Drama

Bitter Christmas

2026
1 HR, 51 min
NOV 27 → DEC 6

Details

Released 2026, Spain

Drama

1 hour, 51 minutes

Sony Classics

Spanish with English Subtitles

Starring

Aitana Sánchez Gijón
Bárbara Lennie
Leonardo Sbaraglia

Director

Pedro Almodóvar

Bitter Christmas tells two alternating stories, one starring Elsa, an advertising director, in 2004, during a long weekend in December. The second takes place in 2026 and stars Raúl, a screenwriter and director who is writing a script that we soon discover is the story of Elsa, her boyfriend Bonifacio, and her friends Patricia and Natalia.

Mixed with fiction, Elsa is, in a way, Raúl’s alter ego, who, like him, resorts to autofiction as a solution to a long period of creative drought. He looks inside himself, and he can’t help but also look at the people who make up his most intimate universe: his partner and his assistant.

Film Stills

BÁRBARA LENNIE as Elsa in ‘Bitter Christmas’

PATRICK CRIADO as Bonifacio, BÁRBARA LENNIE as Elsa in ‘Bitter Christmas’

AITANA SÁNCHEZ-GIJÓN as Mónica in ‘Bitter Christmas’

LEONARDO SBARAGLIA as Raúl in ‘Bitter Christmas’

LEONARDO SBARAGLIA as Raúl, QUIM GUTIÉRREZ as Santi in ‘Bitter Christmas’

Full Cast

Aitana Sánchez Gijón Mónica

Bárbara Lennie Elsa

Leonardo Sbaraglia Raúl Rossetti

Additional Credits

Pedro Almodóvar Director

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Reviews

“Self-flagellating to the extreme but never the least bit apologetic, BITTER CHRISTMAS is “I yam what I yam” autofiction at its finest.”

David Ehrlich

Indiewire

“There is something quietly heartening about watching Almodóvar return to familiar territory with renewed playfulness and formal confidence. Even when circling old obsessions — performance, desire, memory, self-mythology — he remains one of the few filmmakers capable of making self-examination feel simultaneously sumptuous and dangerous.”

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