# The Headless Woman
**The Headless Woman** (Spanish: *La mujer sin cabeza*) is a 2008 psychological drama film written and directed by the Argentine filmmaker Lucrecia Martel, in which a middle-class dentist named Verónica hits something, or someone, with her car on a deserted road in northwest Argentina and descends into a state of guilt, confusion, and social denial.[1](https://cineuropa.org/es/film/83755/) • [2](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/headless_woman) It was a four-country co-production of Argentina, Spain, France, and Italy, produced by Agustín Almodóvar, Pedro Almodóvar, Tilde Corsi, and Verónica Cura, and it competed for the [Palme d'Or](https://www.edgepedia.org/palme-dor) at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival.[1](https://cineuropa.org/es/film/83755/) • [3](https://www.festival-cannes.com/en/f/la-mujer-sin-cabeza/) • [4](https://www.ulpgc.es/sites/default/files/ArchivosULPGC/noticia/2020/Ene/60sesiones_v4.4._final.pdf)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Original title / year | *La mujer sin cabeza*, 2008; international title The Headless Woman[1](https://cineuropa.org/es/film/83755/) |
| Director / screenwriter | Lucrecia Martel, her third feature[1](https://cineuropa.org/es/film/83755/) |
| Lead performance | María Onetto as Verónica, a middle-aged dentist; supporting cast includes Claudia Cantero, Inés Efron, César Bordón, Guillermo Arengo, Daniel Genoud, and María Vaner[1](https://cineuropa.org/es/film/83755/) |
| Festival | In competition for the Palme d'Or, Cannes 2008[3](https://www.festival-cannes.com/en/f/la-mujer-sin-cabeza/) |
| Key crew | Cinematography Bárbara Álvarez; editing Miguel Schverdfinger; production design María Eugenia Sueiro[3](https://www.festival-cannes.com/en/f/la-mujer-sin-cabeza/) • [4](https://www.ulpgc.es/sites/default/files/ArchivosULPGC/noticia/2020/Ene/60sesiones_v4.4._final.pdf) |
| Argentine awards | Best Film, Best Director, and Best Original Script at the Argentinian Academy of Film Arts and Science awards 2008[5](https://www.newwavefilms.co.uk/assets/359/THE_HEADLESS_WOMAN.pdf) |
| Critical scores | 77% on the Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer (57 reviews); Metascore 81 on Metacritic; 6.5/10 on IMDb[2](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/headless_woman) • [6](https://www.metacritic.com/movie/the-headless-woman/critic-reviews/) • [7](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1221141/ratings/) |
| Box office | $99.8K gross in the United States; $305,766 worldwide[2](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/headless_woman) |
## Spoilers
### Plot
Verónica (María Onetto) is driving on a highway in northwestern Argentina when, distracted by the ringtone of her mobile phone, she runs over something but does not stop to look.[5](https://www.newwavefilms.co.uk/assets/359/THE_HEADLESS_WOMAN.pdf) • [3](https://www.festival-cannes.com/en/f/la-mujer-sin-cabeza/) In the days that follow she moves through her life in a daze, and one night she tells her husband Marcos (César Bordón) that she believes she killed someone on the road.[2](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/headless_woman) • [3](https://www.festival-cannes.com/en/f/la-mujer-sin-cabeza/) Together they return to the scene and find only the body of a dead dog, and friends close to the police confirm that no accident was reported.[3](https://www.festival-cannes.com/en/f/la-mujer-sin-cabeza/) • [4](https://www.ulpgc.es/sites/default/files/ArchivosULPGC/noticia/2020/Ene/60sesiones_v4.4._final.pdf)
The calm does not hold. A child from a poor family has disappeared in the area, and the discovery of a corpse near the site of the accident throws everything into question again.[8](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2010/feb/21/the-headless-woman-film) • [4](https://www.ulpgc.es/sites/default/files/ArchivosULPGC/noticia/2020/Ene/60sesiones_v4.4._final.pdf) Records of Verónica's activities in the days after the accident, including a hospital visit and a hotel stay, begin to disappear, in what one reviewer described as the work of a male conspiracy involving her husband, her lover, and a relative.[2](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/headless_woman) • [8](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2010/feb/21/the-headless-woman-film) The film never establishes whether Verónica's victim was an animal or a child; Martel said the story is not about settling that question but about what a person does with the possibility of the accident.[9](https://www.pagina12.com.ar/diario/suplementos/rosario/12-15182-2008-09-13.html)
## Style and interpretation
**The title as image and metaphor.** The film's cinematography is framed unusually tight, leaving the protagonist without the top of her head in the frame for much of the running time, a device that gives the film its name.[2](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/headless_woman) Early in the story Verónica is shown having her head X-rayed after banging it in the accident, filmed in what has been called the "headless shot", a medium shot showing the torso and legs without the head.[10](https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/1554672/1/Hart_Latin_American_Cinema_9781780234038.pdf) The French Cinémathèque's review reads the metaphorical absence differently: the face of this "headless woman" is omnipresent, and the title points to Verónica's passivity in the face of events as they unfold.[11](https://letterboxd.com/cinemathequefr/film/the-headless-woman/)
**Perception over plot.** Martel said the idea was not to share the character's subjectivity, to see through her eyes, but something more complex: that the total construction of the film should reflect Verónica's state.[12](https://www.pagina12.com.ar/diario/suplementos/espectaculos/5-10136-2008-05-22.html) She described the condition as a state of mental confusion rather than amnesia, followed by a social construction around it, in the family's reaction to the information.[13](https://www.pagina12.com.ar/diario/suplementos/espectaculos/5-10100-2008-05-18.html) The film denies viewers establishing shots and camera positions aligned with a single character's perspective, communicating through layered sound, off-screen dialogue, and the constant rain.[11](https://letterboxd.com/cinemathequefr/film/the-headless-woman/) • [14](https://mubi.com/en/films/the-headless-woman/critics-reviews) Martel has said the structure of her films is dispersed and resembles that of a conversation, and that most of the dialogue was taken from her own mother.[9](https://www.pagina12.com.ar/diario/suplementos/rosario/12-15182-2008-09-13.html) • [12](https://www.pagina12.com.ar/diario/suplementos/espectaculos/5-10136-2008-05-22.html)
**Class and the dictatorship.** The film is widely read as a portrait of the Argentine middle class and its blindness to its own privileges: Verónica and her milieu live behind gates and guards, talking about pets, fashions, and social rounds, while the child's working-class background carries the story's political weight.[15](https://www.newyorker.com/goings-on-about-town/the-headless-woman) • [11](https://letterboxd.com/cinemathequefr/film/the-headless-woman/) Martel herself connected the film to the military dictatorship, saying what interested her was a mechanism used superlatively during that period, essentially "We don't realize what's going on".[16](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9616043/) Scholars have found correspondences between the film and the disappearances of the dictatorship: a missing body, a probable crime that is effectively covered up, corruption, and complicity.[17](https://dialnet.unirioja.es/descarga/articulo/7300853.pdf) Martel also drew on a folk belief of northwest Argentina that in a violent situation such as a car accident the soul separates from the body to protect itself.[12](https://www.pagina12.com.ar/diario/suplementos/espectaculos/5-10136-2008-05-22.html)
## Place in Martel's career
The Headless Woman followed *La ciénaga* ([The Swamp](https://www.edgepedia.org/the-swamp), 2001) and *La niña santa* ([The Holy Girl](https://www.edgepedia.org/the-holy-girl), 2004), and is commonly treated as the third part of a trilogy set in and around Salta, Martel's home province in northwest Argentina, where the film was shot entirely.[18](https://www.fondazioneprada.org/project/la-mujer-sin-cabeza/) • [12](https://www.pagina12.com.ar/diario/suplementos/espectaculos/5-10136-2008-05-22.html) It was Martel's second film produced by El Deseo, the Almodóvar brothers' company, which had also co-produced The Holy Girl.[19](https://www.latamcinema.com/el-deseo-coproduce-la-mujer-sin-cabeza-nueva-pelicula-de-la-argentina-lucrecia-martel/) The film grew out of the director's nightmares in which she kills someone, and from her own experience of serious car accidents and the strange state of perception that follows them.[20](https://www.festival-cannes.com/en/2008/competition-the-headless-woman-by-lucrecia-martel/) • [13](https://www.pagina12.com.ar/diario/suplementos/espectaculos/5-10100-2008-05-18.html)
## Reception
At its Cannes press screening the film prompted walkouts and boos, and Jonathan Romney, reviewing at the festival, compared the bewilderment it caused to the reception of Antonioni's *L'avventura* in 1960, while predicting it would come to be regarded as a classic.[21](https://www.screendaily.com/features/the-headless-woman-la-mujer-sin-cabeza/4038785.article) • [22](https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/the-headless-woman-lucrecia-martel-87-mins-12a-1905589.html) Martel was not surprised by the divided response, noting that the same had happened with her first two features.[9](https://www.pagina12.com.ar/diario/suplementos/rosario/12-15182-2008-09-13.html)
Critical scores settled high: the film holds 77% on the Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer from 57 reviews and a Metascore of 81, labeled "Universal Acclaim", against a cooler audience response of 55% on the Popcornmeter and 6.5/10 on IMDb.[2](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/headless_woman) • [6](https://www.metacritic.com/movie/the-headless-woman/critic-reviews/) • [7](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1221141/ratings/) Stephen Holden of The New York Times called it a "brilliant, maddeningly enigmatic puzzle of a movie", comparing it to Antonioni's *Blow-Up* as a metaphysical ghost story with clues about a crime that is never solved.[5](https://www.newwavefilms.co.uk/assets/359/THE_HEADLESS_WOMAN.pdf) Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian gave it five stars and called it "nothing short of a masterpiece", while his colleague Philip French found it intriguing but more alienating than moving.[23](https://www.theguardian.com/film/movie/127704/headless-woman) • [8](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2010/feb/21/the-headless-woman-film) Reviewers singled out Onetto's performance: the [San Francisco Chronicle](https://www.edgepedia.org/san-francisco-chronicle) praised her "precise tour de force", and [The A.V. Club](https://www.edgepedia.org/the-a-v-club) called it "remarkably nuanced, ever-evolving".[6](https://www.metacritic.com/movie/the-headless-woman/critic-reviews/) Richard Brody, writing in [The New Yorker](https://www.edgepedia.org/the-new-yorker) in 2009, was an exception, judging the story thinly realized and heavy-handed.[15](https://www.newyorker.com/goings-on-about-town/the-headless-woman)
The film was released in Spain on 28 December 2008, in Portugal on 2 April 2009, and in France on 29 April 2009, and opened in limited release in the United States on 19 August 2009 through Strand Releasing.[1](https://cineuropa.org/es/film/83755/) • [2](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/headless_woman) Its commercial reach was modest, with $99.8K grossed in the United States and $305,766 worldwide, but its standing has grown: in later assessments it has appeared among the most important films of the twenty-first century.[2](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/headless_woman) • [24](https://elpais.com/eps/2026-10-17/lucrecia-martel-cineasta-lo-interesante-del-feminismo-es-su-critica-al-poder-no-una-pelea-con-los-hombres.html)
## References
1. [La mujer sin cabeza, Cineuropa](https://cineuropa.org/es/film/83755/)
2. [The Headless Woman, Rotten Tomatoes](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/headless_woman)
3. [La mujer sin cabeza (The Headless Woman), Festival de Cannes](https://www.festival-cannes.com/en/f/la-mujer-sin-cabeza/)
4. [La mujer sin cabeza, Sesión 55 program notes, ULPGC](https://www.ulpgc.es/sites/default/files/ArchivosULPGC/noticia/2020/Ene/60sesiones_v4.4._final.pdf)
5. [The Headless Woman (La Mujer sin Cabeza) press pack, New Wave Films](https://www.newwavefilms.co.uk/assets/359/THE_HEADLESS_WOMAN.pdf)
6. [The Headless Woman critic reviews, Metacritic](https://www.metacritic.com/movie/the-headless-woman/critic-reviews/)
7. [The Headless Woman (2008) ratings, IMDb](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1221141/ratings/)
8. [The Headless Woman, review by Philip French, The Guardian](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2010/feb/21/the-headless-woman-film)
9. [El cine como estado de ánimo enrarecido, interview with Lucrecia Martel, Página/12 Rosario/12](https://www.pagina12.com.ar/diario/suplementos/rosario/12-15182-2008-09-13.html)
10. [Latin American Cinema, UCL Discovery](https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/1554672/1/Hart_Latin_American_Cinema_9781780234038.pdf)
11. [The Headless Woman, review by La Cinémathèque française, Letterboxd](https://letterboxd.com/cinemathequefr/film/the-headless-woman/)
12. [Una película hecha de ambigüedades, Página/12](https://www.pagina12.com.ar/diario/suplementos/espectaculos/5-10136-2008-05-22.html)
13. [En mis películas siempre pasa algo fuera de foco, interview with Lucrecia Martel, Página/12](https://www.pagina12.com.ar/diario/suplementos/espectaculos/5-10100-2008-05-18.html)
14. [The Headless Woman critics reviews, MUBI](https://mubi.com/en/films/the-headless-woman/critics-reviews)
15. [The Headless Woman, review by Richard Brody, The New Yorker](https://www.newyorker.com/goings-on-about-town/the-headless-woman)
16. [Neuromimesis: Picturing the Humanities Picturing the Brain, PMC](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9616043/)
17. [Una lectura de La mujer sin cabeza, de Lucrecia Martel, Dialnet](https://dialnet.unirioja.es/descarga/articulo/7300853.pdf)
18. [La mujer sin cabeza, Fondazione Prada](https://www.fondazioneprada.org/project/la-mujer-sin-cabeza/)
19. [El Deseo coproduce La mujer sin cabeza, LatAm cinema](https://www.latamcinema.com/el-deseo-coproduce-la-mujer-sin-cabeza-nueva-pelicula-de-la-argentina-lucrecia-martel/)
20. [Competition: The Headless Woman by Lucrecia Martel, Festival de Cannes](https://www.festival-cannes.com/en/2008/competition-the-headless-woman-by-lucrecia-martel/)
21. [The Headless Woman (La Mujer Sin Cabeza), Screen Daily](https://www.screendaily.com/features/the-headless-woman-la-mujer-sin-cabeza/4038785.article)
22. [The Headless Woman, review by Jonathan Romney, The Independent](https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/the-headless-woman-lucrecia-martel-87-mins-12a-1905589.html)
23. [The Headless Woman (La Mujer Sin Cabeza), The Guardian film page](https://www.theguardian.com/film/movie/127704/headless-woman)
24. [Lucrecia Martel interview, El País Semanal](https://elpais.com/eps/2026-10-17/lucrecia-martel-cineasta-lo-interesante-del-feminismo-es-su-critica-al-poder-no-una-pelea-con-los-hombres.html)
---
*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Crime, thriller, and mystery films (individual works) › 2005–2009 films › Released 2008 to 2009*
*Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: 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