Film

Broken Embraces

Name: Broken Embraces
Genre: Drama, Romance, Thriller
Released: 2009
Cast: Penélope Cruz, Lluís Homar, Blanca Portillo, José Luis Gómez, Rubén Ochandiano

Drama

A blind screenwriter's hidden past resurfaces when a young man arrives at his door, forcing him to confront a devastating affair and a film that nearly destroyed him. Almodóvar's most baroque thriller is intoxicatingly crafted—all jewel-toned cinematography, melodramatic yearning, and secrets within secrets. It's for people who believe cinema itself can be a character in a story.

TMDb rating

3.6

If you liked this

All About My Mother1999

Almodóvar's masterpiece about mothers, actresses, and reinvention. It has the same lush visual language and obsession with performance as Broken Embraces, but even more generous in its heart. Essential if you want to understand what makes this director's world tick.

But The melodrama is deliberately extreme—some find it overwrought rather than moving. It's a film that refuses to simplify human pain into something digestible.

The Skin I Live In2011

Spanish thriller about obsession, transformation, and the secrets we keep. It has the same psychological intensity and gorgeous visual precision as Broken Embraces, plus a twist that recontextualizes everything. Absolutely gripping.

But It's darker and more morally uncomfortable than Almodóvar. The central premise involves violation, and some viewers find the film's aesthetic distance from that troubling rather than artful.

Bad Education2004

Almodóvar's own film-within-a-film thriller about deception and desire among filmmakers. It has the same baroque plotting, the same obsession with cinema as a mirror of life, and a performance from Gael García Bernal that burns the screen.

But The structure is deliberately confusing—you're meant to get lost in layers of narrative. If you want clarity and forward momentum, this will frustrate you.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Broken Embraces

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

The Night Porter1974

Both films are about the impossibility of healing from an affair that has become synonymous with your entire life. Both treat cinema—and seduction—as tools of memory and self-destruction.

Liliana Cavani's 1974 masterpiece about two former lovers—a concentration camp survivor and her Nazi captor—who reunite in a Vienna hotel years later. It shares Broken Embraces' obsession with how passion and trauma become inseparable, and its refusal to judge its characters' desires even as it shows how dangerous those desires are. Both films believe cinema can eroticize almost anything and demand you feel something about it.

But It's explicitly about the Holocaust and features disturbing imagery. The sexual and emotional dynamics are deeply transgressive. Many find it exploitative rather than illuminating.

Mulholland Drive2001

Lynch's Hollywood nightmare has the same DNA: a mysterious arrival that unravels a filmmaker's buried trauma. Both films treat cinema as the ultimate seduction and the ultimate betrayal. Hypnotic and haunting.

But It's much more fragmented and abstract. If you need a filmmaker to explain what happened, Lynch will never oblige you.

In the Mood for Love2000

Wong Kar-wai's exquisite study of longing and the architecture of desire. Like Broken Embraces, it's a film that moves through space the way music moves through time. Every frame is composed like a painting.

But Nothing happens, structurally speaking. It's pure mood and visual poetry. If you need plot momentum, this will feel glacial.

The Hidden Face2011

Colombian thriller about a man who discovers his girlfriend may have been murdered—and he might be next. It has the same twist-dependent architecture and the same voluptuous cinematography, with actual propulsive plot.

But The emotion feels less earned than the mechanics. It's a clever puzzle more than a genuine exploration of grief and obsession.

Passion2013

Almodóvar himself again, this one a black-comedy-thriller about rival actresses and professional sabotage. It's playful and vicious, with a similar visual intensity and fascination with performance as masks.

But It's lighter in tone and much less emotionally substantive. Some find the camp undercuts the drama; others find the drama undercuts the camp.

The Good Thief2003

Neil Jordan's dreamy heist film with Nick Nolte, shot through with the same melancholic atmosphere and focus on broken men haunted by the past. It moves at Broken Embraces' pace and shares its mood.

But It's quieter and less dramatically satisfying. The heist feels secondary to mood, which is either exactly right or a waste of the premise.

Sexy Beast2001

Jonathan Glazer's surrealist thriller about a man's vacation disrupted by violence and desire. It shares Broken Embraces' fascination with how beauty and danger can coexist in the same frame, and its willingness to be strange.

But It's much weirder and more formally experimental. If you want narrative clarity, you'll find the style frustrating.