Best Mexican history movies

Get ready to binge. We've found a collection of must-watch history films from Mexico, now streaming on Netflix, HBO, Hulu, Prime Video, and other top services!

  • Poster for Outlaws - For Greater Glory

    Outlaws - For Greater Glory 2012

    A chronicle of the Cristeros War (1926-1929), which was touched off by a rebellion against the Mexican government's attempt to secularize the country.

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  • Poster for Canoa: A Shameful Memory

    Canoa: A Shameful Memory 1976

    A group of students arrives in a small town during a hiking expedition. Once there, the local priest accuses them of being communist agitators on the run from an army crack-down against student demonstrations in nearby Mexico City and rallies the townsfolk to lynch them. Based on a true story.

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  • Poster for The Chosen

    The Chosen 2016

    Spain, 1937. Ramón Mercader, a young communist combatant, is recruited and trained by the Soviet intelligence service to participate in a top secret mission ordered by the ruthless dictator Joseph Stalin: the assassination of his former political rival, Leon Trotsky, who is living in exile in Mexico.

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  • Poster for Red Dawn

    Red Dawn 1990

    On October 2, 1968, a student uprising descends into violence after the Mexican government begins to use lethal force against the protesters.

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  • Poster for Cinco de Mayo: The Battle

    Cinco de Mayo: The Battle 2013

    On May 5th, 1862, a few thousand Mexican soldiers put their lives on the line against the world's largest and most powerful army in one legendary battle for freedom and for Mexico.

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  • Poster for Cabeza de Vaca

    Cabeza de Vaca 1991

    In 1528, a Spanish expedition flounders off the coast of Florida with 600 lives lost. One survivor, Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca, roams across the American continent searching for his Spanish comrades. Instead, he discovers the Iguase, an ancient Indian tribe. Over the next eight years, Cabeza de Vaca learns their mystical and mysterious culture, becoming a healer and a leader. But soon this New World collides with the Old World as Spanish conquistadors seek to enslave the Indians, and Cabeza de Vaca must confront his own people and his past.

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  • Poster for Patria

    Patria 2019

    Paco Ignacio Taibo II brings his book trilogy to life, highlighting Mexico's history in 1854-1867, a period he considers foundational to the country.

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  • Poster for 7:19

    7:19 2016

    At 7:19 a.m., on September 19th of 1985, the most destructive earthquake hit Mexico City. Inside what's left of a building, a group of survivors fight for their lives waiting for rescue.

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  • Poster for Jesus of Nazareth

    Jesus of Nazareth 1942

    The biblical story of The Messiah from his baptism through his crucifixion.

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  • Poster for México de mis recuerdos

    México de mis recuerdos 1944

    After listening to the waltz "Carmelita", dedicated to his wife, President Diaz instructs Don Susanito seeking the composer Chucho Flores to give her a piano. Don Susanito located Chucho, a bohemian who lives drunk and surrounded by poets and artists. Don Susanito was named patron protector of artists and aspiring young stars of the stage, which leads to a series of adventures in the middle of songs, dances and loves.

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  • Poster for Private Network: Who Killed Manuel Buendía?

    Private Network: Who Killed Manuel Buendía? 2021

    An account of the life and work of the famous Mexican journalist Manuel Buendía (1926-84) that seeks to unravel his murder and the links between Mexican politics and drug trafficking.

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  • Poster for One Man's Hero

    One Man's Hero 1999

    One Man's Hero tells the little-known story of the "St. Patrick's Battalion" or "San Patricios," a group of mostly Irish and other immigrants of the Catholic faith who deserted to Mexico after encountering religious and ethnic prejudice in the U.S. Army during the Mexican-American War. The plot centers around the personal story of John Riley, an Irishman who had been a sergeant in the American Army who is commissioned as a captain in the Mexican army and commands the battalion, as he leads his men in battle and struggles with authorities on both sides of the border

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  • Poster for 13:14: The Challenge of Helping

    13:14: The Challenge of Helping 2022

    On September 19, 2017, at 1:14 p.m., an earthquake devastated Mexico City and its environs. Immediately, citizens mobilized to help, including the actor and youtuber Juanpa Zurita who quickly organized a group of friends that included singers, actors, content creators and other celebrities from the world of entertainment who helped him raise funds for the reconstruction of the city.

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  • Poster for Made in Mexico

    Made in Mexico 2012

    From Diego Luna and Alejandro Fernandez, to Carla Morrison and Chavela Vargas, Duncan Bridgeman weaves a cinematic tapestry composed of original songs and insights from the most iconic artists and performers of contemporary Mexico. With striking visuals, the movie captures the rich diversity of Mexican geography, art, music, and culture. It is a rare look at the country's real identity, and an unparalleled celebration of what it truly means to be "Hecho en Mexico."

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  • Poster for The History of the Pink Trunk

    The History of the Pink Trunk 2005

    In 1945, in the train station of Bogota, Colombia, a dead girl is found in a trunk. The case is assigned to Detective Mariano Corzo, he has to deal with an inquisitive journalist Hipólito Mosquera while trying to solve the mysterious case. Nobody knows who the girl is, or who put her in the trunk. The things turn bad when Mosquera publish the news in the local newspaper. With the help of a bartender Martina Quijano, Corzo will find an answer for the question: Who killed the girl and why?

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  • Poster for Luz's Motives

    Luz's Motives 1986

    Luz is in jail, accused of murdering her own children. Her husband and her mother-in-law say she killed them in cold blood. Dr. Rebollar tries to help the woman, but she refuses to remember anything. Luz thinks of jail as the purgatory: it's only one step to reach the Heaven.

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  • Poster for The Underdogs

    The Underdogs 1940

    During the Mexican Revolution, the people tired of living in poverty and enduring the atrocities committed by the federals, decide to follow one of their own, General Demetrio Macias, a thief with tricks he learned in jail and who along with "La Pintada" decides to take his people to victory. Led by Captain Anastacio Montañez, the newly formed army fight and honor their code at the same time as they loot houses to spread the wealth.

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  • Poster for Mi Canción

    Mi Canción 2021

    "Mi Canción" follows the rise of young Guadalajara rapper C-Kan, as he realizes the danger he put himself in by working with the local Cartel. After falling in love with Valeria, she convinces him to leave this llife of crime and pursue his dream and become a Rap star. Conflicted, he decides to stop working with the Cartel, but that is easier said than done!

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  • Poster for Las Poquianchis

    Las Poquianchis 1976

    During the mid-1970s, in the Mexican state of Guanajuato, authorities discover a clandestine burial ground. The corpses are from murdered prostitutes. The suspects are three sisters known as "Las Poquianchis".

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  • Poster for The Holy Inquisition

    The Holy Inquisition 1974

    A plague is spreading through 16th century Mexico, and the Inquisition of the Roman Catholic Church is rooting out Jews, for they are believed to be its cause. At his father's funeral, a monk observes his family practicing Jewish burial rite, and he reports them, leading to devastating consequences for the whole family.

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  • Poster for The Other Conquest

    The Other Conquest 1999

    The film is a drama about the aftermath of the 1520s Spanish Conquest of Mexico told from the perspective of the indigenous Aztec people. It explores the social, religious, and psychological changes brought about by a historical process of colonization that both defined the American continent and is also highly reminiscent of today’s neocolonialism.

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  • Poster for La Familia del Barrio: La Película

    La Familia del Barrio: La Película 2024

    El Noruego travels back in time and accidentally prevents the War of Independence by getting Miguel Hidalgo drunk before giving the cry.

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  • Poster for Epitaph

    Epitaph 2015

    Three Spanish conquistadors, Captain Diego de Ordaz, Gonzalo and Pedro, march to the summit of the great volcano Popocatepetl.

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  • Poster for Rita, the documentary

    Rita, the documentary 2018

    An aesthetic and politic portrait of Mexico ́s 90s decade through the biography of artist Rita Guerrero (1964-2011), who developed in different fields, mostly music and theater. She was the vocalist of Santa Sabina, a rock band in which she was the most remarkable figure. She committed herself to different social movements such as the Zapatista Army Movement (EZLN) and the Electoral Left. She died at 46 from breast cancer. Her voice and music left a mark on a generation.

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  • Poster for Frida Still Life

    Frida Still Life 1986

    This film is a chronicle of painter Frida Kahlo, and her encounter with the personalities of her time. Despite being confied to a wheelchair as a result of polio, operations and amputations, she faces and traces some of the most colorful and controversial aspects of Mexican history, during the dominant time of Mexican muralism.

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  • Poster for Olimpia

    Olimpia 2018

    The film tells the story of Raquel, Rodolfo and Hernán, members of a brigade at the UNAM during the student movement in Mexico in 1968. Through their photographs, films and writings, we will know the history of the day that the army took the university and how their students united, shouted and never forgot.

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  • Poster for Mexican Revolution

    Mexican Revolution 2007

    Ten years of war (1910-20), more than one million dead. The struggle for political freedom is gradually transformed into a struggle for land and resources with the appearance of mythical figures such as Pancho Villa and Emiliano Zapata. With the roar of the battlefields silenced, today's Mexico emerges from the ruins left by the first great popular revolution of the 20th century.

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  • Poster for Anyway, Juan is Your Name

    Anyway, Juan is Your Name 1976

    Analytical view of one of the least reported conflicts of national cinema: the Cristero movement that developed in the regions of western Mexico between 1926 and 1929, highlighting the inability to be faithful to both the Church and the State.

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  • Poster for El origen de las minas de sal de San Mateo

    El origen de las minas de sal de San Mateo 2020

    The Chuj tell the story of three brothers and the reason behind the origin of the largest salt mines in San Mateo.

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  • Poster for Letters from Marusia

    Letters from Marusia 1975

    Chronicle of the repression that a foreign company exerts on the miners of a small nitrate town in Chile, whose workers decide to claim their most essential rights. A reflection of the historic union struggles in the northern Chile that ended with terrible repressive acts.

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  • Poster for Tepeyac

    Tepeyac 1917

    A man (Arroyo Carrillo) is sent to Europe on a diplomatic mission. The ship in which he travels is sunk by a German submarine. In Mexico, his girlfriend Lupita (Cota) receives a telegram with the news and looks for relief in La Virgen de Guadalupe, saint patron of catholic mexicans. After reading a book about the Virgin legend, Lupita falls asleep. Next morning, she receives good news, her boyfriend is alive. Together they go to La Villa del Tepeyac (a church devoted to La Virgen de Guadalupe) and thank for the miracle.

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  • Poster for The Fungi Man

    The Fungi Man 1976

    Racial conflicts, love triangles and the awakening of passion will lead to disaster for a decadent aristocratic family in the newly independent Mexico.

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  • Poster for Rebellion of the Hanged

    Rebellion of the Hanged 1954

    A peasant who works in a mahogany camp in the Mexican jungles with his family is disgusted with the miserable living conditions imposed upon himself and his co-workers, the peasant finally spearheads a revolt against the sadistic bosses.

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  • Poster for Memories of a Mexican

    Memories of a Mexican 1950

    A history of the Mexican Revolution (1910-17), narrated through the striking images of the enormous film archive of Salvador Toscano (1872-1947), pioneer of Mexican cinema, compiled by his daughter, Carmen Toscano.

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  • Poster for This Was Pancho Villa: Third chapter

    This Was Pancho Villa: Third chapter 1958

    The third and final chapter of director Ismael Rodríguez's series about Pancho Villa. Several stories about the life and death of the famous mexican revolutionary general.

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  • Poster for La Revolución De Juan Escopeta

    La Revolución De Juan Escopeta 2011

    Mexico 1914. During the Revolution, a raid by the army in a small mining town leaves Gapo, 11, orphaned. Taken captive to be turned into a child soldier he escapes with the help of Juan Escopeta, a gunman for hire. Together they travel through a country absorbed in civil war in search of Gapo’s older and only brother: a famed revolutionary outlaw.

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  • Poster for The Shadow of the Tyrant

    The Shadow of the Tyrant 1960

    In 1920s Mexico, the candidates being chosen to succeed the current president, El Caudillo, find themselves at his mercy as he will resort to anything to accomplish his will, including kidnapping, betrayal, and murder.

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  • Poster for Hugo Sánchez, the Goal and the Glory

    Hugo Sánchez, the Goal and the Glory 2022

    The definitive chronicle of the best Mexican athlete in history. From his beginnings in Mexico's university team, his transcendental time in Spain's Real Madrid, his international falls and his very personal obsession for success.

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  • Poster for Chicogrande

    Chicogrande 2010

    Butch Fenton, major of American army, comes for Villa's head and he's gonna get it. The "Punitive Expedition" proved to be the last major campaign of the U.S. Cavalry. Mexican revolution is the first social movement of the century.

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  • Poster for Holy Pafnucio

    Holy Pafnucio 1977

    Controversial, sexy and surreal tale of a messenger, his journey and encounters with many historical events and people such as Auschwitz, the Ku Klux Klan, Frida Kahlo, Cortés and Emiliano Zapata (as a beautiful woman!)

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  • Poster for File of Attempted Murder

    File of Attempted Murder 2010

    Tells the story behind an assassination attempt perpetrated in 1897, by a dipsomaniac man, against the President of the Mexican Republic, General Porfirio Diaz.

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  • Poster for Baroque

    Baroque 1989

    A series of images, music and sounds which transport through Mexico's history, without any narrative sequence. The film spins constantly round the question 'Where are the singers from?'

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  • Poster for True heroes

    True heroes 2010

    An animated retelling of Mexico's Independence war, as seen through the eyes of three different people.

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  • Poster for 1938: When Mexico Recovered Its Oil

    1938: When Mexico Recovered Its Oil 2025

    A chronicle of the Mexican oil expropriation in 1938 through the eyes of President Lazaro Cardenas and journalist Alberto Miranda.

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  • Poster for Between Pancho Villa and a Naked Woman

    Between Pancho Villa and a Naked Woman 1996

    Gina, a modern business woman in her late forties, has a lover named Adrian, a journalist, who she sees once in a while just to have sex. They are both attracted to the historic figure of Pancho Villa: he admires his power while she admires his virility. As Gina helps Adrian to write a book about Villa, she discovers the similarity between Villa's relation to women to that of Adrian and hers, and that Villa's revolution never included her, nor the rest of the female half of the human species. Can the love of a woman and a man survive machismo?

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  • Moisés: Vol. I Los Años del Exilio 1996

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  • Poster for This Was Pancho Villa: Second chapter

    This Was Pancho Villa: Second chapter 1958

    The second chapter of director Ismael Rodríguez's series about Pancho Villa. Several stories about the life and death of the famous mexican revolutionary general.

    52
  • Poster for La monja alférez

    La monja alférez 1944

    A 17th century woman, imprisoned for fighting in a bar, recounts her past to a priest. She tells of her father teaching her how to fence, of being sent to a convent by her aunt when her father died, of escaping by dressing as a man, and of her life as a man following the escape.

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  • This Was Pancho Villa: First chapter 1957

    The disembodied head of Pancho Villa, kept in a glass jar in a research institute, is the narrator of several short stories from his own life, stories that might or might not have happened but are the stuff of legend.

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  • Poster for Adventures of Casanova

    Adventures of Casanova 1948

    Casanova, a young patriot in 18th-century Sicily, upon learning that his father and sister have been murdered, returns to Palermo and engages in guerilla tactics against the forces of the Governor. Lady Bianca, the Governor's daughter, is in love with one of the patriots, Lorenzo, and desires to escape from the palace. Her lady-in-waiting, Zanetta, enlists the aid of Casanova and he rescues them and takes them to the partisan's camp. The rebels are victorious. Lady Bianca makes plans to marry Lorenzo, and Casanova and Zanetta have similar plans.

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  • Poster for Jesús, María y José

    Jesús, María y José 1972

    The founder of Christianity and his sacred family.

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  • Poster for El principio

    El principio 1973

    Mexico is in the midst of Revolution when the protagonist returns after studying in Paris to find his native town in Chihuahua occupied by Francisco Villa’s revolutionary forces. He visits his deserted home and remembers people and events from his adolescence that provide glimpses of pre-Revolutionary society under dictatorship: his uncle, the chief of police; his sister’s involvement with a liberal political association; bathing with the girls from a local brothel; a labor strike that ended in a massacre. Returning to the present he discovers that his father has been assassinated and, in the company of his father’s former servant, joins the revolutionary movement.

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  • Poster for Reed: Insurgent Mexico

    Reed: Insurgent Mexico 1973

    A dramatization of John Reed's newspaper accounts of the Mexican Revolution. Considered the first real film in Mexican cinema to be made on the Mexican Revolution.

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  • Poster for Citizen Buelna

    Citizen Buelna 2013

    Rafael faces the complications of the revolution and discovers true love with Luisa.

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  • Poster for The Scream of Dolores, or The Independence of Mexico

    The Scream of Dolores, or The Independence of Mexico 1907

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  • Poster for Saint Lucifer

    Saint Lucifer 1997

    A conflict arises between the people of the town and the local priest when they have to decide how to represent certain biblical episode.

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  • Poster for Emiliano Zapata

    Emiliano Zapata 1970

    This is the story of a man, Emiliano Zapata, and of a revolution, the Mexican Revolution.

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  • Poster for One Hundred Years with Juan Rulfo

    One Hundred Years with Juan Rulfo 2017

    This documentary explores key moments in the life of writer Juan Rulfo, with artists such as Werner Herzog and Eduardo Galeano reflecting on his work.

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  • Poster for Cuartelazo

    Cuartelazo 1977

    Narration of one of the bloodiest episodes of the Mexican national history, The Tragic Ten, beginning when General Victoriano Huerta sent to kill President Francisco I. Madero, Vice President José María Pino Suárez and Senator Belisario Dominguez. The film recreates the moment of the execution at the hands of Huerta and his accomplices Bernardo Reyes, Félix Díaz and Manuel Mondragón.

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  • Poster for Red Rain

    Red Rain 1950

    Military leader is appointed to local government, becomes overly despotic in his leadership.

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  • Poster for Jesús, el niño Dios

    Jesús, el niño Dios 1971

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  • Poster for Orphans

    Orphans 2014

    Orphans is the true story of a forbidden love affair set in the oppressive and violent atmosphere of nineteenth century Mexico. One man, Melchor Ocampo, driven by the twin passions of love and idealism, defies the stain of illegitimacy to shake off the crippling yoke of Spain and the Catholic Church. In so doing he becomes a founding figure of modern day Mexico.

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  • Poster for The Meeting of President Taft and President Díaz at El Paso, Texas

    The Meeting of President Taft and President Díaz at El Paso, Texas 1909

    The first meeting of a U.S. president and a Mexican president took place when William Howard Taft met Porfirio Díaz on 16 October 1909, in El Paso. The meeting was celebrated in both El Paso and Juárez with parades, elaborate receptions, lavish gifts and large crowds. Shot by the pioneers of Mexican Cinema the brothers Alva. This is a typical example of newsreel material prior to the Mexican revolution. By hemerographical references we know that this footage was presented to the then president of Mexico General Porfirio Díaz in the Castle of Chapultepec, then residence of the president.

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  • Poster for Lo negro del Negro

    Lo negro del Negro 1987

    Based on the book by the same name, the film follows the exploits of Arturo "El Negro" Durazo, who was the head of the police department in Mexico City, we witness his crimes and his eccentric life, that will inevitably lead to his fall.

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  • Poster for Los Niños Héroes de Chapultepec

    Los Niños Héroes de Chapultepec 2017

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  • His Most Serene Highness 2000

    This historical drama depicts the waning days of the life of Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, who waged a war against the United States that ultimately cost his nation half of its territory

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