My Tender MatadorMovies like My Tender Matador
- Key Features:
- Transgender character, Political oppression, Dictatorship, Forbidden love, Guerrilla warfare, Social commentary, LGBTQ+ themes, Historical context, Romance, Violence-moderate
- Tone:
- serious, dramatic, poetic
- Target Audience:
- LGBTQ+ viewers, Art house cinema enthusiasts, Viewers interested in political dramas
- Emotional Arc:
- Longing → Passion → Loss
My Tender Matador

Among gunshots and boleros, a passionate relationship flourishes between a lonely transvestite and a young guerrilla during the Pinochet dictatorship.
My Tender Matador
Scandal erupts over a famous bullfighter's affair with a left-wing actress.

Paulete, the star of a daring theater group, is visited by his military brother-in-law, the young Fininha. A torrid relationship arises between the two, and now the soldier must deal with the prevailing repression during the Brazilian military dictatorship.

A tough young man, who helps to kick poor people out of their houses, falls in love with a girl. She lives with her father in the building about to be demolished.

Irene is a magazine editor living under the shadow of the Pinochet dictatorship in Chile. Francisco is a handsome photographer and he comes to Irene for a job. As a sympathizer with the underground resistance movement, Francisco opens her eyes and her heart to the atrocities being committed by the state.

The film tells the true story of Elisa Sánchez Loriga and Marcela Gracia Ibeas, two women in 1901 Spain who fell deeply in love. To overcome societal and legal barriers to their relationship, Elisa assumes a male identity, enabling the pair to marry in secret. Their daring act makes them the first recorded same-sex couple to marry in Spain, but their love is tested as they face relentless persecution and sacrifice.

A conflicted youth confesses to crimes he didn't commit while a man and woman aroused by death become obsessed with each other.

When João goes to Brazil in search of a better life, he meets punk music enthusiast Maria and falls in love with her. But his involvement in the local drug trade makes him the target of a vicious drug lord.

Ezequiel, a sixteen-year-old gay teenager in his sexual awakening, meets a boy of twenty-one. They quickly start a relationship and the situation unravels unexpectedly.

Jorge is a writer for a left-leaning Buenos Aires magazine that's at odds with the country's military dictatorship. He meets lovely and intelligent actress Laura and begins an on-and-off romance that will continue for the next two decades. Fearful of commitment, Jorge initially moves on from her and his fortunes suffer, but the situation changes when he and Laura renew their acquaintance. Meanwhile, the country undergoes a political transformation.

A young girl recounts her girlhood and eventual marriage to a general of the Mexican revolution. by one of the most outstanding writers of the new feminist Mexican literature, it is at once a haunting novel of one woman's life and a powerful account of post-revolutionary Mexico from a female perspective.

A family lives in the Mexican countryside raising fighting bulls. Esther is in charge of running the ranch, while her husband Juan, a world-renowned poet, raises and selects the beasts. Although in an open marriage, their relationship begins to crumble when Esther falls in love with an American horsebreaker and Juan is unable to control his jealousy.

After etching their love on a stalk, a boy and girl reunite years later, reigniting their romance amidst the Mexican Revolution.

A love story between a country boy in Beijing to study and a wealthy businessman set against the backdrop of the 1989 Tiananmen Square incident.

After being released from a mental hospital, a troubled young man tracks down an actress he once had sex with and forces her into captivity, determined to make her part of his life.

Chile, 1970. During a night of heavy drinking, Jaime, a lonely 20-year-old young man, is sentenced to prison. There, he meets “The Stallion”, an older and respected man in whom he finds protection, and from whom he learns about love and loyalty. But as their relationship grows stronger, “The Stallion” faces the violent power struggles within the prison.

Carmen is a gypsy teenager, destined to live a life that is repeated every generation: getting married and raising as many children as possible. But one day she meets Lola, an uncommon gypsy who dreams about going to university, does graffiti and is very different. Carmen quickly develops a complicity with Lola and discovers a world that, inevitably, leads them to be rejected by their families.

Follows the tale of a young woman’s sexual awakening and subsequent journey around the world in pursuit of her ideal lover. Encounters include an Arabian sheik and a Spanish bullfighter. Her friend and butler accompany her and help to arrange her couplings.

Against the backdrop of a military dictatorship, Eugenia is reunited with her estranged family following her father’s stroke and is forced to confront dark secret.

After the gangsters who killed his father come to settle a score, a teenage boy and his mother turn the tables on the killers - one Latino family's quest for honor and revenge as the hunted become the hunters.

10-year-old Pixote endures torture, degradation, and corruption at a local youth detention center where two of its members are murdered by policemen who frame Lilica, a 17-year-old trans hustler. Pixote helps Lilica and three other boys escape and they start to make their living by a life of crime which only escalates to more violence and death.

Marina's life is thrown into turmoil following the death of her partner. Mourning the loss of the man she loved, she finds herself under intense scrutiny from those with no regard for her privacy.

After a young heiress is assaulted by a policeman, she seeks revenge by befriending the policeman’s mousy wife and introducing her to her circle of outrageous punk friends.

Mateo is an intelligent boy who falls in love with Daniel, but when everyone reveals that relationship, Mateo is at a crossroads, and he will have to decide between fighting his adversities or giving up everything, even his life.

Pablo, a successful film director, disappointed in his relationship with his young lover, Juan, concentrates in a new project, a monologue starring his transgender sister, Tina. Antonio, an uptight young man, falls possessively in love with the director and in his passion would stop at nothing to obtain the object of his desire.

In an attempt to help his friend Marcos with his impotence, Jaime sets up him up with another friend Josita. But the sex date fails, and so he comes in to help. What first appears to be just another sexual experience for all three evolves to a full romantic relationship.

Catalina is a young, beautiful girl living in extreme poverty with her brother Bayron and her mother Hilda. She becomes obsessed with getting breast implants to get social status and money. She leaves her boyfriend Albeira and becomes a prostitute for drug dealers. In this way she will enjoy all the luxuries that she lacks. Meanwhile, her ex-boyfriend Albeira and her mother Hilda begin a relationship behind her back.

A man remembers forty-eight crucial hours in his life when, as a child, he visited his mother, the favorite woman of an important politician, in a bordello owned by him, right before some important political changes in 1937 Brazil. In those hours, he discovers his own sexuality.

In 1931, a young soldier deserts from the army and falls into a country farm, where he is welcomed by the owner due to his political ideas. Manolo has four daughters, Fernando likes all of them and they like him, so he has to decide which one to love.

In 1943, while the Allies are bombing Berlin and the Gestapo is purging the capital of Jews, a dangerous love affair blossoms between two women – one a Jewish member of the underground, the other an exemplar of Nazi motherhood.

The story of two radically different men thrown together in a Latin American prison cell. One is Valentin, a journalist being tortured for his political beliefs. The other is Molina, a gay window-dresser who fills their lonely nights by spinning romantic fantasies drawn from memories of old movies.

A girl named O loves a rich, and much older man. She is subjected to a variety of humiliating experiences to prove her unconditional obedience to him in a Chinese brothel. A poor boy sees her and falls in love with her. To get the money needed to sleep with her, he takes part in rebellious acts.

As a young woman, Tristana is orphaned and taken under the guardianship of Don Lope, a respected member of the community, who takes advantage of his innocent charge. When Tristana falls in love with artist Horacio, she must learn to be more assertive in order to achieve independence from her nefarious guardian, or her blossoming relationship with Horatio is doomed.

After escaping from a religious colony in Chile, Maria seeks shelter in a mansion where she’s taken in by two pigs, its only inhabitants. Like in a stop-motion dream, the universe of the house reacts to her feelings. The animals slowly morph into humans and the house into a dark, menacing world.

Rosario Tijeras has been abused by men all her life, initially by her stepfather. Years later, she works as a paid assassin, seducing men and killing them when they least expect it. She meets Emilio, a wealthy womanizer, and his best friend, Antonio, at a nightclub, and starts an affair with Emilio despite Antonio's growing feelings for her. But circumstances bring her closer to Antonio, until her past catches up with her in a devastating way.

A young and fiercely independent woman, Carmen, is forced to flee her home in the Mexican desert following the brutal murder of her mother. She survives an illegal border crossing into the US, only to be confronted by a lawless volunteer border guard. When the border guard and his patrol partner Aidan become embroiled in a deadly standoff, the pair is forced to escape together.

Two brothers develop a very close relationship as they are growing up in an idyllic and happy family. When they are young adults their relationship becomes very intimate, romantic, and sexual.

A young woman's desperate search for her abducted boyfriend draws her into the infamous Colonia Dignidad, a sect nobody ever escaped from.

Ernesto lives in depression and decides to hire a hit-man to end his own life. However, his plan takes an unexpected turn when he meets Rita, whose love gives him a new reason to live.

Two men share an odd friendship while they care for two women who are both in deep comas.

A trapeze artist must decide between her lust for Sergio, the Happy Clown, or her affection for Javier, the Sad Clown, both of whom are deeply disturbed.

After her estranged brother's sudden death, young wife Lucia bonds with his fiancée through their shared grief and finds herself falling in love.

Journalist Laura works at home, isolating herself from others. While she lies to her mother and brother, Raul, on the phone about having an active social life, Laura's days consist of gazing at her neighbors, eating canned food and going to clubs to bring home strangers. As the anniversary of her father's death draws near, Laura develops a relationship with Arturo, a charismatic actor who shares her taste for rough sex.

Luis, an 18-year-old Mexican boy with indigenous roots, enters the Heroico Military College with the hope of securing a better future. There, he encounters a rigid and institutionally violent system designed to make him a perfect soldier.

Carla and Bruno believe they have answers for everything until Rai appears in their lives, an attractive and mysterious young who lives outsidethe rules. In this story about love and friendship, boundaries dissolve by the rhythm of funkyand break to offer a provocative, exciting and deeply touching vision about romantic relationships.

During the filming of a movie, actress Sandra Navarro denounces actor Daniel Zavala for sexual abuse on the set during the recording of a scene for the movie. Daniel pleads his innocence and the production tries to prevent the situation from leaking off the set and causing a scandal.

Daniela, raised in the bosom of a strict Evangelical family and recently unmasked as a fornicator by her shocked parents, struggles to find her own path to spiritual harmony.

As the Algerian War draws to a close, a teenager with a girlfriend starts feeling homosexual urges for two of his classmates: a country boy, and a French-Algerian intellectual.

Tita is passionately in love with Pedro, but her controlling mother forbids her from marrying him. When Pedro marries her sister, Tita throws herself into her cooking and discovers she can transfer her emotions through the food she prepares, infecting all who eat it with her intense heartbreak.

Following the tragic death of her teenage son, Manuela travels from Madrid to Barcelona in an attempt to contact the long-estranged father the boy never knew. She reunites with an old friend, an outspoken transgender sex worker, and befriends a troubled actress and a pregnant, HIV-positive nun.

Two men commit a robbery. One is caught but the other escapes. He ends his escape on a lonely and deserted beach where he meets a beautiful woman named Erótica. They start a passionate love affair that is interrupted when the other con man escapes from prison and joins them. A sexual/sentimental love triangle begins leading to a violent confrontation between the two men.

Desperate to flee but consumed by fear, Alejandra, a young mother and working housewife, is trapped in a violent and unsatisfying relationship with her husband, Angel. She leans on her brother Fabián for support, but he has secrets of his own. The troubled couple locate a meteorite, initiating an encounter with a mysterious creature. Their lives are turned upside down by the discovery of the creature, which is a source of both pleasure and destruction. A rag-tag collection of people also addicted to having mind-blowing sex with the monster come in and out...Alejandra’s gay brother, Fabian has sex with Ángel, his abusive, cheating brother-in-law. Eventually, for the second time, Ángel is tossed aside once Fabian discovers the Joy of (Squid) Sex. ...

Childhood friends Matías and Jerónimo reach adolescence and experience sexual attraction to each other, before being separated by circumstances. Later, as young adults, they meet again, and the film follows themes of complicated relationships and sexual tensions, as well as issues of homophobia.

When American author Nicholas brings in a cosmetologist named Kika to prepare the corpse of his recently deceased son, she inadvertently revives the young man, then falls in love with him. Forces conspire against the couple, though, as Nicholas wants Kika for himself.

The story of an improbable friendship and a social comment on life in Bolivia in the eighties.

In 1950s Mexico City, William Lee, an American ex-pat in his late forties, leads a solitary life amidst a small American community. However, the arrival in town of Eugene Allerton, a young student, stirs William into finally establishing a meaningful connection with someone.

Juan lives in clandestinity. Just like his mum, his dad and his adored uncle Beto, outside his home he has another name. At school, Juan is known as Ernesto. And he meets María, who only has one name. Based on true events, set in the Argentina of 1979, this film is one about love.

In 1988, Chilean military dictator Augusto Pinochet, due to international pressure, is forced to call a plebiscite on his presidency. The country will vote ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ to Pinochet extending his rule for another eight years. Opposition leaders for the ‘No’ vote persuade a brash young advertising executive, René Saavedra, to spearhead their campaign. Against all odds, with scant resources and while under scrutiny by the despot’s minions, Saavedra and his team devise an audacious plan to win the election and set Chile free.

An Italian high school student becomes infatuated with a woman he sees outside his class window. Her fiancée is in jail for being involved in a radical movement, and she spends much time in court providing moral support. At first she resists the student's advances, but eventually begins an affair with him. Their situation is condemned by her family and his father, who is the woman's psychologist.

It’s 1948 and the Cold War has arrived in Chile. In the Congress, prominent Communist Senator and popular poet Pablo Neruda accuses the government of betraying the Party and is stripped of his parliamentary immunity by President González Videla. The Chief of Investigative Police instructs inspector Óscar Peluchonneau to arrest the poet. Neruda tries to escape from the country with his wife, the painter Delia del Carril, but they are forced to go underground.

In the late 1990s, the arrival of elderly invalid Patrick into Marion and Tom’s home triggers the exploration of seismic events from 40 years previous: the passionate relationship between Tom and Patrick at a time when homosexuality was illegal.

Gabriel rents a room in Juan’s House. They work together in a Woodwork place. Gabriel is a very quiet guy and has a little daughter. Juan is a party boy who has a lots of girls around. Inadvertently the sexual tension starts to grow between them. It opens a new hidden forbidden world they have to deal with.

In a Mexican border town plagued by neglect, corruption, and violence, a frustrated teacher tries an unorthodox new method to break through his students’ apathy and unlock their curiosity, their potential... and perhaps even their genius.

The story of Diego, a young and successful photographer that lives in the glamorous world of fashion, shallowness and excess. A tragic accident turns his world around; his partner is now in a coma. Unexpectedly, and right at this terrible time, Diego must take care of his son, Armando. Now, both of them have to adapt to each other; Armando to the unknown, homosexual world of his father, and Diego to the closed attitude of his teenage son.

A coffin-dragging gunslinger and a prostitute become embroiled in a bitter feud between a merciless masked clan and a band of Mexican revolutionaries.

Fatherless barrio Puerto Rican Rico is a menial car mechanic by day, but lives for the nights, when he dances and dates hot dancing girls, cockily convinced the title of Salsa king in fancy nightclub La Luna's upcoming contest is to be his. He encourages his best friend, courteous gentleman Ken, to date his sister Margarita so he gets a free hand with her flirtatious classmate Lola. The reigning salsa queen Luna's interest in Rico as dance-partner threatens his on-off relationship with Vicki. More jealous trouble follows when Ken and Margarita fall in true love.

Set in '50s Spain, a young man leaves the army and looks for a job so he and his fiancée can get married. He rents a room from a widow, and shortly begins a torrid affair with her. The fiancée figures it out and decides to win him back by offering herself to him and taking him to meet her family. Ultimately he has to make a decision. Based on a true story.

During the last years of Pinochet's military regime, a group of militants from the "Manuel Rodríguez Patriotic Front" plan a prison break of political prisoners, through a tunnel that will take them 18 months to dig.

Armando, a 50 year man, seeks young men in Caracas and pays them just for company. One day he meets Elder, a 17 years boy that is the leader of a criminal gang, and that meeting changes their lives forever.

Igor is a plumber; Pina serves coffee. It is winter and they both deeply desire each other, but they are not free. In trying to figure out how to realize their love, she decides to make a lion costume for her little son and he decides to buy a photocopying machine for his wife. Spring will come at last and with it the consummation of love, filling their lives with hope and sex.

Sergio is a brooding, alienated man who works as a trash collector in Lisbon by day and roams the city streets by night seeking rough, anonymous sex with men. One night he meets a man who seems to be the embodiment of his tormented fantasies, and he becomes obsessed with the stranger until loneliness and unfulfilled desire propel him finally into a dark and dangerous animalistic state.

Raquel's longtime crush on her next-door neighbor turns into something more when he starts developing feelings for her, despite his family's objections.

The sexy Gin is the new love of Hache, but this can not forget his former girlfriend, so the love triangle is inevitable.

After getting into a minor traffic accident, Pablo attempts to make light of the situation by asking the driver of the other car, Sonsoles, out on a date. When she refuses and instead files an injury report, Pablo snaps and begins stalking her. He soon discovers that Sonsoles has a beautiful teenage sister, Maria, with whom Pablo is immediately infatuated -- a lust that soon turns dark. Can Pablo control his obsession, or will it consume him?

Hoping to earn his mother's respect, a young hustler-turned-businessman tries to open a brothel with his two useless buddies.

The film spans 30 years in Julieta’s life from a nostalgic 1985 where everything seems hopeful, to 2015 where her life appears to be beyond repair and she is on the verge of madness.

José Luis has a cushy corporate job at the lingerie factory his mom owns. After he falls in love and proposes to Silvia, a beautiful laborer on the underwear assembly line, his mom enlists Raul, a potential underwear model and would-be bullfighter, to seduce Silvia.

Joan is a naïve, 16-year-old who falls in love easily. One day he decides to escape to the provinces with Luciana, a beautiful 35-year-old woman and a teacher at his school, in order to give free rein to his love. Soon, Joan discovers with horror that he has fallen into a trap that is a mix between sex, money, politics and violence.

In 1960s Wyoming, two men develop a strong emotional and sexual relationship that endures as a lifelong connection complicating their lives as they get married and start families of their own.

Walt is a lonely convenience store clerk who has fallen in love with a Mexican migrant worker named Johnny. Though Walt has little in common with the object of his affections — including a shared language — his desire to possess Johnny prompts a sexual awakening that results in a tangled love triangle.

The passionate relationship between two men with unusual consequences. The film is divided in two parts. The first half charts the modest attraction between two men in the sunny, relaxing countryside and the second half charts the confusion and terror of an unknown menace lurking deep within the jungle shadows.

Set in Fascist Italy before the outbreak of World War II, the story centers on Tunin, a farmer turned anarchist who stays in a brothel while preparing to kill Benito Mussolini.

Carlos is a professionally frustrated screenwriter, and Irene is not sure what she wants to do with her life. When Irene meets Carlos at a coffee shop, she approaches him and, although she doesn't know him, proposes to play a game.

An array of outrageous people, including a desperate nymphomaniac and a terrorist with an acute sense of smell, seek love and happiness in Madrid.

A passionate love story set against a backdrop of sexual freedom, loosely based on the relationship between 19th century authors Pierre Louÿs and Marie de Régnier.

Harry Caine, a blind writer, reaches this moment in time when he has to heal his wounds from 14 years back. He was then still known by his real name, Mateo Blanco, and directing his last movie.

Roberto makes a pact with the devil to please his multiple lovers sexually, Satan accepts the deal but promises to snatch his soul when he finds true love. Meanwhile, two cops are on the lookout for those responsible of a murderous drug on the streets.

El Tenso does not know how to face his ill-tempered wife, Tana, to tell her that he wants to separate. Carlos, a friend of Tenso, suggests him to invert the situation and cause Tana to leave him by hiring Cuervo Flores, an irresistible seducer, to try and charm his wife until she falls in love with him.

The life of Danny Wright, a salesman forever on the road, veers into dangerous and surreal territory when he wanders into a Mexican bar and meets a mysterious stranger, Julian, who's very likely a hit man. Their meeting sets off a chain of events that will change their lives forever, as Wright is suddenly thrust into a far-from-mundane existence that he takes to surprisingly well … once he gets acclimated to it.

A man and a woman meet in the ruins of post-war Poland. With vastly different backgrounds and temperaments, they are fatally mismatched and yet drawn to each other.

One winter night, Pilar runs away from home. With her, she takes only a few belongings and her son, Juan. Antonio soon sets out to look for her. He says Pilar is his sunshine, and what's more, "She gave him her eyes"...

Four vignettes on the lives of the Cuban people in the pre-revolutionary era. In Havana, Maria is ashamed when a man she loves discovers how she makes a living. Pedro, an old farmer, discovers that the land he cultivates is being sold to an American company. A student sees his friends attacked by the police while they distribute leaflets supporting Fidel Castro. Finally, a peasant family is threatened by Batista's army.

During the revolution, a high-stakes gambler arrives in Cuba seeking to win big in poker games. Along the way, he meets and falls in love with the wife of a Communist revolutionary.

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.

Teenage Julien loves his teenage cousin Julia among flowers in summer of '39 France.

After being forced into a marriage and enduring a humiliating work routine in the hands of his father-in-law, Zé Araújo becomes the mythical Ojuara, an unconventional hero devoted to debauchery.

Cagalera and Moloteco are two teenagers from San Gregorio Atlapulco who are desperate to get out and move up and away from oppressive circumstances. When they hear of an opportunity to buy a spot in the electrician’s union, which could transform their lives, they quickly devolve into the criminal, adult underworld of Mexico City in a bid to buy their freedom.

Uruguay, 1973. Having been crushed by the military dictatorship, surviving members of the Tupamaro guerillas are imprisoned and tortured. They must find a way to endure the coming 12 years.


