Discover the best of Cuban cinema, film, and television
Discover the definitive list of popular and critically-acclaimed movies and TV shows from Cuba. Find your next binge-watch, streaming on Netflix, HBO, Hulu, Prime Video, and other top services!
The cinema of Cuba
Cuban cinema is a cinema of passionate debate and revolutionary soul, a film culture where art and politics are woven together with incredible flair. Its modern story exploded into life with the 1959 Revolution. Almost immediately, the new government founded the iconic Cuban Institute of Cinematographic Art and Industry (ICAIC). This wasn’t just a studio; it was a grand cultural project to create a new, intelligent, and socially engaged cinema. The undisputed giant of this era was director Tomás Gutiérrez Alea (known as Titón), whose masterpiece Memories of Underdevelopment became a landmark of world cinema. Decades later, it was Titón again, with director Juan Carlos Tabío, who created the groundbreaking Strawberry and Chocolate. This compassionate story, which tackled complex social issues, became the first and only Cuban film to be nominated for an Academy Award. But Cuban cinema is also a feast for the senses, infused with the nation's vibrant music and set against the uniquely beautiful, time-worn backdrop of Havana. For decades, filmmakers have performed miracles with limited resources, a testament to an ingenuity born of necessity that gives their work a raw, urgent energy. What makes Cuban film so powerful is this unique blend. It’s a cinema that proves art can be both a revolutionary tool and a profound, often joyous, expression of the human heart.
Best Cuban series
Buena Vista Fishing Club 2009
Fed up with hanging around on the same riverbanks? Join Matt Hayes as he explores Cuba in search of sun, cocktails and of course, fish.
10EL AÑO QUE VIENE 1994
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Best Cuban movies
Chico & Rita 2010
Chico is a young piano player with big dreams. Rita is a beautiful singer with an extraordinary voice. Music and romantic desire unites them, but their journey - in the tradition of the Latin ballad, the bolero - brings heartache and torment.
72
Behavior 2014
Meet Chala, an eleven year-old boy with a hard life and strong respect for Carmela, his sixth grade teacher. The pair develops a solid bond, but after Carmela suffers an accident, things get complicated…
78
Buena Vista Social Club: Adios 2017
In 1996, Cuban bandleader Juan de Marcos Gonzalez, British producer Nick Gold, and American guitarist Ry Cooder convened in Havana to produce a Cuban-Malian collaboration. When the Malians couldn’t get visas, the team turned their attention to reviving a forgotten generation of legendary son cubano musicians and formed an on-the-fly ensemble: the Buena Vista Social Club. Two decades since that fateful first session, we catch up to these master musicians, as they reflect on the magical unfolding of their lives—from humble origins to the evolution and surprising revival of their careers, all against the backdrop of Cuba’s dramatic history. Brimming with unseen concert, rehearsal, and archival footage, this film is an emotional, shimmering celebration of music’s power to transcend age, ideologies, and class, and to connect us to each other through our souls.
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Death of a Bureaucrat 1966
A young man attempts to fight the system in an entertaining account of bureaucracy amok and the tyranny of red tape. Restored by the Academy Film Archive and the Instituto Cubano del Arte e Industrias Cinematográficos in 2019.
70
Twilight 2015
Alicia, a circus clown, dreams of being an actress. When the circus arrives in a remote village she meets Abelito, a boy with a skin disorder that prevents him from going out in the sun. As Abelito looks forward to the circus, Alicia anxiously awaits news from Havana about a casting.
64
Now! 1965
Using morgue photos, newsreel footage, and a recording by Lena Horne, Cuban filmmaker Santiago Alvarez fired off 'Now!', one of the most powerful bursts of propaganda rendered in the 1960s.
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