Eduardo Noriega Movies
Handsome Spanish actor Eduardo Noriega has drawn praise for his work with such directors as Alejandro Amenábar and Guillermo del Toro, and his killer combination of good looks and solid acting skills has found him playing complex characters that are often simultaneously sympathetic, mysterious, and menacing. Born the youngest of seven brothers in Santander, Cantabria, Spain, Noriega went on to study music harmony and choral singing at Santander University. Though stage studies initially came secondary to music studies, his skills as an actor were undeniable, and Noriega was soon honing his natural skills at Madrid's School of Dramatic Art. Early work with such burgeoning filmmakers as Mateo Gil and the aforementioned Amenábar eventually found the trio teaming for the 1996 thriller Tesis -- which offered Noriega his breakout role and Amenábar his feature directorial debut. A harrowing look at the effects of violence in the modern media, Tesis swept the Goya Awards in 1997, winning its young director the Best New Director award in addition to landing Best Film and Best Screenplay. Success would continue to follow the trio with the release of the metaphysical thriller Abre los Ojos the following year. A surreal study in vanity and questionable reality, the film found Noriega stepping into the lead as a young playboy whose life is turned inside out after a disfiguring accident. If the subsequent lack of success at that year's Goya Awards (the film was nominated in ten categories but took home none) initially proved somewhat disheartening, the international praise and exposure that Abre los Ojos drew offered all involved noteworthy international exposure. The film drew such a following that it was remade in 2001 under the title Vanilla Sky by director Cameron Crowe and featured mega-star Tom Cruise essaying the role originated by Noriega.In the years that followed, director Amenábar went on to achieve stateside success with The Others, while Noriega continued to appear in such Spanish features as The Yellow Fountain, Nobody Knows Anybody (directed by Gil), and Burning Money. He played a living, breathing ghost in director del Toro's masterfully haunting thriller The Devil's Backbone in 2001. Cast as a "prince without a kingdom" whose hallowed soul drives him to commit horrible acts against the young inhabitants of a Spanish orphanage, Noriega delivered a textured performance that offered a fitting catalyst for the film's supernatural menace. He remained in the Spanish Civil War era for the 2001 drama Visionarios and fought in a more modern battle when he played a soldier in the 2002 war drama Guerreros. Later that year, Noriega essayed the lead in the Memento-esque amnesia drama Novo. Though the actor continued to essay strong leading roles, the earlier success of Tesis and Abre los Ojos continued to elude him into the early 2000s. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- 1987
- R
Gaby: A True Story is about a young woman -- the child of rich European refugees living in Mexico -- who was stricken with cerebral palsy at birth. Though her body is completely paralyzed, her mind is unaffected, and she is able to become a college graduate and an acclaimed author. Rachel Levin won acclaim in the title role, but Norma Aleandro received an Oscan nomination for Best Supporting Actress. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Liv Ullmann, Norma Aleandro, (more)
- 1994
The apparently self-destructive debauchery of the eternally bored, nihilistic youth of Generation X is chronicled in this European drama set in Madrid. The stories concern a group of friends in their early 20s who frequent a local bar at night where they drink, do drugs and have meaningless sexual encounters. Much of the story centers on Carlos who has distanced himself emotionally from his comfortably middle-class family; the only one among them he can relate to is his grandfather who seems to understand the hopeless outlook that Carlos and his friends have about their future. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
The debut feature from Spanish wunderkind Alejandro Amenábar (Open Your Eyes, The Others), Tesis is a thriller starring Ana Torrent as Ángela Márquez, a film student who, while researching for a thesis paper on violence in cinema, stumbles upon a snuff film featuring the murder of a former student at the university. Enlisting the help of classmate and violent-movie buff Chema (Fele Martínez), Angela begins an investigation into the crime that leads them to several suspects. One of them is Bosco (Eduardo Noriega), a handsome classmate to whom Angela finds herself attracted, much to the chagrin of Cheme. Tesis was the recipient of seven awards at the 1997 Goya Awards including Best Film. ~ Matthew Tobey, All Movie Guide
The line between dreams and reality become increasingly blurred after a womanizing playboy is nearly killed by a jilted lover in Spanish director Alejandro Amenabar's masterful sophomore effort Abre Los Ojos (Open Your Eyes). It would seem as if Cesar (Eduardo Noriega) has it all. Handsome, charming, and with money to burn, he can get any girl he wants, and usually does so on a nightly basis. Following a birthday party in which he chats up Sofia (Penelope Cruz), the date of his best friend Pelayo (Fele Martinez), Cesar is plunged headfirst into a nightmare world when jealous former lover Nuria (Najwa Nimri) swallows a handful of pills and sends her car careening into a cement wall with the terrified playboy as her hapless passenger. With his formerly strikingly handsome face now twisted into a hideous mass of scarred flesh, Cesar's ugly emotions are now externalized for all to see. Pining for a plastic-surgery miracle to return him to his former glory so that he can seek out Sofia and take a chance at real love, he is pleasantly surprised when the doctors make a breakthrough and Sofia accepts him back into her life. Although all seems perfect for the moment, the formerly soulless player finds that this is only the beginning of his increasingly disturbing journey. Why is Sofia changing appearance and turning into Nuria periodically? And why won't the police and his psychiatrist believe Cesar's desperate attempts to rationalize a world that is growing increasingly surreal? Could it have something to do with a doctor Cesar has seen on television who keeps appearing and attempting to help him out of his nightmare? Peeling away at the layers of his subconscious, Cesar begins to realize that reality is no more than a state of mind, and that in order to get his life back he may be forced to take unthinkable measures. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Eduardo Noriega, Penélope Cruz, (more)
- 1998
- R
Antonio del Real directed this Spanish romantic comedy focusing on ad-agency career girl Lucia (Ana Alvarez) and her best friend, dance teacher Maria (Maria Adanez). Maria's boyfriend is the sexist Pablo (Jorge Sanz). One night Lucia puts away too much alcohol, sleeps with Pablo, and hatches a plan to have Pablo all to herself by finding a new man for Maria. She chooses unemployed actor Antonio (Eduardo Noriega), a handsome guy but not too bright. Since Antonio's brain in Spain is mainly on the wane, Lucia is forced to do a My Fair Lady upgrade on the raw material -- by educating Antonio during several Pygmalion-styled sessions. ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Eduardo Noriega, Ana Alvarez, (more)
Mateo Gil, screenwriter of the acclaimed Spanish work Open Your Eyes (1997) directs this flashy, bizarre psychological thriller set during the stunning spectacle of Seville's Holy Week. Fledging novelist Simon (Eduardo Noriega) makes a living by writing crossword puzzles for the local newspaper and lives with spoiled rich kid weirdo Sapo (Jordi Molla). One day, Simon gets an ominous phone call informing him that if he does not include the word "adversary" in his next crossword there will be hell to pay. Meanwhile, a local leading figure is mysteriously killed when poison gas is released from a Virgin Mary statue. From there, the film spirals into a dazzling parade of nightmarish images such as a naked priest cozying up to another Virgin Mary and a legion of hooded penitents shooting toy guns at trapped and frightened Simon. Noted Spanish filmmaker Alejandro Amenabar provides the music. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Eduardo Noriega, Jordi Mollà, (more)
- 1999
- NR
The directorial debut from Miguel Santesmases, La Fuente Amerilla (aka The Yellow Fountain) is a romantic thriller that also examines the harsh, often violent realities of life in Spain's Chinese community. Lola (Silvia Abascal) is half-Chinese and half-Spanish and no stranger to misfortune. She watched her mother and father die in an incident with Chinese gangsters, and her boyfriend recently shot himself to death while playing Russian roulette. Lola meets a new beau, a charming but shy young man named Sergio (Eduardo Noriega), and he agrees to help her as she tries to discover the truth about the death of her parents. While Eduardo Noriega here portrays Sergio as a quiet, bookish sort with a speech impediment, in Spain he's a major matinee idol who accepted this role as a chance to play against type. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Eduardo Noriega, Silvia Abascal, (more)
Love and betrayal complicate a robbery gone wrong in this offbeat crime thriller shot in Argentina. Angel (Eduardo Noriega) and El Nene (Leonardo Sbaraglia) are a pair of small-time criminals hired to take part in the robbery of an armored truck organized by mobsters Nando (Carlos Roffe) and Fontana (Ricardo Bartis), who working in cahoots with the driver, El Cuervo (Pablo Echarri). Angel and El Nene are also lovers, and when the robbery goes sour and Angel is shot by the police, El Nene is enraged and opens fire on the officers, turning the heist into a bloodbath. Angel and El Nene somehow escape and go into hiding, with El Nene attempting to nurse Angel back to health. As the couple tries to avoid detection in Uruguay, El Cuervo's moll, Vivi (Dolores Fonzi), tells the police of their whereabouts under threat of torture. Meanwhile, beginning to crack under cabin fever, Angel and El Nene slip into town to visit a carnival, where El Nene's head is unexpectedly turned by Giselle (Leticia Bredice), sparking murderous jealousy in Angel. Plata Quemada was adapted from a novel by Ricardo Piglia, which was inspired by a true story. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Eduardo Noriega, Leonardo Sbaraglia, (more)
- 2000
Somewhere in 19th-century Cantabria, Adelaida (Elena Anaya) meets and falls in love with Eusebio (Eduardo Noriega). Unfortunately, Eusebio is drafted for the Spanish-Cuban war. When news comes that he has died, Adelaida refuses to believe it, and her repressive family throws her into the local nuthouse, where, after a time, she realizes that she can do some good and rebels against her family. ~ Rebecca Flint Marx, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Elena Anaya, Eduardo Noriega, (more)
Guillermo del Toro, who quickly became one of the most talked-about directors in contemporary horror films with his first two features, Chronos and Mimic, takes on a more subtle tale of terror with this psychological suspense piece. Casares (Federico Luppi) and Carmen (Marisa Paredes) operate a small home for orphans in a remote part of Spain during the Spanish Civil War. Helping the couple mind the orphanage are Jacinto (Eduardo Noriega), the groundskeeper, and Conchita (Irene Visedo), a teacher who is also involved with Jacinto. Casares and Carmen are aligned with the Republican loyalists, and are hiding a large cache of gold that's used to back the Republican treasury; perhaps not coincidentally, the orphanage has also been subject to attacks from Franco's troops, and an unexploded bomb waits to be defused in the home's courtyard. One day, a boy named Carlos (Fernando Tielve) arrives at the home, looking for a place to stay after being left behind by his parents. Casares and Carmen take him in, and the boy soon strikes up an unlikely friendship with Jaime (Inigo Garces), a boy with a reputation for tormenting other kids. But Carlos soon begins having visions of a mysterious apparition he can't identify, and hears strange stories about a child named Santi who went missing the day the bomb appeared near the orphanage. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Marisa Paredes, Eduardo Noriega, (more)
- 2001
This drama from Spain was inspired by a real-life incident in the 1930s when a number of people living in a small Basque village claimed to have seen apparitions of the Virgin Mary. In the early '30s, an anti-clerical movement swept through Spain and it was decreed that state-sponsored schools were to halt religious instruction and public buildings were to remove religious artwork, a decision that was highly controversial among a large number of Spanish citizens. Joshe (Eduardo Noriega) is a student teacher who guides students in Ezkioga, a small town in the hill country where the removal of religious instruction has been met with outrage. Joshe is engaged to marry Edurne (Leire Ucha), but when he meets Usua (Ingrid Rubio), a girl who works at an inn in the village, he finds himself falling in love and has a hard time reconciling his feelings for the two women. Meanwhile, a number of local residents claim that they have seen the Virgin Mary, who has appeared to them and told them Spain must restore religion to its government before it is too late; among those who have witnessed the vision are both Edurne and Usua. In time, Edurne admits that what she saw was a product of mass hysteria and not a true religious vision, but Usua is not so easily convinced, and Joshe struggles to convince her to embrace logic rather than faith. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Eduardo Noriega, Ingrid Rubio, (more)
Daniel Calparsoro's Guerreros is set in the Balkans in the wake of the ethnic conflict between the Serbs and the Kosovo Albanians that prompted NATO military intervention in 1999. A group of young Spanish army engineers is stationed in a Kosovo village to help the Albanians recover from the war's devastation. The unit is sent on a mission to restore electricity to a small town in hostile territory, but their operation is derailed when they get caught up in the fighting between Serb and Albanian paramilitaries. Struggling to stay neutral, the peacekeepers find themselves fighting for survival as they scamper around the Balkan countryside searching for a way back to headquarters. Their descent into the quagmire of ethnic fighting tests the limits of their idealism and underscores the moral complexities posed by humanitarian intervention. This polished actioner screened at the 2002 Toronto International Film Festival. ~ Elbert Ventura, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Eloy Azorín, Eduardo Noriega, (more)
The nature of love and memory and how the two sensations interrelate are explored in Jean-Pierre Limosin's 2002 film Novo. Office worker Graham (Eduardo Noriega) suffered a head injury that destroyed his ability to maintain long-term memories. Falling in love with the forgetful Graham, temporary office secretary Irene (Anna Mouglalis) takes the opportunity to engage Graham in a sexual relationship that feels like the beginning of a hot romance -- with plenty of adventurous sexual encounters along the way. While Irene insists that she'll maintain the memories for both of them until Graham recovers, she begins to wonder if their romance will endure without his being able to remember any of the hot details from their short history. Novo was a chosen for inclusion into the 2002 Locarno International Film Festival. ~ Ryan Shriver, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Eduardo Noriega, Anna Mouglalis, (more)
- 2004
Inspired by the experiences of a Spanish secret agent who infiltrated the Basque nationalist/separatist organization Euskadi Ta Askasasuna between 1973 and 1975, Miguel Courtois' tense docudrama stars Eduardo Noriega as Mikel Lejarza, aka El Lobo ("The Wolf"). In the politically turbulent 1970s, the ETA's extreme actions gave the conservative Franco regime all the reason they needed to shut down the democratic process in Spain. By infiltrating the ETA, El Lobo managed to effectively take down approximately one quarter of the terrorist activists within the organization. Not only that, but he also thwarted plans by terrorists to escape from prison and resume their reign of violence on the outside. Later, in order to escape the wrath of the ETA - who plastered posters of his likeness all across the Basque country - El Lobo would be forced to change his identity and vanish without a trace. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Eduardo Noriega, Silvia Abascal, (more)
The question as to how far a corporate drone would go to land a high-level position at a multinational corporation is explored in Argentinian director Marcelo Piñeyro's back-stabbing boardroom drama that takes its name from a mysterious human-resources strategy imported from the United States as a means of choosing the best man for the job. As the time for a decision draws near, the streets of Madrid are awash with anti-globalization protesters; and the tension between job applicants Carlos (Eduardo Noriega), Nieves (Najwa Nimri), Fernando (Eduard Fernández), Ana (Adriana Ozores), and Enrique (Ernesto Alterio) comes to a head. As the corporate lackeys engage in an increasingly dehumanizing series of psychological games and scorching betrayals, the choice of who will ultimately take the reins of the coveted position will ultimately depend on which applicant is willing to employ the most diabolical techniques of manipulation. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Eduardo Noriega, Najwa Nimri, (more)
- 2005
Eduardo Noriega dons the beret of beloved Cuban revolutionary Che Guevara in this biopic from director Josh Evans. The leader of the socialist revolt that would shake the entire world, Guevara gave birth to a legacy that would inspire idealists and revolutionaries for years to come. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Eduardo Noriega, Sonia Braga, (more)
- 2006
A fierce soldier fighting for the Spanish cause in Flanders returns to a drastically different Spain to fulfill the dying wish of a fallen friend, only to find that life isn't what it once was in his decaying homeland in director Agustín Díaz Yanes' adaptation of Arturo Pérez-Reverte's popular series of best-selling books. Compelled to fulfill the final wish of his dying friend, noble warrior Alatriste (Viggo Mortensen) makes his way back to Spain to care for the man's young son, Iñigo (Nacho Perez and Unax Ugalde). Things have taken a sharp turn for the worst back home, however, and as Alatriste does his best to help the boy reach manhood while earning his keep as a hired swordsman, he sees his country crumbling at the feet of a feeble monarch who is failing to grasp the inner workings of his own corrupt court. The impulsive handling of the Spanish Inquisition, coupled with the corrosive influence of the Count-Duke of Olivares (Javier Cámara), has brought a once-powerful nation to its knees as the growing chasm between the deceitful upper class and the miserable life of the commoners has effectively served to polarize the populace. In a time when corruption reigns and honor has faded, Alatriste remains a lone figure who refuses to relinquish his noble spirit as he raises Iñigo and enters into a passionate love affair with actress Maria de Castro (Ariadna Gil). ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Viggo Mortensen, Eduardo Noriega, (more)
- 2007
A violent man discovers his mentally challenged brother is his rival for the affections of a beautiful but troubled woman in this drama from filmmaker Vicente Aranda. Raul (Eduardo Noriega) is an angry, loose cannon of a cop who has lost his job after roughing up one too many suspects and receiving death threats from a number of violent and dangerous criminals. With few prospects, Raul heads back to the north of Spain where he grew up and moves in with his father Jose (Hector Colome). One of Raul's few soft spots is for his twin brother Valentin (also played by Eduardo Noriega), who is mentally handicapped, so he becomes deeply concerned when Jose tells him Valentin has been working as a gofer at a local bordello and has fallen in love with one the prostitutes, Milena (Flora Martinez). Raul doesn't want his brother's heart broken by a call girl, so he goes to the brothel to persuade Milena to put an end to their relationship. But Raul finds himself falling for the drug-addicted Milena himself, and he attempts to drive a wedge between her and Valentin in a direct and ugly manner. Canciones de Amor en Lolita's Club (aka Love Songs In Lolita's Club) was adapted from a novel by Juan Marse. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Eduardo Noriega, Flora Martinez, (more)
Forest Whitaker, Dennis Quaid, William Hurt, and Matthew Fox star in director Pete Travis' Rashomon-style thriller in which an assassination attempt on the president of the United States is detailed from five unique perspectives. As the president arrives in Salamanca, gunshots ring out. An American tourist (Whitaker) has captured footage of the would-be assassin on videotape, and now, as the stories of the other four witnesses unfold, each essential piece of the puzzle quickly falls into place. Only when all of the stories are told will the chilling truth to this shocking crime finally emerge. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Dennis Quaid, Matthew Fox, (more)
When an American couple (Woody Harrelson and Emily Mortimer) traveling from China to Moscow on the Trans-Siberian Railway meets an outwardly friendly couple (Eduardo Noriega and Kate Mara) traveling the same route, deception soon gives way to murder in The Machinist director Brad Anderson's tense tale of international intrigue. Ben Kingsley and Thomas Kretschmann co-star as a pair of Russian police officers striving to solve the case and stop the rising body count. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Woody Harrelson, Emily Mortimer, (more)
