Television series

Lucha Underground

Name: Lucha Underground
Released: 2014
Cast: Matthew Kaye, Melissa Santos, Ian Hodgkinson, Martin Rubalcaba, Luis Fernandez-Gil

Martial arts action

Lucha Underground transforms Mexican wrestling into serialized drama. Masked luchadores perform acrobatic, violent matches inside a dingy temple while soap-opera-level storylines unfold outside the ring. It's gorgeous, weird, and treats wrestling as legitimate art—equal parts sports spectacle and mythic storytelling. For people who've never cared about wrestling and people who've cared too much.

TVMaze rating

4.0

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you love pro wrestling staged as serialized melodrama, where feuds, betrayals and masked rivalries build over months and the ring work is spectacular enough to carry the soap opera.

Skip it if you want a tidy, self-contained viewing experience; the story runs across a long run of episodes, and the over-the-top theatrics can feel loud and repetitive for viewers new to the genre.

What it asks of you: Each hour-long episode asks for your full attention across a very long run of 127 episodes over four seasons, with frequent cliffhangers and a steady, high-energy pace.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

The Wrestler2008

Darren Aronofsky's portrait of a washed-up wrestler fighting for dignity and human connection. It has the same reverence for wrestling's beauty and pain that Lucha Underground carries into the ring.

But It's relentlessly bleak. Aronofsky doesn't offer comfort, and the ending is deliberately ambiguous in a way some find punishing rather than moving.

GLOW2017

Netflix's feminist wrestling dramedy about 1980s female wrestlers finding power and community. Like Lucha Underground, it mines genuine emotion from the collision of performance, physicality, and real stakes.

But The wrestling is secondary to interpersonal melodrama. If you're coming for the matches, you'll spend most episodes watching people argue in a gym.

Chained Heat1983

A prison exploitation film where female inmates compete in brutal matches. It has the same grimy, theatrical energy as Lucha Underground—wrestling as spectacle born from desperation and survival.

But It's a 1980s exploitation picture, which means it's trashy, sexualized, and uncomfortable. The wrestling is real but the context is deliberately provocative.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Lucha Underground

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

The Phantom of the Opera1925

Both are stories where mask and ritual create meaning. The masked wrestler and the masked phantom are both figures of transgression and beauty, performing in spaces that are part temple, part theater.

Lon Chaney in Rupert Julian's silent horror masterpiece. Like Lucha Underground, it's a story of masked identity, ancient tradition meeting modern spectacle, and a temple where violence becomes art. The language is silent—pure image and physicality.

But It's a 1925 silent film. If you need dialogue and plot clarity, the pacing and narrative will feel impossibly slow.

Kingpin1996

The Coen Brothers treat bowling with the mythic seriousness Lucha Underground brings to wrestling. Wooden Harrelson is an underdog hero in a story that's half-sports, half-noir.

But It's a comedy, and a weird, meandering one. If you want narrative momentum, this deliberately frustrates it.

Rocky III1982

Pure mythmaking about warriors meeting their match. It understands that fighting is about identity and legacy, not just winning—the thematic core of Lucha Underground's best storytelling.

But It's 1982 Stallone, which means it's earnest in a way that reads campy now. Some viewers find that dated sincerity hard to embrace.

Bloodsport1988

Jean-Claude Van Damme in a tournament film where martial arts becomes a language of honor and sacrifice. It shares Lucha Underground's faith in physicality as narrative.

But It's a vehicle for Van Damme's splits and kicks, light on plot. If you need character development, you won't find much.

Blade Runner 20492017

Denis Villeneuve's sci-fi epic has the same visual poetry and mythic weight as Lucha Underground's best matches—beauty squeezed from decay, spirituality from violence.

But It's a three-hour film that prioritizes mood and imagery over plot. Some find it glacial; others find it meditative.

Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins1985

A martial arts action-comedy where an American cop is trained by a Korean master. It has Lucha Underground's blend of physicality, humor, and the idea that fighting is a spiritual discipline.

But It's deeply goofy and the romance subplot is painful. Most people find it dated rather than charming.

Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins poster

Synecdoche, New York2008

Both ask the same question: what is the relationship between the performer's real self and the character they embody? Both treat that blurred line as the entire point, not a problem to solve.

Charlie Kaufman's labyrinthine film about a theater director creating a play-within-a-play-within-reality. It has Lucha Underground's obsession with the line between performance and truth, between watching and doing, between ritual and authenticity.

But It's deliberately confusing, three hours long, and philosophically dense. Kaufman does not hand you meaning. Some viewers find it self-indulgent and impenetrable.

Come and See1985

Both films treat violence as something that can be sacred without being justified. Both believe physicality, spectacle, and ritual can convey truths that dialogue cannot. But Klimov is using those tools to show the cost; Lucha Underground uses them to show transcendence.

Elem Klimov's Soviet masterpiece about a child's experience of war, filmed with stunning visual poetry. It transforms violence and death into ritual and myth—the way Lucha Underground treats wrestling. Devastating and transcendent.

But It's a Holocaust film. It's brutal, difficult, and offers no comfort. You don't watch it for entertainment; you watch it because you need to bear witness.