#The Skin I Live In, Raging Fire, & More Foreign Movies And TV Streaming Now

Genre: Psychological thriller

Director: Pedro Almodóvar

Cast: Antonio Banderas, Elena Anaya, Marisa Paredes, Jan Cornet, Roberto Álamo.

It was for so brief a time that nine of Pedro Almodóvar’s films arrived on HBO Max, only for all of them to exit the streaming service just four months later. But before the Spanish auteur’s films leave HBO Max completely, take some time to watch the one that is most fitting for this season: “The Skin I Live In.” Perhaps Almodóvar’s most transgressive and most disturbing work, “The Skin I Live In” stars the queer auteur’s longtime collaborator Antonio Banderas as a successful plastic surgeon who harbors a dark secret: he has been holding captive a woman, Vera (Elena Anaya), upon whom he has been experimenting in order to develop artificial skin that will be resistant to burns and insect bites — a project he names “GAL” after his dead wife. Curiously, Vera looks uncannily like his dead wife as well, but as her past is slowly revealed throughout the course of “The Skin I Live In,” the film takes truly unexpected and upsetting turns. “The Skin I Live In” flirts with body horror, melodrama, and even a little slapstick — a deliciously macabre tsunami of tone which could only have been concocted by a maximalist filmmaker like Almodóvar.

Watch This If You Like: “Titane,” “The Neon Demon,” “Climax,” bodysuits.