Él

Él (1953) is a Mexican psychological thriller from Luis Buñuel, available to watch online on iFILM. During a church ceremony, the wealthy bachelor Francisco spots Gloria across the aisle and decides on the spot that she was made for him. The calm opening is a trap.

Francisco, played by Arturo de Córdova, courts Gloria (Delia Garcés), marries her, and almost at once the respectable gentleman's mask begins to split. The smallest thing feeds a blind jealousy in him: a stranger's glance at dinner, an old friend of his wife, footsteps on the stairs. Buñuel charts not a single outburst but the slow slide of a reasonable man into obsession, where piety, pride and fear of betrayal knot into one neurosis. The house turns, room by room, into a cage for them both.

One of the director's essential Mexican films — Buñuel called it his most personal — and a work the psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan held in high regard. It's for viewers who like cold, probing cinema about jealousy and control inside a marriage, with no cheap thrills. Stream Él (1953) online on iFILM.