The Platform

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

The film is Gaztelu-Urrutia's debut feature, made with a Basque-Spanish production team in Bilbao. The screenplay is by David Desola and Pedro Rivero, who developed it from Desola's earlier short play. The cast is led by Iván Massagué, with Zorion Eguileor, Antonia San Juan, Emilio Buale and Alexandra Masangkay in major roles. Cinematography is by Jon D. Domínguez, working on a single vertical tower set built at a Bilbao studio across multiple floors with mechanical platform rigging.

The film won the Goya Award for Best Special Effects and was nominated for several additional Goyas including Best New Director and Best Adapted Screenplay. It is widely treated as one of the central works of contemporary Spanish genre cinema alongside the work of Álex de la Iglesia, Juan Antonio Bayona and Rodrigo Cortés. A direct sequel, The Platform 2, was released by Netflix in October 2024 with the original director returning.