# The Hunt (1966 film)
**The Hunt** (Spanish: *La caza*) is a 1966 Spanish black-and-white drama directed by Carlos Saura, in which three middle-aged veterans of the [Spanish Civil War](https://www.edgepedia.org/spanish-civil-war) and a much younger companion spend a day rabbit hunting on ground that was once a battlefield, until old resentments erupt in violence. It was Saura's third feature and the film that established his international reputation and that of the nascent "New Spanish Cinema."[1](https://www.filmlinc.org/films/the-hunt/)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Original title / country | *La caza*, Spain; produced by Elías Querejeta P.C., production year 1965[2](https://sede.mcu.gob.es/CatalogoICAA/es-es/Peliculas/Detalle?Pelicula=306850) |
| Director and writers | Carlos Saura; screenplay by Saura and Angelino Fons, based on an idea by Saura[2](https://sede.mcu.gob.es/CatalogoICAA/es-es/Peliculas/Detalle?Pelicula=306850) |
| Principal cast | Ismael Merlo (José), Alfredo Mayo (Paco), José María Prada (Luis), Emilio Gutiérrez Caba (Enrique), Fernando Sánchez Polack (Juan), Violeta García (Carmen)[3](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0060223/) |
| Format | Black-and-white 35 mm, widescreen; original duration 93 minutes[2](https://sede.mcu.gob.es/CatalogoICAA/es-es/Peliculas/Detalle?Pelicula=306850) |
| Spanish release | 15 April 1966; 341,377 admissions and 56,910.97 euros in box office receipts[2](https://sede.mcu.gob.es/CatalogoICAA/es-es/Peliculas/Detalle?Pelicula=306850) |
| Major award | Silver Bear for Best Director, Berlin International Film Festival 1966[1](https://www.filmlinc.org/films/the-hunt/) |
| Working title | *La caza del conejo* ("the rabbit hunt"), changed under censorship[3](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0060223/) |
| Audience rating | 7.5/10 on IMDb from about 2,700 votes[4](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0060223/ratings/) |
## Spoilers
### Story and characters
Four men go off for a weekend hunting trip. Three of them, Paco, José, and Luis, fought together in the Spanish Civil War; the fourth, Enrique, is Luis's brother-in-law and much younger than the rest. José, the organizer of the weekend, hopes to borrow money for his failing business from Paco, on whose private hunting preserve the day takes place. José and Paco make fun of Luis, just as they used to during the war, while Enrique feels increasingly excluded from their conversations and shocked at the tensions among the other three.[1](https://www.filmlinc.org/films/the-hunt/)
The setting is a dry, sun-scorched area pockmarked by rabbit holes and old Civil War trenches. All three older men are going through difficult moments in their lives, including separations and problems with alcohol, and as the heat intensifies they find it harder to hold back the tensions among themselves. The clashes that follow ultimately reproduce the fratricidal war for which the film is a metaphor.[5](https://pragda.com/film/the-hunt/) The Criterion Channel synopsis describes the day as ending in a shocking explosion of violence.[6](https://www.criterionchannel.com/films/DiWPPrNn/the-hunt)
## Production and censorship
Saura wrote the script after scouting desert locations for his film *Llanto por un bandido* and deciding to build a story around a rabbit hunt in terrain that had struck him.[7](https://mexpedia.org/index.php/La_caza_%28pel%C3%ADcula_de_1966%29) The project was turned down by many producers; in an interview on the film's DVD release Saura said ten or eleven producers rejected it before Elías Querejeta took it on, beginning a creative partnership that produced twelve further features over the following sixteen years. The film's lead actor Alfredo Mayo had intuited its potential before the shoot.[8](https://faculty.weber.edu/cbergeson/posguerra/ageing.pdf)
**Censorship shaped the film twice.** The Francoist censors forced Saura to remove any direct war references, something he came to believe actually improved the script.[1](https://www.filmlinc.org/films/the-hunt/) The censors also changed the title: the working title *La caza del conejo* was altered because "conejo" (rabbit) is also Spanish slang for a woman's sexual organs.[3](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0060223/) Querejeta later recalled fighting hard with the censorship of the period to get the film made, and that its eventual success showed such cinema could be made in Spain.[9](https://ivc.gva.es/val/audiovisual/seminaris/la-caza)
The crew included Luis Cuadrado as cinematographer, Luis de Pablo as composer, Pablo G. del Amo as editor, and Carlos Ochoa as art director.[2](https://sede.mcu.gob.es/CatalogoICAA/es-es/Peliculas/Detalle?Pelicula=306850) Filming took place in Esquivias, in the province of Toledo.[3](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0060223/)
## Reception and awards
The film won the Silver Bear for Best Director at the 1966 [Berlin International Film Festival](https://www.edgepedia.org/berlin-international-film-festival) and screened at the New York and London festivals in 1966.[1](https://www.filmlinc.org/films/the-hunt/) • [9](https://ivc.gva.es/val/audiovisual/seminaris/la-caza) The Spanish film registry (ICAA) also records a Cabeza de Palenque at Acapulco 1966 and a [Golden Gate](https://www.edgepedia.org/golden-gate) at San Francisco 1966.[2](https://sede.mcu.gob.es/CatalogoICAA/es-es/Peliculas/Detalle?Pelicula=306850) Later honors include three CEC medals, two Sant Jordi awards, and a nomination to the [National Board of Review](https://www.edgepedia.org/national-board-of-review)'s Top Five Foreign Films in 1967.[10](https://www.filmaffinity.com/us/film399542.html) In Spain the film ranked #28 in Filmaffinity's list of the best Spanish films of all time.[10](https://www.filmaffinity.com/us/film399542.html)
Critics responded strongly at the time. Roger Ebert of the *Chicago Sun-Times* credited Saura's sense of pace for the growth of tension in a film that for most of its length pretends to be an ordinary record of an unremarkable day, and Brendan Gill of *The New Yorker* called it as near to flawless as he would ask any picture to be.[10](https://www.filmaffinity.com/us/film399542.html) The New York Film Festival program note quoted [Luis Buñuel](https://www.edgepedia.org/luis-bunuel): "I have not seen such a completely achieved work of art in a long time."[1](https://www.filmlinc.org/films/the-hunt/) The film was later cited by [Sam Peckinpah](https://www.edgepedia.org/sam-peckinpah) as a major influence.[6](https://www.criterionchannel.com/films/DiWPPrNn/the-hunt)
## Place in Spanish cinema
The film is widely treated as a watershed. The filmmaker Manuel Gutiérrez Aragón said in a frequently cited interview that *La caza* "turned Spanish cinema around," and that for him there is a Spanish cinema before *La caza* and another after it.[8](https://faculty.weber.edu/cbergeson/posguerra/ageing.pdf) • [9](https://ivc.gva.es/val/audiovisual/seminaris/la-caza) Saura himself described the film as being about a generation anchored in a miserable past with no possibility of escape: "I think it is a generation of victors who have never won. Or, at least, I don't know in what field they have won."[9](https://ivc.gva.es/val/audiovisual/seminaris/la-caza)
Because direct references to the war were censored, the film carries its historical meaning through a second, parabolic level of reading beneath its naturalist surface, a strategy imposed by the political circumstances under which Saura worked.[5](https://pragda.com/film/the-hunt/) • [9](https://ivc.gva.es/val/audiovisual/seminaris/la-caza) The film ends with a freeze frame that the scholar Rob Stone has compared to [Robert Capa](https://www.edgepedia.org/robert-capa)'s famous photograph of a falling Spanish Civil War soldier and to the final image of Truffaut's *Les quatre cents coups*.[11](https://globalfilmstudies.com/2012/04/06/la-caza-the-hunt-spain-1966/) A restored version was nominated for Best Restored Film at Venice in 2023, and the film streams on the Criterion Channel in the United States.[12](https://mdblist.com/movie/138y-the-hunt?cache=1) • [6](https://www.criterionchannel.com/films/DiWPPrNn/the-hunt)
## References
1. [NYFF '66: The Hunt, Film at Lincoln Center](https://www.filmlinc.org/films/the-hunt/)
2. [La caza, ICAA Film Catalogue, Spanish Ministry of Culture](https://sede.mcu.gob.es/CatalogoICAA/es-es/Peliculas/Detalle?Pelicula=306850)
3. [The Hunt (1966), IMDb](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0060223/)
4. [The Hunt (1966) Ratings, IMDb](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0060223/ratings/)
5. [The Hunt (La Caza), Pragda](https://pragda.com/film/the-hunt/)
6. [The Hunt, Criterion Channel](https://www.criterionchannel.com/films/DiWPPrNn/the-hunt)
7. [La caza (película), Mexpedia](https://mexpedia.org/index.php/La_caza_%28pel%C3%ADcula_de_1966%29)
8. [Sally Faulkner, "Ageing and Coming of Age in Carlos Saura's La caza," MLN 120 (2005)](https://faculty.weber.edu/cbergeson/posguerra/ageing.pdf)
9. [Clásicos del Cine Español: La caza, Institut Valencià de Cultura](https://ivc.gva.es/val/audiovisual/seminaris/la-caza)
10. [The Hunt (1966), Filmaffinity](https://www.filmaffinity.com/us/film399542.html)
11. [La caza (The Hunt, Spain 1966), Global Film Studies blog](https://globalfilmstudies.com/2012/04/06/la-caza-the-hunt-spain-1966/)
12. [The Hunt (1966), MDBList](https://mdblist.com/movie/138y-the-hunt?cache=1)
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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 › Drama and biographical films (individual works) › Drama films 1960s › Released 1966 to 1969*
*Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
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