Check out 7 of Pedro Almodovar’s best movies

If you’re interested in Pedro Almodovar, Netflix is not your friend. The service does not carry his work, but you can find it on other steaming services.

It’s worth catching up with his distinctive catalog, which includes comedies, thrillers, soap operas (often inspired by the 1950s work of Douglas Sirk, who made “Written on the Wind” and “All That Heaven Allows”) and, sometimes, all of those things at once. Vibrant colors, garish decor, incredible plot twists and creatively stymied artists figure into many of Almodovar’s films, as does a recurring acting company that includes Antonio Banderas and Penelope Cruz.

An Oscar winner for his “Talk to Her” screenplay, Almodovar will be in theaters this month with “The Human Voice,” a visually stunning short film starring Tilda Swinton and based on a Jean Cocteau play that Almodovar cites often (Maura plays a woman acting in it in “Law of Desire”). “Human Voice” will be paired with a new restoration of the fizzy “Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown,” so this is an ideal time to catch up on his films.

Because he’s a movie fan as well as a director/writer, Almodovar’s influences are fun to spot, but more than four decades into his career, he has become influential himself. Almodovar led the revitalization of Spanish moviemaking, for instance. And, as a gay man, he was way ahead of his time in depicting the complexity of gender, identity and sexuality.

Just as recent years have seen filmmakers break free of the “male gaze” that has dominated moviemaking and grounded most stories in how white men see them, Almodovar matter-of-factly eliminated what could be called the “straight gaze.” His characters are who they are and they don’t care what anyone else thinks.

Whether by design or not, it’s worth noting that the sexually frank Almodovar was one of the first to embrace the NC-17 rating. Several of his films earned the rating, including one of the first, “Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!,” as well as “Bad Education,” “Matador” and “Law of Desire.”

His recent movies push fewer buttons but show he still has plenty of stories to tell.

‘Pain and Glory’ (2019)

Banderas’ career-best performance earned an Oscar nomination. He plays an Almodovar stand-in, a creatively blocked director who has lost touch with his artistic impulses and the people who are important to him. Cruz also stars in a drama that shows that, after years of unbelievable plot developments, Almodovar knows how to make a subtler plot twist count.

‘Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown’ (1988)

This hyperdrive farce is not Almodovar’s first movie, but it’s the one that made him a name in America. For years, Jane Fonda intended to remake it. Banderas’ fourth collab with the director (and the first in which his character is straight) has chase scenes, mistaken identities, poisoned gazpacho and a nod to “The Human Voice.”

‘Live Flesh’ (1997)

If his first several movies established the “Almodovar movie” as a thing – candy-colored, lots of nudity, outrageous characters, splashes of violence, bizarre comedy – this one told moviegoers he could do more. Based on a novel by British mystery writer Ruth Rendell, it’s a complicated tale of murder and betrayal that features a spectacular opening with Cruz giving birth on a bus. It’s her first of six roles with the director.

‘All About My Mother’ (1999)

Cruz got to repay Almodovar, announcing “All About My Mother’s” foreign-language film Oscar with a jubilant cry, “Pedro!” The follow-up to “Live Flesh” shifted Almodovar from someone who was thought of as wacky and fun to a serious filmmaker. He must have thought his 1995 “The Flower of My Secret” wasn’t quite a success because he has reused its story several times, including in this drama about a nurse, grieving the loss of her son, who turns to a community of women for support. Set in Barcelona, the drama features two prominent trans characters.

‘Talk to Her’ (2002)

The title is the admonition received by two men caring for two women who are both in comas. It features lots of Almodovar motifs but it may be his saddest film. Although Almodovar won a screenwriting Oscar for it, Spain chose a different movie to submit for the foreign-language film prize.

‘Volver’ (2006)

“The Flower of My Secret” pays off again; this thriller’s notion of a woman who kills a man and stores him in a freezer first popped up there. Playing that woman, a fiercely protective mother harboring big family secrets, earned Cruz her first Oscar nomination.

‘Matador’ (1988)

It’s “Psycho,” played for deadpan laughs and with a smidgen of “Vertigo” tossed in. This is Almodovar’s Alfred Hitchcock homage, except he makes fun of the ridiculous “psychology.” Banderas is the Norman Bates character, living with his domineering mother and nurturing some very weird ideas about the connection between bullfighting and lovemaking. Like Hitchcock, the director makes an appearance in his own movie.