The Platform

Galder Gaztelu-Urrutia's The Platform (Spanish: El hoyo) premiered in the Midnight Madness section of the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2019 and won that section's People's Choice Award. After Netflix acquired global rights in March 2020 it became one of the most-watched non-English-language films on the service; viewing reports placed it in the streamer's top ten in over thirty countries during the early weeks of the pandemic.

It is Gaztelu-Urrutia's debut feature, made with a Basque-Spanish production team in Bilbao. David Desola and Pedro Rivero wrote the screenplay, developing it from Desola's earlier short play. Iván Massagué leads the cast, with Zorion Eguileor, Antonia San Juan, Emilio Buale and Alexandra Masangkay in major roles. Jon D. Domínguez was the cinematographer, working on a single vertical tower set built across multiple floors at a Bilbao studio, with mechanical rigging for the platform itself.

The film won the Goya Award for Best Special Effects and was nominated for several more Goyas, including Best New Director and Best Adapted Screenplay. We would put it among the central works of contemporary Spanish genre cinema, alongside the films of Álex de la Iglesia, Juan Antonio Bayona and Rodrigo Cortés, and its premise has the brutal simplicity of a parable. A direct sequel, The Platform 2, was released by Netflix in October 2024, with the original director returning.