Penélope Cruz Sánchez (born April 28, 1974) is a Spanish actress and model. Signed by an agent at the age of 15, she made her acting debut at 16 on television, and her feature film debut the following year in Bigas Luna’s Jamón Jamón (1992), with Javier Bardem (whom she later married) and Jordi Mollà. Her subsequent roles in the 1990s and 2000s included Fernando Trueba’s Belle Époque (1992), with Jorge Sanz, Fernando Fernán Gómez, Miriam Díaz Aroca, Ariadna Gil, and Maribel Verdú; Alejandro Amenábar’s Open Your Eyes (1997), with Eduardo Noriega, Fele Martínez, and Najwa Nimri; Stephen Frears’s The Hi-Lo Country (1999), with Billy Crudup, Woody Harrelson, Cole Hauser, Sam Elliott, Patricia Arquette, Enrique Castillo, and Katy Jurado; Trueba’s The Girl of Your Dreams (2000), with Antonio Resines, Johannes Silberschneider and Hanna Schygulla; and Fina Toress’s Woman on Top (2000), with Murilo Benício, Harold Perrineau Jr., and Mark Feuerstein.
Cruz achieved international recognition for her lead roles in Billy Bob Thornton’s All the Pretty Horses (2000), with Matt Damon, Henry Thomas. Lucas Black, Sam Shepard, and Robert Patrick; Cameron Crowe’s Vanilla Sky (2001), with Tom Cruise, Cameron Diaz, Jason Lee, Kurt Russell; Ted Demme’s Blow (2001), with Johnny Depp, Franka Potente, Rachel Griffiths, Paul Reubens, Jordi Mollà, and Ray Liotta; and John Madden’s Captain Corelli’s Mandolin (2001), with Nicolas Cage, John Hurt, Christian Bale, David Morrissey, and Irene Papas.
Other films in the early 2000s include Waking Uo in Reno (2002), with Natasha Richardson, Thornton, Patrick Swayze, and Charlize Theron; Gérard Krawczyk’s Fanfan the Tulip (2003), with Vincent Perez; Larry Charles’s Masked and Anonymous (2003), with Bob Dylan, John Goodman, Jeff Bridges, Val Kilmer, Mickey Rourke, Jessica Lange, Luke Wilson, Angela Bassett, Bruce Dern, Cheech Marin, Ed Harris, Chris Penn, Steven Bauer, Giovanni Ribisi, Michael Paul Chan, Christian Slater, and Fred Ward; Gothika (2003), with Halle Berry, Robert Downey Jr., Charles S. Dutton, John Carroll Lynch, and Bernard Hill; Chazz Palminteri’s Noel (2004), with Susan Sarandon, Paul Walker, Alan Arkin, Daniel Sunjata and an uncredited Robin Williams; Sahara (2005), with Matthew McConaughey, Steve Zahn, Lambert Wilson, Glynn Turman, Delroy Lindo, and William H. Macy; Martha Fiennes’s Chromophobia (2005), with Ralph Fiennes, Kristen Scott Thomas, Rhys Ifans, Ian Holm, Damian Lewis, Ben Chaplin, Michelle Gomez; and Bandidas (2006), with Salma Hayek, Zahn, Shepard, Dwight Yoakam, and Ismael ‘East’ Carlo.
Cruz received critical acclaim for her roles in Pedro Almodóvar’s Volver (2006), with Carmen Maura, Lola Dueñas, Blanca Portillo, Yohana Cobo, and Chus Lampreave; and Rob Marshall’s Nine (2009), with Daniel Day-Lewis, Marion Cotillard, Judi Dench, Fergie, Kate Hudson, Nicole Kidman, and Sophia Loren; earning Golden Globe and Academy Award nominations for each. She won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for playing volatile painter María Elena in Woody Allen‘s Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008), with Bardem, Patricia Clarkson, Kevin Dunn, Rebecca Hall, Scarlett Johansson, and Chris Messina. She is the first and only Spanish actress to both win and be nominated for an Academy Award, as well as the first Spanish actress to receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Other films in the late 2000s include Jake Paltrow’s The Good Night (2007), with Gwyneth Paltrow, Martin Freeman, Danny DeVito, Simon Pegg, and Michael Gambon; A Matador’s Mistress (2008), with Adrien Brody, Santiago Segura, Ann Mitchell, Juan Echanove; Isabel Croixet’s Elegy (2008), with Ben Kingsley, Dennis Hopper, Clarkson, and Peter Sarsgaard; G-Force (2009), with Zach Galifianakis, Bill Nighy, Will Arnett, with the voices of Sam Rockwell, Tracy Morgan, Jon Favreau, Cage, and Steve Buscemi; and Almodóvar’s Broken Embraces (2009), with Lluís Homar, Blanca Portillo, José Luis Gómez, and Rubén Ochandiano.
Films in the 2010s include Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (2011), with Depp, Ian McShane, Kevin R. McNally, and Geoffrey Rush, To Rom with Love (2012), with Allen (who also directed), Alec Baldwin, Roberto Benigni, Judy Davis, Jesse Eisenberg, Greta Gerwig, and Elliot Page; Ridley Scott’s The Counselor (2013), with Michael Fassbender, Diaz, Bardem and Brad Pitt; Zoolander 2 (2016), with Ben Stiller (who also directed, Owen Wilson, Will Ferrell, and Kristen Wiig; Louis Leterrie’s Grimsby (2016), with Sacha Baron Cohen, Mark Strong, Rebel Wilson, Isla Fisher, Annabelle Wallis, Gabourey Sidibe, and McShane; The Queen of Spain (2016), with Antonio Resines, Neus Asensi, Ana Belén, Javier Cámara, Chino Darín, Loles León, Arturo Ripstein, Jorge Sanz, Rosa María Sardà, Santiago Segura; Murder on the Orient Express (2017), with Kenneth Branagh, Willem Dafoe, Dench, Depp, Josh Gad, Derek Jacobi, Leslie Odom Jr., Michelle Pfeiffer, and Daisy Ridley; Almodóvar’s Pain and Glory (2019), with Asier Etxeandia, Antonio Banderas, Julieta Serrano, and Leonardo Sbaraglia; and Olivier Assayas’s Wasp Network (2019), with Édgar Ramírez, Gael García Bernal, Ana de Armas, and Wagner Moura.
Each review will be linked to the title below.
(*seen originally in theaters)
(**seen rereleased in theaters)
- Jamón Jamón (1992) – directed by Bigas Luna
- Belle Époque (1992) – directed by Fernando Trueba
- The Greek Labyrinth (1993) – directed by Rafael Alcázar
- The Rebel (1993) – directed by Aurelio Grimaldi
- The Greek Labyrinth (1993) – directed by Rafael Alcázar
- Alegre ma non-troppo (1994) – directed by Fernando Colomo
- Everything’s a Lie (1994) – directed by Álvaro Fernández Armero
- Entres Roja (1995) – directed by Azucena Rodríguez
- The Butterfly Effect (1995) – directed by Fernando Colomo
- Brujas (1996) – directed by Álvaro Fernández Armero
- La Celestina (1996) – directed by Gerardo Vera
- Not Love Just Frenzy (1996) directed by Alfonso Albacete, Miguel Bardem, & David Menkes
- Love Can Seriously Damage Your Health (1997) – directed by Manuel Gómez Pereira
- A Corner of Paradise (1997) – directed by Peter Ringgaard
- Live Flesh (1997) – directed by by Pedro Almodóvar
- Open Your Eyes (1997) – directed by Alejandro Amenábar
- Don Juan (1998) – directed by Jacques Weber
- Twice Upon a Yesterday (1998) – directed by María Ripoll
- Talk of Angels (1998) – directed by Nick Hamm
- The Girl of Your Dreams (1998) – directed by Fernando Trueba
- The Hi-Lo Country (1998) – directed by Stephen Frears
- All About My Mother (1999) – directed by Pedro Almodóvar
- Volavérunt (1999) – directed by Bigas Luna
- Woman on Top (2000) – directed by Fina Torres
- All the Pretty Horses (2000) – directed by Billy Bob Thornton
- Blow (2001) – directed by Ted Demme
- Don’t Tempt Me (2001) – directed by Agustín Díaz Yanes
- Captain Corelli’s Mandolin (2001) – directed by John Madden
- Vanilla Sky (2001) – directed by Cameron Crowe
- Waking Up in Reno (2002) – directed by Jordan Brady
- Masked and Anonymous (2003) – directed by Larry Charles
- Fanfan the Tulip (2003) – directed by Gérard Krawczyk
- Gothika (2003) – directed by Mathieu Kassovitz
- Don’t Move (2004) – directed by Sergio Castellitto
- Head in the Clouds (2004) – directed by John Duigan
- Noel (2004) – directed by Chazz Palminteri
- Sahara (2005) – directed by Breck Eisner
- Chromophobia (2005) – directed by Martha Fiennes
- Bandidas (2006) – directed by Joachim Rønning & Espen Sandberg
- Volver (2006) – directed by Pedro Almodóvar
- The Good Night (2007) – directed by Jake Paltrow
- Elegy (2008) – directed by Isabel Coixet
- Vicky Christina Barcelona (2008) – directed by Woody Allen
- A Matador’s Mistress (2008) – directed by Menno Meyjes
- The Cannibalistic Councillor (2010) – directed by Pedro Almodóvar (as Mateo Blanco)
- Broken Embraces (2009) – directed by Pedro Almodóvar
- G-Force (2009) – directed by Hoyt Yeatman
- Nine (2009) – directed by Rob Marshall
- Sex and the City 2 (2010)* – directed by Michael Patrick King
- Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (2011)* – directed by Rob Marshall
- To Rome With Love (2012) – directed by Woody Allen
- Twice Born (2012) – directed by Sergio Castellitto
- I’m So Excited! (2013) – directed by Pedro Almodóvar
- The Counselor (2013) – directed by Ridley Scott
- L’Agent by Agent Provocateur (2014) – uncredited – also director, writer – short
- The Boxtrolls (2014)* – directed by Graham Annable & Anthony Stacchi – Spanish dub
- Ma Ma (2015) – directed by Julio Medem
- Zoolander 2 (2016) – directed by Ben Stiller
- Grimsby (2016) – directed by Louis Leterrier
- The Queen of Spain (2016) – directed by Fernando Trueba
- Loving Pablo (2017) – directed by Fernando León de Aranoa
- Murder on the Orient Express (2017) – directed by Kenneth Branagh
- Everybody Knows (2018) – directed by Asghar Farhadi
- Pain and Glory (2019) – directed by Pedro Almodóvar
- The Ant: Vacation at the Titanic (2019) – directed by Pablo Motos & Jorge Salvador – short
- Wasp Network (2019) – directed by Olivier Assayas
- Parallel Mothers (2021) – directed by Pedro Almodóvar
- Official Competition (2021) – directed by Gastón Duprat & Mariano Cohn
- The 355 (2022) – directed by Simon Kinberg
- L’immensità (2022) – directed by Emanuele Crialese
- On the Fridge (2022) – directed by Juan Diego Botto – also producer
- Ferrari (2023) – directed by Michael Mann
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