Babel

With an A-list cast and dazzling international settings, Alejandro González Iñárritu’s 2006 feature tells four families’ stories and how they are connected by violence and tragedy.

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With interwoven storylines playing out in America, Mexico, Morocco, and Japan, and featuring an international cast of heavy hitters led by Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett, Alejandro González Iñárritu’s multilingual study of strangers connected by violence and circumstance ― an expansion of the themes in Amores Perros and 21 Grams, his previous collaborations with screenwriter Guillermo Arriaga ― capped the filmmaker’s rise to art-house prominence. (He’d go on to win back-to-back Oscars for directing Birdman: Or, The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance and The Revenant, as you may have heard.) With Iñárritu’s latest, the semi-autobiographical BARDO, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths, vaulting into the awards conversation ― and Babel star Blanchett already in the Best Actress mix for her virtuoso turn in Tár ― there’s no better time to revisit their previous collaboration, and consider the ways in which their careers have developed since.

NORM WILNER

Content advisory: sexual content, nudity, coarse language