General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20265 min read

Holy Family

Holy Family (Spanish: Sagrada familia) is a Spanish-language drama thriller television series created and directed by the Mexican filmmaker Manolo Caro for Netflix. It premiered worldwide on October 14, 2022, and ran for two seasons of eight episodes each, ending on November 17, 2023.¹^•² The series follows Gloria Román, played by Najwa Nimri, a mother living under false identities in an affluent Madrid neighborhood who is hiding from a dark past.³

Key fact	Detail
Original title	Sagrada familia; released internationally as Holy Family⁴
Creator and director	Manolo Caro, previously known for La Casa de las Flores (2018) and Alguien tiene que morir (2020)¹
Run	Season 1 premiered October 14, 2022; season 2 premiered November 17, 2023; 16 episodes total²
Episode length	About 35 minutes per episode⁵
Lead cast	Najwa Nimri (Gloria), Alba Flores, Macarena Gómez, Álex García, Carla Campra, Iván Pellicer, Álvaro Rico, Ella Kweku¹
Production	Noc Noc Cinema, Woo Films, and Netflix España; music by Lucas Vidal, cinematography by Pablo Díez⁴
Setting	Fuente del Berro, an affluent neighborhood of Madrid, in 1990s Spain⁶^•⁷
Reception	IMDb 6.5/10 from about 3,400 votes; Filmaffinity 5.6/10; Rotten Tomatoes average Tomatometer 64%⁸^•⁴^•⁹

Spoilers

Premise

The series opens with a new family moving into Fuente del Berro, a well-to-do Madrid neighborhood where, in the words of Netflix's synopsis, nothing is what it seems. Gloria lives there with her baby and Aitana, her au pair, hiding from a mysterious and dark past. She forms a close friendship with three other women whose common denominator is motherhood, and the relationship appears perfect until Gloria's past begins to catch up with her.¹⁰ The official synopsis describes a family hiding a shocking secret that starts over in Madrid, where new relationships complicate their plans.⁹

Season 1's eight episodes trace the tightening of that secret. In the first episode, Gloria and her children host a birthday party for baby Hugo while living under false identities, and a new couple moves into the neighborhood; later episodes bring the past of Gloria, Abel, and Aitana into focus, and the season closes with hard decisions by Abel and Aitana.¹¹ The second season continues the pretense of a perfect life, this time with a character held in the house basement and young Lorenzo as a witness to who the family really is.¹²

Origin and themes

Surrogacy was the seed of the story. Caro has said the idea arose from a friend who had decided to have a baby through surrogated gestation, which opened a debate in his circle of lifelong friends and made him notice how readily people form opinions about others' paths to parenthood.¹³^•³ He has described the series as centered on motherhood, the new models of being a parent, what a mother is capable of doing for her child, and the double faces people present.¹³

The story is set in the 1990s, a decade in which, Caro noted, surrogacy was not commonly discussed in Spain as it is now.⁷ He also framed the series as deliberately non-prescriptive: it does not try to be pamphleteering about how a family should be conceived, while the actress Alba Flores said the series shows that all families have shadows.¹⁴

Production

Holy Family was Caro's fourth series for Netflix and his first production set and shot entirely in Spain, made under his agreement with Netflix for Latin America and Spain.¹⁵ It was produced by Noc Noc Cinema, the company headed by Caro and producers Rafael Ley and María José Córdova, together with Woo Films and Netflix España.¹^•⁴ The screenplay is credited to Caro, Fer Pérez, María Miranda, and Gabriel Nuncio.⁴

Filming took place in Madrid, Castilla-La Mancha (Ciudad Real and Guadalajara), and Melilla, with Madrid locations including the Torres Blancas building, the AZCA complex, the Cuatro Vientos airfield, and the Netflix Madrid Content City studio lot.⁵^•¹⁶ Caro called the series his most personal project and said he attended to details from locations to the score, which was composed by Lucas Vidal.¹⁷

The cast reunited Najwa Nimri and Alba Flores, who had previously worked together on Vis a Vis and La Casa de Papel; both said their earlier collaboration made their interactions in this series easier.⁶

Reception

Shortly after release, the series had entered Netflix's top 10 in 45 countries.¹³ Critics responded to its blend of genres. Johnny Loftus of Decider called it a thriller full of dread, shifting loyalties, and larger themes of motherhood in its loving and sometimes murderous manifestations.¹¹ A Ready Steady Cut review of season 1 called it highly watchable and proudly inscrutable, a binge-worthy portrait of motherhood in all its forms, while the same outlet's season 2 review found diminishing returns, with a dreary tone and languid pace.⁴

Aggregated ratings place the series in middling territory: 6.5/10 on IMDb from about 3,400 users, 5.6/10 on Filmaffinity from about 2,600 votes, and an average Tomatometer of 64% on Rotten Tomatoes.⁸^•⁴^•⁹ The series received three Fotogramas de Plata nominations and an Iris Awards nomination for Best Production in 2023.⁴

References

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026