Madrid on Film: from Hollywood epics to Almodóvar and Money Heist

Samuel Bronston and Hollywood’s Madrid

From the late 1950s into the 1960s Spain was Hollywood’s favourite film set, and Madrid was its capital. The great pioneer was the producer Samuel Bronston, who made King of Kings (1961), El Cid (1961), with Charlton Heston and Sophia Loren, 55 Days at Peking (1963), The Fall of the Roman Empire (1964) and Circus World (1964) in and around the city.

Film Madrid Region recalls how Navacerrada, Chinchón, Colmenar Viejo and Manzanares el Real were turned into film sets, while vast sets rose on the grounds of Las Matas, near Las Rozas, and the interiors were shot in the city’s Chamartín studios. Stanley Kubrick came too: Spartacus (1960), with Kirk Douglas, filmed important scenes at Colmenar Viejo, Alcalá de Henares and the Casa de Campo.

Doctor Zhivago (1965): Moscow in Canillas

The film that brought Spain the greatest fame as a film set was David Lean’s Doctor Zhivago, with Omar Sharif and Julie Christie. The district of Canillas, in the north-east of Madrid, was turned into a gigantic set of Moscow streets, and the film won five Oscars.

The film’s great train journey is the lead story of Trains on Film, on our sister guide to the world’s rail journeys.

Trains on Film →

A Fistful of Dollars: the Wild West of Madrid

Madrid helped to launch the spaghetti western. Sergio Leone’s Dollars trilogy with Clint Eastwood, made between 1964 and 1966, filmed in the hills of Hoyo de Manzanares, north-west of the city, and in the Casa de Campo, the great park on the city’s western edge, as well as in the deserts of Almería.

Today the Casa de Campo is where Madrileños row on the lake, walk and cycle, a cable car ride from the centre.

Madrid’s parks →   Andalusia on Film →

Pedro Almodóvar’s Madrid

No director has filmed Madrid with more love than Pedro Almodóvar. Born in La Mancha, he arrived in the city as a young man and has set almost all his work here, rarely on the tourist trail. His films have won two Oscars: Best Foreign Language Film for All About My Mother (1999) and Best Original Screenplay for Talk to Her (2002).

The city’s tourist board has mapped his Madrid. In Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (1988), the Gran Vía and the Telefónica building fill the screen, and No. 7 Calle de Montalbán, near the Retiro, is one of its addresses. In Matador (1986) and I’m So Excited! (2013) the Segovia Viaduct appears; Live Flesh (1997) opens with the night view over the Puerta de Alcalá; The Flower of My Secret (1995) crosses the Plaza Mayor; and Broken Embraces (2009) has a scene in Museo Chicote, the cocktail bar on the Gran Vía. In Pain and Glory (2019), Antonio Banderas plays a director much like Almodóvar himself, and the locations include the Paseo del Pintor Rosales, facing the Parque del Oeste.

Museo Chicote →

Open Your Eyes (1997): the empty Gran Vía

Alejandro Amenábar’s Abre los ojos gave Madrid one of its most famous images: Eduardo Noriega’s César running down the Gran Vía, between Callao and the Plaza de España, and finding the great avenue completely empty. Hollywood remade the film as Vanilla Sky (2001), with Tom Cruise, Penélope Cruz reprising her role, and the empty street moved to Times Square. Amenábar went on to win the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film with The Sea Inside (2004).

To see the Gran Vía as quiet as it can be, come at dawn on a Sunday, when the early light catches the dome of the Metrópolis building.

There is no official trailer for this film on the studio’s or distributor’s own channels, so we do not embed one.

Money Heist: Madrid’s global hit

Álex Pina’s La casa de papel (Money Heist), first broadcast in Spain in 2017, follows the Professor and his gang of robbers, all named after cities, as they take over the Royal Mint of Spain and later the Bank of Spain. On Netflix it became one of the biggest series in the world, and the red jumpsuits and Dalí masks became famous everywhere.

Madrid’s streets and squares play their part: in the third part, banknotes rain down from the sky over the Plaza de Callao, at the top of the Gran Vía.

Madrid on screen today: from Bourne to Asteroid City

The international crews have returned. Film Madrid Region lists The Bourne Ultimatum (2007) and Terminator: Dark Fate (2019) among the action films shot in the city, and Jaume Balagueró’s Way Down (2021) recreated the celebrations of Spain’s 2010 World Cup win in the Plaza de Cibeles, with scenes at the Círculo de Bellas Artes, the Instituto Cervantes and the Palacio de Buenavista.

Most recently, Wes Anderson brought Asteroid City to Chinchón, south-east of Madrid, where the film was shot in 2022, with Jason Schwartzman, Scarlett Johansson and Tom Hanks among its cast. Chinchón, with its arcaded medieval square, is an easy day out from the city.

The capital of Spanish cinema

Madrid is home to the Spanish Film Academy, which has presented the Goya Awards, Spain’s Oscars, every year since 1987, and the Madrid Film Office has published film maps of the city’s locations. Most films in Spanish cinemas are dubbed, so look for “VOSE” in the listings for a film in its original language with Spanish subtitles.

Our advice

Watch Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown before your first walk down the Gran Vía, end the evening with a cocktail at Museo Chicote, and save a day for Chinchón and the Bronston landscapes of the sierra.

Over to you. Which Madrid film do you love, and which scene would you add? Tell us below or in our forum: we read every message, and the best suggestions will join this page.

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