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Nine Queens (2000)
7.9/10on IMDb
Released
The gold standard for the Buenos Aires con. Fabián Bielinsky's debut pairs Ricardo Darín's fast-talking veteran with Gastón Pauls's nervous apprentice as they try to sell a sheet of counterfeit rare stamps to a wealthy foreign collector.
What makes it endlessly rewatchable is how much of the humor comes from the small hustles on the way to the big one, and how every scene quietly asks who is really working whom. Hollywood remade it as Criminal in 2004 and the remake flopped; the original still holds up as one of the most satisfying swindles in any language. Watch it once for the ride, then again knowing the ending.
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Wild Tales (2014)
8.1/10on IMDb
Released
Six standalone stories about ordinary people pushed one insult too far, from a road-rage duel between two motorists to a wedding reception that goes spectacularly off the rails. Damián Szifron writes revenge as slapstick with real teeth, so you laugh at the escalation and wince at how familiar the frustration feels.
It is the easiest Argentine film to recommend to anyone, because the anthology format means a story you like less is soon over. It competed for the Palme d'Or at Cannes and earned an Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Language Film, and in Argentina it became a genuine mass hit. Watch it with friends who argue about traffic.
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The Secret in Their Eyes (2009)
8.2/10on IMDb
Released
The most serious film here, and it still earns its place. A retired court investigator starts writing a novel about a murder case from the 1970s that never left him, and the past and present threads close on each other with a final turn that lands like a slap.
What keeps it from solemnity is the office banter: Ricardo Darín and Soledad Villamil's unspoken romance, and Guillermo Francella's boozy colleague, who steals every scene he is in. Juan José Campanella also stages a continuous five-minute shot through a packed soccer stadium that is worth the ticket alone. It won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film; skip the 2015 Hollywood remake.
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The Heist of the Century (2020)
7.1/10on IMDb
Released
The true story is so absurd it barely needed embellishing. In January 2006 a gang held up the Banco Río branch in Acassuso with replica weapons, took hostages and emptied safe deposit boxes, and Ariel Winograd turns their planning into a caper comedy with Diego Peretti as the dreamy mastermind and Guillermo Francella as the suave robber who does the talking with the police.
It plays like an Argentine Ocean's Eleven, warmer and scruffier, with the gang bickering over every detail. Argentine audiences flocked to it, and it is the most purely fun film on this list. Read nothing about the real case first; the way the robbers leave the bank is the best joke in the movie.
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Son of the Bride (2001)
7.8/10on IMDb
Released
The bittersweet heart of the list. Ricardo Darín plays a frazzled restaurant owner in Buenos Aires whose father decides to give his wife, now living with Alzheimer's, the church wedding she always wanted, much to his son's horror.
Juan José Campanella finds comedy in the logistics of a midlife crisis: an ex-wife, a daughter, a girlfriend and a struggling restaurant all want more of Rafael than he has to give. Héctor Alterio and Norma Aleandro as the parents are the reason to watch, and the film is honest enough to let the sad scenes stay sad. It was nominated for the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film. Keep tissues near the wine.
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The Distinguished Citizen (2016)
7.5/10on IMDb
Released
A Nobel-winning novelist who has lived in Europe for decades finally accepts an invitation back to Salas, the small Argentine town that fed all his books. Every civic honor, old acquaintance and local favor-seeker is funnier and more uncomfortable than the last.
Mariano Cohn and Gastón Duprat have a gift for cringe comedy that slowly curdles into menace, and Oscar Martínez won the Volpi Cup for Best Actor at Venice for playing the writer as both snob and victim. It is the best film here about the gap between the Argentina people leave and the one they write about, and it ends on a sly question mark.
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Chinese Take-Away (2011)
7.3/10on IMDb
Released
Ricardo Darín at his most gloriously grumpy, as a meticulous hardware store owner who collects newspaper stories about absurd deaths. When a Chinese man who speaks no Spanish is thrown out of a taxi in front of him, he reluctantly takes him in while they hunt for the man's uncle.
Sebastián Borensztein builds the comedy on misunderstandings and Darín's slow-burn exasperation, then reveals why one of those bizarre clippings, about a cow falling out of an airplane, matters more than it seems. It is small, warm and very funny, and it won the Goya for Best Ibero-American Film. A perfect gateway for anyone wary of subtitles.
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Heroic Losers (2019)
7.2/10on IMDb
Released
Revenge for the 2001 bank freeze, staged as a small-town heist. Neighbors in rural Buenos Aires province pool their savings to revive a local business, lose everything when the government freezes dollar accounts and a banker diverts their money, and then discover exactly where it is being kept.
Adapted from an Eduardo Sacheri novel, it is a team-of-amateurs caper in which the planning goes wrong in entirely believable ways. Ricardo Darín and Luis Brandoni lead a cast of lovable losers, and the anger underneath gives the laughs some weight. It won the Goya for Best Ibero-American Film. Pair it with The Heist of the Century for a double bill of Argentine payback.
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The Man Next Door (2009)
7.1/10on IMDb
Released
A whole film about a window, and it is gripping. A smug, successful designer living in a Le Corbusier house in La Plata discovers that his crude, loud neighbor is building a window into the wall between their homes, and polite negotiation slowly turns into a class war.
Rafael Spregelburd and Daniel Aráoz are a perfectly mismatched pair, and the comedy comes from watching the sophisticated one behave worse and worse. The film was shot entirely in the real Casa Curutchet, the only house Le Corbusier designed in the Americas, and it won a cinematography award at Sundance. The tone darkens as it goes, so expect the laugh to catch in your throat.
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My Masterpiece (2018)
7.1/10on IMDb
Released
An art-world con with two old friends at its center. Guillermo Francella plays a smooth Buenos Aires gallery owner and Luis Brandoni a cantankerous painter whose work has fallen out of fashion, and when money runs out they hatch a scheme that gets wilder and riskier the further it goes.
Gastón Duprat skewers collectors, critics and the market for dead artists with real glee, and the bickering between the two leads has the rhythm of a long marriage. The plot takes a sharp turn halfway through that is best discovered cold. It premiered out of competition at Venice and is lighter and more openly crowd-pleasing than the director's earlier satires.
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Argentina 1985 (2022)
7.6/10on IMDb
Released
A courtroom drama about prosecuting a military dictatorship sounds like homework, and this is the surprise of the list. Santiago Mitre follows prosecutor Julio Strassera and his deputy Luis Moreno Ocampo as they build the 1985 Trial of the Juntas with a team of untested young lawyers, and he lets the everyday humor of the office breathe.
Ricardo Darín plays Strassera as a weary, sardonic man who would rather be anywhere else, and Peter Lanzani's eager deputy makes a fine foil. The testimony scenes are as harrowing as they should be, so this is the heaviest viewing here, but it moves like a thriller. It won the Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Film and earned an Oscar nomination.
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Puan (2023)
6.5/10on IMDb
Released
Academic politics as slapstick. Marcelo Subiotto plays a rumpled philosophy lecturer at the University of Buenos Aires who assumes the vacant department chair is his, until a glamorous former colleague, played by Leonardo Sbaraglia, flies back from Germany to claim it.
María Alché and Benjamín Naishtat get big laughs from small humiliations, and the film quietly widens into a portrait of a public university and the people who keep it running. Subiotto won the Silver Shell for Best Leading Performance at San Sebastián, where the directors also took the screenplay prize. The most recent film here and a sign the tradition is in good health; anyone who has sat through a faculty meeting will wince with recognition.
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Moon of Avellaneda (2004)
7.2/10on IMDb
Released
A neighborhood social club in Avellaneda, where Ricardo Darín's character was literally born during a carnival party, is running out of members and money, and the offer on the table is to sell it off and turn it into a casino. He and two old friends try to keep it alive.
Juan José Campanella's third film on this list is the warmest and most openly sentimental, a portrait of ordinary families squeezed by the economic crisis of the early 2000s, with plenty of dry comic relief from Eduardo Blanco and Mercedes Morán. It has no big twist, but the club's arguments over its own future are a masterclass in Argentine debate. Choose it when you want something that feels like a Sunday asado.
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Waiting for the Hearse (1985)
8.0/10on IMDb
Released
The cult classic every Argentine can quote. When elderly Mamá Cora, whom none of her children wants to house, goes missing, the family concludes she has taken her own life and organizes a wake, with predictable chaos and a famously unexpected guest.
Alejandro Doria's black comedy, adapted from Jacobo Langsner's stage play, flopped with critics and audiences on release in 1985 and has since become a cult classic and a symbol of Argentine culture, with Antonio Gasalla's Mamá Cora at its center. It looks dated and the shouting is relentless, but nothing else on this list explains Argentine family humor so precisely.
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On Probation (2005)
7.5/10on IMDb
Released
Original title Tiempo de valientes, and the film that first showed what Damián Szifron could do before Wild Tales. Diego Peretti plays a neurotic psychologist assigned to help a depressed police inspector, played by Luis Luque, who is falling apart over his wife's affair, and the pair stumble into a real criminal conspiracy.
It is a proper buddy-cop comedy with a Buenos Aires accent, and Peretti's panicky deadpan against Luque's gloom is a delight. It is also the film that made Pedro and Agustín Almodóvar want to work with Szifron, which led to Wild Tales. Less polished than his later work, it is a great pick for anyone who wants an action-comedy that never takes itself seriously.
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Bombón El Perro (2004)
7.1/10on IMDb
Released
The gentlest, driest comedy here. In Patagonia, an out-of-work mechanic who cannot sell the knives he makes is given a huge Dogo Argentino, and the dog's success at a local show sends his luck, slowly and modestly, in a new direction.
Carlos Sorín cast non-professional actors, and Juan Villegas's shy, unhurried decency is the whole film. The humor comes from silences, awkward hope and a dog that is more impressive than any of the humans around him. It won the FIPRESCI prize at San Sebastián. Choose it for a quiet evening; there is no twist, just a small story told with real affection for people getting by.
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Sidewalls (2011)
7.5/10on IMDb
Released
A romantic comedy about two lonely strangers who live in neighboring Buenos Aires apartment buildings and keep almost meeting. Javier Drolas plays a neurotic web designer who barely leaves his apartment, and Pilar López de Ayala a woman fresh out of a long relationship.
Gustavo Taretto fills the film with wry observations about the city's mismatched buildings and the blank side walls that give it its title, and a running Where's Wally? joke pays off neatly. It premiered at the Berlin festival and is the list's best date-night choice: melancholy, funny and quietly hopeful.
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