"Who gave this son of a bitch his green card?"
— Sean Penn (who starred in 21 Grams) announcing that Iñárritu had won the Academy Award for Best Picture for Birdman
Alejandro González Iñárritu (born August 15, 1963) is a Mexican director best known for his dark morality plays and his so-called "Death Trilogy" centering around themes of death. He is also well known for being friends with Alfonso Cuarón and Guillermo del Toro, the three of them making up the "Three Amigos", a dubbed group whose films, in contrast to the idealistic tone of Mexican cinema years before, have more cynical subjects and tones.
Filmography:
- Amores Perros (2000)
- 21 Grams (2003)
- Babel (2006)
- Biutiful (2010)
- Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) (2014)
- The Revenant (2015)
- Bardo False Chronicle Of A Handful Of Truths (2022)
Tropes applying to his films:
- Crapsack World: All of his movies take place in one.
- Creator Thumbprint: Dead children recur surprisingly throughout. Iñárritu himself has also noted that there's always a connection between a father and a son in his films (though this was slightly Gender Flipped in Birdman to a daughter instead of a son).
- Darker and Edgier: Than his contemporaries Alfonso Cuarón and Guillermo del Toro.
- The Oner: Birdman in particular is designed to look like it's entirely a single shot, but they pop up regularly in his other work too. This was enough to get a reference in the Mystery Science Theater 3000 revival during an interminable single shot: "Alejandro Iñárritu would have called cut by now!"
- Playing Against Type: He’s most well-known for his dark, gritty dramas. Birdman is his first comedy (with him noting it would have come off as the most insufferable and pretentious movie ever if it wasn't also funny), while The Revenant is his first Western. Bardo is his second comedy.
- Production Posse: Composer Gustavo Santaolalla and Cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto for his first four movies, with Prieto being replaced by Emmanuel Lubezki as of Birdman, and Santaolalla nowhere to be seen.
- Sliding Scale of Idealism vs. Cynicism: Far, far down the cynical end, to the point of being nihilistic.
- True Art Is Angsty: Many of his films invoked bleak and depressing imagery. At the same time, they're also consistently critical and award favorites. Even Biutiful, which had some of the most mixed reviews of his films, managed to score two Oscar nods for lead actor (Javier Bardem) and Foreign Language film. Also for Bardo, received the similar reviews as Biutiful, managed to get an Oscar nod Best Cinematography (Darius Khondji).
