Death of a Cyclist
Juan Antonio Bardem · 1955
Juan Antonio Bardem’s 1955 Spanish drama follows a wealthy married woman and her academic lover after they strike and abandon a cyclist. As guilt and paranoia fracture their relationship, the film maps the moral geography of Franco-era Madrid — contrasting bourgeois insulation with working-class reality through precise editing, restrained performances, and Alfredo Fraile’s stark cinematography. It won the FIPRESCI Prize at Cannes and remains a landmark of socially engaged arthouse cinema.