Los Olvidados

Nearly two decades after the scandals of Un chien andalou and L’age d’or (also playing at NYFF in a new restoration), Luis Buñuel had a major international comeback with Los Olvidados, which remains one of the world’s most influential films in its unsentimental yet vivid, sometimes surreal depiction of impoverished youths in Mexico City. In the story of a juvenile delinquent who reunites with his gang after breaking out of prison, unflinching, desperate violence becomes riveting visual poetry with lyrical experimental flourishes. Buñuel won Best Director at the Cannes Film Festival for this film, which all but reignited his career, leading to two decades of increasingly daring work. Restored by The Film Foundation’s World Cinema Project at L’Immagine Ritrovata in collaboration with Fundación Televisa, Televisa, Cineteca Nacional Mexico, and Filmoteca de la UNAM. Restoration funding provided by The Material World Foundation.