Gael García Bernal Movies

A mysterious loner attempts to successfully complete his criminal mission while operating outside of the law in contemporary Spain. His objectives shrouded in secrecy, the untrusting lone wolf (Isaach de Bankolé) sets out on his latest assignment knowing that the law is never too far behind. Bill Murray, Tilda Swinton, and Gael García Bernal co-star in a crime drama from acclaimed indie filmmaker Jim Jarmusch (Mystery Train, Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai). ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

Director Gerardo Naranjo transplants the myth of the last romantic couple to upper middle-class Mexico City with this vital and hectic tale of a young couple who throw caution to the wind and set out in search of their true fate. Román is the son of a contemptible, right-leaning congressman. Recently enrolled in a new high school, the rebellious teen clumsily attempts to hang himself on-stage at the big talent show. Maru is the sole member of the audience to applaud, earning both students a day of detention. After bonding during the course of their punishment, Román and Maru grab daddy's gun, steal a Volkswagen, and hit the road bound for nowhere. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

Student Academy Award winner Cary Joji Fukunaga makes his feature directorial debut with this epic dramatic thriller following a Honduran teenager who reunites with her long-estranged father and attempts to emigrate to America with him in order to start a new life. Inspired by the director's firsthand experience with Central American immigrants, Sin Nombre opens to find dejected teenager Sayra (Paulina Gaitan) biding her time in Honduras while dreaming of a brighter future. Upon reuniting with the father she hasn't seen in years, Sayra seizes the opportunity to finally make her dreams a reality. Her father has a new family in the United States, and he's preparing to travel with her uncle to Mexico, where they will then cross the border to freedom. Meanwhile, in Mexico, Tapachula teen Casper (aka Casper, played by Edgar Flores), has gotten caught up with the notorious Mara Salvatrucha street gang. He's just delivered a new recruit to the Maras in the form of desperate 12-year-old Smiley (Kristyan Ferrer), and though the youngster's initiation proves particularly rough, she adapts to gang life rather quickly. As involved as Casper is with the Mara, he does his best to keep his relationship with girlfriend Martha Marlene (Diana Garcia) a secret from the gang. Just as Martha encounters ruthless Mara leader Lil' Mago (Tenoch Huerta Mejía) and suffers a grim fate at the hands of the gang, Sayra and her relatives arrive at the Tapachula train yards and prepare to rush a U.S.-bound freight train with a horde of other immigrants. Rather than attempting to gain access to the cars, Sayra and the rest of the immigrants decide to ride atop the train. Little do they realize that their lives are now in danger, because Lil' Mago has recruited Casper and Smiley to rob the immigrants as they make their way to the United States. When dawn comes and Lil' Mago makes his move, Casper finally decides to stand up to the tyrannical gang leader. Now, as the train winds though the Mexican countryside, Sayra's only hope of surviving the journey and making her way to a new beginning is to align herself with Casper as he flees from the most feared gang in Tapachula. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

Fernando Meirelles' adaptation of Nobel Prize-winning author José Saramago's novel Blindness begins when an epidemic of blindness strikes the world. Mark Ruffalo stars as an eye doctor who awakens one morning to find that he suffers from the unexplained disorder. He, along with other victims, is sent to a government detention center so that they can be quarantined. His wife (Julianne Moore) pretends to be blind so that she can be with him inside the institution. Their time in the center grows more and more desperate as food and supplies dwindle, and one of the other citizens (Gael García Bernal) exercises dictatorial control over the others after he acquires a weapon. ~ Perry Seibert, All Movie Guide

Y Tu Mamá También star Diego Luna makes his directorial debut with this documentary tracing the life and career of Mexican boxer Julio César Chávez. From his very first bouts to his unforgettable matches against such formidable opponents as Oscar De La Hoya and Kostya Tszyu, Luna's film merges past and present by following the legendary Chavez as he prepares for retirement and begins training son Julio César Chávez, Jr. to carry on the fighting family tradition. It isn't every day that a boy who spent his youth in a boxcar in Mexico rises through the ranks to become a six-time world champion, yet somehow Chávez managed to beat the odds to become one the most respected boxers in the history of the sport. Interviews with the pugilist's family and friends reveal the fascinating details about Chávez's rise from poverty, with an examination of the fighter's questionable association with Mexican president Vicente Fox and an ill-conceived "farewell tour" highlighting how social controversy can be as devastating as even the most solid left hook. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

Y Tu Mamá También star Diego Luna makes his directorial debut with this documentary tracing the life and career of Mexican boxer Julio César Chávez. From his very first bouts to his unforgettable matches against such formidable opponents as Oscar De La Hoya and Kostya Tszyu, Luna follows Chavez as he prepares for retirement and begins training son Julio César Chávez, Jr. to carry on the fighting family tradition. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

Two young indigenous brothers from the La Sierra Tarahumara region of northwest Mexico return home from Benito Juarez elementary boarding school, only to find their fates pulling them in opposite directions in director Laura Amelia Guzmán's dramatic meditation on the value of culture and the cost of progress. Evaristo and Luis Antonio Lerma Batista have graduated from boarding school. Though 12-year-old Evaristo would like nothing more than to continue his education, learn Spanish, and lead a bicultural existence, his 11-year-old sibling couldn't see things more differently. Antonio is thrilled to be finished with school. Despite being a considerably bright student, Antonio would much rather spend his days on the family ranch than in the classroom. As both brothers take their tentative first steps into the adult world, they are assigned the task of delivering a package to a faraway community and lent the family horse to get the job done. After taking a wrong turn down a narrow and winding canyon, Evaristo and Antonio decide to tie the horse to a tree and attempt to find a way out. Upon returning some time later, the brothers discover that the horse is missing and they decide to split up. Now, as Antonio searches for the horse and Evaristo sets out to deliver the package, these two brothers will experience a side of Tarahumara culture that can't be taught in a classroom. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

For his sophomore effort, Drama/Mex, writer-director Gerardo Naranjo (Malachance) juxtaposes three back-to-back stories, set in the once lush and exclusive - now over-commercialized and garish - resort town of Acapulco, over the course of the same long, hot night. Naranjo mounts an experimental narrative structure, with each successive tale set backward in time just prior to the end of the last story - a "relay-style" structural experimentation that mirrors and recalls Fernando Mereilles's City of God). The first tale involves a thief Chano (Emilio Valdés who crops up and threatens the sanctity of ex-girlfriend Fernanda's (Diana García) relationship with Gonzalo (Juan Pablo Castañeda), even breaking into her house to win her back. In the second story, someone tips Gonzalo off that Fernanda has been seen kissing Chano in a crowded restaurant. In desperation, Gonzalo hires a mariachi band and serenades Fernanda outside of her house. The third tale concerns Jaime (Fernando Becerril) who, after lifting the company payroll and using part of it to rent a beachfront property, contemplates suicide - until a relationship with an equally dishonest fifteen-year-old runway and scam artist, Tigrillo (Miriana Moro) grants him a new lease on life. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide

Inventive Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind director Michel Gondry takes a surreal trip through the mind of an introverted but wildly creative man whose attempts to balance his colorful dreams with his stark reality are complicated by the arrival of a beautiful woman into his life. Shy Stéphane (Gael García Bernal) has returned to his childhood hometown to accept a new job. When the prospective employment offer fails to live up to expectations, however, Stéphane is at least comforted by the close bond he has formed with his creative-thinking neighbor Stéphanie (Charlotte Gainsbourg). Their blossoming romance finally awakens the sleeping confidence that the withdrawn Stéphane was previously capable of displaying only in his dreams, but Stéphane and Stéphanie find their relationship challenged when lingering insecurities prompt the smitten visionary to confront an old dilemma that can't be solved by the Science of Sleep. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

Brazilian director Walter Salles Jr. follows up the Golden Globe-nominated Behind the Sun with this filmed adaptation of Argentinian-born Cuban revolutionary Ernesto "Che" Guevara's journals of the same name. The Motorcycle Diaries stars Gael García Bernal (Y Tu Mamá También, Amores Perros) as a young, pre-revolution Guevara, a 23-year-old medical student in 1952 traveling across South America on a motorcycle with his friend Alberto Granado (Rodrigo de la Serna), who co-wrote the source material. As they embark on their journey, both young men come of age and find their individual world views broadened farther than they ever expected. The Motorcycle Diaries premiered at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival. ~ Matthew Tobey, All Movie Guide

A priest discovers the path of virtue can be steep, and temptation can demand a heavy price, in this controversial drama from Mexico. Father Amaro (Gael Garcia Bernal) is a young Catholic priest whose mentor, the Bishop (Ernesto Gomez Cruz), expects great things from him. However, like all priests, Amaro must first be assigned where he is needed most, which leads him to the small rural community of Los Reyes, where Amaro is to assist Father Benito (Sancho Gracia). To his shock, Amaro discovers Benito is hardly following Holy Law -- he's having an affair with Sanjuanera (Angelica Aragon), a woman who runs a local restaurant, and he's been helping a drug dealer launder his profits in exchange for large donations to the church, which Benito feels is justified as the funds are being used to build a hospital and orphanage for the poor. Amaro is disgusted with Benito's actions, but he soon discovers his own weaknesses when he falls in love with Amelia (Ana Claudia Talancon), Sanjuanera's teenage daughter. As Amelia finds herself falling for Amaro, she breaks off her relationship with Ruben (Andres Montiel), a reporter. Ruben responds by publishing a story which reveals the details of Benito's dealings with the drug dealers; Benito in turn tries to lay the blame at the feet of noble Father Natalio (Damian Alcazar), whose work with local peasants has been wrongly interpreted as supporting armed revolutionary factions. As Amaro tries desperately to distance himself from the growing scandal, he receives shocking news from Amelia when he learns she's pregnant with his child. The Crime of Father Amaro's portrayal of corruption within the Catholic Church led to an outcry from Catholic organizations, both in Mexico and the United States, where they attempted to organize a boycott of the film. However, the tactic failed in Mexico, where the controversy helped to boost ticket sales, making it the highest-grossing Mexican film ever in its native country. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide