The Young and the Damned

The Young and the Damned follows a group of juvenile delinquents surviving in the slums of Mexico City, where violence shapes daily life. Among them is Pedro, a boy whose sense of right and wrong is steadily eroded by the company he keeps and the environment around him. The film centers on that moral decline and the pressures that drive it.

Luis Buñuel directed and co-wrote the screenplay with Luis Alcoriza. It is the second of the fifteen films he directed in chronological order, arriving between Un Chien Andalou and Susana. Óscar Dancigers, Sergio Kogan and Jaime A. Menasce produced it for Ultramar Films. The cast includes Alfonso Mejía as Pedro, Roberto Cobo as Jaibo, Estela Inda as Mother, Miguel Inclán as Carmelo, Alma Delia Fuentes as Meche, and Francisco Jambrina as the school principal, with twenty-two credited performers in all. Running 82 minutes, it blends crime and drama.

Audiences rate the film highly: on IMDb it holds 8.2 out of 10 from around 24,000 votes, and on TMDB 8.1 out of 10 from roughly 560 votes. A critics' rating of 8.8 out of 10 from 43 reviews places it slightly above those audience scores.