In conjunction with a career retrospective that kicked off at the Museum Of Modern Art earlier this week, the entire professional feature filmography of Spanish director Pedro Almódovar has become available on iTunes. As Variety reports, the films are being distributed by Sony Pictures, whose Sony Pictures Classics division has been Almódovar’s American distributor for some time. The company bought up the remainder of his catalog in August, with the exception of Fuck Me, Fuck Me, Fuck Me, Tim, a no-budget feature he made on Super-8 during his 12-year stint as an office drone for the national telephone company Telefónica.
Almódovar, whose early ambitions to make film were forestalled by the realities of life under the regime of Francisco Franco, emerged as the enfant terrible of Spanish cinema in the years that followed the dictator’s death. He attracted international attention with his 1988 film Women On The Verge Of A Nervous Breakdown (which also launched the career of Antonio Banderas), eventually transforming from a cult arthouse figure into one of his country’s most famous directors. The new release marks the first time that many of his films have been available in HD in the United States; several titles, including the early features Pepi, Luci, Bom And Other Girls Like Mom and Labyrinth Of Passion, have been hard to see for decades.
Those eager to dive in are hereby directed to our guide to Almódovar. His latest film, Julieta, opens in limited release on December 21.