Pedro Almodóvar Confirms He’s Done With English-Language Films, Will Shoot Next Movie in 2027

Pedro Almodóvar has given a lengthy new interview to Spanish outlet El Pais while promoting his upcoming film “Bitter Christmas,” which hits theaters in Spain later this month. It’s a pretty extensive conversation and there are a few interesting nuggets in there — particularly about where he sees the rest of his career going.

This decade, Almodóvar experimented with English-language filmmaking, includes two short films — “The Human Voice” (2020) and “Strange Way of Life” (2023) — and in 2024 with “The Room Next Door,” starring Tilda Swinton and Julianne Moore — and yes, that film ended up winning the Golden Lion at Venice. However, he’s now heading right back to his Spanish comfort zone with “Bitter Christmas.” Reading this interview, you get the sense that the Hollywood detour may very well have been a one-and-done, with the director more or less admitting that he has no desire to make more films in the U.S.

“I suspect that the rest of my career will continue to take place in Spain,” he says. According to Almodóvar, the American production structure often feels unnecessarily elaborate. “Sometimes Americans complicate their lives too much,” he says, noting that productions often require much larger teams than he feels are necessary.

Honestly, that shouldn’t come as much of a surprise. Almodóvar’s cinema has always felt deeply tied to Spain — culturally, visually, emotionally. Trying to fully transplant that into another system was always going to be tricky, even with major stars involved, and I say this as someone who really liked “The Room Next Door.”

For now, the focus is on “Bitter Christmas,” and based on the trailer it very much looks like classic Almodóvar. The vibrant aesthetic, the melodrama, the blurred line between art and life — it all seems very much in line with the filmmaker behind “Talk to Her,” “Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown,” “Broken Embraces,” “Pain and Glory,” “The Skin I Live In,” “Bad Education,” and “All About My Mother.”

The film stars Leonardo Sbaraglia alongside Victoria Luengo and Patrick Criado. The story centers on a work-obsessed woman who, after the death of her mother, decides to take a holiday in Lanzarote with a friend. While there, their experiences start to mirror a story being written by a screenwriter and a film director — a meta-narrative device that feels right in Almodóvar’s wheelhouse.

Interestingly, Almodóvar also describes “Bitter Christmas” as something of a sister film to “Pain and Glory,” one of the better films he’s made this century, which suggests the new movie might continue exploring some of those autobiographical themes.

The other reassuring bit of news: Almodóvar isn’t slowing down. At 76, he says he’s already planning to shoot another film next year. So even if the Hollywood experiment might be over, it doesn’t sound like the Spanish master is anywhere near done making movies.