The Exterminating Angel (Spanish: El ángel exterminador) is a 1962 Mexican surrealist black comedy film written and directed by Luis Buñuel.

Sharply satirical and allegorical, it contains a depiction of the aristocracy that suggests they "harbor savage instincts and unspeakable secrets".

[3] After a night at the opera, Edmundo and Lucía Nóbile host eighteen wealthy acquaintances at a dinner party at their mansion.

Lucía cancels a planned surprise involving a bear and three sheep upon discovering that guest Sergio Russell does not like jokes, but there are a few strange occurrences, such as the guests somehow entering the mansion and going upstairs twice, Edmundo repeating his toast to the opera singer Silvia, and Cristián Ugalde and Leandro Gomez greeting each other three times (as strangers, cordially, and antagonistically).

Instead, without discussing it, the guests and hosts settle in and spend the night in the salon, preventing Lucía from sneaking off for a tryst with Colonel Alvaro Aranda.

A crowd of onlookers, police, and soldiers gathers outside the gates of the mansion over the following days; no one is able to enter, although there is no physical barrier.

She notices that all of the people and furniture are in the same spot as the night of the party, and has Blanca play the end of the piano sonata and everyone repeat the conversation that followed.

[4] American actress Marilyn Monroe traveled to Mexico during that period, and her trip included a visit to Churubusco Studios, where the film was being made.

[5][6][7] The Exterminating Angel premiered at the 1962 Cannes Film Festival, and was released in theaters in Mexico on October 1, 1964, to critical acclaim.

The site's consensus reads: "Societal etiquette devolves into depravity in Luis Buñuel's existential comedy, effectively playing the absurdity of civilization for mordant laughs".

Having set a banquet table for themselves by defeating the workers in the Spanish Civil War, they sit down for a feast, only to find it never ends.

More than anything, however, The Exterminating Angel explores the hypocrisy of the social elite and the thin strands of society that keep them from utter depravity".