What do you do when you want to make a movie, but don't have any of the traditional resources to make a movie? You make the fucking movie anyway.
Robert Rodriguez, born in Texas in 1968, loved cinema from a young age. The moment he could, he grabbed a camera and filmed everything he could in precociously cinematic style (it would be fair to call Rodriguez one of the chief "video store" auteurs; a director who got his style not from formal training, but from absorbing movie after movie after movie). In 1991, the college student Rodriguez made an award-winning short film called Bedhead. That earned him enough attention to cultivate his filmmaking career more seriously, and he began working on his debut feature film, which took a ton of blood, sweat, tears, and literal body experimentations (more on that later).
That film, 1992's El Mariachi, catapulted Rodriguez into Hollywood's radar, kickstarting a long, prolific, eclectic, and utterly personal directing career. Or, should I say "filmmaking" career? Rodriguez became known for his "one man crew" style of working, in which he not only directed and wrote, but also liked to serve as his films' cinematographer, camera operator, editor, visual effects supervisor, and composer. Even on the films in which other folks take these key collaborative positions, you can feel Rodriguez's personality shine through brightly and extensively. These films are "his" in a way they simply aren't for other directors.
In honor of From Dusk till Dawn's 25th anniversary (and including his most recent work, 2020's Netflix film We Can Be Heroes), we thought it best to pay tribute to Rodriguez, his inspiring story, and his idiosyncratic body of work by ranking each and every one of them, from worst to best. A few notes for clarification on this process: Short films, like Bedhead and his segment in the anthology film Four Rooms are out; films that he co-directed are in; and two finished feature-length films, Red 11 and 100 Years, could not be viewed nor considered for this list, for wildly different reasons (the former because it hasn't moved to its alleged exclusive streaming home of Tubi yet; the latter because it isn't scheduled to come out until literally 2115). If and when these become available to watch, I shall, and rank them accordingly.
For now, grab your cowboy hat, tune up your guitar, and tap into your inner rebel. These are the films of Robert Rodriguez, ranked. For more directorial ranking, here's our take on Walter Hill's filmography.
19. Sin City: A Dame to Kill For
I would go so far as to call this film "repugnant"! The delayed sequel to one of Rodriguez's most notable films, Sin City: A Dame to Kill For doubles down on co-director Frank Miller's predilection for problematic portrayals of, like, everything, without any sense of craft or intention to lift it up. Released nine years after the original Sin City, the "everything green-screened and comic-ified" aesthetic remains the same, but somehow worse, cheaper, more garish, and sloppier looking. With the exception of Eva Green, who always has the most absolute fun on screen, the returning and new actors are plodding through the hardboiled motions, grumbling and groaning their way through stories that just don't need to be adapted on screen. The original, while episodic, does give each character a satisfying arc and journey to go on; to see these weird dives back in feels like cheating on what I enjoyed about the original picture. That is, when I'm not visibly recoiling at its aesthetic and tonal ugliness. Hard pass!
18. The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl
In the middle period of his career, Rodriguez started shifting away from his hard-R B-movie bread and butter, and shifting toward visual effects-laden family films. The nadir of this Rodriguez mode of filmmaking is undoubtedly The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl. First and foremost — Rodriguez got many of the mythologies and story elements from his children, and the fact that Rodriguez's films are so often such personal family affairs really makes my heart sing. Having said that, I wish he would've coalesced them into a tighter, more consistent, and more thematic statement of intent. As Sharkboy and Lavagirl implies from its two disparate main characters' (Taylor Lautner and Taylor Dooley) titular powers, there's not a ton about the film that makes sense in any kind of puzzle piece next to each other. Instead, it feels like it's playing with one puzzle for three seconds, before chucking it to the side and playing with nineteen other puzzles. I wish it played like "the filmic personification of unbridled childhood glee," but its screenwriting impatience coupled with the ghastly cheapness of many of the visuals just make it all feel slapdash, even amateurish. There's something worthwhile in the exploration of our main character's (Cayden Boyd) status as a loner, a rebel, a dreamer, an artist (a common theme in Rodriguez's protagonists), and his exploration through his inner traumas via creations (i.e. rowing a boat down a literal stream of consciousness), but it just feels like more strong sauce added to a mess of a meal.
I will say this, however: George Lopez plays a villain named Mr. Electric, which is his face blown up inside of a strange electric circle. At one point, he says "Watt's up?" then spends a full minute explaining that joke, and then abruptly pulls out a bucket full of electric eels. This is all Objectively Good.
17. Spy Kids 2: The Island of Lost Dreams
There are pervasively enjoyable elements throughout Spy Kids 2: The Island of Lost Dreams — and starting right the heck on Bill Paxton chewing the hell out of some scenery as a Southern-fried amusement park owner seems to promise we'll be moving forward with a fun, assured foot. But it all gets bobbled and jumbled in the classic sequel problem of too many things, too large an increase in scope, and a seemingly intentional forgetfulness of the tight emotional focus that made the first one work so well. There's a ton of "stuff" going on in this flick, and a lot of that "stuff" will entertain you, no doubt. Ricardo Montálban and Holland Taylor as Carla Gugino's disapproving parents? Steve Buscemi insisting "I'm not a loon" while obviously acting like a Dr. Moreau-inspired loon? Two obnoxious rival Spy Kids, Matt O'Leary and Emily Osment? Mike Judge performing acts of corporate subterfuge? Daryl Sabara on a star-crossed lover's journey with the First Daughter, Taylor Momsen? Danny Trejo revealing more depth about his Machete character (more on him later)?
This "stuff" is all technically "fun". But absolutely exhausting. And I haven't even gotten into the plot mechanics, weird CGI-addled mythologies, and endless MacGuffins powering the nuts and bolts of this thing. In throwing all these toys at the screen, Rodriguez loses the thread of what made the first one stay so powerful, even while we're sorta having fun on the roller coaster of it all.
16. We Can Be Heroes
We Can Be Heroes takes a lovely, inspiring, and surprisingly political message and turns it into an unfortunately boring film. Taking place in the same universe as Sharkboy and Lavagirl, this Netflix movie imagines a world chock full of adult superheroes, chucks them out of commission, and makes their children have to pick up the pieces, save the day, and grow up along the way. I love Rodriguez's love of progressivism, of making every child feel special, and of sticking it to incompetent adults (and presidents) in a way most kids' movies would never dream of. But he communicates it all tactlessly, staging these themes and ideas as "themes and ideas" to be stood around and discussed in repetitive, too-long sequences. When the set pieces do occur, they retain Rodriguez's family-friendly "handmade" visual effects, but with an obvious benefit of technological progression; and it's very fun to watch his cast of children empower themselves into action sequences just by being who they are. But so much of the film is stuck in a "tell don't show" mode, feeling oddly didactic and at times frightening in its blunt statements of truth about the world and its downward trajectory (an ending speech, meant to inspire, just made me more scared). It's hard for me to be too mad at a film so designed to tell kids they are the future. I just wish the design had a few more coats of paint on it.
15. Roadracers
The origin story of Roadracers, Rodriguez's little-seen made-for-TV movie, is something that feels custom-tailored for the auteur's specific impulses. In 1994, genre producing legend Debra Hill (Halloween) created a unique Showtime series called Rebel Highway, in which established genre directors like Joe Dante and Mary Harron would get the title of an older B-movie, and quickly shoot a new movie with the hot young actors of the moment. Low budgets, low studio pressure, high creative control, beefed up updates of classic genre cinema proclivities — this should be a knockout for Rodriguez, right?
Unfortunately, Roadracers (based on a 1959 film of the same title) plays mostly like a demo, a sandbox for Rodriguez to experiment in that doesn't vault past its experimental nature in any meaningful way. There's a ton of cool, of attitude, of "vibe" in this picture — it's the first one Rodriguez made after his one-man-crew debut El Mariachi, and you can feel the cocky brashness in every budgetary increase in production design, in sets at his disposal, in working with a separate DP for once (Roberto Schaefer, who applies a noticed and appreciated sheen to Rodriguez's love of kinetic flourishes). Many of Rodriguez's pet obsessions are given their strongly defined introductions or revisitiations — rebel loner artist heroes! '50s rockabilly culture! a love of B-movies to the point where the characters literally watch Invasion of the Body Snatchers and that film's actor stares straight at the camera! — but it all feels stagnant, annoyingly cyclical, without dynamics or movement. Perhaps this is an intentional move, to communicate David Arquette's feeling of stagnation as immersively as possible. But it all yields a film that plays merely as artifact, as promise, as curious history in the filmmaker's body of work.
14. Spy Kids 3: Game Over
Spy Kids 3: Game Over, to its credit, simplifies its narrative approach and tells one clean, tight story; a welcome respite after the chaos of Spy Kids 2. Just when Daryl Sabara thinks he's out of the spy game (in a delightfully performed cold open in which Sabara does his best "noir gumshoe" impression, to the point where there's a literal "gum shoe" gag that got me good), Salma Hayek and Mike Judge get him back in. There's a hot new video game in town, and wouldn't you know it, its captured Sabara's spy sister Alexa Vega within its digital prison. Sabara must traverse through the game, Tron style, save his sister, and save the day while beating the various game levels!
Thank God for this simplicity; it makes all of the wild, garish CGI much easier to swallow, and gives Rodriguez's love of bonkers world-building an understandable tether. It's a pity, then, that this narrative sidelines and damsel-in-distresses the franchise's best character, Vega's Carmen, and problematically turns the franchise's final chapter (at the time) into a "boy saves sleeping girl chosen one" story, when it started with such a strong statement of female empowerment and agency. There are still some effective emotional and familial statements being made in the picture — Ricardo Montalbán's meta speech about being powerful despite being wheelchair-bound, and the film's final vow "to family" — that give it all a welcome series of closure. And, I cannot lie, the various zippy, easy-to-follow set pieces involving different video game levels and doofy characters are fun as heck (and a nice hint, both aesthetically and narratively, at what Rodriguez will do later in Alita: Battle Angel). But I still walk away from this third chapter feeling shallow, feeling like the promise of the first installment was not fulfilled here.
I will say this, however: Sylvester Stallone plays the film's villain, a game developer who has split himself into four personalities, giving Stallone a chance to work on his SNL character audition reel. This is all Objectively Good.
13. Machete Kills
There's one thing you do not want from a film called Machete Kills, a purposefully hyperbolic grindhouse sequel starring Danny Trejo as an immortal (?!) hero who kills everyone in his wake with a machete, and that is to be "forgettable." And yet, MK somehow commits this cardinal sin, despite being stuffed with imagery that you would find in a dictionary definition under "wild." Charlie Sheen credited as Carlos Estevez as the President? Mel Gibson as an Elon Musk cypher peddling sci-fi leaning technologies? Elon Musk literally making a cameo in the final moments? Sofia Vergara literally doing the "Fembot breast machine gun" gag from Austin Powers? A killer named El Chameleón that's played by four different famous people, including Lady Gaga?! How on earth could this be forgettable?
Perhaps it's because Rodriguez, like Spy Kids 2 before, un-streamlines the tight focus of the first Machete to stuff his sequel with too much "stuff" and not enough "structure." There's a sense of "I'm gonna do what I want" in the picture, a mode that usually works like gangbusters for Rodriguez's highly personal-feeling films. But the sense of filmic glee is missing. It all feels perfunctory, not just in its moves' relationship to the plot, but in every player's execution of the moves. Enthusiasm goes a long way for Rodriguez, especially when he's working in B-movie action mode; Machete Kills feels like everyone showed up for work, did their level best as a professional, than went home. No fire, despite all its scattershot movements. Still: For a competent-enough "TNT afternoon" action watch, Machete Kills... well, it has a perfectly serviceable set, even if I wouldn't call it "killing."
12. The Faculty
The Faculty feels like the next logical step for the filmmaker who made Roadracers, not who made the El Mariachi franchise. Kevin Williamson's script, like his Scream and I Know What You Did Last Summer before, is a carefully crafted "self-aware cynical Gen-X genre-savvy" piece of work, a slick feat of narrative engineering that uses "personal touches" like pieces of fashion rather than pieces of personality. As such, I never really get to know any of the characters in the film, either the students or the teachers, and while they all have moments of "horror iconography" that certainly explain why the film remains a cult hit, the emotional moves (and even ironic kills) don't track because we can't keep track of them.
While Rodriguez does get some great, and again, instantly iconic performances out of his actors (all hail Bebe Neuwirth), he unfortunately doesn't find too many reasons for their behavior beyond the surface. Like Roadracers, it's a film obsessed with the boredom of youth, the rebellion against oppressive adults, and quite explicitly, the alien abduction of said adults by aliens (if John Hawkes loved Invasion of the Body Snatchers in Roadracers, he'd spontaneously combust after a viewing of The Faculty). And like Roadracers, it's a slick, easily watchable ride that keeps spinning in circle after circle, feeling both stuck in its limitations and eager to jump to new ones without understanding why it got there. You will have a good time watching The Faculty, and you will especially enjoy some of the beefed-up ways Rodriguez stages his kills and scares (including some CGI that looks better than much of his modern CGI). But I just don't see it sticking to your bones, I just don't see its characters becoming memorable, and I especially don't see how anyone could enjoy its problematic, out-of-nowhere, male wish-fulfillment ending, ending an Elijah Wood arc that simply never began.
I will say this, however: Christopher McDonald sports a goatee in The Faculty. This is all Objectively Good.
11. Once Upon a Time in Mexico
Once again, Rodriguez stuffs a sequel with too much stuff. In Once Upon a Time in Mexico, the mythically-titled conclusion of his Mariachi trilogy, Rodriguez reaches for a plot and for imagery that goes "straight to the top," both in terms of its conspiracy thriller "everyone in power is corrupt" shenanigans and in terms of its desire to be considered a grand, mythological conclusion. When Rodriguez can get out of the way of his own script, boy howdy does this thing purr. The opening action scene is Rodriguez and Antonio Banderas' "Dylan Goes Electric" moment; for two films, we've seen our Mariachi work solely with acoustic guitars, and to see him shoot up the place with a thrilling jolt of electricity is thrilling. Action sequences throughout are put together with shirt-grabbing panache, and while the fully digital production workflow sacrifices some of the tactile grit we saw in the first two films, it replaces it with a sense of unlocked ingenuity and imagination (i.e. the "chain" action sequence that reminds me of a video game in the best way). And, obviously, Enrique Iglesias flame-throwing people with his guitar case is about as Objectively Good as you can get.
But when Rodriguez settles into his script, it really loses me, and frankly, loses itself. Mickey Rourke, Johnny Depp, Willem Dafoe (in brownface and an accent; yikes!), and Eva Mendes all get caught up in a web of double crosses, spy-like intentions, and plottings involving taking out the President of Mexico. We often tend to lose El Mariachi in these dense movements, and what we're given instead simply does not work. It causes the film to lurch to a weirdly episodic halt, especially when we watch scene after scene of Depp talking casually to a mark at a restaurant before violently dealing with them (scenes that feel like Rodriguez doing Tarantino fanfic). We do get satisfying, appropriately mythic conclusions for El Mariachi and his crew, but to get there, we have to watch Mendes' character turn for absolutely no reason, and we have to watch Depp's character — a despicable, talk-a-holic scumbag whom I don't find redeeming in any way — get a huge, "iconic-feeling" set piece in which he's blinded and must rely on a child to make his way through a shoot out (cool? Maybe. Absolutely inorganic to the character's "arc"? Absolutely). This film feels like Rodriguez through and through, and the purity of his vision still makes it an entertaining watch. Just know that its level of entertainment will sputter in fits and starts.
10. Spy Kids: All the Time in the World
How rare is it that the fourth installment of a film franchise can work as well and feel as fresh as its first one? Spy Kids: All the Time in the World is a fleet and surprisingly deep piece of family entertainment, one that starts with a delightful comedic action set piece — Jessica Alba must finish her spy mission while literally giving birth! — and only heightens from there, with emotional explorations of how we spend our time cleanly serviced by the film's plot moves and imagery (which have decidedly improved since Rodriguez's CGI-addled previous entries). Time is running out for everyone: Alba no longer wants to spend her time being a spy after giving birth, her husband Joel McHale has trouble making time for his children, his children (her stepchildren) Rowan Blanchard and Mason Cook have trouble making time to connect with their new stepmom, and even a now grown Alexa Vega and Daryl Sabara have trouble making time reconnecting with each other. As such, Rodriguez throws a dastardly evil invention at all our heroes: Time is literally speeding up for everyone on Earth, thanks to a dastardly evil Jeremy Piven (also in a dual role as a noir-infused head of a spy agency; the diametric opposite of "Objectively Good").
You can probably imagine how all these beats play out. But to see them play out so organically entwined with its emotional center, especially from a filmmaker who's often unconcerned with his MacGuffins being metaphors for his emotional centers, yielded a rich, satisfying film that every member of a family could enjoy for different reasons. Even our villain's motivations for messing with time come from a place of emotional desperation, in a revelatory sequence that got me right in the tear ducts. To think that a late-period Spy Kids sequel could grab me this deeply is something I would've never imagined in a million years. But Rodriguez proves here that sometimes all you need is a little time.
9. Desperado
This is a handsome motion picture. Not unlike an Evil Dead 2, Rodriguez revisits the iconic low-budget characters of his debut film El Mariachi in his sequel/quasi-remake Desperado. And the results are so, so, so eminently watchable, carefully crafted, and oozing with tactile confidence. Rodriguez's sense of color, of production design, of camera movement, of tempo and dynamics are all there, and all inviting. The cold open, in which Steve Buscemi tells the story of El Mariachi (Antonio Banderas) to a room full of increasingly frightened skeptics while Rodriguez cuts dramatically into the story of bloodshed, is one of Rodriguez's all-time great sequences, a wonderful way to establish why we should be frightened of and allured by our main character. The many, many action sequences in the picture only increase in panache and punch from there; Rodriguez stuffs more moments of iconography in this thing than some action directors have their entire CV, using what we fundamentally know about "action cinema" both earnestly and ironically. I'm particularly impressed and interested in the film's unpacking and, often, baldfaced communication of gender roles in action cinema. Salma Hayek is introduced as being so beautiful she literally causes a car crash, and later on she and Banderas make their way through an explosive action sequence in traditional color coded costumes (the man in black, the woman in red). It doesn't feel problematic to me; it feels celebratory.
What stops Desperado, an objectively entertaining action movie for any action fan, from ranking higher on this list? For all its filmmaking skills and muscular set pieces, the film just isn't saying much under the hood. It tries to give us a message of "violence begets violence causing everyone to suffer morally," but it's too much telling and not enough showing (and what Rodriguez does show certainly gives us a message of "Violence is awesome!"). This thematic belly flop might be part and parcel with the unclear motivations of its various grungy villains and antiheroes; whereas El Mariachi was clear throughout even in its mistaken identity plot, everything feels a little lost in the sauce on this one. Rodriguez's priorities are clear, and if you can turn your brain off a little bit and jump along for the ride, you will have a great time.
8. Alita: Battle Angel
Alita: Battle Angel is an outlier in Rodriguez's body of work for a couple of key reasons. For one: It's easily the highest budget Rodriguez has ever worked with, a bonafide contemporary blockbuster with all the filmmaking bells and whistles (and obligations) that come with it. And for two: It's a creative collaboration with a huge force of stubborn creative energy, a man by the name of James Cameron. While Rodriguez often works with co-directors and collaborators, he's a man who started his career with the persona of being a "one-man crew," and even when other folks step into roles usually occupied by him, his works still feel, at their best, like "Robert Rodriguez films." Would the Hollywood blockbuster system and Cameron chew and spit Rodriguez out?
The final result, for me: Mostly not? Alita: Battle Angel is often a messy watch, no doubt, and like his other sci-fi-tinged works, stuffed to the gills with lore and MacGuffins in a way that's simply unnecessary. But aesthetically, Alita: Battle Angel is an utter joy to watch. The production design and, yes, massive usage of CGI on this sucker is splendidly watchable. Bill Pope shot the film, taking over from Rodriguez's usual DP (which is, um, Rodriguez himself) to translate Rodriguez's inherent visual dynamism with a welcome sense of clarity and fluidity (there are scenes in this that feel like professional remakes of scenes from Spy Kids 3, and I mean that as a highest complement). Rosa Salazar's title performance is bolstered by enormous CGI eyes, and I promise you, this choice is an inspired one, helping vault our main character's wants and needs into clear, emotionally motivated focus. Salazar works with these moon eyes impeccably, allowing us into Alita's burgeoning mindset easily; I firmly believe she should've been nominated for an Oscar for her performance, and I will die on this cyber-hill.
Ultimately, Alita: Battle Angel isn't the most consistently satisfying watch, especially in its need to hint at future installments instead of telling this one story cleanly (RIP Edward Norton's sequel villain). And there are times when Rodriguez's muckraking energy jut up against Cameron's populist energy in ways that are palpably confusing. But I love how big, bold, messy, and yearning the picture plays. For all its budget and robotic characters, Alita: Battle Angel wears its heart on its sleeve, and proves that Rodriguez could be a formidable director in an MCU joint — so long as they let him be himself, like Alita just wants to be herself.
7. Sin City
In the year of our Lord 2021, Sin City is... a bit of a tough watch. Co-directed by Frank Miller and inspired pretty literally by his hardboiled comic book series, it is difficult to see the notoriously hard-right-leaning creator's subconscious and problematic philosophies be embedded so, well, consciously in the film during a time when people who share similar viewpoints, usage of loaded imagery and language as him are currently burning the country to a crisp. A villain has a Nazi swastika tattooed in his head? Um, fine. A protagonist antihero we're supposed to view as being cool and impressive uses a Nazi swastika shuriken? Feels a lot less fine to me! Literally no female character is not under the implicit or explicit threat of sexual violence to help motivate a male character's journey? Jeez louise, Frank...
And yet, despite all these problematic elements, I cannot deny how much Sin City works, and how effective and surprising Rodriguez is as a director here. The "all CG everything" approach works like gangbusters because of the choice to render everything in an obviously stylized, otherworldly aesthetic, giving the team ample room for experimentation and, frankly, a wider margin of "realistic error." The picture is structured in episodes that only sometimes intersect, giving its star-studded cast the chance to act through the muscled-up neo-noir B-movie of their dreams in a storytelling move that pays off in dividends. And speaking of this cast: Goddamn, are they good. They commit fully and heartily to this grim and grimy world, gifting it with a sense of gravitas that feels both in line with Hollywood's best American crime cinema while also twisting it at every turn. In particular, the dynamic duo of Clive Owen and Benicio del Toro yields deliciously twisted results. A car sequence with the two, guest-directed by Quentin Tarantino, is one of the wildest scenes in Rodriguez's entire filmography, and it's just people talking. This purity of vision, this command of audience, and this eagerness to mess with form keeps Sin City among the upper pantheon of Rodriguez's work, even as its outdated moralities keep getting more and more out of date.
6. Shorts
Reader, I am flabbergasted at how much I loved Shorts. The 2009 film is easily Rodriguez's funniest family film — and just might be his funniest film overall, too. The Animaniacs to Shark Boy/Lava Girl's Ratatoing, Shorts sets its base reality within a dystopian science fiction near future satire framework — for kids! The family of Jimmy Bennett lives in Black Falls Community, a mega-suburb owned by a mega-company that produces a mega-product called The Black Box (if you've wanted to see James Spader play an aggressively evil Jeff Bezos, you simply must watch Shorts). With this going on in the background (yielding constantly surprising jokes and stabs), Bennett finds a magical rock that grants whoever finds it the power of wishes. Hilarity, naturally, ensues, all communicated via a series of episodic "shorts" not unlike Sin City, until it all coalesces at the end in a satisfyingly farcical, and even emotional, way.
Rodriguez feels untethered to and unbothered by the conventions of family filmmaking; the beats of such modes you'd expect feel inherent to the film, not reached for or forced in. Instead, Shorts feels like an easy watch with a relentlessly easy, sharp sense of humor, and a surprisingly effective usage of form and non-linear editing (i.e. one short's one-off joke is eventually "paid off" by seeing the setup in a later short). Plus, there's a lot of effective emotional and thematic explorations, from the power of capitalistic greed to the scary ubiquity of technology to the importance of families listening to each other — all told in unexpectedly funny ways, all tied up nicely by Rodriguez's tight arcs. Shorts' longevity is nothing but short. What a triumph!
5. Spy Kids
Rodriguez's first family film continues to be his best one. Spy Kids, released in 2001, is a wild ride made with the utmost of care, love, and unbridled imagination. Daryl Sabara continues Rodriguez's trend of loner rebel artist characters (he's obsessed with an Alan Cumming-hosted TV show and makes his own creations, a la Rodriguez being obsessed with genre cinema and making his own creations), but I'm not sure he's our most heroic character. That honor likely belongs to Alexa Vega as Sabara's sister Carmen, a 12-year-old girl who gets to show off her smarts, spy skills, and ability to kick ass in a way that surely inspired young girls across the nation (especially young Latina girls). These two central characters feel like siblings, constant making fun of each other and all, and it's beyond satisfying to see Vega as our most identifiable character with Sabara along for the ride (and when Sabara does get his moments of triumph, it both satisfies his arc and provides a heartwarming moment of Vega to be proud of her little brother!).
But Spy Kids doesn't just work because of its Spy Kids. Antonio Banderas and Carla Gugino play the parents, also spies, who vowed to quit the biz to focus on their family before getting swept up and kidnapped in this final case (inciting their children to go get 'em and become, well, spies). By spending so much time and empathy on the parents, instead of treating them with kid-friendly disdain, Rodriguez wisely and kindly shows his young viewers why their authority figures are figures of respect, triumph, and love — not to mention the fact that they had a pretty kickass life before having lil' stinkers, too. Spy Kids is rife with flights of fancy, a love of genre cinema, unexpected lore behind its main villain, and lotsa strange CGI, but it continues to play and play so well because of this fundamental familial bond at its core. The final line, spoken straight to camera by Vega, made me cry tears of joy.
4. Planet Terror
Originally produced and released as part of Grindhouse, the strange and noble 2007 double feature of bonkers B-movie pleasures (paired with Quentin Tarantino's Death Proof and a bevy of fake trailers), Planet Terror remains, even divorced of its delightful context, one of Rodriguez's most purely entertaining films. Rodriguez is certainly letting his freak flag fly here, cramming as much stylistic flourishes, grossly effective practical zombie effects, and straight up gags into this horror-comedy as he can muster. But at its core, and the reason for its continued success, is a narrative interested in toxic masculinity, feelings of entitlement on a micro and macro level, and the eventual reclamation of female power against these patriarchal forces. Not only do these facets play effectively with exploitation cinema of the past, they're also Rodriguez's attempts to reckon with and rebel against the burgeoning knowledge of producer Harvey Weinstein's monstrosities, giving the picture a sense of gravity and even inspiration among its most gnarly, entertaining moments (and, it must be said, giving some of the elements of the picture an icky aftertaste that might cross the line for some viewers).
Rose McGowan is a go-go dancer desperate to get out of her subjugating life. Marley Shelton is a doctor desperate to escape the ever-increasingly oppressive clutches of her creepy doctor husband, Josh Brolin. These characters cross paths alongside a bevy of other colorful figures with colorful motivations and needs (I'm especially fond of Jeff Fahey's barbecue sauce secrecy) in reaction to a citywide sci-fi zombie pandemic, a government plan known as "Planet Terror" gone amok. The film plays less like authentic exploitation flicks of the past and more like Rodriguez's rose-colored memories of these films, crossed with a desire to please an audience as relentlessly and most entertainingly as possible (I first saw this film in a packed late night screening; what a joy that was). It takes huge swings, both visually and narratively (eliminating necessary information with a jocular "missing reel" is one thing; Bruce Willis showing up to wax about killing Osama bin Laden is another), and pushes lots of envelopes in its quest to empower while provocatively entertaining. How does it all work, and work so well? Like Fahey's BBQ sauce, Rodriguez might take that formula to the grave.
3. El Mariachi
A startling lightning bolt of a film debut that remains as watchable, as vital, as jaw-dropping, as thrilling as the day it was first released. 1992's El Mariachi was made by Rodriguez (director, writer, producer, cinematographer, editor) for a scant $7,000, much of which was accrued by Rodriguez subjecting his body to experimental medical procedures for cash. You can feel that sense of vitality, of need, of raw desire in every frame of the film, in ways that make it feel less like a "film" and more like "an extension of his body; the final medical experiment." And yet, there's nothing "raw" feeling about Rodriguez's technique here. He lenses (and I mean "he lenses" very literally) every element of his action set pieces with punchy emphasis, with stylized joy, with technical moves and choices that startle every time (i.e. cutting closer to the subject in the middle of an action, no matter how mundane said action might be). Contemporary action blockbusters don't move with as much craft, skill, and instinct as El Mariachi continues to; even with the clear touchstones Rodriguez is pulling from (John Woo, Sergio Leone, Sam Raimi), it's obvious how instinctually unique he is as a director from the jump. And the film isn't all action, either — its quartet of leading performances are both unaffected and styled to an exacting degree, giving especially our leading character Carlos Gallardo and his badass love Consuelo Gómez ample room for emotional exploration and simple understanding. El Mariachi will make you re-fall in love with cinema all over again, every time.
2. From Dusk till Dawn
Perhaps the most effective synthesis between Rodriguez's "pulpy B-movie" and "patient Hollywood" filmmaking styles; perhaps the most effective Rodriguez/Tarantino collaboration to date; certainly one of the best bait-and-switch pictures ever released. From Dusk till Dawn is a wild ride, a smooth piece of genre-blending filmmaking that is confidently assured even as it purposefully, jaggedly zags where you expect it to zig.
Starting with a setup straight out of a Quentin Tarantino playbook (hey, that's because he wrote it!), Tarantino and George Clooney star as bank robbing brothers on the run. Clooney is the patient antihero with a heart of gold; Tarantino is the unstable hothead. The two hold the Fuller family (Harvey Keitel, Juliette Lewis, Ernest Liu) hostage, making them smuggle the two across the border to Mexico. While there, they stop at a strip club to await their next contact. And that's when things... change.
If you've not seen the film, I'll just say this: The "small time crooks talk and only sometimes shoot" vibe of Tarantino is handily replaced with the "bonkers B-movie action-horror" vibe of Rodriguez, and it is done so with wide-brimmed glee. As our heroes and antiheroes deal with the new, threatening force at this bar, Rodriguez gets a chance to shoot all kinds of inventive, effective, and downright silly set pieces, with ample gore and gnarly practical effects. But the film never loses its emphasis on character — from Clooney's feelings of guilt to Lewis' feelings of liberation to, especially, Keitel's crisis of faith, Rodriguez jumps on the meat of Tarantino's bones without hesitation, eager to apply his kinetic stylings to an, at times, more interior film. From Dusk till Dawn remains a cult classic for an excellent reason, a B-movie with a lot going on underneath the hood, a fascinating crossover and subsequent peak of many powers.
1. Machete
Machete might be the perfect Robert Rodriguez film, and is certainly the perfect Robert Rodriguez film for the year of our Lord 2021. Inspired by a fake, relentlessly silly trailer within the aforementioned Grindhouse double feature, and co-directed by regular Rodriguez editor Ethan Maniquis, the 2010 take on Machete (Danny Trejo, legend) retains its source material's sense of silliness and of performative grindhouse aesthetics, but adds to it to a politically incendiary, vital, and ultimately inspiring narrative.
Like so many classic exploitation flicks before it, Rodriguez knows that if you keep the budget low and the "exploitative content" (i.e. violence and sex) high, you can get away with all kinds of statements and activism in the rest of the film. Now, I'm no pretentious fuddy-duddy — the "exploitative" elements of the film work like utter gangbusters. Rodriguez is off the leash, giving every action set piece a splash of viscera that combines with the scratches, burns, and wobbles of the film to make it "feel" grimy, like everyone's getting away with something. These moments aren't just blunt, however; they're constructed with a certain sense of paying off elements set up earlier. Sometimes they're playful, like when a doctor mentions how long an intestine is only for Machete to use one craftily later, and sometimes they're downright poetic, like the fate of Robert De Niro's character.
Yes, Robert De Niro is in this wild, grindhouse splatter-happy action flick, and he's playing a racist-ass Senator, too. How did Rodriguez get such an esteemed actor to play such a despicable character in such a "trashy" movie? I suspect it's because of the strength of Rodriguez's script (co-written with Álvaro Rodriguez, Robert's cousin), of his political positions staked out, of his hungry desire for revolution manifested and masked as mass entertainment. De Niro, it should be said, is wonderful in the picture, as are supporting turns from Michelle Rodriguez (in an eyepatch!), Jeff Fahey (the deepest voice ever!), and Jessica Alba (playing an ICE agent that becomes reformed and realigned with the immigrants she's been trying to subjugate; a required character arc for anyone who has remaining doubts about defunding our most stringent authority figures).
This is a film for all of those who are loners, rebels, oppressed, eager to share your humanity without being stomped upon. A film with the most bluntly inspiring portrayals of social justice on its mind, made for and by people we rarely see on screen. A film that reminds us that the power doesn't lie in gatekeepers. It lies in troublemakers. Those who dream of silver screen dreams and make their own path to make them reality. Like the best of Rodriguez's work, its power is for the people.
