Penélope Cruz, Miriam Díaz Aroca, Gabino Diego, Agustín González, Chus Lampreave, Mary Carmen Ramírez, Michel Galabru. Screenplay: Rafael Azcona, José Luis García Sánchez, Fernando Trueba. Cinematography: José Luis Alcaine. Film editing: Carmen Frías. Music: Antoine Duhamel. 

A sexy romp with a body count, Belle Époque is perhaps most remembered today for the speech director Fernando Trueba gave when he accepted the Oscar for best foreign language film. "I would like to believe in God so I can thank him, but I just believe in Billy Wilder. So thank you, Billy Wilder."  What Trueba's film has in common with Wilder's oeuvre is a certain cynical edge. Even Wilder's funniest movies, such as Some Like It Hot (1959), get their edge from a recognition of the violence underlying comedy -- that film's cross-dressing protagonists, after all, are fleeing for their lives after the St. Valentine's Day massacre. And so the sensuous idyll that takes place in the Spanish countryside starts with the deaths of two policemen arresting the protagonist, Fernando (Jorge Sanz), during a period of comparative peace before the full outbreak of the Civil War. It continues with Fernando making love to Clara (Miriam Díaz Aroca) on the riverbank at the very spot where her husband drowned. And it reaches its conclusion just after the suicide of a disillusioned priest. Sex and death have rarely been more closely linked in what is intended as a romantic comedy. Trueba is not as skilled as Wilder was at maintaining the lightness of tone necessary to fend off the darkness, but he's pretty good at it. 

Jamón, Jamón (Bigas Luna, 1992)

Penélope Cruz and Javier Bardem in Jamón, Jamón

Cast: Penélope Cruz, Javier Bardem, Jodi Mollà, Stefania Sandrelli, Anna Galiena, Juan Diego, Tomás Penco. Screenplay: Cuca Canals, Bigas Luna. Cinematography: José Luis Alcaine. Production design: Gloria Martí-Palanqués, Pep Oliver. Film editing: Teresa Font. Music: Nicola Piovani. 

With its copulative roundelay, nude bullfighting, and death by ham, Bigas Luna's satiric black comedy Jamón, Jamón confused and offended some of its early viewers, who may have forgotten that Spain is the country that produced Goya and Dalí. 

All About My Mother (Pedro Almodóvar, 1999)

Toni Cantó and Cecilia Roth in All About My Mother

Cast: Cecilia Roth, Marisa Paredes, Candela Peña, Antonia San Juan, Penélope Cruz, Rosa Maria Sardà, Fernando Fernán Gómez, Toni Cantó, Eloy Azorín. Screenplay: Pedro Almodóvar. Cinematography: Affonso Beato. Production design: Antxón Gómez. Film editing: José Salcedo. Music: Alberto Iglesias.

Fascinatingly complex melodrama that's part hommage to movies like Douglas Sirk's and part exploration of contemporary views on gender and sexuality, but mostly one of Pedro Almodóvar's most searching and honest films. It won the Oscar for best foreign language film.

Murder on the Orient Express (Kenneth Branagh, 2017)

Murder on the Orient Express (Kenneth Branagh, 2017)

Cast: Kenneth Branagh, Daisy Ridley, Leslie Odom Jr., Tom Bateman, Penélope Cruz, Josh Gad, Johnny Depp, Derek Jacobi, Michelle Pfeiffer, Judi Dench, Olivia Colman, Willem Dafoe. Screenplay: Michael Green, based on a novel by Agatha Christie. Cinematography: Haris Zambarloukos. Production design: Jim Clay. Film editing: Mick Audsley. Music: Patrick Doyle.

Open Your Eyes (Alejandro Amenábar, 1997)

I have pretty much forgotten the American remake, Vanilla Sky (Cameron Crowe, 2001), with Tom Cruise. But I'm afraid I'm going to forget the original rather quickly, too. Sci-fi head-spinners generally work for me only if they feature plausible and interesting people. The protagonist of Open Your Eyes, César (Eduardo Noriega), is certainly handsome but otherwise he's just another rich layabout who doesn't seem to have much compunction about stealing Sofia (Penélope Cruz), the young woman his friend Pelayo (Fele Martinez) brings to César's birthday party. But that awakens the jealousy of his ex-girlfriend, Nuria (Najwa Nimri), who offers César a ride in her car and then drives it off a hillside. The accident leaves César disfigured -- and then the plot switches into a complex cross-cutting between reality and nightmare. The premise is intriguing: We learn eventually that the disfigured César, told that plastic surgery can do nothing to restore his good looks, commits suicide so that he can be cryogenically frozen, in the hope that one day be revived and have his face restored. But he also signs a clause that allows for his memories to be replaced with artificial ones, so that he will forget the trauma of the accident and the disfigurement. The unraveling of this plot, devised by Amenábar and Mateo Gil, involves much confusion of identity, including scenes in which César finds Sofia turning into the murderous Nuria. With the aid of the psychologist Antonio (Chete Lara), who may or may not be real, César manages to discover what may or may not have happened -- the film is just that unwilling to make everything explicit. Cruz, who played the same role in the American remake, is quite effective as the lovely Sofia, a victim of César's obsession and Nuria's cruelty, generating the only real suspense in the film.