Viridiana

Director: Luis Buñuel

1961 / 91min / 35mm

Voted the greatest Spanish film of all-time in a recent poll by venerable cinema magazine Caimán Cuadernos de Cine—though banned in Spain on its initial release—Buñuel’s Palme d’Or-winning comedy of chastity defiled and charity run amok stars Silvia Pinal in the title role as a young woman whose intentions to take her final vows as a nun are derailed by a visit to her aging uncle, Don Jaime (Fernando Rey), which ends with her in possession of half of Jaime’s estate, transformed by the pious Viridiana into a shelter for un-housebroken beggars and vagrants. A blasphemous blast of braying bacchanalia from Buñuel, announcing the beginning of his greatest period of sustained creation.