Luis Buñuel

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Lore & Background

Buñuel was born on 22 February 1900 in Calanda, a small town in the Aragon region of Spain. He was the eldest of seven children. When he was four months old, his family moved to Zaragoza, where he received a strict Jesuit education at the private Colegio del Salvador starting at age seven. He later described his birthplace by saying that in Calanda, 'the Middle Ages lasted until World War I'. In his youth, he was deeply religious, serving at Mass and taking Communion every day, until at age 16 he grew disgusted with what he perceived as the illogicality of the Church, along with its power and wealth. He attended the University of Madrid, first studying agronomy then industrial engineering and finally switching to philosophy. There he developed very close relationships with painter Salvador Dalí and poet Federico García Lorca, with the three friends forming the nucleus of the Spanish Surrealist avant-garde, becoming known as members of 'La Generación del 27'. Buñuel moved to Paris in 1925 and began work as a secretary. He collaborated with Dalí on the short film Un Chien Andalou (1929) and later L'Age d'Or (1930), both considered masterpieces of surrealist cinema. From 1947 to 1960, he worked in Mexico, making grounded and human melodramas such as Gran Casino (1947), Los Olvidados (1950) and Él (1953). He then transitioned to making artful, surrealistic and satirical films, earning the Palme d'Or at the 1961 Cannes Film Festival for Viridiana (1961), which criticized the Francoist dictatorship. He satirized social conditions in The Exterminating Angel (1962) and The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1972), the latter winning the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. His final film was That Obscure Object of Desire (1977), for which he earned the National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Director.

Reader's Guide

Luis Buñuel's significance lies in his pioneering role in surrealist cinema and his sustained influence over five decades. His works, often infused with political commentary, challenged conventional narrative and social norms. Collaborating with Salvador Dalí, he created iconic surrealist films such as Un Chien Andalou and L'Age d'Or. In Mexico, he honed his craft with human melodramas before returning to satirical and surrealist filmmaking. His films earned numerous international awards, including five Cannes Film Festival prizes, two Berlin International Film Festival prizes, a BAFTA Award, and an Academy Award in 1972. Seven of his films are included in Sight & Sound's 2012 critics' poll of the top 250 films of all time. His obituary in The New York Times called him 'an iconoclast, moralist, and revolutionary who was a leader of avant-garde surrealism in his youth and a dominant international movie director half a century later.' Buñuel was also nominated twice for the Nobel Prize in Literature, in 1968 and then in 1972.

Did You Know?

• Buñuel was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature twice: in 1968 and again in 1972.
• At age 72, Buñuel asked the octogenarian Fritz Lang for his autograph, still enthusiastic about Lang's film Der müde Tod which had transformed him decades earlier.
• Buñuel's father left home at 14 to start a hardware business in Havana, Cuba, and returned to Calanda at 43 with a fortune.
• The script for Un Chien Andalou was written in six days at Dalí's home in Cadaqués, with the rule that no rational explanation would be accepted.
• Seven of Buñuel's films are included in Sight & Sound's 2012 critics' poll of the top 250 films of all time.

Roots in Aragon: A Childhood Forged by Wealth and Rebellion

Born on 22 February 1900 in the small Aragonese town of Calanda, Luis Buñuel Portolés grew up in a household shaped by his father's remarkable journey. Leonardo Buñuel had left home at age 14 to start a hardware business in Havana, Cuba, ultimately amassing a fortune and returning home to Calanda at the age of 43 in 1898. He married the 18-year-old daughter of the only innkeeper in Calanda, María Portolés Cerezuela. Luis was the eldest of seven children, with two brothers and four sisters. The family relocated to Zaragoza when Luis was four months old, where they were one of the wealthiest families in town. There, he received a strict Jesuit education at the private Colegio del Salvador, starting at age seven and continuing for the next seven years. His departure from that school was dramatic: after being kicked and insulted by the study hall proctor before a final exam, he refused to return, telling his mother he had been expelled when in truth he had received the highest marks on his world history exam. He finished the last two years of high school at the local public school, graduating at age 16. Even as a child, he was something of a cinematic showman, projecting shadows on a screen using a magic lantern and a bedsheet. He also excelled at boxing and playing the violin. His devout daily Communion ended at age 16, when he grew disgusted with what he perceived as the illogicality of the Church, along with its power and wealth.

The Surrealist Triangle: Madrid, Paris, and the Birth of a Movement

Buñuel's creative identity crystallized in Madrid during the late 1910s. In 1917 he attended the University of Madrid, first studying agronomy then industrial engineering and finally switching to philosophy. He developed very close relationships with painter Salvador Dalí and poet Federico García Lorca at the Residencia de Estudiantes, with the three friends forming the nucleus of the Spanish Surrealist avant-garde and becoming known as members of 'La Generación del 27'. Buñuel was especially taken with García Lorca, later writing: 'We liked each other instantly. Although we seemed to have little in common—I was a redneck from Aragon, and he an elegant Andalusian—we spent most of our time together...We used to sit on the grass in the evenings behind the Residencia...and he would read me his poems. He read slowly and beautifully, and through him I began to discover a wholly new world.' His relationship with Dalí was more troubled, tinged with jealousy over the growing intimacy between Dalí and Lorca and resentment over Dalí's early success as an artist. A screening of Fritz Lang's Der müde Tod at the Vieux Colombier theater proved a turning point: 'I came out of the Vieux Colombier completely transformed. Images could and did become for me the true means of expression. I decided to devote myself to the cinema.' At age 72, Buñuel still sought out the octogenarian Lang for his autograph. In 1925 he moved to Paris, worked as a secretary, studied under Jean Epstein, and eventually co-directed two landmark surrealist films with Dalí: Un Chien Andalou (1929) and L'Age d'Or (1930). The script for Un Chien Andalou was written in six days at Dalí's home in Cadaqués, with the rule that 'no idea or image that might lend itself to a rational explanation of any kind would be accepted.'

From Mexican Melodrama to Satirical Masterpiece

Buñuel's body of work traces a remarkable arc from intimate social realism to razor-edged surreal satire. Between 1947 and 1960, working in Mexico, he crafted grounded, deeply human melodramas—Gran Casino (1947), Los Olvidados (1950), and Él (1953)—films that observed ordinary lives with unflinching compassion. After that period, his sensibility shifted decisively toward the artful and the satirical, layering avant-garde surrealism with pointed political commentary. Viridiana (1961), his Palme d'Or winner at Cannes, delivered a searing critique of the Francoist dictatorship. The Exterminating Angel (1962) and The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1972) both dissected the hypocrisies of the upper classes, the latter earning the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. Along the way he directed Diary of a Chambermaid (1964) and Belle de Jour (1967). His final feature, That Obscure Object of Desire (1977), earned him the National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Director, capping a career that spanned the 1920s through the 1970s.

A Legacy That Crossed Every Discipline

Few filmmakers have accumulated recognition as broad and as cross-disciplinary as Buñuel's. His honors include five Cannes Film Festival prizes, two from the Berlin International Film Festival, a BAFTA Award, and the 1972 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. Beyond cinema's own institutions, he received Spain's National Prize for Arts and Sciences for Fine Arts in 1977, the Moscow International Film Festival's Contribution to Cinema Prize in 1979, and the Career Golden Lion in 1982. Remarkably, he was also nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature twice—first in 1968, then again in 1972—acknowledging the literary depth embedded in his screenwriting. Seven of his features appear in Sight & Sound's 2012 critics' poll of the top 250 films ever made. When he died on 29 July 1983, The New York Times summed him up as 'an iconoclast, moralist, and revolutionary who was a leader of avant-garde surrealism in his youth and a dominant international movie director half a century later,' a description that captures the extraordinary span of his influence.