Though he was born into a family of filmmakers that have ruled Spanish cinema since its early days, Javier Bardem has never lived in anyone else's shadow. The actor first made a name for himself in his native country, in films like 1990's The Ages of Lulu and '92's Jamón Jamón, before gaining international recognition — and his first Oscar nomination — in 2000 for his role in Julian Schnabel's Before Night Falls.
Bardem won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor with 2008's No Country for Old Men, for his performance as the sociopathic assassin, Anton Chigurh. He became the first Spaniard to do so. He went on to earn another two Best Actor nominations for 2011's Biutiful and 2021's Being the Ricardos.
Here, Bardem shares with A.frame his top five favorite films of all time.
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Directed by: Bob Fosse | Written by: Robert Alan Aurthur and Bob Fosse
I don't know how little I was, but my mom wanted to see it, and she snuck me into the theater. I saw that movie. Those women, dancer women, ballerinas dancing with those bodies, very tight bodies, full of veins and blood, and this artist that is kind of suicidal... I mean, it was not a children's movie for sure, but, obviously, it had an impact on me.
Directed by: Steven Spielberg | Written by: Melissa Mathison
I saw E.T. 24 times in the movie theater. For me, it's a masterpiece, and it remains one of the most beautiful love stories of cinema history about two people that can see each other through the eyes of love rather than the eyes of fear. That resonated with me in the time when I was a kid, and it still resonates with me as every time I see it, I just go break into tears. I think it's a beautiful love story about two equals, two people who have been abandoned, one from his fellow aliens, and the other one from his own father.
Where to Watch: The Criterion Channel
Directed by: Luis G. Berlanga | Written by: J.A. Bardem, L.G. Berlanga and Miguel Mihura
It's directed by Jose Luis Berlanga, and written by himself and my uncle, Juan Antonio Bardem, a great writer, director. It's one of those movies where it's so perfect. It explains the landscape of the Franco regime, landscape, and their relationship with the America that everybody was dreaming of as the savior. It has such a great dark humor, and also, it's a biography of us as a society. It's a masterpiece — I highly recommend.
Directed by: Francis Ford Coppola | Written by: Mario Puzo and Francis Ford Coppola
Now, we jump into that world of The Godfather, of course. I mean, when you see all these actors in No. 1, No. 2, playing against each other with such an ease, such a depth, such an amazing material, such a strong, thorough storyline of family dependence, and loyalty, and honor, and murder, and violence, and guilt. It's an opera. It's the opera of boy-making. I mean, those movies would open my awareness of what performing is or what a performer would do.
Where to Watch: The Criterion Channel
Directed by: Martin Scorsese | Written by: Paul Schrader and Mardik Martin
I mean, these movies would open my awareness of what performing is or what a performer would do… I remember in Raging Bull, I saw that with my father, and I asked him when the movie finished, "Who was that boxer?" He told me, "No, he's an actor." I said, "No, that cannot be true. He's a boxer. He boxes. He's a boxer." "No, he's an actor who prepared himself." I guess that made it click for me, like, "OK, I want to do that."
