Arturo Ripstein Archives

Devil Between the Legs

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.

NR

6.6

2021 Drama 145 min Play

5.8

Bleak Street

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

NR

5.8

2015 Drama 99 min Play

4.7

The Virgin of Lust

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 ...

NR

4.7

2002 Drama 151 min Play

5.1

No One Writes to the Colonel

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.

NR

5.1

1999 Drama 118 min Play

6.9

Deep Crimson

The life of a man who preys on unsuspecting women for a living is changed when he finds an accomplice in the woman who loves and controls him.

NR

6.9

1996 Crime 111 min Play

5.5

The Queen of the Night

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 ...

La tía Alejandra

Old aunt Alejandra goes to live with a Mexican middle-class family; she's bitter and the children tease her and make her life miserable, but the old woman is truly a witch, and takes revenge.

NR

7.2

1979 Drama 98 min Play

7.3

Place without Limits

Family honor, greed, machismo, homophobia, and the dreams of whores collide in a Mexican town. Rich, elderly Don Alejo is poised to sell the town for a profit, needing only to buy a whorehouse to own all the buildings and close the deal. It's owned by a man and his daughter: Manuelita is gay, aging, afraid; he cross-dresses and entertains as a flamenco dancer; he wants to sell and leave. His daughter wants to stay. The return of Pancho complicates things: he's a hothead Alejo tries to ...

NR

7.3

1978 Drama 110 min Play

6

The Holy Office

The long arm of the Inquisition, or the "Holy Office," reached at least as far as 16th-century Mexico (known as New Spain at the time). Many Spanish Catholics of Moorish or Jewish origin found it expedient to flee to the New World to escape the suffocating attentions of the Inquisition. In Spain, simply being descended from these suspect peoples is sufficient to guarantee a gruesome death by immolation. In the New World, it took slightly more. This 1974 Mexican film deals with the suffering ...

NR

6

1974 Drama 127 min Play

7.7

Castle of Purity

The story of a disciplined and sexually driven man who keeps his family isolated in his home for years to protect them from the “evil nature” of human beings while inventing (with his wife) rat poison.

NR

7.7

1973 Drama 110 min Play

6.8

Time to Die

A man comes home after serving 18 years in jail for murder in this routine western. Although the man killed in self defense, rumors in town circulated that he murdered the victim in cold blood. The ex-con wants to get his life together, but the two sons of the slain man are gunning for the man who killed their father.

NR

6.8

1966 Drama 90 min Play