Arturo Ripstein

Directing

Arturo Ripstein

Born

1943-12-13 (82)

Place of birth

Mexico City, Mexico

Known for

Directing

Credits

61 titles

Arturo Ripstein y Rosen (born December 13, 1943) is a Mexican film director. Ripstein got his break into movies working as an uncredited assistant director for Luis Buñuel. In 1965, he directed his first feature, Tiempo de Morir. Written by Carlos Fuentes and Gabriel García Márquez, it began a tradition of making independent films written by high-profile Latin-American authors. His 1981 film Seduction was entered into the 12th Moscow International Film Festival. His 1989 film Love Lies was entered into the 16th Moscow International Film Festival. In 1997 Ripstein won the National Prize of Arts and Sciences, the second filmmaker after Buñuel to do so. Some of Ripstein's films, especially …

Known for

The Queen of Spain poster
5.2

After her experiences in Nazi Germany, actress Macarena Granada traveled to Hollywood, where she became a star. In the 1950s, the diva returns to Francoist Spain to star a Hollywood blockbuster about Queen Isabella I of Castile. (A sequel to The Girl of Your Dreams, 1998.)

The Queen of Spain

2016

The Place Without Limits poster
7.2

Family honor, greed, machismo, homophobia, and dreams collide in a small Mexican town.

The Place Without Limits

1978

The Virgin of Lust poster
6.8

In Vera Cruz in the 1940s, Nacho, an Indian, waits tables at Don Lázaro's café at Hotel Ofélia. He falls for Lola, an opium-addicted, alcoholic whore who's hopelessly in love with Gardenia Wilson, a masked wrestler who slept with her once but knows she's unbalanced. Don Lázaro warns Nacho about Lola, and Nacho knows his love will be unrequited, but he'll do anything, regardless of how degrading, to be near her. Lola, for her part, can be sadistic. Republican exiles who are regulars at the café encourage Lola's desire to assassinate Franco. Nacho in turn mixes this political mirage with his fascination with the plot of "The Mikado." Where do fantasies and obsessions lead?

The Virgin of Lust

2002

Speaking of Buñuel poster
6.0

Surrealist master Luis Buñuel is a towering figure in the world of cinema history, directing such groundbreaking works as Un Chien Andalou, Exterminating Angels, and That Obscure Object of Desire, yet his personal life was clouded in myth and paradox. Though sexually diffident, he frequently worked in the erotic drama genre; though personally quite conservative, his films are florid, flamboyant, and utterly bizarre.

Speaking of Buñuel

2000

Love Lies poster
5.0

Set in Mexico City, Mentiras Piadosas is the doomed love story of Clara and Israel. She is a health inspector and he is an herb merchant, who is obsessed with the construction of an enormous model of the ancient city of Tenochtitlan. They both decide to leave their respective partners to live together, however, jealousy, blackmail and guilt will become unbreakable patterns destroying their tragic relationship

Love Lies

1989

No One Writes to the Colonel poster
5.7

Every Friday, the Colonel puts on his only suit and goes to the dock to await a letter announcing the arrival of his pension. But the townsfolk all know that this pension will never come. His wife also knows it, and even he knows it. But he is still waiting, living with the pain of the death of his son.

No One Writes to the Colonel

1999

Film credits

2020s · 4 titles

2010s · 4 titles

1960s · 5 titles

Behind the camera

The Place Without Limits poster
7.2

Family honor, greed, machismo, homophobia, and dreams collide in a small Mexican town.

The Place Without Limits

1978

The Place Without Limits poster
7.2

Family honor, greed, machismo, homophobia, and dreams collide in a small Mexican town.

The Place Without Limits

1978

The Virgin of Lust poster
6.8

In Vera Cruz in the 1940s, Nacho, an Indian, waits tables at Don Lázaro's café at Hotel Ofélia. He falls for Lola, an opium-addicted, alcoholic whore who's hopelessly in love with Gardenia Wilson, a masked wrestler who slept with her once but knows she's unbalanced. Don Lázaro warns Nacho about Lola, and Nacho knows his love will be unrequited, but he'll do anything, regardless of how degrading, to be near her. Lola, for her part, can be sadistic. Republican exiles who are regulars at the café encourage Lola's desire to assassinate Franco. Nacho in turn mixes this political mirage with his fascination with the plot of "The Mikado." Where do fantasies and obsessions lead?

The Virgin of Lust

2002

Love Lies poster
5.0

Set in Mexico City, Mentiras Piadosas is the doomed love story of Clara and Israel. She is a health inspector and he is an herb merchant, who is obsessed with the construction of an enormous model of the ancient city of Tenochtitlan. They both decide to leave their respective partners to live together, however, jealousy, blackmail and guilt will become unbreakable patterns destroying their tragic relationship

Love Lies

1989

No One Writes to the Colonel poster
5.7

Every Friday, the Colonel puts on his only suit and goes to the dock to await a letter announcing the arrival of his pension. But the townsfolk all know that this pension will never come. His wife also knows it, and even he knows it. But he is still waiting, living with the pain of the death of his son.

No One Writes to the Colonel

1999

Deep Crimson poster
6.8

Driven by desire and desperate for self-love, Coral and Nicolás will abandon their past lives in a journey surrounded by murder.

Deep Crimson

1996

Devil Between the Legs poster
6.6

Mexico City. Every day, Beatriz is insulted and humiliated by her jealous husband, but she does not flee his side because they have created a codependency and, at least for her, she would not conceive of her life any other way: by dint of feeling humiliated, she feels desired and desirable.

Devil Between the Legs

2019

Castle of Purity poster
7.4

A disciplined and sexually driven man forces his family to stay isolated in their home in order to protect them from the “evil nature” of human beings.

Castle of Purity

1973

Castle of Purity poster
7.4

A disciplined and sexually driven man forces his family to stay isolated in their home in order to protect them from the “evil nature” of human beings.

Castle of Purity

1973

The Beginning and the End poster
7.7

The film tells the story of the Boteros, a middle-class Mexican family struggling against poverty after their father's death. Ignacia (Egurrola) is the Boteros mother, a desperate woman who chooses to sacrifice the destiny of her three older children, in order to protect Gabriel (Laguardia) the youngest one. She believes Gabriel will climb the social structure and bring back the lost fortune to the family. But destiny has other plans for the Boteros and tragedy will overcome eventually. Based on the novel of Nobel Prize winner Naguib Mahfouz.

The Beginning and the End

1994

The Beginning and the End poster
7.7

The film tells the story of the Boteros, a middle-class Mexican family struggling against poverty after their father's death. Ignacia (Egurrola) is the Boteros mother, a desperate woman who chooses to sacrifice the destiny of her three older children, in order to protect Gabriel (Laguardia) the youngest one. She believes Gabriel will climb the social structure and bring back the lost fortune to the family. But destiny has other plans for the Boteros and tragedy will overcome eventually. Based on the novel of Nobel Prize winner Naguib Mahfouz.

The Beginning and the End

1994

Aunt Alejandra poster
7.5

The arrival of Aunt Alejandra triggers a series of nightmarish events that will put the life of a family at mysterious risk.

Aunt Alejandra

1980

Life Sentence poster
6.8

After being released from jail, "Tarzan" Lira seeks to rebuild his life as a bank employee. Unfortunately, it might not be as easy as he thinks.

Life Sentence

1979

Life Sentence poster
6.8

After being released from jail, "Tarzan" Lira seeks to rebuild his life as a bank employee. Unfortunately, it might not be as easy as he thinks.

Life Sentence

1979

The Realm of Fortune poster
5.3

Poor Dionisio finds himself as recipient of the good fortune, but soon he forgets that everything that goes up also has to go down, and that in the depressing nothingness of his town it is easy to die.

The Realm of Fortune

1986

Lecumberri, the Dark Palace poster
5.8

The Lecumberri Penitentiary was one of the most notorious prisons in 20th-century Mexico, known for the notorious inmates who were held there and the appalling living conditions inside. This documentary records daily life in the prison shortly before its closure.

Lecumberri, the Dark Palace

1977

Lecumberri, the Dark Palace poster
5.8

The Lecumberri Penitentiary was one of the most notorious prisons in 20th-century Mexico, known for the notorious inmates who were held there and the appalling living conditions inside. This documentary records daily life in the prison shortly before its closure.

Lecumberri, the Dark Palace

1977

Crazy Carnival poster
4.6

In a seedy brothel, their frustrations parade: A poet who has never published, a revolutionary who came late to history, a provocative angel, a bureaucrat with delusions of a dancer, a greedy Chinese man and his timorous wife, Monica, a prostitute with low professional esteem, a group of prostitutes of dubious sensuality and, finally, a priest with a stench of holiness and another with redeeming instincts. But a stranger with the air of a princess appears, and upsets the balance of the establishment.

Crazy Carnival

2006

Divine poster
5.5

"La Nueva Jerusalem" is a small community of believers lead by Papá Basilio and Mamá Dorita. They're waiting for the second coming of Christ, so they've abandoned the world, searching for a new spiritual life. Mamá Dorita sees in young Tomasa the signals of the chosen one. The young girl will be the new leader in "La Nueva Jerusalem".

Divine

1998

The Ruination of Men poster
6.1

A woman seeks help from one of her bigamous husband's killers to transport his corpse back to her home.

The Ruination of Men

2000

Such is Life poster
5.4

After her husband leaves her for a younger woman, the helping of her caring, but cynical godmother, is not enough to prevent Julia from plotting her revenge.

Such is Life

2001

Dangerous Game poster
5.8

Two dark-comedy stories involving blackmail, murder and love triangles in Rio de Janeiro

Dangerous Game

1967

The Reasons of the Heart poster
6.0

In a reinterpretation of Madame Bovary set on contemporary Mexico City, Emilia, a middle class housewife, tries to deal with the monotony of her life. One day, she loses the two things which makes everything beareable: her lover and her credit card.

The Reasons of the Heart

2011

H.O. poster
NR

Homero Olmos, a famous television publicist known as "H.O." or "The Voice of Experience," is driving along a lonely road heading to Rio de Janeiro when he meets Claudia and Luis, a newlywed couple whose car has been in an accident.

H.O.

1967

Trail of Death poster
6.8

Thriller directed by Arturo Ripstein.

Trail of Death

1981

Woman of the Port poster
6.0

Perla, a prostitute and the star in a miserable cabaret in the docks, falls in love with a sailor without knowing that he is her brother. Tomasa, Perla's mother, tries to prevent this incestuous relationship at all costs, but fails to do so. Set in a sordid environment, the director makes no concessions in this tragic love affair, which is narrated from three different points of view.

Woman of the Port

1996

The Children's Hour poster
5.7

A married couple entrusts the care of their young son to a strange clown. The film focuses on the relationship between the clown and the child, to whom he reluctantly tells stories and tries to keep entertained while waiting for his fee to be paid.

The Children's Hour

1969

The Children's Hour poster
5.7

A married couple entrusts the care of their young son to a strange clown. The film focuses on the relationship between the clown and the child, to whom he reluctantly tells stories and tries to keep entertained while waiting for his fee to be paid.

The Children's Hour

1969

The Castaway on the Street of Providence poster
8.0

Friends of Luis Buñuel discuss the director while Buñuel mixes drinks and entertains friends in his home.

The Castaway on the Street of Providence

1971

The Queen of the Night poster
5.0

The legendary life of Mexican singer Lucha Reyes is the basis of this fictionalized biography ( or as director Arturo Ripstein puts it "an imaginary biography"). Lucha Reyes was an unconventional, and sexually liberated woman, most famous for her "cancion ranchera" style singing. Her story begins in 1939, where at 33 she still lived at home with her mother, Dona Victora, the madame of a renowned Mexico City whorehouse. Lucha marries the liberal Pedro Calderon and then buys a beggar's daughter. She becomes the mother to this child, Luzma. Lucha craves lasting love like junkies crave heroin. But for her loyal daughter, she never finds it and in the end no one can help her.

The Queen of the Night

1994

The Illegal poster
6.7

Deceived over and over again by the whole world, a woman does not want to give up in the face of life's adversities.

The Illegal

1979

The Drunkard poster
8.0

An examination of the problem of alcoholism in Mexico, focusing primarily on the underprivileged, though it also analyzes how this addiction transcends social, gender, and temporal barriers.

The Drunkard

1976

The Drunkard poster
8.0

An examination of the problem of alcoholism in Mexico, focusing primarily on the underprivileged, though it also analyzes how this addiction transcends social, gender, and temporal barriers.

The Drunkard

1976

Bleak Street poster
6.1

Two wrestlers decide to go to a hotel in order to meet two prostitutes.

Bleak Street

2015

The Holy Inquisition poster
6.0

A plague is spreading through 16th century Mexico, and the Inquisition of the Roman Catholic Church is rooting out Jews, for they are believed to be its cause. At his father's funeral, a monk observes his family practicing Jewish burial rite, and he reports them, leading to devastating consequences for the whole family.

The Holy Inquisition

1974

The Holy Inquisition poster
6.0

A plague is spreading through 16th century Mexico, and the Inquisition of the Roman Catholic Church is rooting out Jews, for they are believed to be its cause. At his father's funeral, a monk observes his family practicing Jewish burial rite, and he reports them, leading to devastating consequences for the whole family.

The Holy Inquisition

1974

Exorcismos poster
7.0

No synopsis available yet.

Exorcismos

1970

Foxtrot poster
4.8

A Romanian aristocrat retreats to a desert isle with his wife and servants on the eve of World War II.

Foxtrot

1976

Foxtrot poster
4.8

A Romanian aristocrat retreats to a desert isle with his wife and servants on the eve of World War II.

Foxtrot

1976

Cinco mil dolares de recompensa poster
5.5

A gunfighter is appointed sheriff of a town that is terrorized by a gang of criminals.

Cinco mil dolares de recompensa

1974