From border narratives that go beyond the immigration debate to coming-of-age quasi-musicals with puppets; from a western that confronts Chile’s dark past to an adaptation of one of Mexico’s most revered novels, 2024 was truly a banner year for Latino and Latin American cinema. Below are the films that stuck with us over the last 12 months.
The delightfully cartoony Mexican American family at the center of this beloved Nickelodeon show embarks on their biggest adventure yet when Ronnie Anne (voiced by Izabella Alvarez), the series’ rowdy heroine, celebrates her 12th birthday. Forced to travel to a picturesque town in Michoacán, she encounters a supernatural entity who proves mother-daughter conflicts have existed since ancient times. Director Miguel Puga took inspiration from P’urhépecha culture and his memories spending summers in Jacona, Michoacán, for a vision of Mexico that’s not generic, but founded on specific personal ties.
Streaming on Netflix
Aside from common extracurriculars, many Texas high schools have the option for students to join competitive mariachi bands. Classic tunes like “Mexico Lindo y Querido” or “El Rey” are reinvigorated in the hands and voices of young people. The teens that comprise the Mariachi Oro from Edinburgh North High School in the Rio Grande Valley — as well as their teacher Abel Acuña — serve as the subjects for this look at how this genre of traditional Mexican music enables them to build community, boost their self-confidence and assert their pride in their heritage. Through every performance, culture perseveres.
Streaming on Netflix
18. Pedro Páramo
Three-time Oscar-nominated cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto takes on his first feature as a director with this reimagining of Juan Rulfo’s seminal novel set partially during the Mexican Revolution. Juan Preciado (Tenoch Huerta) steps into the ghostly town of Comala to fulfill a promise he made to his deceased mother. Once upon a time, his wealthy father, the eponymous Pedro Páramo (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo) ruled these parts like a tyrant. Now, Juan must confront the specters of those hurt by the dad he never knew. It’s a tale about how both benevolence and violence reverberate across generations, almost inescapably.
Streaming on Netflix
17. Música
Talented multi-hyphen Rudy Mancuso co-wrote, directed, and starred in this somewhat autobiographical debut where he plays a younger version of himself living with his mother (played by his real-life parent) in New Jersey’s Brazilian American community. As he wrestles with the pressure of pursuing a traditional career or following his dream of creating a musical comedy show with puppets, he falls for the more grounded Isabella (Camila Mendes). This blend of practical set pieces, humorous tunes, and visual depictions of how Rudy’s mind interprets every sound is an idiosyncratic marvel.
Streaming on Prime
16. Frida
There’s no shortage of films that tackle the tragedy-ridden life of painter Frida Kahlo, whose image has now become clichéd iconography. But Peruvian-born editor-turned-director Carla Gutierrez takes a distinct approach in this documentary: she allows Kahlo to speak for herself. Narrated mostly in the first person, this portrait takes its text directly from the artist’s diaries and cleverly uses animation to bring her mind-bending works to life. In the voice of Fernanda Echevarría, an often foul-mouthed and occasionally vulnerable Frida emerges to discuss heartbreak, passion, and how she used creation to exorcise her pain.
Streaming on Prime
15. In Her Place
Following her two Oscar-nominated documentaries “The Mole Agent” and “The Eternal Memory,” Chilean filmmaker Maite Alberdi dives into a fiction based on the real-life story of a writer, María Carolina Geel (Francisca Lewin), who killed her lover in the 1950s. Though she wanted to serve her sentence, the system absolved her solely because of her gender. Through the eyes of Mercedes (Elisa Zulueta), a married mother working for the judge on the case, Alberdi explores how patriarchal societies push women into nearly inescapable domestic roles. In María Carolina’s empty apartment, Mercedes finds a taste of freedom.
Streaming on Netflix
14. Queens (Reinas)
A father’s fantastical tall tales aim to ease the pain of separation in this auspicious first feature inspired by director Klaudia Reynicke’s childhood in 1990s Lima, Peru. As the South American nation undergoes an economic and political crisis, the whimsical parent in question, Carlos (a fantastic Gonzalo Molina), spends time with his daughters — teenage Aurora (Luana Vega) and the younger Lucía (Abril Gjurinovic) — in the days before they move to the U.S. with his ex-wife. Undeniably flawed, but also genuinely invested in forging a strong bond with the girls (his reinas), Carlos manages to leave a lasting impression.
Coming to VOD soon
13. Rita
Genre tropes allowed filmmaker Jayro Bustamante to discuss the genocide of Indigenous people in his native Guatemala via the political horror thriller “La Llorona.” His follow-up stays in the same otherworldly wavelength to shine a light on a tragedy that involved dozens of young girls back in 2017. Thirteen-year-old Rita (Giuliana Santa Cruz) escapes her abusive home only to be sent to a reformatory where physical and sexual violence are the norm. Wearing a pair of feathered wings, Rita becomes a catalyst for a plan to liberate all the captive youths in this institution and expose the abhorrent treatment they’ve received.
Streaming on Shudder
12. Los Frikis
In order to survive, hundreds of young Cuban outcasts knowingly contracted the HIV virus in the 1990s, during what’s known as the “special period.” Their status granted them access to isolated sanatoriums in the countryside where food and safety were guaranteed. Paco, a punk rocker played by a ferocious Héctor Medina, is among those who take this drastic measure and is sent away. His naïve younger brother, Gustavo (Eros de la Puente), finds a way to join him, and for a while the two enjoy a paradisiacal, summer-camp-like freedom. Adria Arjona, previously seen in “Hit Man,” plays a kindhearted caretaker.
Playing in theaters
11. Eureka
Boundary-pushing Argentine auteur Lisandro Alonso weaves an ambitious triptych traveling across the Americas and across centuries to examine the experiences of Indigenous peoples in the aftermath of colonization. Viggo Mortensen, one of Alonso’s recurrent collaborators, stars as a father searching for his daughter in the first segment set in the Old West, which cleverly gives way to present-day South Dakota, and eventually to the Brazilian Amazon a few decades in the past. The thought-provoking, if ever enigmatic picture demands that one succumb to its unhurried pace and unexpected formal surprises.
Available on VOD
10. Problemista
Aspiring toy designer Alejandro (Julio Torres) moved from his native El Salvador to New York City to pursue his unconventional career. After not landing a dream internship, he must face the labyrinthine U.S. immigration system. In order to stay, the mild-mannered young man takes a job assisting Elizabeth (Tilda Swinton), an eccentric and acerbic artist who promises to sponsor him for a green card. The latest brainchild from the creator of “Los Espookys” is a one-of-a-kind immigrant story overflowing with imagination, absurdist humor, and incisive commentary about a system built to crush the most vulnerable.
Streaming on Max / Available on VOD
9. The Human Surge 3
As disorienting as it is revelatory, this experimental work quite literally expands our relationship to the moving image since it was filmed with a 360-degree VR camera that floats through the spaces with an immersive fluidity. Behind this conceptual feat—a sequel to his 2016 “The Human Surge” (there’s no part two)—is Argentine visionary Eduardo Williams. This time around he follows straggling young people in Peru, Taiwan, and Sri Lanka, first separately until the geographical distance between them collapses and their timelines overlap. The last sequence is an astonishing optical illusion to behold.
Available on VOD
8. Chronicles of a Wandering Saint
Obsessively religious Rita (Mónica Villa) wants a miracle, and she is willing to fidget with the truth in order to make others in her remote Argentine town believe it’s manifested through her. Halfway through her deceitful plan, writer-director Tomás Gómez Bustillo (himself a Catholic missionary turned filmmaker) drops a twist that alters the course of this fascinatingly original narrative and moves it into the realm of the paranormal where flesh-and-bone demons, talking objects, and the terms and conditions of the afterlife coexist with the living — even if the latter don’t realize it.
Available on VOD
7. Hummingbirds
Living in the border town of Laredo, Texas, two Mexican American best friends, Silvia Del Carmen Castaños and Estefanía “Beba” Contreras, co-directed this luminous dual self-portrait about the uncertainty and possibility of the future as queer activists from economically underprivileged backgrounds. Being undocumented, Contreras worries about her limited prospects. Together they mine wonder from the everyday and turn it into music and poetry inspired by the places and the people they’ve known their whole lives, and most importantly by the bond they’ve forged with one another through “lo bueno y lo malo.”
Coming to VOD soon
Puerto Rican music star Residente (credited as René Pérez Joglar) stuns with a visceral performance in this Sundance-winning drama as a troubled father who tries to make the most out of the limited time he has with his daughters each year. Told over three distinct segments where the girls are played by different actors as they get older — Sasha Calle and Lio Mehiel embody them as adults — this subtle, humanistic debut by Colombian American writer-director Alessandra Lacorazza traces the evolution of the parent-children relationship traversing bumps, highlights, resentment and ultimately forgiveness.
Available on VOD
5. La Cocina
A barrage of orders is deployed inside a Times Square restaurant where a battalion of cooks and waitresses from around the globe perform with chaotic precision. There, Pedro (Raúl Briones), an undocumented Mexican immigrant, prepares dishes and dishes out snarky remarks with a suave demeanor, bordering on arrogance. When money goes missing just as his girlfriend Julia (Rooney Mara) decides to have an abortion, Pedro begins unraveling in monumental fashion. This black-and-white adaptation of Arnold Wesker’s “The Kitchen” confronts how capitalism ensures the American Dream goes forever unfulfilled for many.
Cinema is a profoundly personal affair for Brazilian director Kleber Mendonça Filho. At once a tribute to the bygone movie palaces of his hometown of Recife, and an introspective self-examination focused on his relationship with film, this evocative documentary is a must-see for all cinephiles. Images of the home where he grew up, and where his love and practice for visual storytelling were born, collide with footage he shot in the 1990s when those local theaters were still enticing crowds — one of them, the São Luiz, survives. The amalgamation of memory, historical fact and artifice yield an engrossing incantation.
Streaming on Criterion Channel / Available on VOD
3. The Settlers
The blood-soaked history of Chile — not dissimilar from that of most post-colonial nations — receives a searing filmic indictment in this striking western. Hired by a wealthy man to eliminate Indigenous people from “his land,” a pathetic British soldier (Mark Stanley), a ruthless American cowboy (Benjamin Westfall) and an ambivalent young Chilean mestizo (Camilo Arancibia) embark on a violent odyssey. The horrors they commit unveil the poisonous truth about the country’s origin myth. There’s such bold assurance in the writing and execution of this epic, it’s hard to believe this is director Felipe Gálvez Haberle’s very first feature.
Streaming on Mubi/ Available on VOD
2. I’m Still Here
With titanic restraint, seasoned actress Fernanda Torres delivers the best performance of the year as Eunice Paiva, a mother of five whose politically involved husband disappears during Brazil’s military dictatorship in the 1970s. Based on the book Marcelo Rubens Paiva wrote about his own family, the drama by director Walter Salles introduces the dynamics of this tight-knit household with an ensemble cast that makes their interactions feel lived-in and authentic. Torres’ Oscar-worthy turn conveys both the sorrow of the circumstances and then inner strength Eunice required to fight for justice and fend off despair.
Returning to theaters Jan. 17
1. Sujo
Fighting to not repeat his father’s mistakes, Sujo (Juan Jesús Varela), the teenage son of a murdered sicario, leaves Michoacán for Mexico City. And while he can’t escape the vast economic disparity that plagues Mexican society, his curiosity for learning might turn into an opportunity to forge a new path forward. Co-directors Astrid Rondero and Fernanda Valadez, the brilliant duo behind 2020’s “Identifying Features” and two of the most important storytellers in Mexican cinema today, never trivialize the obstacles that young men like their protagonist face, but they allow themselves to dream an alternative, cautiously optimistic outcome to his story. If you see only one 2024 film set against the backdrop of the drug war that afflicts Mexico, make sure it’s this one.
Playing in theaters
