[7] To support himself, Almodóvar had a number of jobs, including selling used items in the famous Madrid flea market El Rastro and as an administrative assistant with the Spanish phone company Telefónica, where he worked for 12 years.

These shorts had overtly sexual narratives and no soundtrack: Dos putas, o, Historia de amor que termina en boda (Two Whores, or, A Love Story that Ends in Marriage) in 1974; La caída de Sodoma (The Fall of Sodom) in 1975; Homenaje (Homage) in 1976; La estrella (The Star) in 1977; Sexo Va: Sexo viene (Sex Comes and Goes); and Complementos (Shorts) in 1978, his first film in 16mm.

[29] The film was based on a comic strip titled General Erections that he had written and revolves around the unlikely friendship between Pepi (Carmen Maura), who wants revenge on a corrupt policeman who raped her, a masochistic housewife named Luci (Eva Siva), and Bom (Alaska), a lesbian punk rock singer.

[citation needed] Almodóvar had already written the script for Dark Habits and was hesitant to cast Pascual in the leading role due to her limited acting experience.

This is Almodóvar's first film in which he used popular music to express emotion: in a pivotal scene, the mother superior and her protégé sing along with Lucho Gatica's bolero "Encadenados".

(1984) Carmen Maura stars in What Have I Done to Deserve This?, Almodóvar's fourth film, as Gloria, an unhappy housewife who lives with her ungrateful husband Antonio (Ángel de Andrés López), her mother in law (Chus Lampreave), and her two teenage sons.

[citation needed] Written together with Spanish novelist Jesús Ferrero, Matador drew away from the naturalism and humour of the director's previous work into a deeper and darker terrain.

El Deseo's first major release was Law of Desire (1987), a film about the complicated love triangle between a gay filmmaker (Eusebio Poncela), his transsexual sister (Carmen Maura), and a repressed murderously obsessive stalker (Antonio Banderas).

This feminist light comedy of rapid-fire dialogue and fast-paced action further established Almodóvar as a "women's director" in the same vein as George Cukor and Rainer Werner Fassbinder.

"[42] Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown centres on Pepa (Carmen Maura), a woman who has been abruptly abandoned by her married boyfriend Iván (Fernando Guillén).

(1990) tells the story about a recently released psychiatric patient, Ricky (Antonio Banderas), who kidnaps a porn star, Marina (Abril), in order to make her fall in love with him.

[citation needed] The film is infamous for its rape scene that Almodóvar used for comic effect to set up a scathing commentary on the selfish and ruthless nature of media.

Kika made its premiere in 1993 and received very negative reviews from film critics worldwide;[citation needed] not just for its rape scene which was perceived as both misogynistic and exploitative, but also for its overall sloppiness.

Dedicated to Bette Davis, Romy Schneider and Gena Rowlands, All About My Mother is steeped in theatricality, from its backstage setting to its plot, modeled on the works of Federico García Lorca and Tennessee Williams, to the characters' preoccupation with modes of performance.

Combining elements of modern dance and silent filmmaking with a narrative that embraces coincidence and fate,[citation needed] in the film, Almodóvar plots the lives of his characters, thrown together by unimaginably bad luck, towards an unexpected conclusion.

[citation needed] The film's protagonist, Juan (Gael Garcia Bernal), was modeled largely on Patricia Highsmith's most famous character, Tom Ripley,[52] as played by Alain Delon in René Clément's Purple Noon.

Volver stars Penélope Cruz, Lola Dueñas, Blanca Portillo, Yohana Cobo and Chus Lampreave in addition to reunited the director with Carmen Maura, who had appeared in several of his early films.

I'm So Excited (2013) is set almost entirely on an aircraft in flight,[72] whose first-class passengers, pilots, and trio of gay stewards all try to deal with the fact that landing gears are malfunctioning.

The film has received near universal acclaim with David Rooney of The Hollywood Reporter writing, "It's a testament to the consummate gifts of one of the world's most treasured filmmakers — now entering the fifth decade of a career still going strong — that he can constantly delight your eye with no risk of losing your involvement in the emotional lives of characters he so clearly adores.

The shoot delayed Almodóvar's previously announced feature-length adaptation of Lucia Berlin's short story collection A Manual for Cleaning Women starring Cate Blanchett which had been set to be his first feature in English.

[92] June Thomas from Slate magazine also recognised that illegal drug use, letter-writing, spying, stalking, prostitution, rape, incest, transsexuality, vomiting, movie-making, recent inmates, car accidents and women urinating on screen are frequent motifs recurring in his work.

[93] Almodóvar has also been distinguished for his use of bold colours and inventive camera angles, as well as using "cinematic references, genre touchstones, and images that serve the same function as songs in a musical, to express what cannot be said".

[24] He has also been noted for his tendency to shock audiences in his films by featuring outrageous situations or characters, which have served a political or commercial purpose to "tell viewers that if the people on the screen could endure these terrible travails and still communicate, so could they".

[94] Almodóvar has incorporated elements of underground and LGBT culture into mainstream forms with wide crossover appeal;[117] academics have recognised the director's significance in queer cinema.

[118][119] Almodóvar dislikes being pigeonholed as a gay filmmaker, but Courtney Young from Pop Matters claimed that he has pushed boundaries by playing with the expectations of gender and sexuality, which places his work in the queer cinematic canon.

Actors who have performed in his films 3 or more times in either lead, supporting or cameo roles include Chus Lampreave (8),[123] Antonio Banderas (8), Rossy de Palma (8), Carmen Maura (7), Cecilia Roth (7), Penélope Cruz (7), Julieta Serrano (6), Kiti Manver (5), Fabio McNamara (5), Marisa Paredes (5), Eva Silva (5), Victoria Abril (4), Lola Dueñas (4), Lupe Barrado (4), Bibiana Fernández (Bibi Andersen) (4), Loles León (3) and Javier Cámara (3).

[132] His musical style is intertextually imbued with the compositional language of various classical and film composers such as Erik Satie, Igor Stravinsky, Bernard Hermann and Nino Rota.

[134] Art design on Almodóvar's films has invariably been the responsibility of Antxón Gomez in recent years,[135] though other collaborators include Román Arango, Javier Fernández and Pin Morales.

[139] Almodóvar used to live on Calle de O'Donnell on the eastern side of the city but moved to his €3 million apartment on Paseo del Pintor Rosales in the west in 2007.

[144] Agustín released a statement in which he declared himself fully responsible, saying that he has always taken charge of financial matters while Pedro has been dedicated to the creative side and hoping that this would not tarnish his brother's reputation.