Pedro Almodóvar To Receive Film At Lincoln Center’s 50th Chaplin Award

Pedro Almodóvar, the Oscar-winning Spanish writer-director who is making waves this awards season with his new film The Room Next Door, has been named the recipient of the 50th Chaplin Award bestowed by New York’s Film at Lincoln Center.

He will be honored at a gala tribute April 28 at Lincoln Center that will feature excerpts from his work and appearances by co-stars, friends and colleagues.

The Room Next Door, which stars Julianne Moore and Tilda Swinton, won the Golden Lion for best film at the Venice Film Festival last month. The Chaplin honor was announced Friday at FLC’s New York Film Festival ahead of the film’s U.S. premiere there. It hits U.S. theaters on December 20 via Sony Pictures Classics.

“Pedro Almodóvar is a storytelling master whose artistry, creativity, and exceptional talent have captivated audiences and filmmakers alike,” said Lesli Klainberg, Film at Lincoln Center’s president. “From his earliest films, he has immersed us in emotionally rich, vibrant, complex, and compassionate worlds. A steadfast believer in cinema’s ability to both entertain and illuminate the human experience, Pedro had touched the hearts of film lovers around the world.”

The Room Next Door is Almodóvar’s first English-language feature. It centers on Ingrid (Moore) and Martha (Swinton), who were close friends in their youth when they worked at the same magazine. Ingrid went on to become an autofiction novelist while Martha became a war reporter. After years of being out of touch, they meet again in an extreme but strangely sweet situation.  

Almodóvar won the Original Screenplay Oscar and was nominated for Best Director in 2003 for Talk to Her, and won the Oscar for International Feature Film (then called Foreign Language Film) in 2000 for All About My Mother. His stellar list of credits includes Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (1988), Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! (1989), Volver (2006) and Pain and Glory (2019), the last two featuring his longtime collaborators Penélope Cruz and Antonio Banderas, respectively.

Overall, Almodóvar has won five BAFTA Awards, three Goya Awards for Best Director, four César Awards and Best Director and Best Screenplay at Cannes.

Jeff Bridges was this past year’s recipient of the Chaplin Award, which has been bestowed on the likes of Alfred Hitchcock, Sidney Poitier, Barbara Streisand, Martin Scorsese, Meryl Streep, Spike Lee, Cate Blanchett and Viola Davis. The award’s gala is a major annual fund-raiser for the nonprofit Film at Lincoln Center.