General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20265 min read

Toro (2016 film)

Toro is a 2016 Spanish action thriller directed by Kike Maíllo, his second feature after the science-fiction film Eva (2011). It stars Mario Casas as Toro, a former con man on the verge of release from prison who must return to his old habits to save his older brother López (Luis Tosar) and his niece Diana (Claudia Vega) from Rafael Romano (José Sacristán), a dangerous gangster and former father figure to the brothers. The film was released in Spain on 22 April 2016, opening the official section of the 19th Málaga Spanish Film Festival out of competition.¹^•²

Key fact	Detail
Director / writers	Kike Maíllo; screenplay by Rafael Cobos and Fernando Navarro¹
Principal cast	Mario Casas (Toro), Luis Tosar (López), José Sacristán (Romano), Claudia Vega (Diana), Ingrid García Jonsson (Estrella)¹
Release	Spain, 22 April 2016; distributor Universal Pictures International Spain; opened the 19th Málaga Film Festival out of competition¹
Runtime and rating	102 minutes per the ICAA certification of 18 April 2016; not recommended for audiences under 16³
Budget and box office	€4,000,000 budget; Spain gross of €1,696,017.90 from 309,541 admissions; worldwide gross $1,941,092⁴^•³^•⁵
Music	Score by Joe Crepúsculo; original song "Sangre y alquitrán" (Crepúsculo and Bárbara Mingo)⁶
Recognition	19 Goya entries including Best Film and Best Direction; two Gaudí Award nominations in 2017⁶^•⁷

Spoilers

Plot

Five years before the story begins, Toro and his brothers Antonio and López robbed a factory and seriously wounded a police officer. During their escape Toro lost control of the car and crashed, causing the death of Antonio; López managed to escape and disappeared from Toro's life.¹

Now Toro is serving out his sentence under a third-grade prison regime, working at the port in Vigo and trying to reintegrate, with two months left before his release. López arrives with his 11-year-old daughter Diana: he has stolen from Rafael Romano, a dangerous gangster to whom he owes money, and asks Toro to flee with him and start a new life. Toro resists, knowing that being close to López threatens the future he has built, but he agrees when he realizes that not only his brother's life but also his niece's is in danger.¹^•⁸

The three set out as outlaws on a frenetic escape across Andalusia, a violent, mythical and wild landscape, over 48 hours. Romano's menace, old wounds from the past, money that has to be robbed, and a family secret Toro knew nothing about push the group forward, and the brothers are forced to reconcile to save their lives.⁹^•³

Production

Filming began on 26 January 2015 in Torremolinos (Málaga), with a budget of 4 million euro. Production companies included Atresmedia Cine, Zircozine (Luis Tosar's production company), Escándalo Films, Maestranza Films, Ran Entertainment, Telefónica Studios, and Apaches Entertainment, with backing from ICAA, ICO, the Junta de Andalucía, AGADIC, and the Xunta de Galicia.⁴^•¹^•⁶ The Málaga shoot ran from 16 February to 1 March with the support of the Málaga Film Office.¹⁰ Filming also took place in Almería and in Fuengirola.²^•¹¹

The story took shape slowly. Maíllo and screenwriter Fernando Navarro began discussing the project in September 2012, and the film grew from a violent character who takes justice into his own hands in a civilized modern Spain; producer Enrique López Lavigne joined looking for an underworld thriller.¹²

Themes and style

Maíllo described the film as a parable about a "second transition" in Spain, contrasting what he called a falsely Christian Spain that tolerates corruption with a more honest Spain that refuses to put up with it: "In Toro there is a new Spain that has to kill an old Spain. The father has to be killed in some way."¹² The Costa del Sol settings, including Málaga, represent a symbolic coast worn down by present-day corruption, and the director used the region's tourist architecture as an aesthetic and narrative resource.¹²^•¹³

Music was central to the film's look. During editing, the team found that classical American-style incidental score was not sticking to the images, so Maíllo commissioned the indie musician Joe Crepúsculo, whose reference pieces combined the grandiloquence and epic quality of Italian spaghetti westerns with 1960s melodies.¹² The main title sequence, designed by Fernando Domínguez Cózar, was built around the process of tattooing, because the character Toro is covered in them.¹⁴^•¹⁵

Reception

The film earned a Spain gross of €1,696,017.90 from 309,541 admissions, and Box Office Mojo records a worldwide gross of $1,941,092, essentially all of it from Spain, where it opened with $675,306 on 22 April 2016; it later opened in Colombia on 24 November 2016.³^•⁵

At the 31st Goya Awards the film received 19 entries across categories including Best Film, Best Direction, Best Original Screenplay, Best Original Music for Joe Crepúsculo, and Best Original Song for "Sangre y alquitrán", though it did not appear among the nominees in the awards record.⁶ It received two Gaudí Award nominations in 2017, for Best Production Manager (Toni Carrizosa) and Best Visual Effects (Rafael Galdó), and four ASECAN Award nominations, including Best Andalusian Film and Best Original Song.⁷

On Rotten Tomatoes the film holds an 80% Tomatometer from five critics and a 61% audience score; critics highlighted its acting and its extravagant, kitsch-inflected vision of southern Spain, while noting weaknesses in narrative construction and some key action scenes.¹⁶^•⁹ IMDb users rate it 5.9 out of 10 from about 3,700 votes.¹¹

References

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