The Exterminating Angel

After an evening at the opera, a group of wealthy guests gathers for a dinner party at the Mexico City mansion of Edmundo and Lucía Nóbile. The household staff, except for the butler, leave before the festivities begin. By the end of the night, the guests find they cannot cross the threshold of the reception room. Days pass, and the assembled company remains trapped inside, unable to leave. As the situation continues, the polished manners and social distinctions that governed their behavior give way to something far more primitive, turning the gathering into a portrait of a privileged class cut off from the world around it.

Luis Buñuel directed and wrote the film, the eighth of the fifteen features he made. It followed The Young One and preceded Viridiana, the latter released the same year. Silvia Pinal leads the cast as Leticia, alongside Enrique Rambal as Edmundo and Claudio Brook as the butler Julio, with forty credited performers in total. Gustavo Alatriste produced through his company.

The film holds an 8 out of 10 on IMDb across nearly 35,000 votes and a 7.9 out of 10 on TMDB, a fairly small sample by comparison. A critics' rating of 8.9 out of 10 from 34 reviews places it slightly above the audience scores, reflecting its standing among reviewers.