My Top 30 Greatest Filipino Films of All Time

The hidden nightlife of ordinary people living in Manila unveils. Lovers and families' conflicts are radically pitted against each other as they live in the night streets rampant with drugs and prostitution. The outstanding narrative explicitly unravels the various characters and episodes. This landmark film of Ishmael Bernal depicts the darkness of city life so vividly that it was once prohibited to use the word 'Manila' on its title.

Júlio Madiaga, a 'provinciano', arrives in Manila to search for his beloved, Ligaya.

A college student has an affair with a security guard's passive wife. The husband finds out that his wife is cheating on him, when one day he walks in on them while they are having sex, and shoots them both.

A Filipino teenager is shot to death on a New Jersey, USA sidewalk: an investigation starts and his family and friends are interviewed. Along the way, more about him is revealed and so is more about the Filipino community in America in general, including the destructive effect of the drug "shabu" on its youth. The detective who handles the case also has his own personal demons to settle with his violent past.

To support her paralytic father, Chato works as a utility girl for a burlesque star Virgie Nite. But when Virgie gets drunk on the night of her scheduled show, Chato pitches in for her. And she becomes an instant sensation. Enthused by the initial acceptance of the audience, she defies her father's admonitions and presents herself to the manager. And thus, becoming the new burlesque queen.

This landmark film is considered by many to be one of the most important in Philippine cinema. The son of a wealthy man, Junior has everything he could possibly want. But the emptiness of his extravagant lifestyle and the hypocrisy of the town's so-called leading citizens weigh heavily on him, pushing him to reach out to the village outcasts.

A story about young lovers, rich girl Nena and Jose, a poor boy who works in the fishponds owned by Nena's family. The film traces their relationship as it develops, from prosperity into recession, from a time of peace into a time of political turmoil.

A crime-drama-suspense genre film not often seen in Philippine cinema. A controlling patriarch loses it over his daughter's marriage and her attempts to escape from their incestuous household.

He has battled with the screen's heavies, starred opposite its most desirable beauties, lived through the full range of human emotions. Now he is ready for the big time. Phillip Salvador takes the big role in "Jaguar."

Siblings discover that their father has their vampire mother chained up in the cellar. The mother bites her son and soon everyone in the community is either dead or a vampire.

A woman falls in love with a Japanese soldier during the Japanese Occupation in the Philippines; the whole town turns against her.

Flashbacks encompass the history of the Philippines as well as the life story of the elderly Daniel Aguila. The Aguila family gathers to celebrate Daniel's 88th birthday, but the old man is nowhere to be seen--he has been missing for a decade. Suspecting that his father is in Mindanao, one of his sons takes off for that region in a determined search. Along the way, his memories of the nation and his father's life tell the story of 80 tumultuous years of personal and historical development.

The film revolves around two couples who find themselves in conflict with the foreign commercial giants that control the Philippine economy, the Japanese and the Chinese.

The life of a young girl living with her mother in the slums of Manila becomes unbearable when her mother's young boyfriend moves in with them.

Part-investigative documentary, part-satire and shot entirely in black-and-white, the film tackles the mystery that surrounds the life and death of the Filipino hero, Jose Rizal.

A man and a woman play 10 different characters in 10 scenes, all of which take place in a car traveling along the North Diversion Road. Together, they go on a journey to self-discovery, summing up everything known about love and redemption.

Filipino horror anthology in three parts.

An apolitical worker in a printing press who works as a scab during a company strike belatedly realizes that everyone is affected by the evils of society.

There is something strange about this motion picture.

A young married couple, Maria and Jose (Rosa Rosal and Tony Santos) start life together creating a lanzones orchard in the countryside. They have four children - Miguel (Leroy Salvador), Arturo (Carlos Padilla Jr), Angelita (Marita Zobel), and Lito (Danilo Jurado). The eldest, Miguel, is a deaf-mute. Life is good to them and the children grow up and bring joy to the community. But trouble enters their lives when Jose makes an enemy of Bruno (Joseph de Cordova). Bruno, a widower, is much feared in the village, for it is rumored that he caused the death of his wife. And yet he wants to remarry and is courting Choleng (Mila Ocampo), Jose's niece. But Choleng avoids Bruno and one day, in trying to get away from him, she slips and falls off a cliff and dies. The village is outraged and Bruno hides in the mountains. There, he plots his revenge on the village, particularly on Jose's family.

The story follows the trials of a woman as she risks to build a meaningful relationship with a married man despite the different hurdles that abound.

The coming-of-age story of young college student, Joey (Christopher de Leon), who has lost all sense of direction and meaning in life, waking up every morning to the same old day that went before; fruitless, senseless, lifeless. He's a carefree kind of guy who just bums around with his friends. The only thing that inspires him is music. The problem is, he has yet to finish writing a song, which turns out to be the movie's theme song, and the theme song of his awakening. Then Joey meets Ana (Hilda Koronel), who immediately sweeps him off his feet. A very sweet friendship develops between them. Suddenly, Joey's world is turned upside-down and his mornings are never the same again.

A young woman chooses celibacy, turns to religion, and demonizes men in order to control her intense sexual desire. Her sister suddenly visits her seaside village, which opens many old wounds and leads to tragedies.