Luis Buñuel

Luis Buñuel Portolés (22 February 1900 – 29 July 1983) was a Spanish and Mexican filmmaker who worked in France, Mexico, and Spain. Considered one of the greatest and most influential filmmakers of all time, Buñuel's works were known for their avant-garde surrealism infused with political commentary. A member of the surrealist movement of the 1920s, he experimented with cinematic surrealism in the late silent era and honed his pivotal storytelling skills in Mexico from 1947 to 1960. During this time, he gained a reputation for creating grounded and human melodramas. He transitioned into making virtuosic, unconventional films of political satire and was acclaimed for his morally complex arthouse drama, 'Viridiana' (1961), which criticized the Francoist dictatorship. Buñuel received numerous recognitions, including the National Prize for Arts and Sciences for Fine Arts in 1977, the Moscow International Film Festival Contribution to Cinema Prize in 1979, and the Career Golden Lion in 1982. He was also nominated twice for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1968 and 1972. Seven of his films are counted among the top 250 films of all time, according to Sight & Sound's 2012 critics' poll.