Best Cuban movies
A curated collection of popular movies from Cuba.
Buena Vista Social Club (1999)
Buena Vista Social Club (1999)
In this fascinating Oscar-nominated documentary, American guitarist Ry Cooder brings together a group of legendary Cuban folk musicians (some in their 90s) to record a Grammy-winning CD in their native city of Havana. The result is a spectacular compilation of concert footage from the group's gigs in Amsterdam and New York City's famed Carnegie Hall, with director Wim Wenders capturing not only the music -- but also the musicians' life stories.
Chico & Rita (2010)
Chico & Rita (2010)
Chico is a young piano player with big dreams. Rita is a beautiful singer with an extraordinary voice. Music and romantic desire unites them, but their journey - in the tradition of the Latin ballad, the bolero - brings heartache and torment.
I Am Cuba (1964)
I Am Cuba (1964)
Four vignettes on the lives of the Cuban people in the pre-revolutionary era. In Havana, Maria is ashamed when a man she loves discovers how she makes a living. Pedro, an old farmer, discovers that the land he cultivates is being sold to an American company. A student sees his friends attacked by the police while they distribute leaflets supporting Fidel Castro. Finally, a peasant family is threatened by Batista's army.
Behavior (2014)
Behavior (2014)
Meet Chala, an eleven year-old boy with a hard life and strong respect for Carmela, his sixth grade teacher. The pair develops a solid bond, but after Carmela suffers an accident, things get complicated…
Buena Vista Social Club: Adios (2017)
Buena Vista Social Club: Adios (2017)
In 1996, Cuban bandleader Juan de Marcos Gonzalez, British producer Nick Gold, and American guitarist Ry Cooder convened in Havana to produce a Cuban-Malian collaboration. When the Malians couldn’t get visas, the team turned their attention to reviving a forgotten generation of legendary son cubano musicians and formed an on-the-fly ensemble: the Buena Vista Social Club. Two decades since that fateful first session, we catch up to these master musicians, as they reflect on the magical unfolding of their lives—from humble origins to the evolution and surprising revival of their careers, all against the backdrop of Cuba’s dramatic history. Brimming with unseen concert, rehearsal, and archival footage, this film is an emotional, shimmering celebration of music’s power to transcend age, ideologies, and class, and to connect us to each other through our souls.
Twilight (2015)
Twilight (2015)
Alicia, a circus clown, dreams of being an actress. When the circus arrives in a remote village she meets Abelito, a boy with a skin disorder that prevents him from going out in the sun. As Abelito looks forward to the circus, Alicia anxiously awaits news from Havana about a casting.
Death of a Bureaucrat (1966)
Death of a Bureaucrat (1966)
A young man attempts to fight the system in an entertaining account of bureaucracy amok and the tyranny of red tape. Restored by the Academy Film Archive and the Instituto Cubano del Arte e Industrias Cinematográficos in 2019.
Now! (1965)
Now! (1965)
Using morgue photos, newsreel footage, and a recording by Lena Horne, Cuban filmmaker Santiago Alvarez fired off 'Now!', one of the most powerful bursts of propaganda rendered in the 1960s.
Lucía (1968)
Lucía (1968)
In his award-winning film Lucía, Humberto Solás interpreted the theme of Cuba’s hundred years' struggle in an entirely novel way to create an epic in three separate episodes, each centred around a woman called Lucía and each unfolding in a different period of Cuban history, corresponding to the three stages of colonialism (1895), neocolonialism (1930) and socialist revolution (1968). The three episodes also present us with "Lucías" of different social classes. Solás described his film in this way: "The woman's role always lays bare the contradictions of a period and makes them explicit: Lucía is not a film about women, it's a film about society."
Alfa (2016)
Alfa (2016)
Alfa, a famous porn actor, must deal with his fears, insecurities and memories when he begins work on a new film without Yerry, his former partner in life and porn. On his first day of shooting without him, Alfa tries to act as in the past but can things be like before? Javier Ferreiro's short film reflects on the difficult decision of letting someone go to move forward. ALFA is framed in the context of gay porn cinema in Cuba where pornography is banned but, little by little, it's growing up an underground industry impulsed by foreign tourism.
Sergio and Sergei (2018)
Sergio and Sergei (2018)
In 1991, the USSR is falling apart and Cuba enters its hardest economic crisis. Sergio, a professor of Marxism who can't provide for his family, and Sergei, a Soviet cosmonaut stranded in the Mir space station, share a common passion: amateur radio. Through this hobby, both men will be able to help each other in facing the dramatic changes of their countries.
A Paradise (2014)
A Paradise (2014)
Damaris and Alberto live in an isolated village in the Sierra Maestra Mountains of Cuba. Four months ago, their 12 year old son committed suicide.
The Princess and the Magic Mirror (2014)
The Princess and the Magic Mirror (2014)
Poor farmer's son Tom Little may be small, but what he lacks in brawn, he more than makes up for in brains and bravery. When a magic mirror shows him that the love of his life is no less than the beautiful princess, he's determined to win her heart. Meanwhile, a revengeful witch has conjured up a giant tree that covers the royal palace and destroys the court's fountain. Having heard that the King is offering his daughter's hand and half the kingdom to whoever manages to free the palace from this spell, Tom tries his luck against all odds.
Loving Cuba (2019)
Loving Cuba (2019)
While a mother only just finds out that her daughter's dating a Cuban, she realises her daughter will get married on Cuba too. To hinder the failure-designated marriage, she immediately gets on a flight to Cuba.
The Wall of Words (2014)
The Wall of Words (2014)
A mother struggles to hold her family together after her son succumbs to a disease that leaves him disabled.
The Last Supper (1976)
The Last Supper (1976)
A pious plantation owner attempts to teach Christianity to 12 of his slaves by inviting them to participate in a reenactment of the Last Supper.
What's Mine is Yours (2021)
What's Mine is Yours (2021)
A young couple in Havana struggles desperately to find a place in the crowded city where they can be alone and unseen. Combining video essay, fiction, and documentary footage of Cuban streets, What’s Mine is Yours is a darkly humorous, frenetic look at the way dense urban life confuses our desire for intimacy.
One Way or Another (1977)
One Way or Another (1977)
In Miraflores, Cuba, the growing romance between Mario, a factory worker, and Yolanda, a schoolteacher, throws into relief the differences in their perspectives and values in Revolutionary Cuba.
Habanastation (2011)
Habanastation (2011)
Directed mainly for kids, the film speaks of a Havana that reveals two distinct faces, from the everyday life of a couple of kids.
I'm Going to Santiago (1964)
I'm Going to Santiago (1964)
This black-and-white film is a loving portrait of Santiago de Cuba and its people. It provides a view of Cuba as a picturesque country, the product of an earthy mix of black and criollo cultures. The film uses historical images which portray the end of the eighteenth century when Haitian slave owners fled with their slaves to Cuba after the Haitian Revolution.
Pattaki (2019)
Last Days in Havana (2016)
Last Days in Havana (2016)
The story of a friendship in a city on the verge of substantial change. Miguel dreams of settling in New York while he waits for a visa that never seems to arrive, and Diego, a HIV-positive homosexual man, puts his dreams and cheerfulness to good use in his struggle to carry on enjoying every single day of his life from a rickety old bed in his small bedroom.
Winds of Havana (2016)
Winds of Havana (2016)
The killing of a fiery young teacher sets Detective Mario Conde on the trail of a drug kingpin with ties to the high school he once attended.
More Vampires in Havana (2003)
More Vampires in Havana (2003)
In 1923 the scientist Von Dracula invented Vampisol, a drink that allowed vampires to live in the sun. La Capa Nostra and the European Vampire Group confront each other in Havana to control the Vampisol, but Pepe, Von Dracula's nephew, sang the Vampisol formula for free on Radio Vampiro Internacional. Now Pepe must face the Nazi vampires, who use the most powerful Vampisol: El Vampiyaba.
Los aviones que se caen (2012)
Los aviones que se caen (2012)
In the outskirts of Havana, Hugo dreams of baseball.
Molina's Rebecca (2016)
Molina's Rebecca (2016)
Josefa and Abelardo is an old couple wracked by monotony. She is quite authoritarian, and he is always trying to please her, only achieving herirritation. Sexual appetites have been decaying over the years, mostly in Josefa; whose only pleasure is the soap operas she follows with great attention. One night, with the arrival of Rebecca, Abelardo's young and desirable niece, the routine of the marriage changes drastically.
Faccio Un Salto All'Avana (2011)
Faccio Un Salto All'Avana (2011)
Fedele and Vittorio are two brothers who married the daughters of a rich entrepreneur, Siniscalco. But while Fedele is an irreproachable husband, Vittorio cheats on his wife and accumulates gambling debts, until one day his car is found at the bottom of a lake and he is left for dead. Six years later, however, the extraordinary news arrives: Vittorio is alive and is in Cuba, where he lives by scamming tourists. Fedele then leaves with the intention of bringing him back to his family.
Castro's Secret Reef (2016)
Castro's Secret Reef (2016)
Cuba's enforced isolation has resulted in the unlikeliest of marine reserves: a huge, rambling archipelago known as Jardines de la Reina, or "Gardens of the Queen." Stretching around 140 miles along the southern coast of Cuba, it's one of the longest barrier reef systems in the world. Get an up-close look at Fidel Castro's diving playground, a forgotten ocean paradise unseen for half a century, and witness exotic species rarely seen elsewhere in the region. It's the lost jewel of the Caribbean, but how long can this pristine wilderness survive?
Madrigal (2007)
Madrigal (2007)
Javier is an actor with an affinity for writing. When he begins his love story with Luisita, he does not know where the truth begins and ends. Fifteen years later he has converted his story into literature that relates his tragic love story in a creative way.
Day of the Flowers (2013)
Day of the Flowers (2013)
Two young, strong-willed Scottish sisters, one a left-wing activist, the other a most-popular-girl-in-school type, take their late father's ashes to Cuba, the site of many family legends of his services to the Revolution. Arriving in Havana, the two women promptly lose the ashes and go through a series of misadventrues - both romantic and dangerous - to try to retrieve them. A colourful and wryly humourous tale of cross-cultural misunderstandings and lost illusions.