Amores Perros

Gael García Bernal stars in the savagely brilliant debut feature from double-Oscar-winning director Alejandro González Iñárritu (Birdman, The Revenant). Intertwining three intense storylines on the theme of animalistic desires, it follows the respective fates of a young man caught up in the world of dogfighting, a supermodel whose career is wrecked by a car accident, and a homeless hit-man who tries to connect to his estranged daughter.

Iñárritu’s landmark feature heralded the birth of a new movement in Latin American cinema and the arrival of three major talents; the Oscar-winning director himself along with writer Guillermo Arriaga and star Bernal. And its sophisticated interweaving of three canine-themed stories inspired a parade of similarly multi-linear narratives in independent cinema. This brutal examination of animalistic desire contains some shockingly authentic scenes of dog-fighting that some may find hard to watch, but the film was given the blessing of both the BBFC and RSPCA after Iñárritu offered detailed evidence of his methods of simulation.