Roma

The strangest aspect of the resurgence of Mexican cinema over the past decade-plus is that three of the country’s four filmmakers with the most international impact left Mexico behind. While Carlos Reygadas stayed home to create a body of work on facets of Mexican reality and unreality, Alfonso Cuarón, Guillermo del Toro, and Alejandro González Iñarritu gave the impression that they couldn’t wait to get out of Mexico soon enough. In Hollywood’s embrace, all of them, in an unprecedented run for directors originating from a non-English-speaking country, have won the Best Director Oscar. This isn’t the place to ponder why these three—Cuarón the closest to an artist, Iñarritu a blatant self-marketer (suitable for someone who came up through advertising), del Toro a readily employable fan-boy director for Hollywood—abandoned the endlessly fascinating