Through the fables of the women at the margins, Almodóvar snatches the conventional idea of motherhood and maternity and twists it to suit his characters and their needs.

| Jun 10, 2024

It was like the acclaimed Spanish auteur had dug inside my brain and pulled out so many of my fears, dreams, anxieties, and aspirations and splashed them there for the entire world to take a nakedly raw look at.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Jun 3, 2024

Everyone wears their heart on their sleeve and make them sympathetic whatever the circumstances, bringing the wit and heavy emotion that Almodovar always has in every film he has done.

| Mar 3, 2023

Not only is this the Spanish director's most sophisticated film to date, it's a watershed moment in his career and one of the best movies of the year.

| May 27, 2022

Almodóvar has never been shy about displays of feeling, but rarely has he employed his operatic shifts of emotion with such confidence and control.

| Apr 5, 2022

Arguably the best ever film by visionary Pedro Almodóvar, this heartfelt comedy drama is a celebration of womanhood and maternity which also explores - with tender sensitivity - the trials and tribulations of LGBTQ+ life.

| May 10, 2021

On paper, it features a plot which sounds like the soapiest of Sirk mixed with the most lurid of telenovela and yet, as a testament to the writer/director's mastery, it's a vividly joyful odyssey of fluctuating emotional tones.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 10, 2020

...this melodramatic narrative, in the end, is a satisfying story about femininity and companionship. Arguably one of Almodóvar's masterpieces...

| Apr 29, 2020

For all the film's purple prose and soap opera dramatics, Almodóvar never loses sight of his characters' simple humanity.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Feb 22, 2020

Almodóvar arguably reached his humanistic peak with this deeply satisfying comedy-drama.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Feb 5, 2020

Pedro Almodóvar's winking, melodramatic love note to actresses, Tennessee Williams, and Barcelona is one of those movies that balances the sad and joyful in just the right proportion.

| Mar 25, 2019

This is humanism in drag: Almodovar's passionate redefinition of family values.

| Mar 6, 2018

It's the film we, Almodvar's faithful fans, have been waiting for, the film we knew he had, as they say, in him.

| Nov 27, 2017

Thought-provoking Almodovar drama has lots of sex, profanity

| Original Score: 5/5 | Sep 20, 2016

Almodvar is able to speak through this melodrama with great mastery to all women... and all audiences for that matter. [Full review in Spanish]

| Apr 11, 2016

...about the ability of melodrama to speak to, and rise from, our mundane lives.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Nov 3, 2015

This film is as close to a masterpiece as the director has ever produced.

| Original Score: A- | Dec 13, 2009

Hits a number of the right emotional buttons, due in large part to Roth's extraordinary performance.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Oct 13, 2009

Like Almodovar's first masterpiece, Women on the Verge of Nervous Breakdown, this vivid melodrama, the auteur's second masterwork, celebrates the resilience and camaraderie of women under duress.

| Original Score: A | Dec 24, 2008

It brims with life.

| Aug 12, 2008