Daniel Calparsoro, a director who has provided a crucial contribution to the contemporary scene in Spanish and Basque cinema, has provoked strong reactions from the critics. Reductively dismissed as a purveyor of crude violence by those critics lamenting a ‘lost golden age’ of Spanish filmmaking, Calparsoro’s films reveal in fact a more complex interaction with trends and traditions in both Spanish and Hollywood cinema.This book is the first full-length study of the director’s work, from his early social realist films set in the Basque Country to his later forays into the genres of the war and horror film. It offers an in-depth film-by-film analysis, while simultaneously exploring the function of the director in the contemporary Spanish context, the tension between directors and critics, and the question of national cinema in an area – the Basque Country – of heightened national and regional sensitivities.