20 Best Spanish Movies on Amazon Prime Video (2021)

Watching Spanish movies on Amazon Prime Video is a great way to practice vocabulary and listening skills.

All the Spanish-language films on this list are available to stream free for Prime members. Amazon Prime Video search by language is pretty terrible, so I have done the hard work for you. 🙂

These Spanish films on Amazon Prime Video are available in the US as of July 19, 2021. Many may also be available in other countries.

Watch them while you can, because content disappears frequently on Amazon as licensing agreements expire. I try to check this list regularly to keep it up to date.

Also check out my list of Spanish TV series on Amazon Prime.

Just tap the title of each movie to go to its Amazon page. Don’t have Amazon Prime yet? To watch these movies, click here to start your 30-day free trial.

Spanish Movies on Amazon Prime

1. El Crimen del Padre Amaro

Politics and sexual passions threaten to corrupt a young, newly-ordained priest in a small Mexican town.

This provocative drama starring Gael García Bernal and Ana Claudia Talancón was a huge success in its native Mexico and a commercial success in the United States. Nominated for a Best Foreign Language Film Oscar.

Note: Unfortunately, this film seems to come and go frequently from free Prime streaming, so if you don’t find it available, try adding it to your watchlist and checking back later.

Accent: Mexican

2. Biutiful

This bleak psychological drama is Mexican director Alejandro González Iñárritu’s take on Akira Kurosawa’s Ikiru.

Uxbal (Javier Bardem), a career criminal, plies his trade in Barcelona’s underground sweatshops and back alleys. Unlike his associates, he has some respect for the immigrant workers under his thumb and is a devoted father. Told that he is ill and has just a few months to live, Uxbal tries to get his affairs in order before the spirits, with whom he communes, come to claim him.

Accent: European Spanish. Some Chinese and Wolof.

3. El Callejón de los Milagros (Midaq Alley)

Prizewinning adaptation of Nobel Laureate Naguib Mahfouz’s novel, transposed from Cairo to Mexico City.

This film centers on a diverse group of characters in Mexico City’s central neighborhood and the connection between them. Featuring Salma Hayek in one of her first starring roles.

Accent: Mexican

4. Locas por el cambio

^{Note: No English subtitles available for trailer}

Cute Mexican comedy about Paula and Paulina, two young women who hate each other, who magically swap bodies after a high school reunion.

This is Amazon Prime Video’s first original movie from Mexico.

Accent: Mexican

5. Abre los ojos (Open Your Eyes)

The thought-provoking Spanish thriller on which the inferior remake Vanilla Sky was based.

Cesar is a handsome playboy who has it all until he falls hard for the beautiful Sofia (Penelope Cruz). When a jealous ex tries to kill him and herself in a car accident that leaves him horribly disfigured, his perfect life turns into a nightmare.

Accent: European Spanish

6. Mi mejor amigo (My Best Friend)

Tender coming-of-age story from Argentina.

Lorenzo is a quiet teenager in beautiful Patagonia. One day, his father decides to host Caito, the troubled son of a friend. At first, Caito hardly ever speaks, but over time the two boys become friends. As their friendship evolves towards deeper feelings, Caito reveals a secret.

Accent: Argentinian

7. Cartas a Elena

Sweet and sentimental story set in Chihuahua’s beautiful Copper Canyon.

Young Emilio and his adoptive father deliver mail as well as read and write letters for the illiterate villagers. Emilio feels saddened by the difficult news sent by relatives working north of the border and begins inventing happy letters for his customers.

Accent: Mexican

8. Carmen

Based on Prosper Mérimée’s classic novella, Carmen is a tale of forbidden passion and jealousy between a young soldier and a spoken-for woman, Carmen (Paz Vega).

The tragic story is told in flashback by the soldier, condemned to death, in a prison cell. He tells of the love he had for Carmen and how it proved to be destructive.

Accent: European Spanish

9. The Boy From Medellín

Appealing documentary that follows the “Prince of Reggaeton” J Balvin as he prepares for the most important concert of his career — a sold-out stadium show in his hometown of Medellín, Colombia.

But as the performance draws closer, the streets explode with growing political unrest, forcing the musician to wrestle with his responsibility as an artist to his country and his legions of fans around the globe.

Accent: Colombian. About half the dialogue is in English.

10. Sólo con tu pareja

This screwball comedy was renowned Mexican director Alfonso Cuarón’s debut film.

Reckless playboy Tomás juggles so many women he can’t keep their names straight. His bed-hopping catches up with him when his latest conquest, a nurse, falsely checks the “positive” box on his AIDS test to curtail Tomás’s rampant womanizing.

Accent: Mexican

11. Pelo Malo

Note: Available free with FlixLatino trial channel subscription.

In much of Latin America, curly Afro-textured hair is referred to as pelo malo, or bad hair.

In this heart-rending coming-of-age film set in the slums of Caracas, a nine-year-old boy’s obsession with straightening his hair and becoming a pop singer elicits a tidal wave of homophobic panic in his mother.

Accent: Venezuelan

12. El Abrazo de la Serpiente (Embrace of the Serpent)

Note: Available free with Topic trial channel subscription, or for rental.

Through parallel stories set 30 years apart, this absorbing odyssey follows two Western scientists who travel deep into the Amazon jungle looking for a rare plant that possesses healing powers, with an enigmatic shaman as their guide.

Nominated for Best Foreign Language Film Oscar in 2016.

Incredibly, the film includes dialogue in nine languages: Cubeo, Huitoto, Ticuna, Wanano, Spanish, Portuguese, German, Catalan, and English, so it might not be the best choice if your only objective is to improve your Spanish.

This hypnotic film is highly recommended though for those interested in Amazonian cultures.

Accents: Colombian, European Spanish

13. BBoy For Life

Powerful documentary about b-boys (breakers, or breakdancers in mainstream terminology) in Guatemala City threatened by overwhelming gang violence. The lives of two dancers and one active gang member collide in this touching story.

Accent: Guatemalan

14. Ma Ma

Note: Available free with trial channel subscription, or for rental.

This old-fashioned tear-jerker stars Oscar-winner Penelope Cruz as Magda, a woman determined to live life to the fullest in the face of her recent breast cancer diagnosis.

Accent: European Spanish

15. El Dedo

Note: Available free with trial channel subscription, or for rental.

After years of dictatorship, a remote village formally becomes a town with the birth of its 501st inhabitant, creating an opening for the position of mayor.

Based on a true story, this whimsical comedy celebrates democracy while gently poking fun at village life.

Thanks to travel and pet writer Tina of 21 Pup Street for recommending this one!

Accent: Argentinian

16. Sueño en Otro Idioma (I Dream in Another Language)

Note: Available free with trial channel subscription, or for rental.

Haunting and poetic film about the last two speakers of an indigenous language, who had a quarrel in the past and haven’t spoken to each other in over 50 years.

Martín, a young linguist, undertakes the challenge of bringing the old friends back together and convincing them to speak once again to save the language from extinction.

Winner of the Sundance Film Festival Audience Award.

Accent: Mexican. Some dialogue in Zikril, a fictional indigenous language created for the film.

17. Un Padre No Tan Padre

Note: Available free with a Pantaya channel trial, or for rental here.

Cute family comedy that follows an old-fashioned Mexican patriarch who gets kicked out of his retirement home for bad behavior. When his estranged son Francisco is forced to take him into the house full of hippies he shares with his girlfriend and young son, New Age collides with old age.

The title plays on the double meaning of padre — in Mexican slang it also means “cool.”

Set in the beautiful colonial city of San Miguel de Allende, Mexico.

Accent: Mexican

18. No Manches Frida

Note: Available free on Amazon with a Pantaya channel trial, or for rental.

Funny screwball comedy in which an ex-con works as a substitute teacher in order to retrieve the loot he buried under a high school’s new gym.

Subtitles in Spanish only.

Accent: Mexican

19. La Distancia Más Larga (The Longest Distance)

Beautiful and touching film that tells the story of a 10-year-old boy who travels to the country to meet his grandmother and rebuild family ties. Little does he know this will be the grandmother’s last journey as she is ill and wants to die in Mount Roraima, the place where she once was happy.

This award-winning Venezuelan/Spanish co-production contrasts the chaos and violence of Caracas with the natural paradise of Venezuela’s Gran Sabana region.

Accents: Venezuelan, European Spanish

20. Wakolda (The German Doctor)

Chilling Argentine drama directed, produced, and written by Lucía Puenzo based on her own novel Wakolda.

Patagonia, 1960. A German doctor meets an Argentinean family and follows them on a long desert road to a small town where the family will be starting a new life.

In this fictionalized account, the doctor turns out to be Nazi SS officer and physician Josef Mengele, infamous for performing human experiments in the Auschwitz concentration camp.

The family welcome the doctor into their home and entrust their young daughter to his care, not knowing that they are harboring one of the most dangerous criminals in the world.

Accent: Argentinian. Some dialogue in German.

Bonus: Spanish Movies for Rental on Amazon Prime

These Spanish-language movies are no longer available to stream free, but are well worth a rental.

1. Sin Nombre (Nameless)

In this suspenseful 2009 Mexican-American thriller, a young Honduran girl and a Mexican gangster are united in a journey across the American border.

Accents: Honduran, Mexican

2. La misma luna (Under the Same Moon)

This heartwarming tearjerker became the biggest Spanish-language hit in Hollywood box office history. After the grandmother raising him dies unexpectedly, a young Mexican boy risks his life crossing the border alone to join his mother in Los Angeles.

Partly in English, but well worth a watch for the human face it puts on illegal immigration to the US.

Accent: Mexican

3. Diarios de Motocicleta (The Motorcycle Diaries)

Charming biopic that follows revolutionary icon Che Guevara on a South American motorcycle road trip he took in his youth that showed him his life’s calling.

The closing credits feature the Oscar-winning song “Al Otro Lado del Río” by Uruguayan musician Jorge Drexler.

Accents: Argentinian, Chilean, Peruvian, Colombian, Venezuelan; Mexican actor Gael García Bernal adopted an Argentine accent in order to play Che.

4. Chavela

Powerful and poignant portrait of beloved singer Chavela Vargas, whose passionate renditions of popular ranchera songs made her a beloved figure in Mexico, even as her androgynous appearance and unconventional life challenged norms of the day.

After disappearing from the public eye for decades, Chavela makes a triumphant return to the stage, earning her a new level of fame late in life.

Accent: Mexican

5. Como Agua Para Chocolate (Like Water for Chocolate)

Classic tale of forbidden love expressed through one woman’s passionate cooking.

A beautiful and enigmatic film full of magical realism. Based on the popular novel by Mexican novelist Laura Esquivel of the same name.

Accent: Mexican

6. Sólo Química (Just a Little Chemistry)

Fun and light rom-com from Spain.

Nineteen year old Oli falls for her TV idol and embarks on a Cinderella-like romance filled with luxury, fame, success and money.

It seems she has found her fairy tale ending, until she learns good chemistry and true love are not one and the same.

Accent: European Spanish

7. How to be a Latin Lover

Cute comedy featuring the hilarious Eugenio Derbez that also has its touching moments.

Dialogue is a mix of both Spanish and English, making it accessible for Spanish beginners.

Accent: Mexican

8. ROCÍO

Beautiful, moving film about Darío Guerrero, an undocumented Harvard student who self deports himself and his dying mother to seek alternative treatment in Mexico.

Woven from footage collected over a quarter of a century, ROCÍO is the story of a mother’s love and the American Dream.

The story received national attention because Darío was not allowed to return to the US, even with his DACA status. He started this hourlong documentary as his thesis at Harvard, where it received top honors.

Even the trailer is wonderful.

Accent: Mexican

9. América

When her abusive boyfriend takes away her daughter, América escapes from her idyllic Caribbean village in Puerto Rico to a new life in New York City.

She works long hours as a nanny to raise money so that her daughter can make the journey and join her, but soon her troubled past hunts her down.

Accents: Puerto Rican, Mexican, Dominican, Colombian

10. Hecho en China (Made in China)

Quirky and gently humorous road trip movie about a frustrated middle-aged wannabe writer and his teenage pal.

Note that Amazon is incorrectly showing the reviews of a Korean movie with the same title.

Accent: Mexican

11. Tesoros (Treasures)

Sweet children’s adventure film by María Novaro (Danzón), Mexico’s most prominent female director.

Siblings Dylan, Andrea, and Lucas arrive in Barra de Potosí, a fishing community on Mexico’s Pacific coast, and set off with new local friends in search of long-lost pirate loot left by Francis Drake. What they find is far more valuable than treasure.

A film for children, their parents, and their grandparents.

Accent: Mexican

12. Cuatro Lunas (4 Moons)

A sensitive portrait of gay boys and men in modern-day Mexico.

Four stories about love and self-acceptance: An eleven year-old boy feels attracted to his male cousin. Two college students start a relationship and one of them refuses to come out. A long-lasting male relationship is in serious trouble when one feels attracted to somebody else. An old family man is obsessed with a young male prostitute and tries to raise the money to afford it.

Accent: Mexican

13. Una danza para mi Habana (Dancing for my Havana)

In this inspirational, music-filled drama, young Cuban dancers struggle to achieve fame and fortune on the world stage.

Accents: Cuban, some European Spanish

14. Finding Gaston

Mouthwatering documentary that follows Gaston Acurio, the revolutionary Peruvian chef who made his country’s cuisine world-famous.

Accent: Peruvian. Some dialogue in Quechua, an Andean indigenous language.

15. La Luciérnaga (The Firefly)

Touching story of love and loss set in Colombia. After her estranged brother’s sudden death, Lucia bonds with his fiancée and finds herself falling in love.

Accent: Colombian

16. La Buena Vida

Beautiful, tragic documentary set in the village of Tamaquito, deep in the forests of Colombia.

Here, nature provides the people with everything they need. But the Wayúu community’s way of life is being destroyed by the vast and rapidly growing El Cerrejón coal mine.

Determined to save his community from forced resettlement, leader Jairo Fuentes negotiates with the mine’s operators in what soon becomes a fight for survival.

Accent: Colombian. Some dialogue in the Wayúu language.

17. Santa y Andres

Critically acclaimed film banned in its home country of Cuba.

In 1983, Andrés, a dissident gay novelist is placed under house arrest. Santa, a local peasant woman working on a state farm, is assigned to keep a close watch on him for three days. An unlikely friendship forms between the two.

Accent: Cuban

Have more Amazon movies in Spanish to recommend? Some of my best suggestions come from you, my readers! Please share your thoughts in the comments.

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