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A young ice cream vendor, Roberto Terranova, witnesses a child being beaten and comes to his aid by physically overpowering the aggressor. His strength and natural ability catches the eye of a well-known boxing trainer. Considering him a diamond in the rough, he aims to put Roberto in the professional ring. But Roberto finds that his personal challenges must be overcome before he can achieve professional greatness.

The film chronicles the adventures of a peasant family of the late nineteenth century to push through his work with the opposition and hatred of the rest of the villagers.

1944 Mexican film directed by Miguel M. Delgado

Historical drama about the period just before the beginning of the Mexican Revolution.

I have just seen this movie for the 12-15th time and I still find something extraordinarily fascinating every time I watch it. This movie is based on a novel by Venezuela's Romulo Gallegos one of Latin America best writer. The movie is so profound, because you can see so many aspects of the human being in it. You can find hate, witchcraft, religion, love, impotency and repentance, mainly because of the ignorance of people. This movie develops in the great Venezuela Savannahs, where the law of the stronger prevailed. The dialogs, so strong and captivating, are possible due to Gallegos very strong command of the Spanish Language and the slang of the peasants of that region. As I have mentioned before for a couple of other movies, this one is best appreciated if you understand Spanish. I may see it again another dozen times, and I am sure I would still enjoy it, as I hope you may too. This movie is officially rated as the 75th in importance in the Mexican Cinematography, to which I TOTALLY DISAGREE.

The film features Fernandez himself as a character named Rogellio Torres. The lion's share of the footage, however, is devoted to the romance between Esperanza, granddaughter of a common laborer, and Jose Luis Castro, the firebrand son of a landowner. Joining a revolutionary movements, Castro is disowned by his father, but Esperanza remains loyally by his side. Later on, Castro's father is killed by outlaws; in seeking vengeance, he sacrifices his own life, while Esperanza carries on his revolutionary work with their young son in tow.

1942 film directed by Emilio Fernández

Cantinflas, the boyfriend of the servant of a rich industrial man, gets into the house in order to kill a mad dog. Suddenly this man appears so the servant tells him that Cantinflas is his wife's brother (Leonardo), who had been lost for years. The rich man then remembers that his father in law's testament could only be paid when all brothers get together, so treats Cantinflas, a real bum, as a king.

The Mexican Revolution is on its way when six brave peasants, known as "Los Leones de San Pablo", decide to join Pancho Villa's army and help end the suffering in their community by assisting in the struggle. After several battles and valiant heroics, the original group is eventually reduced to the leader Tiburcio Maya (Frausto) and young Becerrillo (Vallarino). When Becerrillo is infected by smallpox, Villa orders Tiburcio to kill him and burn the corpse. After reluctantly doing his duty, Tiburcio is ordered to leave the army, and returns home.

1936 Mexican film by Fernando de Fuentes

1935 film by Carlos Navarro

Masterpiece precedes 'Rashomon'.
One of the greatest films of all time is Kurosawa's 'Rashomon', which features an unusual narrative structure: the same events are shown in flashback four times, each time from the viewpoint of a different character. The subtle differences in each flashback compel the viewers to decide for themselves the truth of what actually happened. 'Rashomon' (1950) proved to be so innovative that several later films have used the same idea. I can think of at least three different sitcoms, each of which has done an episode ripping off the 'Rashomon' premise.
The 1934 Mexican film 'Two Monks' uses precisely this same narrative gimmick, 16 years before it was used in 'Rashomon'. Unfortunately, because 'Two Monks' uses only two conflicting flashbacks (rather than four, as in 'Rashomon'), the audience are put in an "either/or" situation rather than a pick'n'mix. Still, it's intriguing to see that one of the most famous narrative innovations in the entire history of film was used in an obscure Mexican movie more than a decade before it was employed in the film that brought it to greatness and prominence.
Juan and Javier are two young men, rivals for the charms of pretty Anita. She dies, in circumstances which are intentionally kept obscure, and the rivals go their separate ways. Javier becomes a monk, and puts his painful memories behind him ... until, one day in the priory, he encounters a monk who turns out to be Juan. Straight away, Javier is so angered that he attacks Juan, giving him a near-fatal blow.
The kindly old prior confesses each of the two men separately. Each confession is shown in flashback, with first one man and then the other telling the story of the tragic triangle from his own self-serving viewpoint. Now we learn -- from two conflicting viewpoints -- what happened to Anita.
The art direction throughout this film is astonishing, and there is the clever touch of having each of the rivals dressed in white in his own flashback, but garbed in black in the other man's flashback: a splendid way of helping the audience to remember that this narrative is subjective.
'Two Monks' deserves to be much, much better known, and I eagerly rate this film 10 out of 10.

Alfonso, Eduardo and Cristina get lost when visiting a forest. A strange monk finds them and takes them to an ancient convent. There, the three amigos suffer personality changes, specially Cristina who tries to seduce Alfonso in a strange coincidence to a story told by an old monk. After some efforts to escape, Alfonso is trapped inside a jail and more strange and macabre situations happen.

Starting with the leading performance from the first diva in Mexican cinematography according to some (Andrea Palma), without forgetting Domingo Soler who also makes a great contribution to the cast in this film, then the great strength of the plot and the masterful direction by Arcady Boytler. All in all this movie cannot be considered less than excellent. So yes, maybe some of the scenes don't result quite the way they should, but most of them do. Particularly the scene from the carnival at the beginning of the movie and the last scene bring you to the verge of tears. Yes it also many elements of a catholic moral (Rosario lives in guilt, her way of paying her sins is by means of sacrifice), but we have to consider the movie was released in 1934 and the Mexican society of the time had those values dictating our lives and, weather we take this into consideration or not, I think the the plot is really really tough and the theme very strong. Maybe nowadays we have many movies with plots that are twice or thrice as tough, but I think this is still a great, great movie and has no soap opera can never even remotely compare with it. Also, it is one of the first movies with recorded sound in the Mexican film industry.

Colonel Carrasco's wife Marta leaves him taking his young son. The child, Juan, grows into an admirable and well-mannered young man. Having been promoted to a higher rank of power amidst the Mexican Revolution, the indulgent and corrupt Colonel accepts a bribe to free a revolutionary, Felipe Martinez, from his prison. Martinez has been sentenced to execution at the hands of a firing squad. Carrasco asks to have the revolutionary replaced by absolutely anyone. In a twist of fate, that anyone turns out to be his own long lost son Juan. Upon receiving this news, Marta races to the prison and explains the predicament to Carrasco. He subsequently desperately attempts to prevent the gunning down of his son by his very own government officials.

Footage of the aftermath of the January 14 1931 earthquake in Oaxaca, Mexico.

1927 film by Gabriel García Moreno

Adolfo, a railroad engineer, is sent to a provincial station to investigate a series of thefts from trains. The investigation uncovers the existence of an unknown gang, led by a man named Ruby, who finds ways of committing their crimes in broad daylight. Director García Moreno received the full cooperation of the National Railroad in the making of the film, and it still stands today as a document of the great technological advances made in Mexico during the 1920s.

A gang terrorizes Mexico City's high society in 1915. Murder, kidnaping and robbery are their trademarks. One police inspector (Cabrera) follows the gang's crimes and eventually sends them to jail.

1917 film