25 Best Spanish Movies on Amazon Prime (2020)
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 1, 2020. 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.
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
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
2. 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
3. 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
4. La Leyenda de la Llorona
Inventive animated adventure perfect for language learners. Part of a popular film series based on famous Mexican legends.
A group of kids try to stop a vengeful ghost from kidnapping youngsters who wander the woods at night.
English subtitles only.
Accent: Mexican
5. Los olvidados (The Young And The Damned)
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
6. 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
7. 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
8. Sólo Química
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
9. El Violín
Haunting, beautifully filmed drama about the struggle between the peasants and military in 1970s-era Mexico.
Warning: begins with a few minutes of graphic scenes of violence. However, the moving story of heroic defiance that follows makes up for these short scenes.
Accent: Mexican
10. 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
11. Pelo Malo
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)
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. El Baño del Papa (The Pope’s Toilet)
This award-winning comedy portrays the story of John Paul II’s visit to a small Uruguayan town in 1988.
50,000 people are expected and the locals believe selling food and local wares will make them rich, but petty smuggler Beto has a better idea — to build a toilet.
Accent: Uruguayan
14. 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
15. Ma Ma
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
16. El Dedo
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
17. Alamar
Beautiful but slow-moving docufilm about a boy about to move to Rome with his Italian mother who embarks on a final epic voyage to the gorgeous Mexican coast with his native father.
Note: Not a lot of dialogue to practice your Spanish. More of a poetic meditation on the simple rhythms of life of these Mexican fishermen.
Accent: Mexican
18. Sueño en Otro Idioma (I Dream in Another Language)
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.
19. 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.
20. No Manches Frida
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
21. 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
22. Narco Cultura
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
23. Return to Cuba
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
24. 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
25. Una danza para mi Habana (Dancing for my Havana)
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
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
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. 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.
4. 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.
5. 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.
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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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Ingrid retired early from software engineering at 43 to devote herself to language learning and travel. Her goal is to learn a new language to fluency every two years. Currently, she speaks English, German, Spanish, and Portuguese, and is learning French.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
Muchas gracias por la linda recomendación, Rafael!
Yo busco “El Derecho De Nacer” con Mama Dolores
Hola Rosenda, buscas la novela o la película? No pude encontrar ninguna de las dos en streaming, pero puedes comprar los DVDs en Amazon.