7 of Pedro Almodóvar's best movies to catch up on before seeing 'The Human Voice'

If you're interested in Pedro Almodóvar, Netflix is not your friend.

Movie fans' go-to service does not stream his work, but you can find it on on-demand services. Or, if you're in a buying mood, try the glitzy "Viva Pedro!" DVD set that includes nine of the Spaniard's best (and none of his worst — the less said about the coked-up "I'm So Excited!" and "Kika" the better).

It's worth catching up with his distinctive catalog, which includes comedies, thrillers, soap operas (often inspired by the 1950s work of Douglas Sirk, who made "Written on the Wind" and "All That Heaven Allows") and, sometimes, all of those things at once. Vibrant colors, garish decor, incredible plot twists and creatively stymied artists figure into many of Almodóvar's films, as does a recurring acting company that includes Antonio Banderas, Penélope Cruz and Carmen Maura.

An Oscar winner for his "Talk to Her" screenplay, Almodóvar will be in theaters next month with "The Human Voice," a visually stunning short film starring Tilda Swinton and based on a Jean Cocteau play that Almodóvar cites often (Maura plays a woman acting in it in "Law of Desire"). "Human Voice" will be paired with a new restoration of the fizzy "Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown," so this is an ideal time to catch up on his films.

Because he's a movie fan as well as a director/writer, Almodóvar's influences are fun to spot, but more than four decades into his career, he has become influential himself. Almodóvar led the revitalization of Spanish moviemaking, for instance. And, as a gay man, he was way ahead of his time in depicting the complexity of gender, identity and sexuality.

Just as recent years have seen filmmakers break free of the "male gaze" that has dominated moviemaking and grounded most stories in how white men see them, Almodóvar matter-of-factly eliminated what could be called the "straight gaze." His characters are who they are and they don't care what anyone else thinks about it.

Whether by design or not, it's worth noting that the sexually frank Almodóvar was one of the first to embrace (and perhaps inspire) the NC-17 rating, which was originally intended to be an X without the porn implications. Several of his films earned the rating, including one of the first, "Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!," as well as "Bad Education," "Matador" and "Law of Desire."

Banderas' career-best performance earned an Oscar nomination. He plays an Almodóvar stand-in, a creatively blocked director who has lost touch with his artistic impulses and the people who are important to him. Cruz also stars in a drama that shows that, after years of gleefully unbelievable plot developments, Almodóvar knows how to make a subtler plot twist count.

This hyperdrive farce is not Almodóvar's first movie, but it's the one that made him a name in America (his earlier films were released in its wake). For years, Jane Fonda intended to remake it. Banderas' fourth collab with the director (and the first in which his character is straight) has chase scenes, mistaken identities, poisoned gazpacho and a nod to "The Human Voice."

If his first several movies established the "Almodóvar movie" as a thing — candy-colored, lots of nudity, outrageous characters, splashes of violence, bizarre comedy — this one told moviegoers he could do more. Based on a novel by British mystery writer Ruth Rendell, it's a complicated tale of murder and betrayal that features a spectacular opening with Cruz giving birth on a bus. It's her first of six roles with the director, whose "Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!" made her fall in love with the movies.

Cruz got to repay Almo­dó­var, announcing "All About My Mother's" foreign-language film Oscar with a jubilant cry, "Pedro!" The follow-up to "Live Flesh" shifted Almodóvar from someone who was thought of as wacky and fun to a serious filmmaker. He must have thought his 1995 "The Flower of My Secret" wasn't quite a success (it wasn't) because he has reused its story several times, including in this drama about a nurse, grieving the loss of her son, who turns to a community of women for support. Set in Barcelona instead of the director's favored Madrid, the drama features two prominent trans characters.

The title is the admonition received by two men caring for two women who are both in comas. It features lots of Almodóvar motifs (a character dies by suicide at the end, bullfighting as a metaphor, chance meetings) but it may be his saddest film. Although Almodóvar won a screenwriting Oscar for it, Spain surprisingly chose a different movie to submit for the foreign-language film prize.

It's "Psycho," played for deadpan laughs and with a smidgen of "Vertigo" tossed in. This is Almodóvar's Alfred Hitchcock homage, except he makes fun of the ridiculous "psychology." Banderas is the Norman Bates character, living with his domineering mother ("This isn't a hotel," she says — get it?) and nurturing some very weird ideas about the connection between bullfighting and lovemaking. Like Hitchcock, the director makes an appearance in his own movie (as a fashion designer). Intriguingly, Almodóvar's mother did cameos in most of his early movies but not this one; make of that what you will.

Chris Hewitt • 612-673-4367