Vicky Cristina Barcelona

Woody Allen's Vicky Cristina Barcelona won Penélope Cruz the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress at the 81st Academy Awards in February 2009. It was her first Oscar, and one of the few times a Spanish-language performance has won in any acting category (her central scenes with Javier Bardem are in Spanish, with subtitles). She also won the BAFTA in the same category, and the film took the Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture (Musical or Comedy) at the 66th Golden Globes that season.

It is the second of Allen's so-called European mid-career features, after Match Point (2005, set in London), and it set the production model he would extend through You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger (London), Midnight in Paris (Paris), To Rome with Love (Rome) and several later films: a major American director shooting abroad on substantial European tax-credit financing. Mediapro and the Catalan tourism authorities financed part of the Spanish production and gave it generous location access in Barcelona.

Scarlett Johansson, Rebecca Hall, Penélope Cruz and Javier Bardem lead the cast, with Patricia Clarkson and Chris Messina in supporting roles. Cruz and Bardem married in 2010, two years after the film's release, and their off-screen partnership is usually dated from their on-screen one here. Javier Aguirresarobe shot it, and he worked with Allen again after Vicky Cristina on Blue Jasmine, the American drama that followed To Rome with Love. The film grossed over $96 million worldwide on a budget of approximately $15 million.