Benicio Del Toro Hopes for a ‘Latino Movement’ in Cinema: ‘The Italian American Story Has Been Told’

Academy Award-winning actor Benecio Del Toro hopes to see a “Latino movement” in American cinema similar to the Italian American movement of the 1970s and the black American movement of the 1980s and 1990s.

Speaking with Variety about his work on Paul Thomas Anderson’s acclaimed movie One Battle After Another, the Traffic star said that he hopes for a surge in Latin-American filmmakers on the level of Spike Lee, Ryan Coogler, Francis Ford Coppola, and Martin Scorsese, focused on telling the Latin-American story.

“I still haven’t seen a Latino movement,” he said. “There was an African American movement with Spike Lee, Denzel Washington and Don Cheadle. There’s a lot of filmmakers, and it’s amazing. The Italian American story has been told. Latino is somewhat different.”

“I’m always hoping that there’s more opportunity and there’s more stories. I don’t think we’re there when it comes to stories of the Hispanic story in the United States, and that includes Puerto Rico, every different Latinos that live, whether it’s in Florida, Chicago, California, New York, Texas, New Mexico. There’s a lot of Latinos in this country,” he added.

Del Toro even floated himself as a possible voice behind the camera.

“I like to get behind the camera and tell a story about that,” he said. “That’s something I would like to do. I’m not saying that I’m that voice. That voice is right now probably in high school, or they’re in college right now, and are about to break out. It’s going to happen.”

While it’s true that the past 20 years saw a surge in acclaimed Latin filmmakers, from Alejandro González Iñárritu to Guillermo Del Toro to Alfonso Cuaron to Fernando Meirelles to Fede Alvarez to J.A. Bayona, only a few homegrown Americans have come to mind; Eva Longoria being most prominent with her film Flamin’ Hot as well as Angel Manuel Soto with the DC action film Blue Beetle and Adrian Molina (Coco). Luis Valdez, who rose to prominence in the 1980s with Zoot Suit and the Richie Valens biopic La Bamba, has long been considered the pioneer of Hispanic-American filmmaking, inspiring works like Selena (1997) and Quinceañera (2006). Robert Rodriguez followed Luis Valdez in the 1990s with El Mariachi and Desperado.

Oscar-winning director Christopher Nolan’s cinematic take on THE ODYSSEY has everyone losing their minds, but what if he directed A CHRISTMAS CAROL instead? Check out this hilarious trailer to see for yourself, or just follow along on socials – Instagram: @prolandfilms; X: @prolandfilms; YouTube: @prolandfilms.