Bitter Christmas
2026 film by Pedro Almodóvar
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Bitter Christmas (Spanish: Amarga Navidad) is a 2026 Spanish tragicomedy film written and directed by Pedro Almodóvar. It stars Bárbara Lennie and Leonardo Sbaraglia alongside Aitana Sánchez-Gijón, Victoria Luengo, Patrick Criado, Milena Smit, and Quim Gutiérrez. It incorporates elements of autofiction.
| Bitter Christmas | |
|---|---|
Theatrical release poster | |
| Spanish | Amarga Navidad |
| Directed by | Pedro Almodóvar |
| Written by | Pedro Almodóvar |
| Produced by | Agustín Almodóvar |
| Starring | |
| Cinematography | Pau Esteve Birba |
| Edited by | Teresa Font |
| Music by | Alberto Iglesias |
Production company | |
| Distributed by | Warner Bros. Pictures |
Release date |
|
Running time | 111 minutes |
| Country | Spain |
| Language | Spanish |
| Box office | €3 million |
The film was released theatrically in Spain on 20 March 2026 by Warner Bros. Pictures, and will subsequently have its international premiere at the 2026 Cannes Film Festival on 19 May, competing for the Palme d'Or and Queer Palm.
Premise
After her mother dies, director of commercials Elsa immerses herself in work to cope. When migraine forces her to take a break, she decides to travel to Lanzarote in the 2004 Constitution Day's long weekend with her friend Patricia while her boyfriend (stripper and fireman Bonifacio) stays in Madrid. To resume creative writing, she vampirises the personal miseries of her close friends. In a timeline set in 2025, the plot explores how filmmaker Raúl is writing a script which turns out to be the story of Elsa, Raúl's alter ego. Raúl is delving into autofiction to overcome a creativity block, and is influenced by his own life, his boyfriend Santi and his assistant Mónica.[1][2][3][4]
Cast
- Bárbara Lennie as Elsa[5]
- Leonardo Sbaraglia as Raúl[5]
- Aitana Sánchez-Gijón as Mónica[2]
- Victoria Luengo as Patricia[2]
- Patrick Criado as Bonifacio[2]
- Milena Smit as Natalia[2]
- Quim Gutiérrez as Santi[2]
- Carmen Machi[6]
- Gloria Muñoz[6]
- Rossy de Palma[6] as Gabriela
- Amaia[7]
Production
In an interview to IndieWire published in October 2024, Almodóvar pitched Bitter Christmas as "a tragic comedy about gender".[8] In May 2025, Victoria Luengo and Patrick Criado were reported to have been cast.[9] Filming began on 9 June 2025,[10] with Pau Esteve Birba serving as cinematographer.[11] Additional cast members including Bárbara Lennie, Quim Gutiérrez, Leonardo Sbaraglia, Milena Smit, and Aitana Sánchez-Gijón were subsequently reported.[12] The film is an El Deseo production and it had the collaboration of Movistar Plus+.[12] Shooting wrapped on 12 August 2025 in Lanzarote.[6] Shooting locations also included Madrid.[6] Teresa Font took over film editing during post-production.[13]
Almodóvar billed Bitter Christmas as "the film where I've been cruelest with myself".[14][15]
Release
Warner Bros. Pictures released the film in Spanish theatres on 20 March 2026.[16][17][18] It will later be released on streamer Movistar Plus+.[17] Warner Bros. also took over Mexican distribution, scheduling a 28 May 2026 theatrical release.[19] Curzon acquired distribution rights for the United Kingdom and Ireland.[20] In August 2025, Sony Pictures Classics, Almodóvar's recurring North American distributor, acquired distribution rights to the film in that territory.[13]
It will have its international premiere at the main competition of the 2026 Cannes Film Festival on 19 May,[21] where it will compete for the Palme d'Or.[22]
Reception
Box office
Bitter Christmas opened to a €728,038 (96,852 admissions) debut weekend at the domestic box office in Spain, posting a slightly better performance than Almodóvar's Parallel Mothers (2021) and The Room Next Door (2024).[23] By its second weekend, it had grossed around €1.6 million.[24] It added €120,400 in its fourth weekend to a total gross of around €2.3 million,[25] and by early May it had grossed €2.5 million.[26]
Critical response
First reactions to the film were "largely positive" but "hardly unanimous", with fans lauding the "brutal honesty" while detractors resented the lack of "emotional impact".[15]
Laura Pérez of Fotogramas rated the film 4 out of 5 stars, highlighting the "brutal honesty of its director" as the best thing about it.[4] Pepa Blanes of Cadena SER assessed that the film "features a remarkable and original structure", otherwise considering that Almodóvar has laid his soul bare, almost more so than in Pain and Glory.[27] Andrea G. Bermejo of Cinemanía rated the film 4½ out of 5 stars, declaring it "a self-portrait of brutal honesty".[3]
Raquel Hernández Luján of HobbyConsolas gave the film 68 points, highlighting Sánchez Gijón's character, and how, through her, the director "demonstrates a remarkable degree of self-awareness", while also missing in the film "[Almodovár's] raw passion of yesteryear", as well as a bit more of a sense of humour.[28] Luis Martínez of El Mundo gave the film a 5-star rating, accepting it as a masterpiece insofar masterpiece be defined as a "synonym for risk and freedom, and as another way of describing something new".[29] Manuel J. Lombardo of Diario de Sevilla gave the film a 2-star rating, lamenting that "everything worked and flowed much better" in Pain and Glory.[30]
J. Picatoste Verdejo of Mondo Sonoro rated the film 6 out of 10 stars, lamenting that the film lapses into navel-gazing manierism through a narrative game that is both risky and botched.[31] Carlos Reviriego of El Cultural rated the film 4 out of 5 stars, wondering which other film questions itself as clearly and vehemently as Bitter Christmas does through Sánchez-Gijón's character in a "memorable" final stretch.[32] Marta Medina del Valle of El Confidencial rated the film 3 out of 5 stars, describing it as a derivative film, delighting as it elaborates in its musical performances, but which occasionally loses its way in self-indulgence when it comes to the self-portrait.[33]
Quim Casas of El Periódico de Catalunya rated the film a 4-star rating, finding a "diaphanous, precise, serene" Almodóvar in the film.[34] Alfonso Rivera of Cineuropa lamented that a self-absorbed Almódovar "appears to have lost the ability to create work that is interesting, fresh, moving and, crucially, entertaining".[35] Carlos Boyero of El País decried the film as "yet another display of design in which the storm of emotions also seems contrived".[36] Jonathan Holland of ScreenDaily billed the film as "multi-layered, cunningly crafted, melodramatic to a fault and interestingly unseasonal", but featuring "such an inward-looking approach" that the characters' emotions "seem to unspool in a hermetically sealed bubble".[37]
