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  1. Dartmouth Libraries
  2. Research Guides
  3. Dartmouth Libraries Guides
  4. Film Studies: National Cinemas
  5. Spain

Film Studies: National Cinemas

This guide highlights selected resources for various national cinemas.
  • Introduction
  • Streaming services
  • Afghanistan
  • Africa (General)
    • Africa, Northern
    • Africa, French speaking
    • Africa, Sub-Saharan
  • Argentina
  • Australia
  • Austria
  • Benelux
  • Brazil
  • Cambodia
  • Canada
    • Quebec
  • Caribbean area
  • Chile
  • Chinese cinema
  • Colombia
  • Cuba
  • Czechia (Czech Republic)
  • France
  • Germany
  • Great Britain
    • Northern Ireland
    • Scotland
    • Wales
  • Greece
  • Hong Kong cinema
  • Hungary
  • India
  • Indigenous films
  • Irish cinema
  • Italy
  • Japan
  • Korea
  • Latin America
  • Mexico
  • Middle East
    • Egypt
    • Iran
    • Israel
    • Turkey
  • New Zealand
  • Nigeria
  • Nordic cinema
    • Denmark
    • Finland
    • Iceland
    • Norway
    • Sweden
  • Pakistan
  • Palestine
    • Films by Director
    • Documentaries
    • Films by Title
  • Poland
  • Portugal
  • Romania
  • Russia & the Soviet Union
  • Slovakia
  • South Africa
  • South America
  • Spain
  • Switzerland
  • Taiwan
  • Thailand
  • United States
    • Puerto Rico
  • Vietnam
  • Yugoslavia & Former Yugoslav Republics
  • Transnational & diasporic cinema
  • Journals & magazines about film

Other library resoure(s)

  • Resource logo Digitalia film library. Spanish cinema
    • Video
    • On Campus or VPN
    • Database
    Call Number: Streaming video
    There are over 250 Spanish films in this collection.
  • Resource logo Luis Buñuel from Oxford Bibliographies Online by Elizabeth Scarlett
    • On Campus or VPN
    Call Number: Electronic resource
    ISBN: 9780199791286
    Luis Buñuel’s directorial career began with a slit eyeball and ended with an explosion. In between, he became the foremost surrealist working in film, the last great director of classical Mexican cinema, and a mentor and patriarch for European New Wave film. Buñuel’s films were banned and censored; some were almost lost or destroyed for good. He won top prizes at Cannes and Venice. He is the answer to the metamorphosing satirical genius of Goya and Cervantes in the world of the moving image. ...
  • Resource logo Pedro Almodóvar from Oxford Bibliographies Online by Cristina Martínez-Carazo, Morgan Smith
    • On Campus or VPN
    Call Number: Electronic resource
    ISBN: 9780199791286
    Eccentric, innovative, kitsch, subversive, transgressive, genius, unconventional, postmodern, independent—Pedro Almodóvar (b. 1949), arguably Spain’s most acclaimed director, producer, and screenwriter, has become an international icon of the transformative spirit that impregnated Spanish cultural production in the stagnant years under and after Franco’s dictatorship. He achieved international recognition without precedent, bursting onto the scene during the years of La Movida Madrileña, a transgressive and hedonistic cultural movement born in Spain in the 1980s. ...
  • Resource logo Spanish cinema from Oxford Bibliographies Online by Marvin D'Lugo
    • On Campus or VPN
    Call Number: Electronic resource
    ISBN: 9780199791286
    Far overshadowed by the cultural dynamism of its neighbors and constrained by its own slow industrial underdevelopment, Spain was not a propitious site for the development of a strong film industry or culture. ...
  • Resource logo Spanish language cinema from Kanopy by Kanopy
    • Video
    • On Campus or VPN
    • Database
    Call Number: Streaming video
    A collection of Spanish language films from Kanopy. Not all of the films are immediately available for viewing. You may have to request a film to view it.

Introduction to Spanish cinema

The first Spanish fiction film is claimed to be Riña en un café/Brawl in a Café (Fructuós Gelabert, 1897). Film production was initially located in Barcelona, with the films of Segundo de Chomón considered particularly distinctive in their use of state-of-the-art special effects and fantastical imagery (see early cinema; trick film). From the 1920s film studios in Madrid became a centre of film production, specializing in theatrical and literary adaptation, zarzuelas (popular operettas), and history films, often revelling in the folkloric españolada tradition. In Paris in 1929, Spanish filmmaker Luis Buñuel, one of the founders of Surrealism, showed the French-financed short film Un chien Andalou/An Andalusian Dog, made in collaboration with the artist Salvador Dalí; an iconoclast, contrarian, and provocateur, Buñuel castigated tradition and satirized the bourgeoisie in this and many of his later films.  ...

Kuhn, A., & Westwell, G. (2020). Spain, film in. In A Dictionary of Film Studies. Oxford University Press. Retrieved 3 Jun. 2021

Searching the online catalog

This page shows resources for cinema of Spain. You can use the subject headings below to find resources in the online catalog. The call number ranges are also included. You can do the same subject search for other Spanish speaking countries around the world using the same format, "motion pictures [country]." Please note: these are not the only call numbers, but they have the majority of items.

  • motion pictures spain
    Call number range PN 1993.5 .S7-.S72 on Baker Level 4.
  • spain in motion pictures
  • motion pictures, spanish
  • motion picture producers and directors spain

Introductory reading(s)

  • Cover art 100 Years of Spanish cinema by Tatjana Pavlovic
    • Book
    Call Number: Baker-Berry PN 1993.5 .S72 A15 2009
    ISBN: 9781405184205
    100 Years of Spanish Cinema provides an in-depth look at the most important movements, films, and directors of 20th century Spain from the silent era to the present day. A glossary of film terms provides definitions of essential technical, aesthetic, and historical terms ...
  • Cine iberoamericano: los desafíos del nuevo siglo by Octavio Getino
    • Book
    Call Number: Baker-Berry PN 1993.5 .L3 G458 2007
    ISBN: 9789879355411
  • Cover art The cinema of Spain and Portugal by Alberto Mira
    • Book
    Call Number: Baker-Berry PN 1993.5 .S7 C545 2005
    ISBN: 9781904764458
    An overview of Spanish and Portuguese cinema, this volume contains 24 essays, each on a separate seminal film from the region. Films from the early era of cinema up to the present day are featured, from directors such as Florián Rey, Juan Antonio Bardem, Luis Bunuel, Víctor Erice, Manuel Gutiérrez Aragón, Pedro Almodóvar and João Cesar Monteiro. As well as discussions of genre and influences, The Cinema of Spain & Portugal includes in depth studies of films such as La Aldita Maldita (1930, 1947), Death of a Cyclist (1955), Viridiana (1961), Spirit of the Beehive (1973), Abraham's Valley (1993), Tierra (1995), All About My Mother (1999), and Torrente (1998).
  • Cover art Spanish cinema, 1973-2010 by Maria M. Delgado and Robin Fiddian, eds.
    • Book
    Call Number: Baker-Berry PN 1993.5 .S7 S68 2013
    ISBN: 9780719087110
    This collection of essays offers a new lens through which to examine Spain's cinema production following the decades of isolation imposed by the Franco regime. The seventeen key films analysed in the volume span a period of 35 years that have been crucial in the development of Spain, Spanish democracy and Spanish cinema.
  • Cover art Spanish national cinema by Núria Triana-Toribio
    • Book
    Call Number: Baker-Berry PN 1993.5 .S7 T76 2003
    ISBN: 9780415220606
    This study examines the discourses of nationalism as they intersected or clashed with Spanish film production from its inception to the present. While the book addresses the discourses around filmmakers such as Almodóvar and Medem, whose work has achieved international recognition, Spanish National Cinema is particularly novel in its treatment of a whole range of popular cinema rarely touched on in studies of Spanish cinema. ...

Selected book title(s)

  • Cover art Contemporary Spanish cinema by Barry Jordan
    • Book
    Call Number: Baker-Berry PN 1993.5 .S7 J67 1998
    ISBN: 9780719044120
    This book offers an analysis of the main trends and issues in Spanish film since the death of Franco in 1975. While taking account of cinema during the Franco dictatorship, the text focuses principally on developments in the since the 1970s. ...
  • Cover art De Almodóvar a Amenábar: el nuevo cine español by José Luis López García
    • Book
    Call Number: Baker-Berry PN 1993.5 .S7 L555 2005
    ISBN: 9788493470104
  • Cover art Los felices sesenta: aventuras y desventuras del cine español, 1959-1971 by Santos Zunzunegui
    • Book
    Call Number: Baker-Berry PN 1993.5 .S7 Z87 2005
    ISBN: 9788449317941
  • Cover art Spain on screen: developments in contemporary Spanish cinema by Ann Davies, ed.
    • Book
    Call Number: Baker-Berry PN 1993.5 .S7 S64 2011
    ISBN: 9780230236202
    A collection of original essays from leading scholars in the field exploring the contemporary debates, concerns and controversies ongoing in Spanish film industry, culture and scholarship. The essays reveal the far-reaching shifts that have occurred in the Spanish film scene, making essential reading for all interested in European cinema.
  • Cover art Women's narrative and film in twentieth-century Spain: a world of difference(s) by Kathleen Glenn, ed.
    • Book
    Call Number: Baker-Berry NX 562 .A1 W66 2002
    ISBN: 9780415936330
    Women's Narrative and Film in 20th Century Spain examines the development of the feminine cultural tradition in Spain and how this tradition reshaped and defined a Spanish national identity. Each chapter focuses on representation of autobiography, alienation and exile, marginality, race, eroticism, political activism, and feminism within the ever-changing nationalisms in different regions of Spain. ...

Finding scholarly articles & journal title(s)

Articles and other writings about Spanish language films can be found in many publications. Our collection includes several journals which look exclusively at the cinema of Spain and Spanish language films. You can use Film & Television Literature Index to find articles or use the search box at the top of the page.

  • Cine para leer
    • Book
    Call Number: Baker-Berry PN 1993 .C5163 enero-jun. 2005 -
  • Cinema universitario (Salamanca)
    • On Campus or VPN
    Call Number: Electronic journal
  • Issue cover art Hispanic research journal by Dept. of Hispanic Studies. Queen Mary and Westfield College
    • On Campus or VPN
    Call Number: Electronic journal
    Hispanic Research Journal (HRJ) promotes and disseminates research into the cultures of the Iberian Peninsula and Latin America, from the Middle Ages to the present day. The fields covered include literature and literary theory, cultural history and cultural studies, language and linguistics, and film and theatre studies. Hispanic Research Journal publishes articles in four languages; Spanish, Portuguese, Catalan, and English, and encourages and interaction between researchers all over the world who are working in these fields.
  • Issue cover art Studies in Spanish & Latin American cinemas by Intellect
    • On Campus or VPN
    Call Number: Electronic journal
    This peer-reviewed journal explores the cinemas of Spain and Spanish-speaking South, Central and North America, including the Caribbean and Brazil.
  • Resource logo Film & television literature index by EBSCO Publishing
    • On Campus or VPN
    • Database
    Call Number: Electronic resource
    Use this index to find articles Spanish cinema.
  • Resource logo Screen studies collection by ProQuest
    • On Campus or VPN
    • Database
    Call Number: Electronic resource
    A comprehensive survey of current publications related to film scholarship alongside detailed filmographies. This collection includes the FIAF International Index to Film Periodicals Database and the detailed and complementary filmographies created by the American Film Institute (AFI) and the British Film Institute.
  • Resource logo The web of science citation databases by ISI (Institute for Scientific Information)
    • On Campus or VPN
    • Database
    Call Number: Electronic resource
    The online version of 3 separate ISI indexes: Arts & Humanities Citation Index, Science Citation Index and, Social Sciences Citation Index.

Selected movie title(s)

Find more Spanish films in the Library's collections.

  • Motion picture art Agua con sal = Salted water by Pedro Pérez Rosado
    • DVD
    Call Number: Jones Media DVD #4745
    A young Cuban named Olga arrives in Spain with a scholarship convinced that she has landed the chance of a lifetime. Deciding to stay, she eventually becomes an illegal immigrant, suffering the brunt of marginalisation and, unable to return home, having to get by as she can. Mari Jo is a young girl from a poor Valencian suburb, born into a family with nothing but problems. Fate has marked her life as she too becomes an outcast. Both end up working illegally in a furniture factory where they earn three times less than the minimum legal salary.
  • Anita no pierde el tren = Anita takes a chance by Ventura Pons
    • DVD
    Call Number: Jones Media DVD #3522
    Anita, a widow in her 50's looses her dream job as a cinema attendant when the theater closes and gets torn down. She takes comfort in watching the attractive, and often shirtless, construction workers. She befriends and eventually has an affair with a married excavator operator.
  • Movie poster art Cartas a María = Letters to Maria by Maite García Ribot, Elías León Siminiani
    • Video
    • On Campus or VPN
    Call Number: Streaming video
    As a result of his father's Alzheimer's disease, Maite decides to recover the unknown and silenced story of his grandfather Pedro. Pedro was a Republican exiled, one of many Spaniards who in 1939 had to go into exile in France, leaving behind his wife Maria and their two sons. In order to survive the harsh living conditions he endured during his captivity in some refugee camps in the South of France, he had to work for the French government in the middle of an arms race and even for the Nazi army.
  • Movie poster art El calentito by Chus Gutiérrez
    • DVD
    Call Number: Jones Media DVD #4931
    A young woman in 1980s Madrid explores society outside her protective family, is drawn to the environment at a local disco, to the music and to the members of the all-girl band.
  • Motion picture art En tierra extraña = In a foreign land by Icíar Bollaín
    • DVD
    Call Number: Jones Media DVD #22120
    Gloria is one of the 700,000 Spanish people who have left Spain since the economic crisis started. Gloria is a 32 year old native of Almería Spain. A teacher without a posting, and a shop assistant in an Edinburgh store for the past two years. Gloria has set up a collective with the motto "Neither lost nor silenced." They express their frustrations and provide visibility and a voice to those who wish to participate, from among the over 20,000 Spaniards in Scotland’s capital.
  • Movie poster art La piel que habito = The skin I live in by Pedro Alomodóvar
    • DVD
    Call Number: Jones Media DVD #14387
    Since his wife was burned in a car crash, Dr. Robert Ledgard, an eminent plastic surgeon, has wanted to create a new skin with which he could have saved her. After twelve years, he cultivates a skin that is a real shield against every assault. Now, besides the years of study and experimentation, the unscrupulous doctor needs to find an accomplice, and a human guinea pig. Marrilia, the woman who looked after him from birth, is his most faithful accomplice. But where will they find the human pig?
  • Motion picture art Las brujas de Zugarramurdi = Witching & bitching by Alex de la Iglesia
    • DVD
    Call Number: Jones Media DVD #18433
    When a bank heist in the city doesn't all go according to plan, José and Tony find themselves in possession of some hostages and speeding through the mountains of Spain, hoping to quietly slip over the border. Not wanting to give up his custody days to his ex-wife, José has also brought his son along for both the robbery and the ride. Little do they know that this is only the beginning of their troubles, as they soon make a stop in a small tavern in the Basque countryside and find themselves the honored guests of a fractured family of witches who are preparing for an ancient ritual.

Internet resource(s)

  • Cine y Audiovisuales
    • Link
    From the Spanish Ministry of Culture...
  • Latin American Studies (Spanish): Cinema
    • Link
    Jill Baron, the Spanish Language librarian, has put together resources under the Latin America LibGuide.

Keeping up with the journal literature

Want an easy way to keep up with the journal literature for a national or regional cinema? And you use a mobile device? You can install the BrowZine app and create a custom Bookshelf of your favorite journal titles. Then you will get the Table of Contents (ToCs) of your favorite journals automatically delivered to you when they become available. Once you have the ToC's you can download and read the articles you want.

You can get the app from the App Store or Google Play.

Don't own or use a mobile device? You can still use BrowZine! It's now available in a web version. You can get to it here. The web version works the same way as the app version. Find the journals you like, create a custom Bookshelf, get ToCs and read the articles you want.

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  • Last Updated: Jun 11, 2025 2:41 PM
  • URL: https://researchguides.dartmouth.edu/nationalcinemas
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