Television series
Veneno
Veneno is a Spanish biographical drama about Cristina Ortiz, the legendary transgender performer and television personality who became an icon of Madrid's underground scene. It's intimate, unflinching, and occasionally darkly funny—a portrait of survival, reinvention, and the cost of visibility in a society that wasn't ready. Essential viewing about a life lived without apology.
Should you watch it?
Watch it if you want a biography carried by a magnetic, prickly central performance, where a Spanish TV icon's life is told with flamboyance and real tenderness toward the people orbiting her.
Skip it if you need your true-story dramas restrained and slow-burning; this one is vivid and sometimes sprawls, and its emotional bruises land harder than its tidy structure.
What it asks of you: Eight roughly fifty-minute episodes, brisk and colourful chapters rather than one slow arc, with mood swings from glitter to grief you have to ride with it.
Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.
If you liked this
Pose2018
A sweeping ensemble drama set in 1980s New York's ballroom scene. It centres trans and queer lives with the same narrative weight given to straight stories, and does so with genuine joy alongside the hardship.
But The soap-opera structure and occasional schmaltz might feel at odds with the gravity of the historical moment it depicts.
The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson2017
A documentary that follows a similar arc—a queer icon's life told through archive, interviews, and intimate reflection. It's equally angry and tender, equally alive to contradiction.
But It's heavy going. There's no comfort in this film, which is partly the point, but it's exhausting in a way Veneno isn't.
Tangerine2015
Shot on an iPhone in Los Angeles's trans sex work community. It's frenetic, funny, raucous, and utterly alive—it treats its characters' lives as worthy of the same cinematic energy as any prestige drama.
But The handheld aesthetic and rapid-fire dialogue can feel chaotic if you're looking for something contemplative.
Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Veneno
The wildcard
Something you would not have found on your own.
The Miseducation of Cameron Post2018
Both centre trans and queer survival against explicit social hostility. Both refuse to make their characters' marginalization the entire point of their stories.
An American indie film about a queer teenager in conversion therapy. It balances humour, rage, and tenderness without sentimentality, and trusts its audience to feel multiple things at once.
But It's set in a completely different cultural and historical context—rural America, present day, institutional rather than street-level—which might feel too removed.
More like this (6)
Heartstopper2022
A British coming-of-age series about queer self-discovery that is radiant and unhurried. It shares Veneno's commitment to showing LGBTQ+ lives as full and deserving of tenderness.
But Its relative softness and privilege might feel like a different world entirely from the survival mode of Veneno's Madrid.
Orlando1992
Sally Potter's adaptation of Virginia Woolf, starring Tilda Swinton as a figure who moves fluidly across gender and centuries. It's visually sumptuous and philosophically daring about identity as performance and reinvention.
But It's abstract and deliberately artificial in a way that might feel remote after the grounded specificity of Veneno.
The Half of It2020
A contemporary coming-of-age film that interrogates desire, identity, and the stories we tell ourselves. It's tender and intellectually rigorous at once.
But It's quieter and more introspective than Veneno, centred on internal conflict rather than external circumstances.
A Fantastic Woman2017
A Chilean drama about a trans woman navigating grief and hostility in the aftermath of her partner's death. It's formally bold and emotionally devastating.
But The formal experimentation and magical-realist touches might feel stylistically alien to Veneno's grounded approach.
And Then We Danced2019
A Georgian film about a queer romance within the world of traditional dance. It's a love story set against a backdrop of social rigidity, with real stakes.
But The specificity of Georgian culture and dance might require some context to fully land.
Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie2016
Both celebrate their protagonists precisely for their refusal to be respectable, dignified, or small. Camp and dignity are not opposites in either work.
A wildly campy British comedy about excess, reinvention, and the cost of trying to stay relevant. Veneno has the same relationship to camp—it's not mocking its subjects, it's using their own theatrical self-presentation as the truest thing about them.
But It's broad comedy, not drama. If you're watching Veneno for gravity, this will feel like it's deflating the subject matter deliberately.
People
Cast
Writing
- Javier AmbrossiCreator
- Javier CalvoCreator
Production
- Enrique López LavigneAssociate Producer
- David TroncosoExecutive Producer
- Javier AmbrossiExecutive Producer
- Javier CalvoExecutive Producer
- Sonia MartínezExecutive Producer
- Ignacio CorralesProducer