# Macario
**Macario** is a 1960 Mexican black-and-white fantasy drama directed by Roberto Gavaldón, in which a starving woodcutter in colonial Mexico shares his [Day of the Dead](https://www.edgepedia.org/day-of-the-dead) meal with Death and receives, in return, a bottle of water that can cure any illness on Death's terms. Adapted by playwright Emilio Carballido and Gavaldón from a story by the German-Mexican writer [B. Traven](https://www.edgepedia.org/b-traven), itself drawn from the [Brothers Grimm](https://www.edgepedia.org/brothers-grimm) tale "Godfather Death", it was the first Mexican film nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film and competed at the 1960 Cannes Film Festival.[1](https://sic.cultura.gob.mx/ficha.php?table=produccion_cine&table_id=4249) • [2](https://pure.udem.edu.mx/p/en/research-outputs/a-semiotic-interpretation-of-death-in-the-film-macario-1960) • [3](https://www.film-foundation.org/world-cinema?page=4&sortBy=title&sortOrder=1)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Director, year, runtime | Roberto Gavaldón; produced 1959, released 1960; 91 minutes, black and white[1](https://sic.cultura.gob.mx/ficha.php?table=produccion_cine&table_id=4249) |
| Source | B. Traven's story *The Third Guest* (1950), an adaptation of the Grimm tale "Godfather Death"[2](https://pure.udem.edu.mx/p/en/research-outputs/a-semiotic-interpretation-of-death-in-the-film-macario-1960) |
| Principal cast | Ignacio López Tarso (Macario), Pina Pellicer (his wife), Enrique Lucero (Death), José Gálvez (the Devil), José Luis Jiménez (God)[1](https://sic.cultura.gob.mx/ficha.php?table=produccion_cine&table_id=4249) |
| Key crew | Cinematography Gabriel Figueroa; music Raúl Lavista; editing Gloria Schoemann; production Clasa Films Mundiales[1](https://sic.cultura.gob.mx/ficha.php?table=produccion_cine&table_id=4249) |
| Historic first | First Mexican film nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film (1961)[3](https://www.film-foundation.org/world-cinema?page=4&sortBy=title&sortOrder=1) |
| Cannes 1960 | Screened in competition; won the festival's black-and-white photography prize[4](https://www.filmoteca.unam.mx/ciclos_en_linea/macario-memoria-y-homenaje-universitario-a-nuestros-fallecidos/macario-galeria/) |
| Restoration | Restored in 2023 in 4K from the original camera and sound negatives preserved at Televisa[3](https://www.film-foundation.org/world-cinema?page=4&sortBy=title&sortOrder=1) |
## Spoilers
### Plot
Macario, a poor Indigenous woodcutter, supports his wife and children by selling firewood and lives on the edge of starvation. He vows not to eat again until he can have a whole turkey to himself. On the eve of the Day of the Dead, his wife steals a turkey for him, and as he sits alone in the forest to eat it, three apparitions appear and each asks for a share: the Devil, God, and finally Death, who appears as a peasant. Macario refuses the first two but shares the meal with Death, hoping the gesture will stave off his own demise.[5](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/macario) • [6](https://moreliafilmfest.com/peliculas/macario)
As a reward, Death gives him a flask of healing water that works only when Death permits it, standing at a patient's feet rather than their head.[18](https://madhulikaliddle.com/2016/06/04/macario-1960/) Macario rises from destitution to wealth and renown as a healer, but the same gift marks him as a threat to the Church and the medical establishment, and the strict rules of the gift eventually close around him.[7](https://sightlines.media/film/122019/macario-1960) The film closes with a twist ending in its final shot that critics have ranked among the most memorable in cinema.[5](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/macario)
## Production
The screenplay was written by Emilio Carballido together with Gavaldón, based on B. Traven's story, and the film was shot in black and white in a widescreen format over a planned five weeks of filming.[1](https://sic.cultura.gob.mx/ficha.php?table=produccion_cine&table_id=4249) • [8](https://www.gob.mx/agn/es/articulos/macario-la-pelicula-que-puso-a-mexico-en-los-principales-festivales-internacionales-de-cine?idiom=es) According to a UNAM thesis on the film, shooting ran from September 7 to October 9, 1959 at the Estudios Churubusco, with locations in Taxco, Zempoala, and the caverns of Cacahuamilpa, where the famous candle scene was filmed: human lives represented by endless candles, each snuffed out by Death when a person's time runs out.[9](https://tesiunamdocumentos.dgb.unam.mx/ptd2015/octubre/0737099/0737099.pdf) • [10](https://editorial.rottentomatoes.com/article/essential-mexican-movies-that-are-worth-watching-2/)
**Gabriel Figueroa's cinematography** is repeatedly identified as the film's defining visual element. Critics describe his chiaroscuro lighting, natural-light handling, and painterly compositions as elevating the Mexican landscape into a space of Indigenous mysticism and Catholic syncretism.[11](https://www.cinefilia.blog/2026/05/macario-1960-critica.html) TIME credited Gavaldón and Figueroa jointly with transforming the legend into a picture that "abounds and delights in the black-and-white magic of the magic lantern".[5](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/macario)
## Release and reception
The film premiered internationally at the 13th Cannes Film Festival in May 1960, where it screened in competition for the [Palme d'Or](https://www.edgepedia.org/palme-dor) and drew favorable reviews from prominent critics including Jean de Baroncelli, Jean Cocteau, and Georges Sadoul.[8](https://www.gob.mx/agn/es/articulos/macario-la-pelicula-que-puso-a-mexico-en-los-principales-festivales-internacionales-de-cine?idiom=es) • [12](https://moreliafilmfest.com/sites/default/files/2023-10/231115-21FICM-Cat-digital-2%20%281%29.pdf) It opened in Mexico at the Cine Alameda in Mexico City on June 9, 1960, and ran there for fourteen consecutive weeks before moving to provincial theaters.[9](https://tesiunamdocumentos.dgb.unam.mx/ptd2015/octubre/0737099/0737099.pdf) • [13](https://artsandculture.google.com/story/_wXxIg1LK-1FGw)
Its awards record made it one of the most decorated Mexican films of its era. Ignacio López Tarso won the best-actor prize at the San Francisco International Film Festival in 1960, Figueroa won the Cannes black-and-white photography prize, and the film took the Silver Cup at Santa Margherita Ligure, Italy, in 1961 and the CEC prize for best Hispanic-American film from Spain's Cinematographic Writers Circle in 1962.[4](https://www.filmoteca.unam.mx/ciclos_en_linea/macario-memoria-y-homenaje-universitario-a-nuestros-fallecidos/macario-galeria/) In 1961 it became the first Mexican film nominated for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar, a nomination repeated at the Golden Globes.[8](https://www.gob.mx/agn/es/articulos/macario-la-pelicula-que-puso-a-mexico-en-los-principales-festivales-internacionales-de-cine?idiom=es) A scholarly account counts twelve international prizes in its time.[14](https://www.scielo.org.mx/pdf/latinoam/n44/2448-6914-latinoam-44-27.pdf)
On Rotten Tomatoes the film holds a 100% Tomatometer from seven reviews and a 95% audience score from more than 500 ratings.[5](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/macario) The New York Times critic Bosley Crowther praised the way it flows "from a solemn, sad account of misery and futility into a bubbling comedy, spiced with morbid witticisms, and then into a drollish horror tale".[5](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/macario)
## Cultural significance
Macario appeared toward the end of the Golden Age of Mexican cinema, in a late, self-consciously prestige phase when producers mounted literary adaptations aimed at festivals and international recognition.[7](https://sightlines.media/film/122019/macario-1960) [Sight and Sound](https://www.edgepedia.org/sight-and-sound) describes it as Mexico's most successful cinematic export of the period, a hit at home and abroad, and records an anecdote from the critic and filmmaker Ariel Zúñiga: an anthropologist researching the legends of southern Mexico found that the film's plot had been totally assimilated into the region's mythology.[15](https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/features/deep-focus-golden-age-mexican-cinema)
A 2023 study in *Mexican Studies/Estudios Mexicanos* by Mónica García Blizzard of Emory University argues that Macario is the most prominent filmic contributor to elevating Mexican death culture, and Día de Muertos in particular, as a symbol of mexicanidad (the essence or identity of being Mexican), and an indispensable precursor for understanding how Day of the Dead imagery now functions as a metonym for the nation in audiovisual media consumed globally.[16](https://online.ucpress.edu/msem/article-abstract/39/2/241/196978/Hoisting-the-Mexican-Death-Totem-Macario-dir?redirectedFrom=fulltext) The film remains a fixture of television programming timed to the Day of the Dead and is among the most-viewed Mexican films into the present day.[12](https://moreliafilmfest.com/sites/default/files/2023-10/231115-21FICM-Cat-digital-2%20%281%29.pdf)
## Restoration
Macario was restored by [The Film Foundation](https://www.edgepedia.org/the-film-foundation)'s World Cinema Project and Fundación Televisa at the L'Immagine Ritrovata laboratory in collaboration with Filmoteca UNAM and in association with Televisa. The restoration used the original camera and sound negatives preserved at Televisa, with 4K image scanning and audio digitization completed by Filmoteca UNAM and picture and sound restoration carried out in 2023; funding was provided by the Golden Globe Foundation.[3](https://www.film-foundation.org/world-cinema?page=4&sortBy=title&sortOrder=1) The restored version has since screened at festivals and cinematheques internationally, including a 4K presentation at the Imagine Film Festival in Amsterdam.[17](https://www.imaginefilmfestival.nl/en/film/macario-2/)
## References
1. [Macario, Producciones México, Sistema de Información Cultural, Secretaría de Cultura (Mexico)](https://sic.cultura.gob.mx/ficha.php?table=produccion_cine&table_id=4249)
2. [A Semiotic Interpretation of Death in the Film Macario (1960), Universidad de Monterrey](https://pure.udem.edu.mx/p/en/research-outputs/a-semiotic-interpretation-of-death-in-the-film-macario-1960)
3. [World Cinema Project, The Film Foundation](https://www.film-foundation.org/world-cinema?page=4&sortBy=title&sortOrder=1)
4. [Macario, Galería, Filmoteca UNAM](https://www.filmoteca.unam.mx/ciclos_en_linea/macario-memoria-y-homenaje-universitario-a-nuestros-fallecidos/macario-galeria/)
5. [Macario, Rotten Tomatoes](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/macario)
6. [Macario, Morelia Film Festival](https://moreliafilmfest.com/peliculas/macario)
7. [Macario (1960): analysis, Sightlines](https://sightlines.media/film/122019/macario-1960)
8. [Macario, la película que puso a México en los principales festivales internacionales de cine, Archivo General de la Nación](https://www.gob.mx/agn/es/articulos/macario-la-pelicula-que-puso-a-mexico-en-los-principales-festivales-internacionales-de-cine?idiom=es)
9. [Macario: los signos de la muerte, tesis, UNAM](https://tesiunamdocumentos.dgb.unam.mx/ptd2015/octubre/0737099/0737099.pdf)
10. [10 Essential Mexican Films That Are Worth Watching, Rotten Tomatoes Editorial](https://editorial.rottentomatoes.com/article/essential-mexican-movies-that-are-worth-watching-2/)
11. [Crítica de la película «Macario» (1960), Cinefilia](https://www.cinefilia.blog/2026/05/macario-1960-critica.html)
12. [Macario, A Film for the Ages, Morelia International Film Festival](https://moreliafilmfest.com/sites/default/files/2023-10/231115-21FICM-Cat-digital-2%20%281%29.pdf)
13. [A Deal with the Reaper: The Story of Macario, Google Arts & Culture, Fundación Televisa](https://artsandculture.google.com/story/_wXxIg1LK-1FGw)
14. [El peón y la muerte: El caso transnacional de Macario (1960), Latinoamérica](https://www.scielo.org.mx/pdf/latinoam/n44/2448-6914-latinoam-44-27.pdf)
15. [Deep focus: the Golden Age of Mexican cinema, Sight and Sound, BFI](https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/features/deep-focus-golden-age-mexican-cinema)
16. [Hoisting the Mexican Death Totem: Macario (dir. Gavaldón, 1960) and the Projection of mexicanidad, Mexican Studies/Estudios Mexicanos](https://online.ucpress.edu/msem/article-abstract/39/2/241/196978/Hoisting-the-Mexican-Death-Totem-Macario-dir?redirectedFrom=fulltext)
17. [Macario 4K, Imagine Film Festival Amsterdam](https://www.imaginefilmfestival.nl/en/film/macario-2/)
18. [madhulikaliddle.com](https://madhulikaliddle.com/2016/06/04/macario-1960/)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Science fiction and fantasy films (individual works) › Science fiction and fantasy films before 1970*
*Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
*Copyright 2026 EdgeChat AI, a subsidiary of Biostate AI.*
License: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license