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El Violín - Spanish movies Amazon Prime

31 Best Spanish Movies on Amazon Prime Video (2021)

Best Spanish Movies on Amazon Prime Video to stream for free

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 January 22, 2021. Many may also be available in other countries.

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

I hope you love my Spanish-language movie recommendations! Just so you know, I may earn a small fee from purchases made using Amazon links on this page at no extra cost to you.

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.

1. Amores Perros

Amores Perros (HD Trailer)

Intense, gritty classic of Mexican cinema featuring a remarkable soundtrack. A horrific car crash links three different stories of people from various social classes. A must-see.

Accent: Mexican

Also check out: Best Spanish TV Shows on Amazon Prime

2. Sin Nombre (Nameless)

Sin Nombre - Official Trailer

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

3. ROCÍO

ROCÍO Trailer

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

4. El Callejón de los Milagros (Midaq Alley)

Midaq Alley Trailer

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

5. Locas por el cambio

Locas por el cambio - Tráiler oficial | Amazon Prime Video

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

6. Los olvidados (The Young And The Damned)

Los Olvidados di Luis Buñuel - Official Trailer by Film&Clips

This grim masterpiece of Latin American cinema by Spanish filmmaker Luis Buñuel was vilified on its release for its brutally realistic depiction of children in poverty in Mexico City.

The haunting story follows a group of juvenile delinquents who live a violent and crime-filled life in Mexico City’s squalid slums. Pedro, the youngest gang member, evinces a spark of decency, but remains a tragic victim of circumstances beyond his control.

Accent: Mexican

7. Abre los ojos (Open Your Eyes)

Open Your Eyes (Subtitled) - Trailer

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

8. América

"America" The Movie Trailer

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

9. Sólo Química

Sólo química - Trailer (HD)

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

10. Hecho en China (Made in China)

Trailer, Hecho en 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. Cartas a Elena

Cartas a Elena Trailer

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

12. A la mala

A La Mala Official Trailer

In this cute romantic comedy set in Mexico City, struggling actress Maria Laura (Aislinn Derbez) finds a lucrative new career when her best friend begs her to flirt with her boyfriend to test his fidelity.

After being hired by women across the city, Maria is given a gig that should be business as usual until she ends up falling head over heels for her latest mark.

Mauricio Ochmann and Aislinn Derbez became a couple while filming this movie. They are now married.

Look for a cameo by Eugenio Derbez, the father of Aislinn Derbez.

Accent: Mexican

13. Sólo con tu pareja

Sólo con tu pareja Movie Theaterical Trailer

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

14. Santa y Andres

SANTA Y ANDRES / SANTA & ANDRES (Trailer)

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

15. Pelo Malo

PELO MALO trailer

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

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

Embrace Of The Serpent - International Trailer

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

17. BBoy For Life

BBOY for Life movie trailer

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

18. Cuatro Lunas (4 Moons)

4 Moons - Official Trailer

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

19. Ma Ma

MA MA Movie TRAILER (Penélope Cruz - Movie HD)

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

20. El Dedo

"El dedo", de Sergio Teubal (trailer)

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

21. 500 Years

NEW 500 YEARS Theatrical Trailer

Passionate and moving documentary about the resistance of Guatemala’s indigenous Mayan population against a history of genocide, corruption, and disappearances.

Accent: Guatemalan

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

I Dream in Another Language - Trailer

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.

23. La Buena Vida

Trailer | The good life | Jens Schanze

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.

24. Un Padre No Tan Padre

Un Padre No Tan Padre - Official Trailer [US]

Note: Available free on Amazon 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

25. No Manches Frida

No Manches Frida Official Trailer 1 (2016) - Omar Chaparro, Martha Higareda Movie HD

Note: Available free on Amazon with a Pantaya channel trial.

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

26. La Distancia Más Larga (The Longest Distance)

TRAILER OFICIAL "La distancia más larga" (SUB INGLÉS)

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

27. Narco Cultura 

Narco Cultura Official Trailer #1 (2013) - Documentary HD

This gripping documentary contrasts the harrowing reality of bloodstained Juárez, Mexico with the unsettling glorification of murderous drug traffickers in popular narcocorrido ballads.

Most interviews are in Spanish.

Accent: Mexican

28. Return to Cuba

RETURN TO CUBA - Official Trailer

After 18 years in Italy, Barbara Ramos returns to live in Cuba. Shot over a period of three years, this documentary chronicles her life after the Fidel Castro era, in the wake of liberal reforms and reconciliation with the US. Joyful, heartwarming film.

Accent: Cuban

29. La Luciérnaga (The Firefly)

THE FIREFLY | Official Trailer

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

30. Wakolda (The German Doctor)

THE GERMAN DOCTOR Official HD Trailer Premiere

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.

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

Una danza para mi Habana - Cuban movie on Amazon Prime
Tap the photo to watch the trailer on Amazon

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

Accents: Cuban, some European Spanish

Bonus: Recommended 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. Chavela

CHAVELA - Official Trailer

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

2. How to be a Latin Lover

How to Be a Latin Lover Official Trailer 1 (2017) - Salma Hayek Movie

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

3. Finding Gaston

Finding Gaston - Trailer

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.

4. Diarios de Motocicleta (The Motorcycle Diaries)

The Motorcycle Diaries (2004) Official Teaser Trailer - Gael García Bernal Movie HD

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.

You may also like:

  • Best Spanish-Language TV Series on Amazon Prime
  • Best Spanish-Language TV Shows on Netflix
  • Top Spanish-Language Movies on Netflix
  • Great Mexican Movies on Netflix

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.


Banner image from El Violín © Film Movement, unfortunately unavailable on Amazon Prime right now.

Liked it? Pin it!Best Spanish Movies on Amazon Prime Video to stream for free

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Ingrid

May 26, 2018 by Ingrid 10 Comments

Ingrid

About Ingrid

Ingrid left software engineering at age 43 to devote herself to language learning and travel. Her goal is to speak seven languages fluently. Currently, she speaks English, German, Spanish, Portuguese, and French, and is learning Russian.

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. AvatarLily Warren

    February 23, 2019 at 9:47 am

    You recomend watching with Spanish subtitles, and none of the movies even provode them. Some of them don’t even give you an option to turn English subtitles off. Would have been nice to know that before I wasted an hour searching every movie individually only to realize I can’t learn anything fron this list.

    Reply
    • IngridIngrid

      February 24, 2019 at 10:06 am

      Hi Lily, I do recommend watching with Spanish subtitles when available. Amazon’s catalog is constantly changing, but it looks like the current selection does not offer any with Spanish subtitles, you’re right about that. By the way, no need to search on Amazon; you can just click the title of the listing to go straight to its Amazon page.

      Many Spanish language learners have told me they find Amazon Prime useful for its catalog of older and indie movies, but if you want better subtitling options I’d definitely recommend Netflix instead.

      Reply
  2. AvatarMichael Matilla

    June 24, 2019 at 5:10 pm

    It would be FANTASTIC if everybody would call them movies in Spanish language instead of Spanish movies. American movies are NOT ENGLISH movies, although they are done in English. Get my drift?

    Reply
    • IngridIngrid

      June 26, 2019 at 1:42 pm

      It may be the day I’m having, but your comment comes off as derogatory on this end.

      The reason for using “Spanish movies” is that virtually all search-engine searches are for this term rather than “Spanish-language movies.” You’ll note I use both terms in the article.

      Reply
  3. AvatarTina

    June 30, 2019 at 1:06 pm

    I personally found this list helpful. It’s always nice when someone provides free information to help others. To the other commenters: feedback is always great, but make sure you comment in a respectful and helpful manner. You are not entitled to this content. This blogger is providing you a service in order to help you. So basically, don’t be a jerk to someone who’s just trying to help.

    Reply
    • IngridIngrid

      June 30, 2019 at 3:17 pm

      Thanks, Tina, really appreciate your comment! I do welcome dissenting opinions and improvement suggestions, as long as they are expressed respectfully.

      I think sometimes people don’t realize the thousands of hours it takes to create and maintain a successful blog, and how little it pays relative to the amount of work. It’s basically a labor of love.

      Reply
  4. AvatarRafael

    August 7, 2019 at 6:30 pm

    Hola, me gusta la lista, gracias. Te dejo otra recomendación, una peli se llama Isla Bonita.

    Tiene lugar en Menorca y está preciosísima, ojalá que te guste.

    Gracias nuevamente por sus recomendaciones, muy amable.

    Reply
    • IngridIngrid

      August 7, 2019 at 7:59 pm

      Muchas gracias por la linda recomendación, Rafael!

      Reply
  5. AvatarRosenda Galindo

    December 1, 2019 at 7:28 pm

    Yo busco “El Derecho De Nacer” con Mama Dolores

    Reply
    • IngridIngrid

      December 3, 2019 at 1:01 pm

      Hola Rosenda, buscas la novela o la película? No pude encontrar ninguna de las dos en streaming, pero puedes comprar los DVDs en Amazon.

      Reply

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