The Flower of My SecretMovies like The Flower of My Secret
- Key Features:
- Writers journey, Midlife crisis, Extramarital affair, Self-discovery, Emotional distance, Re-evaluation of life, Relationship drama, Romantic relationships, Personal identity, Infidelity, Melancholy, Existentialism
- Tone:
- serious, restrained, poetic
- Target Audience:
- Art house enthusiasts, Drama lovers, Fans of character-driven stories, Those interested in stories about self-discovery
- Emotional Arc:
- Dissatisfaction → Introspection → Hope
The Flower of My Secret

Leo is a middle-aged writer of popular romantic novels who writes under a pseudonym, since she despises her own work. At home, her husband, who works overseas, is distant both physically and emotionally. As she reevaluates her life and writing, Leo is led to an unexpected relationship with Ángel, a sensitive newspaper editor.
The Flower of My Secret
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.

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.

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.

Salvador Mallo, a filmmaker in the twilight of his career, remembers his life: his mother, his lovers, the actors he worked with. The sixties in a small village in Valencia, the eighties in Madrid, the present, when he feels an immeasurable emptiness, facing his mortality, the incapability of continuing filming, the impossibility of separating creation from his own life. The need of narrating his past can be his salvation.

It tells the story of Marcos and Ana, who have been married for more than 25 years, but enter into an existential crisis that leads them to separate. The life of singles seems fascinating and exciting at first, but soon it also becomes monotonous for her and nightmarish for him.

Gloria encounters Francisco, a man whose social veneer betrays a truer self burrowed underneath.

A Cape Verdean woman navigates her way through Lisbon, following the scanty physical traces her deceased husband left behind and discovering his secret, illicit life.

Pepa resolves to kill herself with a batch of sleeping-pill-laced gazpacho after her lover leaves her. Fortunately, she is interrupted by a deliciously chaotic series of events.

Cultural critic David Kepesh finds his life -- which he indicates is a state of "emancipated manhood" -- thrown into tragic disarray by Consuela Castillo, a well-mannered student who awakens a sense of sexual possessiveness in her teacher.

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.

The De La Mora siblings concoct a mischievous plan to break into their old family home to retrieve a hidden treasure of significant importance.

Ane is in her mid-forties and delighted when a stunning bouquet of flowers is delivered to her home. But the site manager has no idea who to thank – one thing is for sure; her jealous husband, Ander, is not the unknown cavalier. As these gallantries increase, always on a Thursday and always with an anonymous sender, Ane’s life takes on a new direction. The life of Lourdes is also sent into turmoil by beautiful bouquets of flowers: Since the death of her husband in a traffic accident, flowers have been deposited regularly at the scene. Lourdes’ mother-in-law, Tere, is determined to get to the bottom of the anonymous flowers. Jon Garaño and José Mari Goenaga’s feature film debut pays charming homage to three headstrong women and the power of flowers.

Lucio and Martina used to share an indescribable chemistry during their highschool years, however, they took separate ways. 25 years later they meet again, but this time they decide to invent an ideal life in order to hide themselves from an inevitable truth: they were really waiting for each other in all of these years.

To celebrate his 90th birthday, an old single journalist, Sabio, wants something special from Rosa Cabarcas’s brothel: an intense night of love with a virgin teenager. The madam finds him the ideal young woman, Delgadina, a factory worker, who is selling her virginity to support her family. When he sees Delgadina sleeping angelically, he loses interest in pure pleasure and falls in love with her. That love was not meant to be true, but fate changes, and that hope is born of an opportunity for unbridled love.

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.

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.

Two unmarried women who have become pregnant by accident and are about to give birth meet in a hospital room: Janis, in her late-thirties, unrepentant and happy; Ana, a teenager, remorseful and frightened.

Carpenter Arturo becomes a literary sensation when the children's stories he writes in his spare time get published, but he comes to resent success and the spotlight that comes with it. During a press tour he falls in love with beautiful married woman, Matilde.

Raimunda, a working-class woman living in Madrid, is dealing with the aftermath of a fire that killed her parents in her native village in La Mancha. Raimunda's life is further complicated when her deceased mother, Irene, returns as a ghost to resolve unfinished family business, including a murder and other buried truths.

Marc and Rebeca, a young couple, travel to an old country house that used to belong to their family. Once there, they write the shared history of their roots, creating a huge family tree that harbours relationships of love, heartbreak, sex, madness, jealousy and infidelity, and under which also lies a history laden with secrets.

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.

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

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.

Various lives converge on an isolated island, all connected by an author whose novel has become inextricably entwined with his own life.

Lu, a conformist woman in her forties, learns that her 15-year partner has been having extramarital affairs. Starting from scratch, she gets involved in an unexpected relationship with a young womanizer.

An actor's world comes crashing down after he learns that his wife has left him.

At once an intimate chronicle of a romance and a sprawling portrait of life in early 1990s France following the intertwining journeys of Jacques, a worldly Parisian writer, and Arthur, a curious, carefree and much-younger university student who is just beginning to live. Brought together by chance, the two men find themselves navigating a casual fling that gradually deepens into a tender, transformative bond.

A writer secludes himself in the mountains and falls in lust with local Berta. After realizing the oddities of the rural community the author starts to question the lines between reality and fiction.

After being estranged for 15 years, flamboyant actress Becky del Paramo re-enters her daughter Rebeca's life when she comes to perform a concert. Rebeca, she finds, is now married to one of Becky's ex-lovers, Manuel. The mother and daughter begin making up for lost time, when suddenly, a murder occurs...

After 25 years, an ex hired gun visits his old colleague, who is now a small town sheriff. Their past relationship is explored, as is how they reflect on it in the present.

A girl. A boy. A love story. But also about dreams, fears, life, true love, friendship and how we deal with it. And a secret between them...

After almost 10 years of marriage, attractive Zoe discovers that her marriage lacks passion and surprise, and is seduced by the possibility of finding those sensations already forgotten in her husband's brother. From this premise a series of events lead these three characters to a dangerous game of revenges, secrets and passions. Two brothers and one woman: the triangle is outlined in a disquieting way. It is a bomb that triggers family secrets, the contained rage of desire and the unmanageable power of love. An exciting story that subjugates the viewer from beginning to end. Even though Zoe/Sonia has been married to Ignacio/Ishan for about a decade, they are unable to have children. She wants to be intimate but he prefers to be ready for intimacy on Saturdays only, and she gets physically drawn to his artistic brother, Gonzalo/Rohan. Then things get complicated for her after she tests positive for motherhood and finds that her husband may be gay.

After her husband dies, Carmina keeps it a secret until a check that he had been expecting comes in.

After dumping a bucket of water on a beautiful young woman from the window of a train car, wealthy Frenchman Mathieu, regales his fellow passengers with the story of the dysfunctional relationship between himself and the young woman in question, a fiery 19-year-old flamenco dancer named Conchita. What follows is a tale of cruelty, depravity and lies -- the very building blocks of love.

Mariana and Julian are a couple that have been happily married for many years. They have two kids: Juan Maria and Bibiana. They are in love and are very successful in their professional lives. They have a wonderful sex life and in the foreplay that they enjoy in privacy, he tells her that she can have sex with other man if she tells him everything in detail.

Oliver, a young film director, discovers on a porn Web site one night that the protagonist of one of the erotic videos is his younger half-sister Aurora. In the process of finding out what she was doing there, Oliver will become fascinated by his sister.

In 1987 Madrid, the unexpected encounter between a seasoned journalist and a young student leads to a profound exploration of love, desire, politics, power, and discovery of each other.

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.

A woman is determined to stop the wedding of her best friend, since she has been secretly in love with him.

A Spanish orchestra conductor deals with the mysterious disappearance of his girlfriend.

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

Introverted Don Johnston receives an anonymous letter from an ex-lover informing him that he has a son who may be looking for him. A freelance sleuth neighbor motivates Don to embark on a cross-country search for his past flames seeking answers.

Quiet Jose woos cafe worker Ana, but she is unaware he has intentions other than the purely romantic.

A man searches for his father, Pedro Páramo, in a town doomed by violence and the fury of a frustrated love.

Giovanni and Raffaella are happily married from ten years, but their relationship goes into crisis when Raffaella falls in love with Valerio Mantovani, a handsome forty-year-old man she knew during the concerts of chamber music she weekly attends with her mother.

Mort Rainey, a writer just emerging from a painful divorce with his ex-wife, is stalked at his remote lake house by a psychotic stranger and would-be scribe who claims Rainey swiped his best story idea. But as Rainey endeavors to prove his innocence, he begins to question his own sanity.

When Antonia's husband Massimo is killed in a car accident, she accidentally discovers that he has been having a same-sex affair with a produce wholesaler named Michele.

A love story between a couple with the same last name but very different social statuses.

Álvaro, a man obsessed with the idea of writing what he brands as “high literature,” manipulates the lives and feelings of the people around him to write about the consequences caused by his devious acts.

The film centres on Moncho and his coming-of-age experience in Galicia in 1936. Moncho develops a close relationship with his teacher Don Gregorio who introduces the boy to different things in the world. While the story centres on Moncho's ordinary coming-of-age experiences, tensions related to the looming Spanish Civil War periodically interrupt Moncho's personal growth and daily life.

A couple's life in NYC becomes a whirlwind when Nicole suspects José is cheating on her while receiving the surprise that her father is getting married to a woman half his age.

Elegant, retired architect Shauna (70) crosses paths with Pierre, a happily married doctor in his 40s, who first made an impression on her in a brief meeting 15 years previously. Both are quite troubled to meet again and begin an affair. While Pierre’s family life is soon turned upside down, Shauna struggles with feelings she thought belonged to the past.

A woman watches time pass beside the suitcases of her ex-lover (who is supposed to come pick them up but never arrives) and a restless dog who doesn't understand that his master has abandoned him.

Marie, who works as a successful door-to-door encyclopedia salesperson, has been married to her husband Francois for 12 years and has a two-year-old son. Though she is relatively content with her life, she feels something is wanting. Enter 50-year old African-American Bill. Initially she is annoyed by his insouciance, but she finds that she is irresistibly attracted to him. Soon the two are in the midst of sordid illicit affair. She knows little about her new lover, and he seems uninterested in learning about her, but the long sessions of lovemaking are something else entirely. Feeling out of control, Marie is increasingly repelled by her own actions. Psychologically, she struggles to reconcile her torrid encounters with Bill and mundane domestic chores such as bathing her son. Moreover, she finds herself incapable of hiding her adulterous behavior, rather she comes home with scratches and hickeys all over her body, to the devastation Francois.

After being a victim of rape within their own home, Diana chooses to keep the trauma secret. Mario, her husband, also has something to hide. The silence takes the couple's account over the day turns gradually into a peculiar form of violence.

Three generations of a wealthy Bordeaux family are caught in the crossfire when Anne decides to run for mayor, thanks to a political pamphlet that revives an old murder scandal.

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

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.

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.

An examination on the effect of Franco-era religious schooling and sexual abuse on the lives of two longtime friends.

Julia, a real estate agent, finds an enormous amount of money hidden in a dead man's apartment, a stroke of luck that will force her to face the wrath of the very peculiar inhabitants of the community, who will stop at nothing to get their hands on the money.

A woman in her mid-30s breaks up with her boyfriend of seven years and goes on a journey of self-discovery.

A solitary nurse bonds with a badly burned patient who survived an accident on an oil rig.

Lucía and Ofelia, two sisters, finally meet after 7 years of cold relationships upon Lucia 's wedding. But when Juan, Lucia's husband, and Ofelia meet, they feel like a disruptive fantasy have enchanted their minds and bodies...

Noah must leave her city, boyfriend, and friends to move into William Leister's mansion, the flashy and wealthy husband of her mother Rafaela. As a proud and independent 17 year old, Noah resists living in a mansion surrounded by luxury. However, it is there where she meets Nick, her new stepbrother, and the clash of their strong personalities becomes evident from the very beginning.

Nino and Caterina have been married for 65 years. After Caterina's death, their daughter Elisabetta, trying to help her father to overcome the loss, hires an author to write a book on their love story.

At age 42, Rafael Belvedere is having a crisis. He lives in the shadow of his father, he feels guilty about rarely visiting his aging mother, his ex-wife says he doesn't spend enough time with their daughter and he has yet to make a commitment to his girlfriend. At his lowest point, a minor heart attack reunites him with Juan Carlos, a childhood friend, who helps Rafael to reconstruct his past.

Nolan Mack, a soft-spoken bank employee, undoubtedly loves his wife Joy, though their cavernous empty house only underscores how disconnected they’ve always been from each other. Nolan finds himself drifting from his familiar present-day life in pursuit of lost time after meeting a troubled young man named Leo on his drive home. What begins as an aimless drive down an unfamiliar street turns into a life-altering series of events.

A sea captain makes a bet in a cafe with a friend that he will marry the first woman who walks in.

Based on the famous play "Bodas de sangre" (Blood Wedding) by Federico García Lorca, La novia tells the story of a passionate love triangle. A bride leaves her groom, no longer able to withstand the surging desires of her lover, Leonordo.

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.

Muriel is beautiful, free-spirited and bed-ridden since a horrific accident. Leo is a drunk middle-aged ex-boxer. Desperate for work and unqualified, he interviews for Muriel, who hires him to cook and care for her against her better judgment. Initially out of his depth, Leo slowly wins Muriel's trust. As Muriel teaches him to read, he forces her to confront the joys beyond her window.

Rick is a screenwriter living in Los Angeles. While successful in his career, his life feels empty. Haunted and confused, he finds temporary solace in the decadent Hollywood excess that defines his existence. Women provide a distraction to his daily pain, and every encounter brings him closer to finding his place in the world.

Two speleologists, Esteban and Pedro, travel to a mountainous area located in northern Spain, near a small village, to study a newly discovered cave and determine if it is of scientific interest, while Gabi, Esteban's wife, awaits their return on a lonely road at the foot of the mountain.

Year 1998. Isabel, a journalism student, is forced to do her internship in the newspaper of a small Galician coastal town in order to finish her degree. When she arrives, she wants to start investigating as soon as possible, to demonstrate everything she has learned in order to become a real journalist. But the position she is assigned is the last one she expected: the writing and management of the obituaries that reach the newsroom. But this, which might seem boring at first, becomes the door to an investigation that will take her through different parts of the Spanish geography in search of an impossible love story.

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.

Raphael is a ghostwriter who takes a job writing for famous footy player Kevin. To his delight and his girlfriend, Murials horror, Kevins current girlfriend is an old (easily rekindled) flame of Raphaels. A freak accident leaves a close friend dead and Raphael is forced to reconsider his priorities.

Because of her past, 17-year-old Rio lives her days filling the emptiness in her heart with money—until one day, she meets a university professor named Kouki and falls in love.

Laura and Carlos love each other as if every day was the last, and perhaps that first love intensity is what will tear them apart a year later.

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?

Olivier Assayas, Gus Van Sant, Wes Craven and Alfonso Cuaron are among the 20 distinguished directors who contribute to this collection of 18 stories, each exploring a different aspect of Parisian life. The colourful characters in this drama include a pair of mimes, a husband trying to chose between his wife and his lover, and a married man who turns to a prostitute for advice.

The seeds of love are planted when Lisa, a high-powered investment banker, receives flowers from a secret admirer. But when his fairy-tale fantasies clash with her workaholic ways, they soon find out that sometimes, it's harder than it seems for love to conquer all.

Laura, a Spanish woman living in Buenos Aires, returns to her hometown outside Madrid with her Argentinian husband and children. However, the trip is upset by unexpected events that bring secrets into the open.

From an intoxicating fantasy to a dangerous affair, a wealthy married woman finds her life irreversibly shattered after picking up an unpublished novel.

Susana leaves her life in Paris, where she works as a model, and returns to Madrid to take care of her grandmother Pilar.

A fatally ill mother with only two months to live creates a list of things she wants to do before she dies without telling her family of her illness.

Art professor Nino Rolfe attempts to break down his wife Teresa's conventional modesty. Noticing her affection for their daughter's fiancé, Nino instigates her sexual interest in him - setting off a chain of unexpected events and emotional complications...

Rosa is about to turn 45 and realises that she's always lived her life to serve everyone else. So she decides to leave it all behind, take charge of her life and fulfil her dream of starting her own business.

A desperate love story between two young girls of extremely different social backgrounds who, unable to find a place for their love in the world they live in, are pushed to commit a crime.

Julián is a successful video-game designer whose life is plagued by a dark secret. But when Diana pops up in his life, the man will feel as though a chance at happiness is within his grasp.

As single mom Grace juggles work, bills, and her affair with a married doctor, her daughter, Ansiedad, plots a shortcut to adulthood after finding inspiration in the coming-of-age stories she's reading for school.

An acclaimed novelist struggles to write an analysis of love in one of three stories, each set in a different city, that detail the beginning, middle and end of a relationship.

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.

Seven years after their first infatuated encounter, Abril and Manuel meet again. Despite the fact that they are both married, it is soon apparent that their attraction has only grown.

After learning that the art thief she has been chasing is her ex-lover, an officer working for Interpol concocts a plan to catch him red-handed.

After World War II, a woman refuses to believe her husband, missing on the Russian front, is dead. Flashbacks reveal their brief courtship and marriage. Years later, she travels to Russia with his photo, determined to find him. What will she discover?

Three married couples undergoing therapy are summoned by their female psychologist to a meeting. The psychologist won’t be attending the reunion herself, but she will give to them instructions about what they must do. Thus, to the sound of a horn (literally), the six protagonists will gradually air their dirty laundry concerning their relationships and bring up issues like taking care of the kids, the different home tasks, money, jealousy and sex, until it all leads to a most unexpected and equally shocking end.

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.

