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"Y Tu Mama Tambien" is described on its Web site as a "teen drama," which is like describing " Moulin Rouge " as a musical. The description is technically true but sidesteps all of the reasons to see the movie. Yes, it's about two teenage boys and an impulsive journey with an older woman that involves sexual discoveries. But it is also about the two Mexicos. And it is about the fragility of life and the finality of death. Beneath the carefree road movie that the movie is happy to advertise is a more serious level--and below that, a dead serious level.

The movie, whose title translates as "And Your Mama, Too," is another trumpet blast that there may be a New Mexican Cinema a-bornin'. Like " Amores Perros ," which also stars Gael Garcia Bernal, it is an exuberant exercise in interlocking stories. But these interlock not in space and time, but in what is revealed, what is concealed, and in the parallel world of poverty through which the rich characters move.

The surface is described in a flash: Two Mexican teenagers named Tenoch and Julio, one from a rich family, one middle class, are free for the summer when their girlfriends go to Europe. At a wedding they meet Luisa, 10 years older, the wife of a distant cousin; she's sexy and playful. They suggest a weekend trip to the legendary beach named Heaven's Mouth. When her husband cheats on her, she unexpectedly agrees, and they set out together on a lark.

This level could have been conventional but is anything but, as directed by Alfonso Cuaron , who co-wrote the screenplay with his brother Carlos. Luisa kids them about their sex lives in a lighthearted but tenacious way, until they have few secrets left, and at the same time she teases them with erotic possibilities. The movie is realistic about sex, which is to say, franker and healthier than the smutty evasions forced on American movies by the R rating. We feel a shock of recognition: This is what real people do and how they do it, sexually, and the MPAA has perverted a generation of American movies into puerile masturbatory snickering.

Whether Luisa will have sex with one or both of her new friends is not for me to reveal. More to the point is what she wants to teach them, which is that men and women learn to share sex as a treasure they must carry together without something spilling--that women are not prizes, conquests or targets, but the other half of a precarious unity. This is news to the boys, who are obsessed with orgasms (needless to say, their own).

The progress of that story provides the surface arc of the movie. Next to it, in a kind of parallel world, is the Mexico they are driving through. They pass police checkpoints, see drug busts and traffic accidents, drive past shanty towns, and are stopped at a roadblock of flowers by villagers demanding a donation for their queen--a girl in bridal white, representing the Virgin. "You have a beautiful queen," Luisa tells them. Yes, but the roadblock is genteel extortion. The queen has a sizable court that quietly hints a donation is in order.

At times during this journey the soundtrack goes silent and we hear a narrator who comments from outside the action, pointing out the village where Tenoch's nanny was born and left at 13 to seek work. Or a stretch of road where, two years earlier, there was a deadly accident. The narration and the roadside images are a reminder that in Mexico and many other countries a prosperous economy has left an uneducated and penniless peasantry behind.

They arrive at the beach. They are greeted by a fisherman and his family, who have lived here for four generations, sell them fried fish, rent them a place to stay. This is an unspoiled paradise. (The narrator informs us the beach will be purchased for a tourist hotel, and the fisherman will abandon his way of life, go to the city in search of a job and finally come back here to work as a janitor.) Here the sexual intrigues which have been developing all along will find their conclusion.

Beneath these two levels (the coming-of-age journey, the two Mexicos) is hidden a third. I will say nothing about it, except to observe there are only two shots in the entire movie that reflect the inner reality of one of the characters. At the end, finally knowing everything, you think back through the film--or, as I was able to do, see it again.

Alfonso Cuaron is Mexican but his second and third features were big-budget American films. I thought " Great Expectations " (1998), with Ethan Hawke , Gwyneth Paltrow and Anne Bancroft , brought a freshness and visual excitement to the updated story. I liked " A Little Princess " (1995) even more. It is clear Cuaron is a gifted director, and here he does his best work to date. Why did he return to Mexico to make it? Because he has something to say about Mexico, obviously, and also because Jack Valenti and the MPAA have made it impossible for a movie like this to be produced in America. It is a perfect illustration of the need for a workable adult rating: too mature, thoughtful and frank for the R, but not in any sense pornographic. Why do serious film people not rise up in rage and tear down the rating system that infantilizes their work? The key performance is by Maribel Verdu as Luisa. She is the engine that drives every scene she's in, as she teases, quizzes, analyzes and lectures the boys, as if impatient with the task of turning them into beings fit to associate with an adult woman. In a sense she fills the standard role of the sexy older woman, so familiar from countless Hollywood comedies, but her character is so much more than that--wiser, sexier, more complex, happier, sadder. It is true, as some critics have observed, that "Y Tu Mama" is one of those movies where "after that summer, nothing would ever be the same again." Yes, but it redefines "nothing."

Roger Ebert

Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism.

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Film credits.

Y Tu Mama Tambien (2002)

105 minutes

Maribel Verdu as Luisa

Gael Garcia as Julio

Diego Luna as Bernal Tenoch

Directed by

• Alfonso Cuaron
• Carlos Cuaron

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Y Tu Mama Tambien

T he Simpsons are currently in dire trouble with the Brazilian government for an episode in which they go to Rio and the children get taught how to do a lascivious dance called the Penetrada. This movie is set in Mexico, not Brazil, but the irresistible rhythm of the Penetrada throbs all the way through it nonetheless. It is the story of two cute guys from Mexico City, Tenoch and Julio, played by Diego Luna and Gael Garcia Bernal (from Amores Perros). Young, dumb and full of come, they take a road trip to a distant beach with a glamorous but troubled older woman, Luisa (Maribel Verdu), and get an education at her hands that is anything but sentimental.

From the first frames, it reveals itself as an outrageously, uproariously sexed-up piece of work, stylishly directed by Alfonso Cuaron from a script by his brother Carlos. The camera, in one of many unobtrusively long takes, noses into the bedroom of Tenoch who is shagging his girlfriend Ana with all-nude, slack-jawed, buttock-pounding fervour. Like the maladroit boy himself, the director does not believe in warming his audience up with narrative foreplay, and it's the same story when we cut to the family home of Julio's girlfriend, whose parents allow him into her bedroom to help her look for her passport, and she gleefully wrenches her tracksuit bottoms down.

The two girlfriends go off on a summer holiday trip to Italy, leaving our heroes with no outlet for their permanent hormonal uproar, other than to lie on the diving boards of a local swimming pool, their wrists a blur, wanking themselves into a frenzy of boredom and frustration. Like sex, masturbation is treated with an unapologetic frankness rarely found in our genteel anglophone cinema. The new object of the guys' fantasies: the beautiful, enigmatic Luisa, whom they've met at a grand society wedding (Tenoch's father is a dodgy politico). Before they know what's happening, she agrees to head off with them on a journey of discovery: a three-way love romp on wheels.

It looks like it's obsessed with sex - but actually this film is obsessed with death. The paradox is often carelessly invoked, but Cuaron's movie really does pull off the trick of mingling the ideas of sex and death, showing their blood relation. Every so often, he cuts out the soundtrack, emphatically, almost crudely, and has a voiceover point out some grim point of interest along the roadside: the corpse of an anonymous construction worker hit by a car because the pedestrian crossing was inconvenient for the building site; later, there's a roadside memorial for a horrific crash 10 years before.

While the three get high in the car and gigglingly discuss the merits of inserting a finger up the anus during intercourse, Cuaron's directorial gaze gets distracted by the sight of three sinister cops roughing someone up. The voiceover provides an extraordinary dose of severity, combining social analysis, political insight and an unflinching glimpse into the secret lives of these apparently ingenuous young boys. It is as if the American Pie DVD had a director's commentary by Susan Sontag or JK Galbraith.

All the time, the death theme continues underneath. After quite a bit of weed, Luisa tells her two companions about her first sexual experience; then she tells them the boy died, at the age of 17. Their age. Later on, Luisa, her face clouded with obscure melancholy, tries to teach a little girl to float in the sea "like a real dead body". And what is it that Julio wants to listen to on the car radio? Not rock'n'roll, not Latino music, not dance music. What he wants is Brian Eno's desperately sad By This River: "You and I/ Underneath the sky that's ever falling down, down, down/ Ever falling down." This happens to be the song played at the end of Nanni Moretti's anguished tale of family bereavement, The Son's Room.

Luna and Bernal give nicely spontaneous, natural performances, the kind that Cuaron has apparently been able to elicit just by placing the camera in front of them and letting them riff, while cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki, who shot Ali and Sleepy Hollow, provides him with fluent, loose, daringly protracted steadicam shots. Lubezki and Cuaron find riveting images and cameos, perhaps genuine discoveries from their location work on the road: an old lady does a jigging little dance in the kitchen of her bar, and a placid village festival queen, dressed like a bride, smiles at passers-by while her neighbours solicit pious donations.

As Luisa, Verdu is sexy, tender and poignant. She provides the movie's ballast and maturity, a kind of mediating influence between the boys' puppyish vigour and the cold, pitiless detachment of Cuaron's voiceover - and she has the best line in the picture, exasperated with her quarrelling travel companions: "Play with babies and you end up washing diapers!" Her aplomb is shown most obviously when she finally invites them into her room for the much-anticipated threesome, and manoeuvres them into kissing each other. At this point, when I saw this film first at Venice, an elderly Italian in front of me sighed with eloquent resignation: "Andiamo." ("Here we go.")

After working on English-language movies such as A Little Princess and Great Expectations, Cuaron has made a triumphant return to his native Mexico City. This film is an exhilarating adventure in narrative, eroticism and social commentary.

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Y tu mama tambien, common sense media reviewers.

Bittersweet road-trip movie with graphic sex, language.

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

Truth comes in parts, so something always gets lef

Tenoch and Julio live privileged lives, spending m

Brief view of the body of a car crash victim under

Many graphic sex scenes with older teens, and some

In translation from Spanish, "f--k," &qu

Lots of brand-name products briefly visible in a s

Older teens frequently drink beer, rum, and tequil

Parents need to know that Y Tu Mamá También ("And Your Mother Too") is in Spanish with English subtitles. There aren't any opening credits, so it starts right off the bat in the middle of a graphic sex scene and takes off from there. Bare breasts and buttocks are visible and there's…

Positive Messages

Truth comes in parts, so something always gets left out. Life can be blown out of our hands as easily as sea foam, so give yourself up to it and go where the current takes you.

Positive Role Models

Tenoch and Julio live privileged lives, spending most of their time bored and looking for new ways to gratify their bodies with sex and numb their minds with alcohol and drugs. They think of themselves as the closest, most loyal of friends, but they're not emotionally mature enough yet to work through their problems. Luisa discovers she's stronger than she thought. She bravely decides to go on an adventure with Tenoch and Julio, who are basically strangers to her. She opens up to life's possibilities, and tries to help the young men do the same.

Violence & Scariness

Brief view of the body of a car crash victim under a sheet in a large pool of blood. The narrator tells of a past car crash and mentions blood.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

Many graphic sex scenes with older teens, and some between teens and an adult. Both men and women are fully naked and seen from the front and back, although erect penises are never shown. Thrusting and orgasm are extensively simulated. More briefly simulated are oral sex, sex with three people, and sex between two male teens. Safe sex, condom use, or consequences are never shown or talked about, although condoms are mentioned a couple of times. Two teens masturbate nearby while talking about what excites them. Their hand motions can be seen from a distance but not their genitals, and ejaculate is shown landing in the pool from underwater. An adult and teens have lots of frank talks about sex, including things like specific techniques, how a penis is curved, and loudly drinking a toast to the clitoris. Some nonsexual nudity, like showing nude males swimming underwater with genitals clearly visible, and topless sunbathing.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

In translation from Spanish, "f--k," "s--t," "bitch," "suck my pr--k," "ass," "t--ties," "fag," "faggot," "ball breaker," "whore," "d--k," and "whack off."

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Products & Purchases

Lots of brand-name products briefly visible in a supermarket. Ruffles potato chips prominent in one brief scene. Coca-Cola mentioned a couple of times.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

Older teens frequently drink beer, rum, and tequila. The consequences of throwing up and regretting your actions are shown once. Frequent talk about drugs, mostly marijuana but also ecstasy a couple of times, and several scenes show teens rolling joints and smoking marijuana. Part of the teens' credo is to get high at least once a day. Bong use shown once. Teens frequently smoke cigarettes.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that Y Tu Mamá También ("And Your Mother Too") is in Spanish with English subtitles. There aren't any opening credits, so it starts right off the bat in the middle of a graphic sex scene and takes off from there. Bare breasts and buttocks are visible and there's simulated thrusting and orgasm. Sex and nudity, both male and female, are frequent throughout the movie, sometimes between an adult and a teen, briefly between three people, and once it's implied that two male teens had sex. There's also a lot of frank talk about sex, like specific positions or techniques and the curve of a penis. Precautions and consequences aren't talked about, but condoms are mentioned a couple of times. Profanity is also frequent, including (in translation) "f--k," "s--t," "d--k," "t--ties," and "faggot." Teens frequently drink, smoke, get stoned, and once talk about taking ecstasy. It's not for kids, but it's a touching, if raunchy, story of friendship and opening yourself up to life's possibilities. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

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What's the Story?

Y TU MAMÁ TAMBIÉN tells the story of the friendship between Tenoch ( Diego Luna ) and Julio ( Gael García Bernal ) as they come to the end of high school and start to think about their futures. With their girlfriends off in Europe for the summer, Tenoch and Julio don't have much to do, so they spend most of their time pursuing pleasure wherever they can get it. When they meet Luisa ( Maribel Verdú ), a beautiful and slightly older woman, they invite her to join them on a road trip to the beach. To their surprise, she accepts the invitation, so the three set out of Mexico City with a car full of camping gear and a vague set of directions. Freedom and the open road bring out surprising truths, half-truths, betrayals, and discoveries that none could anticipate.

Is It Any Good?

It's a remarkable achievement to take two mostly unlikeable, raunchy teens and craft a bittersweet, moving, coming-of-age movie that has you rooting for the boys almost before you know it. Acclaimed director Alfonso Cuarón does just that with Y Tu Mamá También , thanks largely to the amazing performances he gets from his two young costars, so vibrant and full of life that they'll stay with you long after the closing credits.

The fantastic script places Luisa directly between the two, and thanks to Maribel Verdu's strong performance she challenges them, and the audience, to think about life, what it has to offer, what we have to bring to our own and others' lives, truth, sex, friendship, loyalty, growing up, and more. Absolutely not for kids because of the graphic sex, profanity, and drug use, but a great way to start thoughts and conversations about life for those ready for the strong content.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about the sex in Y Tu Mamá También . Is it gratuitous? Does it tell you anything about the story or the characters? How much is too much in movies?

What about the drinking, drugs, and smoking? Are any consequences shown? What are some of the real risks in underage drinking and smoking pot?

How much profanity is OK in movies? Why? Does the profanity seem realistic to you?

Movie Details

• In theaters : June 8, 2001
• On DVD or streaming : October 22, 2002
• Cast : Gael Garcia Bernal , Diego Luna , Maribel Verdu
• Director : Alfonso Cuaron
• Inclusion Information : Latino directors, Latino actors, Female actors
• Studio : IFC Films
• Genre : Drama
• Topics : Adventures , Friendship
• Run time : 106 minutes
• MPAA rating : R
• MPAA explanation : Strong sexual content involving teens, drug use, and language
• Last updated : June 29, 2023

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Movie review: Y Tu Mamá También

In the sad, funny, sexy, and altogether marvelous Y Tu Mamá También , Mexican writer-director Alfonso Cuarón takes one of the oldest formats in the filmmaking handbook — the coming-of-age road movie — and gives it a passionate and personal renovation. On this astonishing tour through a Mexico never seen in travel brochures, a couple of teenage best friends baying with unearned sexual bravado persuade an alluring Spanish woman to come with them away from choking Mexico City to a magical beach they’ll show her. (The title is a boyish taunt of its own — ”and your mother, too!”)

Tenoch (Diego Luna, seen in ”Before Night Falls”), son of a rich and corrupt politician, leaves his fancy villa. Julio (”Amores Perros”’ charismatic Gael GarcÍa Bernal), the poorer son of a working single mother, splits from his cramped apartment. Luisa (popular Spanish actress Maribel Verdú), the wife of Tenoch’s distant cousin, and an ”older” woman only when measuring the chasm between teens and 20s, impulsively takes the boys’ jaunty offer, for reasons and secrets of her own.

As they meander, the real, gawky energy of adolescence intertwines with the sharp pains and pleasures of a modern Mexico as emotionally raw as the boys themselves. Teen sexual discombobulation — and, for that matter, a young woman’s own erratic lusts — have rarely been portrayed so authentically, a credit to the natural actors as well as to the director of the superb 1995 jewel ”A Little Princess.” Meanwhile, the exquisite cinematography from the impeccable Emmanuel Lubezki (”Ali”) is occasionally pleasantly shaken up by narrative hiccups inspired by French new-wave techniques.

”Y Tu Mamá También” is so organic that the road trip, magical as it is, feels in a way realer than life. This remarkable travelogue tours a mysterious age and place that only an artist like Cuarón can locate on the map.

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"No matter where you go, there you are."

Review: Y Tu Mamá También – “A display of cinematic talent at its highest”

Posted by LFF on Dec 12, 2016 in All , drama , Film , Headline , Reviews | 1 comment

Few films that have come from Latin America resonate quite as strongly as the Mexican film, Y Tu Mamá También (2001), which translates directly to “And Your Mum, Too”. A blend between dark comedy, drama, road movie and coming-of-age, as well as being an exploration through some of Mexico’s most prevalent problems with class inequality and corruption, it’s mainly a wonderfully honest look at growing up and sexuality – something that gets thrown around a lot in cinema but rarely has the impact that this film delivers. Y Tu Mama También is a display of cinematic talent at its highest, it helped put modern Mexican cinema on the map and make it one of the leading film industries in Latin America. It’s also the last film that director Alfonso Cuarón and his partner-in-crime, cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki , did in Mexico, before they went on to make massively successful films such as Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004), Children of Men (2006) and Gravity (2013).

Julio ( Gael Garcia Bernal ) and Tenoch ( Diego Luna ), two best Friends from middle and upper class families respectively, after their girlfriends leave to Italy for the summer, leaving them restless and worried, meet Luisa ( Maribel Verdú ), Tenoch’s cousin’s wife, a late-twenty year old, attractive Spanish woman. In their eagerness to sound more interesting and mature, they try to impress Luisa by telling her that they will be going on a roadtrip the following day to a beautiful, secluded beach in Mexico called Boca del Cielo (Heaven’s Mouth). After Luisa finds out that her husband has been cheating on her, she decides to call Tenoch and ask if she can tag along the trip. As they travel in Julio’s sister’s car to a made up beach at a made up location, smoking joints, teasing each other, and telling sexual anecdotes, Tenoch and Julio’s inseparable relationship starts to crumble as the sexual tension with Luisa starts to build up and secrets about them are unveiled. Accompanied by a brilliant voice-over from an omniscient narrator, the movie is an emotional roller-coaster full of unpredictable plot twists and revelations that keep the narrative alive to the very end.

There’s something special about those extremely well-made independent films; the way they look, the way they sound, the stories they tell. The story behind Y Tu Mamá También is very simple, and it fits all the genre conventions of coming-of-age films (exploration of sexuality, loss of innocence, heartbreak, etc.) yet it’s the details of the main characters’ backstories that makes it so engaging and easy to empathize with. The film flows extremely well because nothing is overly-complicated. Most of what happens is straightforward, and things are said explicitly, making it an enjoyable and easy viewing for most audiences, yet Cuarón communicates so much more. The parallel between the pool in Tenoch’s house and the filthy one in the motel, the fact that pigs wreck their tents in a beach called “Heaven’s Mouth”, or the moment when they pass by Tenoch’s maid’s town of origin, are part of Cuarón’s depiction of, as Roger Ebert claims, the “two Mexicos”.

The film is also an opportunity to see three stars of Latin cinema in the early stages of their career, as the performances of the charismatic Gael García Bernal and Diego Luna (who’s been cast as one of the main characters in the upcoming Star Wars: Rogue One film) are outstanding. The chemistry between them (they are longtime friends in real life as well) and with Maribel Verdú is what gives life to the film – their interactions feel natural and believable. Luisa is beautiful and mysterious, a symbol of sexual maturity and composure, despite her tumultuous personal life, a role that Verdú takes on seamlessly.

There’s a scene in the film, a conversation at the beach bar between the three leads, which lasts almost 7 minutes without cutting. It’s such a memorable scene because it encompasses everything that makes the movie so good: Cuarón’s excellent directing, talented acting, an outstanding script (that got nominated for an Oscar), and great cinematography. For anyone who’s not familiar with Latin American cinema, Y Tu Mamá También is a must-see and the perfect film to understand the how the rich culture of Latin America translates to the cinematic language and deliver films of very high standards.

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And Your Mother Too (Y Tu Mama Tambien) Review

12 Apr 2001

105 minutes

And Your Mother Too (Y Tu Mama Tambien)

A sexy, funny road movie/coming-of-age tale, And Your Mother Too was a deservedly huge box office success in its home country of Mexico, as well as being the surprise hit of last year’s London Film Festival.

The film tells the story of two teenagers, Julio (García Bernal) and Tenoch (Luna), who persuade an older relative’s attractive wife (Verdu) to accompany them on a journey to ‘Heaven’s Mouth’, a beach they have just made up.

The usual rites-of-passage shenanigans inevitably ensue, but are given a subtle twist that keeps the film amusingly unpredictable. The performances are all spot-on (García Bernal and Luna are real-life best friends, and it shows) and director Cuarón makes great use of his gorgeous locations throughout.

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FILM REVIEW

FILM REVIEW; The Empty Ambitions of Macho Teenagers

''Y Tu Mamá También'' was shown as part of last year's New York Film Festival. Following are excerpts from Elvis Mitchell's review, which appeared in The New York Times on Oct. 6; the full text is available at nytimes.com. The film, in Spanish with English subtitles, opens today in Manhattan.

''Y Tu Mamá También'' -- the phrase translates from Spanish as ''And your mama, too'' -- is one of those Bildungsroman films that could begin or end with the phrase ''And my life was never the same again.'' (The movie uses a voice-over narration, which it mercifully relies on less and less to explicate the inner lives of the characters.) But the director, Alfonso Cuarón, works with a quicksilver fluidity, and the movie is fast, funny, unafraid of sexuality and finally devastating.

Mostly, ''Mamá'' happily brings to mind the rough-and-tumble male friendships and dangerous sexual alliances that Bertrand Blier explored in his film tributes to the volatility of lust, movies like ''Going Places'' and ''Trop Belle Pour Toi'' (''Too Beautiful for You''). Mr. Cuarón has a propensity for turning the tables and imbuing scenes with a kind of lyric reality, a different feel from Blier's voluble straightforwardness; ''Mamá'' is more ''Jules and Jim'' in the age of Ecstasy.

His first film, ''Solo con Tu Pareja'' (''Love in the Time of Hysteria,'' 1991), is very close in tone to ''Trop Belle,'' though his ability to depict the allure of flesh on screen can be both shocking and comic. In ''Great Expectations'' (1998), in which a little girl teases a shy, backward boy, the kids are like flirting colts until they touch tongues at a water fountain, and lust is unleashed in a moment of hilarious and potentially scary virtuosity.

In ''Mamá,'' which takes place in Mexico, the hormonally consumed teenage boys Julio (Gael García Bernal) and Tenoch (Diego Luna) are backward, too. These guys think of themselves as worldly sophisticates attending to their appetites, despite their sneaking into the bedrooms of their girlfriends for sex and their furious fanning of weed fumes so that their overprotective parents can't smell their indulgences.

Mr. Cuarón wickedly establishes the middle-class cocoon his characters are swathed in. And their infantile macho games seem more like baby steps than ever when they meet Luisa (Maribel Verdú). This sad-eyed young woman is married to Tenoch's older cousin Jano (Juan Carlos Remolina), who's even more of a poseur than the boys. Tenoch and Julio come on to Luisa by promising her a tour of the wondrous beach called Heaven's Mouth. Many of its wonders stem from its nonexistence. Julio and Tenoch are lonely and bored because their girlfriends are touring Europe; they view Luisa as a respite from their thumb-twiddling summer vacations.

''Mamá'' is finally a story of maturation, as Julio and Tenoch learn truths about themselves that they're not happy to face, and Mr. Cuarón twists the narrative to peer at the latent homoeroticism that drives teenage sex-drive stories like ''American Pie,'' something boys-to-men movies never deal with explicitly.

The director's lucid storytelling skills and his instinct for getting at unsettling emotional states are huge parts of this film's power. Luisa's willingness to join Julio and Tenoch on their journey to utopia is apparently motivated by her husband's betrayal of their marriage. But there are other, more somber reasons for her decision. She takes it upon herself to educate these squalling teenagers, and there's always a trace of sadness in her brimming eyes.

Even when throwing herself into the sexual games that become part of the trip -- and are an almost pro forma element of this genre -- Ms. Verdú sinks her teeth into her role and devours it. Oddly enough, her forcefulness plays as a layer of unspoken virility; she's far more intent than the pups in her care.

The sex is also a way to trigger the feelings that Julio and Tenoch can never express because they're too busy talking and thinking about sex. They're gifted at chatter, too: they talk so heatedly about everything that it seems as if they actually conjure the resort area of their dreams. The trio find a real Heaven's Mouth, and for a while ''Mamá'' becomes dreamy, bathed in lusciousness; the picture takes on the unhurried carnality of a 70's film.

Once sated, though, Julio and Tenoch have to deal with their empty ambitions. The self-knowledge they gain adds a grim context to the narration, which becomes both more detached and more informative as a result of its distanced quality.

Ms. Verdú's suppleness is astounding, and she matches the daring of Mr. Bernal and Mr. Luna. In contrast to the competitiveness of their characters, these actors can't undercut one another. They have to support one another's work or they would be unbearable to watch. Mr. Cuarón creates an atmosphere of emotional intimacy so efficiently that the bouncy-bouncy between Julio, Tenoch and Luisa seems less exploitative and part of the wild orchestration of comedy and melodrama.

It's in the final moments of ''Mamá,'' when the threesome are roused out of their dreams, that Mr. Cuarón's offhand ability to startle finishes off the happy-ending expectations. He harnesses the boyish jumpiness of Julio and Tenoch to his own need to subvert the easy and irresponsible conclusions of the teenage sex movie genre. Instead of telling this story with excited exclamation points, Mr. Cuarón provides a climax that's a question mark.

By the end of ''Y Tu Mamá También,'' Julio and Tenoch are left with their eyes wide open; they'll never sleep as easily again. Those in the audience will have seen something unforgettable, too.

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Y tu mamá también Reviews

Its tone is absolutely unique -- by turns obnoxious, erotic, funny, world-weary and sad. Sometimes it manages to be all those things at once.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/4 | Sep 9, 2023

What could've been a pretentious cinematic treatise on sex and politics in Mexico is instead an astute and genuine film. Give credit to Cuarón's screenplay, cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki, and especially a trio of excellent lead actors.

Although the pace is buoyantly charming, Cuarón -- and his screenwriter brother, Carlos Cuarón -- never let the viewer forget that life and death go on outside the car windows.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4 | Sep 9, 2023

[Alfonso Cuarón] has here crafted a wonderfully precise and observant picture that feels as utterly natural and off-handed as a roguish reminiscence between life-long friends.

Forget Cuarón's transparent attempts to make his movie more meaningful. This is just a down-and-dirty teen fantasy, never shy about its clumsily sexual appeal.

Full Review | Original Score: B | Sep 9, 2023

Directed with pizazz by Cuarón, based on an agreeably unpredictable script he wrote with his brother Carlos, Y tu mamá también is a blast of energetic filmmaking, an exuberant romp that breathes new life into the sex comedy.

[Gael García Bernal] is especially vivid... We suspect that soon he will be offered roles in American films. But this scintillating film makes a compelling argument that there's a paradise waiting for those who keep traveling south.

It is Cuarón's answer to the surplus of boneheaded American teen-sex capers that at once romanticize and trivialize juvenile sexuality, and he approaches the subject with refreshing candor.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Sep 9, 2023

This is a movie that bristles with spontaneity and brims with subtext.

Full Review | Original Score: A- | Sep 9, 2023

Criticizing this movie for having too much sex is to miss the point. People will either accept the scenes or not, but Y tu mamá también suffers from a far worse affliction: There's not a single likeable character in the movie.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | Sep 9, 2023

Cuarón, who employed magic realism to weave a spell in A Little Princess, now uses an almost documentary style to set out a story that is very far from a romantic fairy tale.

It embraces passion, both physical and emotional, but it has depths that register only when the end credits roll.

Full Review | Sep 9, 2023

What originally appears to be a Mexican version of a raunchy teen sex comedy reveals itself to be not only the best foreign language film released this year, but also the best film, period.

In any event, it still plays out like a generic male fantasy without sufficient dramatic motivation.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Sep 9, 2023

Cuarón is obviously working in well-trod territory, the coming-of-age genre. But everything about the film is so vibrantly conceived that nothing seems familiar.

Full Review | Original Score: 5/5 | Sep 9, 2023

Yes, [Y tu mamá también] is as sexually explicit and ferociously frank as you've heard. The film is also a provocative, corrosively funny statement on class distinction in Mexico, however, and a scathingly honest account of adolescent sexual obsession.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Sep 9, 2023

Mexican director Alfonso Cuarón delivers a ribald, fiercely funny and genuinely disturbing coming-of-age tale steeped in sex. It's beautifully acted; what's more, it may be one of the most accurate depictions ever of adolescent boys.

Any serious intentions are lost amid the sex, booze and crude banter. Regardless of the setting, this is just another teen sex comedy in which titillation has priority over edification.

Its three talented leads have a palpable rapport, but despite all the critics' gushing, you'll realize you've seen this before. Just not in Spanish.

Though it couldn't be more different from the fanciful [A Little Princess], "Tu Mamá" is as visually arresting and heart-rending. Filmed near Oaxaca, the trio's interactions with locals give the story a real-life feel.

Y tu mamá también

• Blu-ray/DVD edition reviewed by Chris Galloway
• August 17 2014

See more details, packaging, or compare

This smash road comedy from Oscar-winning director Alfonso Cuarón is that rare movie to combine raunchy subject matter and emotional warmth. Gael García Bernal and Diego Luna shot to international stardom as a pair of horny Mexico City teenagers from different classes who, after their girlfriends jet off to Italy for the summer, are bewitched by a gorgeous older Spanish woman (Maribel Verdú) they meet at a wedding. When she agrees to accompany them on a trip to a faraway beach, the three form an increasingly intense and sensual alliance that ultimately strips them both physically and emotionally bare. Shot with elegance and dexterity by the great Emmanuel Lubezki, Y tu mamá también is a funny and moving look at human desire.

Picture 10/10

Extras 6/10

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Den of Geek

Y Tu Mama Tambien: The Endless Summer 15 Years Later

We revisit Alfonso Cuarón's road movie classic about three lives on a sun-kissed road in Y Tu Mama También.

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Since his directorial debut Sólo con tu pareja  (1991), Alfonso Cuarón has straddled different countries and genres. After that first bowwas met with resistance in his home country (a tragicomedy about a playboy whose nurse fakes his positive AIDS test), because the Mexican government refused to distribute it, Cuarón’s filmic excursion to America resulted in A Little Princess  (1995) and Great Expectations (1998). Both of these films feature highly stylized mise-en-scene, from the luscious costumes, sets, and artwork ( Great Expectations  includes a myriad of paintings and charcoal portraits by Italian painter Francesco Clemente) to his motif of sea green.

Cuarón’s acute attention to detail and his narrative, temporal, and spatial fluidity, often allow his feature films to feel recurrently new, fresh, and unexpected—he is not a classic auteur of the Woody Allen, Alfred Hitchcock, or Martin Scorsese ilk. From sci-fi, to Hogwarts, and from sex comedies to a children’s story, this director is as stylistically hard to pin down as he is deliberate in the projects he chooses to direct. Cuarón moves between borders, subject matter, and style as ceaselessly and comfortably as a wave combing the beach. And it is the beach (the mysteriously allusive and biblically named “Heaven’s Mouth”) that becomes the central destination and geographical focal point of his fourth feature film, Y Tu Mama También  (2001).

When Spanish born Luisa Cortés (played by Maribel Verdú) meets best friends Julio Zapata (Gael García Bernal) and Tenoch Iturbide (Diego Luna) at a Mexican wedding thrown by Tenoch’s parents, she becomes the catalyst for action in the narrative as she invites herself on a road trip with the boys to La Boca del Cielo (“Heaven’s Mouth”), a sandy spot the boys have fabricated in order to impress their new object of desire.

Y Tu  is a gorgeous road movie, but Luisa uproots herself due to the disintegration of her marriage and her fatal health prognosis. Already physically displaced from her home country of Spain, Luisa literally and figuratively drives herself, and the boys, away from their metropolitan epicenter of Mexico City into the rural countryside, thus providing ample opportunity for the omniscient narrator to comment on social and political occurrences unbeknownst to the threesome throughout their travels.

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In the very opening shot of the film, cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki renders the audience as voyeur. Utilizing a shaky handheld camera, the scene starts with the lens tracking into a room as Tenoch has sex with his girlfriend Ana. After climaxing, Tenoch instructs Ana, “Promise you won’t fuck any Italians” while she is away for the summer in Italy. He continues, “Or any gringo backpackers,” to which she replies, “Gross!” Though the audience is rooted in the confines of Ana’s messy bedroom, Cuarón is already asserting a notion of place and travel, home and otherness.

As the couple callously jokes about ethnic groups with whom Ana will not engage with sexually, ranging from “Irishmen” to Tenoch’s father, the camera creeps out of the room as stealthily as it has crept in. The camera (and audience) trespass across the figurative border of Ana’s doorjamb, not exiled as much as visually disinterested in the copulation to come.

This tension between the adolescent primordial desires of Tenoch and Julio and that of the adult world and travel is evident at the wedding where they first meet Luisa. As Julio orders another rum and Coke at the bar, Luisa glides by, all in white, her beauty and sophistication captivating Julio’s gaze. The handheld camera cinematographically echoes the opening shot of the film, as the audience is once again part voyeur, overhearing the conversation between the threesome as they get to know one another.

As the conversation progresses, Lubezki starts to slowly zoom until the shot is a medium close-up, intimating the shift in the more sexually suggestive conversation. The conversation has moved from Tenoch as a young child to La Boca del Cielo, “a tropical heaven.” The location is the apple of temptation they dangle in front of Luisa, hoping she will take a bite. Though they attempt to woo her with stories of silky sand and starry night skies, her clipped reply is, “Jano will love it,” cutting the conversation (and the boys’ fantasy) short.

Yet, Luisa does take the bait, after learning of her husband’s infidelities. No longer will Tenoch and Julio masturbate on the diving board of a swimming pool as they list the names of women they’d like to sleep with (including, but not limited to, Salma Hayek whose name they utter pre-climax and Luisa’s during) – rather, Luisa allows their fantasies to become their reality.

Y Tu is both a buddy movie and a road movie, but it is also a movie that explores not just the sexual proclivities and consequents of its adolescent protagonists, but their potential attraction to one another, culminating in a kiss between the friends at the end of the film while Lucia fellates them both. In Y Tu , Cuarón’s script confronts the rigid taboos of male homosexuality, not just as seen, but described as well. When Tenoch enters Luisa’s motel room to ask for shampoo, clothed only in a towel, the camera is in the corner of the hotel room, voyeuristically observing Luisa cry. The camera pans to accommodate Tenoch’s noisy entrance and slowly tracks back a few steps to allow both characters to co-exist within the frame. The frame also trembles, as if shifting back and forth while Luisa asks Tenoch to take off his towel.

Hesitantly, Tenoch removes the towel, covers himself, and then stands awkwardly before Luisa who quietly laughs and says, “You said it curved right, but it curves left. It’s just like I imagined.” Tenoch’s hesitation, his need for explicit directions from Luisa (who orchestrates and initiates the hurried triste), and the fact that the camera does not track to capture the entirety of his naked figure, all suggest that Tenoch is decidedly not the definition of what Sergio de la Mora once described as the “Mexican macho: virile, brave, proud, sexually potent, and physically aggressive.”

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Cuarón’s script calls attention to Tenoch and Julio’s own homophobic, or at the very least, sexually conservative mindsets when Luisa asks them how they like to have sex with their girlfriends. As Luisa asks them about their approach to foreplay, Cuarón positions the camera in the middle of the backseat, looking out of the front window. Luisa’s foot languidly rests on the dashboard, illustrating the casual, if intimate nature of their conversation.

Yet, a few feet ahead, a police car with men holding guns in the bed of the truck, pulls to the side of the road. As Julio comments that he likes to “bang [his girlfriend] till she begs for mercy,” the camera pans 180 degrees to observe the gunmen confronting several farmers who hold their hands up in surrender. Though the pan intimates the turning of one’s head, it is not a point of view shot as the conversation continues, uninterrupted, with lavish descriptions of Ceci “twist[ing] and moan[ing] like an oyster in lime juice.” Ultimately, unimpressed by the lack of creativity, Luisa asks if they have ever  “[wiggled] their finger up her ass?”

“Her ass?” the boys exclaim almost at the same instant the engine overheats. The inflection of surprise in the boys’ dialogue and the car’s mechanical malfunction conflate to emphasize the boys’ distaste for this sexual preference. Though not necessarily stereotyped as a homosexual practice, it is a moment of shared discomfort between the two boys.

Later, once the threesome has arrived at Heaven’s Mouth, they drink tequila at an outdoor bar. As Tenoch and Julio play foosball, Luisa calls her now estranged husband for the last time. The camera is handheld and, whereas the trembling movement in other moments (the opening sequence or the motel when Luisa and Tenoch first have sex) connoted a hesitation or uneasiness, now the slight movement seems mimetic as Luisa’s face trembles, holding back tears. When Luisa hangs up the phone, her tears burst forth, and within the glass booth, Tenoch and Julio are reflected in the opposite pane, creating a rough diptych.

Yet the boys, arguing about the game and swilling beer, are completely clueless to Luisa’s marital plight. For Luisa this journey to Heaven’s Mouth is not simply a vacation, but also a figurative displacement or exile from that of wife to that of woman, uprooted from not just the apartment she and Jano shared, but also uprooted from her identity as his wife. As she herself says towards the end of their conversation, “You were my whole life.” The absence of Jano’s physical presence and voice furthers this notion of dislocation. Luisa is completely physically and aurally removed from the life that she once knew.

Later, tears dried, the trio raises their glasses to Jano, and Luisa confesses that she is glad that she met the boys. “You’re so lucky to live in a country like this!” she then exclaims. “It breathes with life! It’s awesome! To Mexico!” Luisa others herself in her praise of Mexico as it is not her country, her homeland, but a country in which she is an outsider, an other, just as she is now an outsider from her marriage. Yet, the conversation remains superficial as Tenoch asks Luisa, “Which of us fucks better?”

Laughing, Luisa confesses, “You’re both disasters, but each has his charms.” They clink their glasses a third time, hailing “to the clitoris!” This conversation, frank and sexually explicit, holds none of the conservative reserve from the car ride earlier in the film. Luisa rises to slide coins in the jukebox, and as she walks back to the boys, she pulls them both up to dance with her, sensually pressed between the two.

The journey of Tenoch, Julio, and Luisa is the spark for all the events and commentary that unfold. Whether it is the sexual escapades between the three characters or the narrator’s omniscient explanations of events or moments the characters’ within the diegesis do not have access to, the road and journey enable the narrative to unfold. Additionally, the film itself was not received as a film in exile. The movie was then nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay and Best Foreign Language Film, rendering the film both an international and intra-national sensation.

The international acclaim of Y Tu erodes the notions of borders as frameworks that withhold material. In our increasingly global market, Y Tu  traversed through theaters like a liberated nomad, not rooted or cemented solely in its homeland. This ethos of portability and translatability brings us back to the character of Luisa. The disintegration of Luisa’s marriage (and health) leads to her displacement and self-imposed exile, yet it is not Cuarón who highlights notions of emplacement or displacement, but Luisa. She is the character who is the catalyst for the story and the journey in both her attempt to seek a new location of emplacement and as a means of self-exploration.

When Luisa walks to the surf of the sea upon waking on the beach of Heaven’s Mouth, it is as if she is preparing to return to the first home: the womb. The last shot of Luisa is of her diving into the sea, now fully enveloped in the water, neither placed nor displaced but momentarily suspended, and reveling in the transience of the tide while in the twilight of her life.

Hannah Bonner

Hannah Bonner is a MA Film Studies student in the Department of Cinematic Arts at The University of Iowa. Her essays and book reviews have appeared or…

• Cast & crew
• User reviews

And Your Mother Too

In Mexico, two teenage boys and an older woman embark on a road trip and learn a thing or two about life and each other. In Mexico, two teenage boys and an older woman embark on a road trip and learn a thing or two about life and each other. In Mexico, two teenage boys and an older woman embark on a road trip and learn a thing or two about life and each other.

• Alfonso Cuarón
• Carlos Cuarón
• Maribel Verdú
• Gael García Bernal
• Daniel Giménez Cacho
• 424 User reviews
• 158 Critic reviews
• 89 Metascore
• 39 wins & 48 nominations total

• Luisa Cortés

• Julio Zapata

• Ana Morelos

• Tenoch Iturbide
• Manuel Huerta

• María Eugenia Calles de Huerta

• Cecilia Huerta
• Nicole Bazaine

• Esteban Morelos

• Diego 'Saba' Madero

• Silvia Allende de Iturbide

• Miguel Iturbide

• Enriqueta 'Queta' Allende

• Alejandro 'Jano' Montes de Oca
• Leodegaria 'Leo' Victoria

• Jesús 'Chuy' Carranza
• Mabel Juárez de Carranza
• All cast & crew
• Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

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Did you know

• Trivia When the producers tried to buy the rights of Frank Zappa 's "Watermelon in Easter Hay" they were told by Zappa's family that Zappa requested that three of his songs were never played in any media except the album where they appear and that song was one of them. Gail Zappa , Frank's widow, saw the movie when editing was almost completed and agreed to make an exception because she considered that Zappa would be proud of the movie.
• Goofs The movie takes place in the summertime - we know this from the boys just having graduated, their girls going off to Europe, the weather, etc. Yet at the wedding near the beginning of the film, the narrator tells us that in a few days the president of Mexico will go to Seattle for the WTO conference - which happened in November.

Luisa : Who cares who you two fucked when you come that fast!

• Alternate versions Several scenes edited out of the final movie were made available for public viewing on the movie's official Web site. The director claims to have created multiple edits of this film to satisfy censorship rules around the world. According to the director, one of these edits, allegedly intended for Mexican distribution in protest of that country's heavy censorship, runs less than 10 minutes.
• Connections Edited into Y tu mamá también: Deleted Scenes (2002)
• Soundtracks Go Shopping Performed by Bran Van 3000 Contains samples from "Shopping" written by Eek-A-Mouse (as Ripton Hylton) and Jamal-Ski Published by Plaything Music, Explicit Two & Eek-A-Mouse Music administered by Plaything Music (ASCAP) Eek-A-Mouse appears courtesy of Explicit Entertainment, by license from Sunset Boulevard Entertainment

User reviews 424

• Apr 16, 2002
• How long is And Your Mother Too? Powered by Alexa
• What are the differences between the R-Rated and Unrated (NC-17) Version?
• June 8, 2001 (Mexico)
• Y tu mamá también
• Tepelmeme Villa de Morelos, Oaxaca, Mexico (highway scenes)
• Anhelo Producciones
• Besame Mucho Pictures
• Producciones Anhelo
• See more company credits at IMDbPro
• $2,000,000 (estimated)
• $13,839,658
• Mar 17, 2002
• $33,616,692

Technical specs

• Runtime 1 hour 46 minutes
• Dolby Digital

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Y TU MAMA TAMBIEN (AND YOUR MOTHER TOO)

"viva sexpota cultural terrorism from mexico".

What You Need To Know:

(RoRoRo, HoHoHo, PCPCPC, LLL, V, SSS, NNN, AA, DD, MM) Very strong Romantic view with a very strong politically correct, homosexual sensibility; 112 mostly strong obscenities, 1 light profanity and bathroom scenes; slapping and shoving; depicted fornication, adultery, masturbation, oral sex, homosexual kissing, pedophilia, and crude sexual references; full male and female nudity and other nudity; alcohol use and drunkenness; smoking and marijuana use; and, jealousy, lying, betrayal.

More Detail:

Y TU MAMA TAMBIEN from Mexico tells what happens when two sexually active Mexican boys, Julio and Tenoch, travel with an older woman from Spain, Luisa. Luisa’s intellectual husband has just confessed to her over the phone that he’s had another affair at a conference he’s attending, so she takes the boys up on their offer to show her a beautiful isolated beach far in the countryside. A series of sexual escapades ensues. It turns out that Luisa has a terrible secret she’s keeping from everyone and that the two boys have homosexual desires for one another. In the end, the movie’s Romantic worldview suggests that, were it not for their corrupt, repressive society, the boys would be able to enjoy a homosexual life with one another.

This is one of the most pornographic, obnoxious foreign movies ever released in mainstream theaters in the United States. Not only do the filmmakers take a cavalier approach toward sexual promiscuity and perversion, they also take a similar attitude toward underage drinking and smoking marijuana. There’s also a lot of strong foul language and nudity in this despicable movie. Y TU MAMA TAMBIEN is an example of cultural terrorism.

Y Tu Mama Tambien

By Peter Travers

Peter Travers

Road movies don’t come hotter than Y Tu Mama Tambien ( And Your Mother Too ), that rare teen comedy about guys who learn to see beyond their own hard-ons. The politics and poverty of present-day Mexico City don’t mean much to rich boy Tenoch (Diego Luna) and middle-class Julio (Gael Garcia Bernal) — they’re too focused on getting laid. They’re also seventeen and the kind of friends who stretch out on diving boards and jerk off in unison. Like puppies who’d fuck any leg that’s handy, Julio and Tenoch are at a loss when their girlfriends take a vacation in Italy.

What to do? Find fresh meat. At a wedding they meet Luisa (Maribel Verdu), a twenty-eight-year-old Spanish knockout married to Tenoch’s cousin. They tease her with lies about an idyllic beach — Boca del Cielo ( Heaven’s Mouth ) — they plan to visit by car. Luisa is a class act, out of their league. That is, until she learns her husband is cheating and decides, in an act of revenge, to go along for the joy ride.

From that setup, director Alfonso Cuaron — best known in the U.S. for two resolutely unshocking English-language fantasies, A Little Princess and Great Expectations — spins a script with his brother Carlos that takes unexpected comic and dramatic turns. With the help of his longtime collaborator, the gifted cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezski ( Ali , Sleepy Hollow ), Cuaron gives the sex scenes an exhilarating, unforced carnality. At a motel, Tenoch hops out of a shower, grabs a towel, then finds a pliant Luisa waiting for him to drop it. When she brushes her face against the boy’s wet crotch, the scene has a sensuality that is neither mechanical nor pornographic. No wonder Julio, who peeks at the two of them, is both turned on and jealous. Later, when Julio is alone with Luisa in the car, he gropes her like a panting adolescent, his hands and mouth all over her breasts. She teaches him to channel that frenzy into something more lasting.

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Unlike American sex comedies, where fucking a pie is always a handy option, Y Tu Mama Tambien is a film that uses sex to unlock secrets. The resentments Julio and Tenoch feel toward each other underscore a homoerotic attraction. Luisa’s secret is more painful. But when the boys find the beach they never thought existed — the place is being decimated by developers — what they discover opens their eyes to each other and the world. Bernal, 20, and Luna, 19, radiate lusty zest, but it’s Verdu — a striking combination of oomph and delicacy — who gives the film a gravity that makes its points stick.

Cuaron’s return to his roots adds to the resurgence in Mexican cinema marked last year by Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu’s Amores Perros . Cuaron’s hot-blooded, haunting and wildly erotic film revels in the pleasures of the flesh without losing touch with thought and feeling. Its emotions are as naked as its bodies. The result shames Hollywood claptrap such as 40 Days and 40 Nights that passes off crudity as the latest in cool. Y Tu Mama Tambien is in Spanish with English subtitles. Don’t worry. Very little gets lost in the translation.

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5 best road trip movies, ranked

Taking a road trip is one of the most fun things you could do if you want to experience freedom, adventure, and discovery. If you want to relieve that thrill of going on a road trip, some movies have captured its exhilarating experience. 

Thelma and Louise (1991)

Little miss sunshine (2006), paris, texas (1984).

• Y tu mamá también (2001)

Easy Rider (1969)

These films shine a light on the ups and downs of going on a road trip with loved ones — or even complete strangers. They take a look into what makes road trips so fun, whether it’s the dramatic moments of self-discovery, the high-octane action sequences, or the hilarious mishaps that make us laugh out loud. So, buckle up and take a look at our list of best road trip movies, from the indie drama Paris, Texas to hysterically tragic Little Miss Sunshine .

Ridley Scott’s Thelma and Louise is a movie about the feminist awakening of two friends. In it, Thelma, a stifled housewife yearning for freedom, embarks on a fishing trip with her friend Louise. What starts as a carefree escape takes a dramatic turn when Louise intervenes in a violent act, forcing them both on a desperate run from the law.

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The film builds to a truly unforgettable finale, where Thelma and Louise, cornered by the law, make a shocking yet powerful choice. This blend of humor, drama, and action keeps viewers glued to the screen, making it a must-see for adventure seekers. But Thelma and Louise transcends a simple road trip movie. Its exploration of female empowerment and friendship adds depth, making it an enriching and poignant road trip movie to watch. 

Watch Thelma and Louise on Amazon Prime Video .  

In Little Miss Sunshine , the Hoover family goes on a cross-country trip to make sure young Olive gets to join the titular beauty pageant. But along the way, they go through entertaining hijinks and realizations, such as when their bus breaks down and they’re forced to push-start it, as well as Dwayne’s shattering realization that he’s actually colorblind. 

It has an ensemble cast that includes Greg Kinnear, Toni Collette, Steve Carell, and Alan Arkin — all of whom deliver incredible performances. It’s a must-watch road trip movie as it chronicles the hilarious and chaotic journey of a dysfunctional family — which, let’s be honest, is unavoidable if you’re going on a long-haul travel with your family. 

Watch Little Miss Sunshine on Hulu .

It’s not hard to see why the indie movie Paris, Texas won the prestigious Palme d’Or at Cannes Film Festival. Highlighting a story about reconciliation and vindication, Paris, Texas follows Travis Henderson, a man who returns from the unforgiving Texas desert after a self-imposed exile lasting four years. His path to healing includes taking his son and estranged wife Jane on a trip across the breathtaking yet desolate landscapes of the American Southwest.  

A powerful moment in the film is the peep-show booth scene, where Travis lays bare all his regrets to Jane, showcasing the strength in human vulnerability. Paris, Texas takes its time, and with good reason: The deliberate pace allows the characters to develop organically. We witness their struggles firsthand and not through rushed exposition, which elevates the watching experience. 

Watch Paris, Texas on HBO Max .

Y tu mamá también (2001)

Life is a highway, and for Julio and Tenoch in Alfonso Cuarón’s Y tu mamá también , it’s a bumpy one filled with laughter and heartbreak. This coming-of-age odyssey throws these two teenagers alongside the enigmatic Luisa headfirst into a whirlwind road trip across Mexico. Viewers should brace themselves for a story about youthful abandon clashing with harsh realities, as the main characters navigate self-discovery, sexual awakening, and the lessons life throws their way.

Y tu mamá también’ s story is both raw and tender, as Julio, Tenoch, and Luisa navigate the intricate web of their relationships. The film doesn’t shy away from the harsh realities of growing up, resulting in an ending that will leave you pondering the complexities of friendship and self-discovery long after the credits roll.

Y tu mamá también is streaming on YouTube .

Easy Rider is a road trip movie that highlights the 1960s counterculture movement. In the movie, two bikers named Wyatt and Billy are on a mission to chase freedom across America. But their journey becomes a social commentary as they encounter a microcosm of American society — a lost soul on the road, a suspicious rancher, and the alcoholic lawyer George Hanson, played by an unforgettable Jack Nicholson . 

Easy Rider doesn’t shy away from showcasing the breathtaking diversity of the American landscape — from scorching deserts to the lush countryside — with each frame amplifying the sense of an epic adventure. The soundtrack is also a time machine straight to the 1960s with music from The Byrds, Jimi Hendrix, and Steppenwolf, creating an immersive viewing experience. This is a film that will have you questioning societal norms and pondering the true meaning of freedom.

Watch Easy Rider on Apple TV .

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This week's newcomers include Security, an action thriller starring Antonio Banderas that went largely unnoticed in 2017. But as we've seen many times before, Netflix subscribers flock to films that never hit it big in theaters. Our second new addition of the week is Butterfly in the Sky, a 2022 documentary about Reading Rainbow.

Amazon Prime Video subscibers are going to have to wait one more day for the June movies to arrive, including Paul Thomas Anderson's classic Punch-Drunk Love. The good news is that Prime Video had one more big release in May that's topping the charts at the moment: Die Hart 2: Die Harter.

Additionally, only a handful of titles were dropped from Prime Video's library for June. So many recent films from Universal Pictures and Paramount remain available. And later this month, Universal's Oppenheimer will be coming to Prime Video as well. Since that's the reigning winner for Best Picture at the Oscars, it's going to be a popular selection.

Month after after, Hulu offers a growing selecting of series to watch. With Emmy-winning shows like The Bear, which returns with its third season later this month, and new shows like Shōgun and We Were the Lucky Ones, the list is ever-expanding, spanning every genre to suit every mood and preference.

This month, for example, Hulu is adding the exciting series Clipped about the L.A. Clippers scandal to the roster through its partnership with FX. With bundle options, you can watch even more with a specific Hulu bundle subscription. But here, we outline the best shows on Hulu right now that includes series you can watch with your standard subscription.

20 years on, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban director Alfonso Cuarón and producer David Heyman reflect on taking the series in a darker direction

As the film widely regarded as the best Harry Potter movie hits its 20th anniversary, Total Film talks to the team behind it

This feature appears in the current issue of Total Film , which is available on shelves and digital newsstands now.

"I was not very aware of Potter’s universe and I was surprised to be offered it, coming from Y tu mamá también," recalls director Alfonso Cuarón, who’s talking to Total Film 20 years on from the release of his one and only dip into the Wizarding World, with Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban . The third movie in the Potter franchise, it was, at the time, by some distance the best in the series – and the critical consensus did not alter once the dust settled on the five movies that followed.

"I was confused because it was completely not on my radar," Cuarón continues. "I speak often with Guillermo [del Toro] , and a couple of days after, I said, 'You know, they offered me this Harry Potter film, but it’s really weird they offer me this.' He said, 'Wait, wait, wait, you said you haven’t read Harry Potter?' I said, “' don’t think it’s for me.' In very florid lexicon, in Spanish, he said, 'You are an arrogant asshole.'"

"I’d seen Y tu mamá también, which I loved, and I oddly thought he’d be the perfect director for the third Potter," remembers David Heyman, who in 1999 bought the rights to the first four novels and went on to produce all eight Potter movies and the three Fantastic Beasts prequels that came after. He grins into the Zoom camera. "That’s not what some might think. Can you imagine what some thought Harry, Ron and Hermione would get up to, having seen Y tu mamá también?" It’s a fair point – Cuarón’s Mexican road movie about two 17-year-old guys and a 28-year-old woman enjoying uninhibited sex was full of action, and we don’t mean quidditch. "Y tu mamá was about the last moments of being a teenager, and Azkaban was about the first moments of being a teenager," Heyman notes. "I felt he could make the show feel, in a way, more contemporary. And just bring his cinematic wizardry."

Now, with Children of Men and Gravity on his CV, Cuarón seems like a more obvious choice than he did in the early noughties. Back then, the director had made only Mexican romcom Sólo con tu pareja, A Little Princess (which Heyman adored), Great Expectations starring Ethan Hawke, and Y tu mamá también, meaning he was untested on a film of Azkaban’s scale. Surely Warner Bros. wouldn’t entrust their golden goose to Cuarón? 

The first two movies, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone and Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets , had together rung up almost $1.9bn at the worldwide box office – the kind of prize you’d employ three-headed dog Fluffy to protect. That there was to be a change at all was only because Chris Columbus (Home Alone, Mrs. Doubtfire) wished to spend more time with his family. He would stay on as a producer, but had chosen to vacate the director’s chair. 

Heyman flew to LA to meet with Alan F. Horn, President and COO of Warner Bros. Due diligence meant that there were several names under discussion – del Toro, Marc Forster, Callie Khouri, M. Night Shyamalan, and Kenneth Branagh, fresh from playing charismatic charlatan Gilderoy Lockhart in Chamber of Secrets, were all reportedly in the sorting hat – but it was Cuarón whose name was plucked out and announced to the world in July 2002. The franchise "needed to grow with the books", stressed Heyman, and Prisoner of Azkaban represented the pivotal moment when Harry (Daniel Radcliffe), Hermione (Emma Watson), and Ron (Rupert Grint) were to undergo their most terrifying encounter yet: puberty.

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Teenage kicks

Prisoner of Azkaban is the last of the Potter books that can be described as lean, but is, nonetheless, a complex, densely plotted affair. Adapted by returning scribe Steve Kloves, the script details Harry attending Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry for his third year, only to find the beloved institution shrouded in fear. Circling the dark skies above Hogwarts are the Dementors, wraith-like creatures normally found guarding the fortress of Azkaban in the middle of the North Sea, where the worst criminals in the Wizarding World are detained. These cold, callous creatures now haunt Hogwarts because convicted murderer Sirius Black (Gary Oldman) has escaped from Azkaban. Black, it is whispered, was the most devoted follower of Voldemort, and is now intent on killing Harry to avenge the Dark Lord. 

But the plot, full of twists and turns and incorporating new Defence Against the Dark Arts instructor Professor Remus Lupin (David Thewlis), is only a part of it. Also in play are the secrets of Harry’s past as the series begins to properly dig into just what it is that makes him who he is – the famed only survivor of an attack by Voldemort. And then there’s a host of terrific set-pieces, new magical creatures, a clockwork-precise time-travel element, and, crucially, these now-teenage kids beginning to struggle with not just their hormones but their very identities. "The first two Potters deal with children’s experience," reflects Cuarón. "Characters who are 11 and 12. Innocence. A purity even in the way they see the danger. We were dealing with the first sting of questioning everything, particularly who you are. Suddenly you are not part of the whole; there is a teenage separation."

The director came to the production – the first to swell from a year-long time frame to 18 months, necessitated by the deepening and darkening of the books – with plenty of tricks up his sleeve. For starters, he sought to capture naturalistic performances from the young cast, who were now of an age where they could wrestle with their characters’ motivations and emotions rather than simply recite the lines. "Chris [Columbus] would help them with intonation and get them excited; Alfonso was treating them as young adults: what are you feeling?" explains Heyman. "Alfonso also had the three kids write essays about their characters. Dan wrote a page, Emma wrote 10 or 12, and Rupert didn’t give in anything. Just perfect."

"They were becoming more aware of the craft of acting and they wanted to go to the next stage," says Cuarón, who was satisfied that they understood their characters given how perfectly the effort they put into their essays chimed with their on-screen personalities. "From the get-go we talked about how we wanted to ground everything, to make it about a normal human experience in this world. [We wanted to explore] the internal life of each one of these characters. They were incredibly intuitive about this, and very receptive."

Another trick Cuarón employed was to bring in costume designer Jany Temime and together work on ensuring that each teen wore their school uniform to express their individuality. In the first two movies, the uniforms were, well, uniform, worn as a child would present themselves on the first day of school. In Azkaban, shirts are untucked, ties loosely knotted and sleeves rolled, while any time spent outside of lessons sees the kids ditch their uniforms for civvies. 

"Every robe was a slightly less bright red; it was a more muted red," nods Heyman. "The ties were less vivid, a little more purply red. Alfonso wanted Dumbledore’s robes to be more fluid, not as stiff and formal as [those worn by] Richard Harris. A little less statesman-like. A little more eccentric." 

Harris, sadly, had passed away when Chamber of Secrets was in post-production, with the role of Professor Albus Dumbledore inherited by Michael Gambon. Cuarón envisaged the headmaster as more of an "old hippie", as Temime put it, his robes of tie-dyed silk flowing behind him. Professor Lupin, meanwhile, wore unkempt tweeds, with Cuarón desiring that Thewlis exhibit the air of "an uncle who parties hard on the weekends". That Cuarón should introduce Thewlis and Oldman to the established adult cast that included Maggie Smith (Professor McGonagall), Alan Rickman (Severus Snape), and Robbie Coltrane (Hagrid) was no coincidence, again evidencing his desire to freshen the franchise. "It was a different culture of acting," says Heyman. "Not people who are sirs and lords and ladies."

Also key was Cuarón’s decision to introduce location work to what had largely been a studio-bound franchise. Certainly, much of the 2003 shoot, which ran from 24 February to late November, was conducted at Leavesden Studios in Hertfordshire, but the joyously crazed Knight Bus sequence was shot in Palmers Green and other areas of London, while Scottish locations provided the film’s natural scenery. As for the exhilarating scene in which Harry rides hippogriff Buckbeak, a visit to Virginia Water Lake in Surrey will have you scanning the sky for a swooping winged beast. 

But perhaps the most important change wrought by Cuarón was to introduce a more cinematic style, as he determined to explore Hogwarts’ grounds. "I can’t do anything unless I have the freedom to do what I do," says the director whose earlier films had established his fondness for fluid camera movement. "I wanted to stretch things. Open up the universe. To feel that Hogwarts is set in a geographical place, where you can have nature around your universe, and to make your universe one with that nature. And to create a geographic logic to Hogwarts. You know, the Great Hall is here, and then the stairs are next to the Great Hall, and if you take the stairs you go to the bedrooms… If you go to the Clock Tower, the hospital is a corridor away, and you can see the courtyard, and from there you see the bridge… and below that is Hagrid’s hut, and the Whomping Willow on the other side, then the forest…"

Incoming DoP Michael Seresin introduced a patina of silver and shadow to reflect the darkening emotions, and shot much of the action with wide-angled lenses to enable Cuarón to incorporate the characters’ body language, and to locate them in relation to Hogwarts. Columbus had favored close-ups, but Cuarón insists the evolution of style was for a concrete reason: "A child doesn’t have a sense of orientation. Places are places."

Of course, one element that Cuarón was delighted to maintain was John Williams, and the legendary composer distinguished his final franchise collaboration (though his theme would repeat throughout the series) by complementing his existing score with the thrilling and chilling addition of the Frog Choir singing 'Double Trouble'. With the lyrics taken from Shakespeare’s Macbeth ("Something wicked this way comes!"), it adds another tinge of horror to go with the Dementors, the reveal that Lupin is a werewolf, the threat of the murderous Black, and the folk-horror vibe as a sense of ancient power emanates from Hogwarts’ slopes and forests. 

Some sequences are genuinely scary, and most frightening of all is when the Dementors descend upon the Hogwarts Express from a grey, rain-lashed sky. Did Heyman and Cuarón ever fear that Azkaban was too dark? "You know, young people don’t like to be patronised," Heyman says. "It’s more parents worrying about their children than children worrying about themselves. So this is edgy. It’s thrilling. And the kids, and adults, watching it are enthralled."

"When I was at the set of the train, it reminded me so much of the Hitchcock films I had seen of the '30s and '40s," says Cuarón, who worked with master puppeteer Basil Twist to map the movement of puppets performing underwater, in slow motion. The practical effects, though ultimately scrapped, provided creative direction for VFX house Industrial Light & Magic to invest the Dementors with the "metaphysical quality" that Cuarón desired. But back to Hitch… "I wanted to do something in that atmosphere. Like Hitchcock, it was more about the anticipation."

All of these techniques and sequences were sewn together with as much skill as Cuarón brought to bear on stitching together the film’s time-travel sequence, in which Hermione uses the Time-Turner to save Buckbeak from execution, and more. For that shot, about a minute’s worth of action was filmed on Steadicam against bluescreen, and four minutes of background footage, shot separately, was then speeded up and composited behind the main action, while two other plates of background footage were tiled together as the camera turned. It was multiverse madness long before the MCU, and the result was dazzling. 

The same with the movie, which opened in the UK on 31 May 2004 and scored the highest opening weekend at the box office in UK history – a record it kept until Spectre’s release in 2015. In the US and Canada, it enjoyed the third biggest opening weekend of all time, racking up a cool $93.7m. With a worldwide total of $795.6m, Prisoner of Azkaban was the second biggest movie of 2004, behind Shrek 2. 

The reviews, too, were largely stellar, with The Hollywood Reporter calling it "deeper, darker, visually arresting, and more emotionally satisfying" than the previous Potters, while Rolling Stone labelled it a "dazzler". Now, 20 years on, it’s regarded by critics as the finest Potter movie, though Cuarón is far too modest to accept such praise. 

"Critics should ask children and Average Joes!" he laughs. "I’m grateful, but I have to say, if you ask fans and children, they have different views. But I was lucky that Azkaban is the most complex story. I saw it almost as a noir."

Heyman, naturally, won’t choose between his babies. "They’re all my children and they each mark different points in my life," he says. "I met my wife on the end of the second film, I brought my stepchildren onto the third film – Alfonso is my son’s godfather. The friendships that I made are so significant. I do think three is a very a special film, but I also think one, two, four, five, six, seven and eight are, too."

Cuarón concludes with a contented sigh. "I was very generously asked if I wanted to stay in the series but I felt that Prisoner of Azkaban was such an incredible sense of discovery. I’d been learning every day and I didn’t want to stop learning. It’s such an incredible universe and I had such a beautiful time."

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban is out now in UK cinemas via a rerelease.

For more coming your way this year, check out our guide to the upcoming movies you should be watching out for.

Jamie Graham is the Editor-at-Large of Total Film magazine. You'll likely find them around these parts reviewing the biggest films on the planet and speaking to some of the biggest stars in the business – that's just what Jamie does. Jamie has also written for outlets like SFX and the Sunday Times Culture, and appeared on podcasts exploring the wondrous worlds of occult and horror. 

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Alfonso cuarón says he directed ‘harry potter’ movie only after guillermo del toro called him an “arrogant a**hole”.

The Mexican filmmaker helmed 2004's 'Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban,' the movie franchise's third installment.

By Carly Thomas

Carly Thomas

Associate Editor

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Alfonso Cuarón revealed he nearly passed on directing 2004’s Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban before his fellow filmmaker Guillermo del Toro knocked some sense into him.

To mark the 20th anniversary of the hit movie franchise’s third film, the director spoke to Total Film , where he shared his reaction to being offered the job, as he wasn’t too familiar with the Wizarding World initially.

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However, del Toro knew how massive the movie franchise was, especially after Chris Columbus’ first two films, so the Hellboy director gave Cuarón some candid advice.

“He said, ‘Wait, wait, wait, you said you haven’t read Harry Potter?’ I said, ‘I don’t think it’s for me,'” the Oscar winner recalled of their conversation. “In very florid lexicon, in Spanish, he said, ‘You are an arrogant asshole.'”

Though Cuarón didn’t think he was the right fit to helm the movie, David Heyman, a producer on all eight Harry Potter installments, recalled wanting to branch out for Prisoner of Azkaban .

“I’d seen Y Tu Mamá También , which I loved, and I oddly thought he’d be the perfect director for the third Potter,” Heyman explained.

“That’s not what some might think,” he continued. “Can you imagine what some thought Harry, Ron and Hermione would get up to, having seen Y Tu Mamá También ?… Y Tu Mamá was about the last moments of being a teenager, and Azkaban was about the first moments of being a teenager. I felt he could make the show feel, in a way, more contemporary. And just bring his cinematic wizardry.”

Although Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban performed the worst at the box office compared to all the other Harry Potter films, it still managed to gross more than $796 million worldwide.

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