El Amor Brujo (1967)

Not to be confused with Carlos Saura's El Amor Brujo, Rovira Beleta's film is sort of bananas, honestly, and the acting is out of control in its theatricality. But El Amor Brujo is an enjoyable curiosity, even if it doesn't have the level of amazing flamenco that Los Tarantos does. For me, the highlight of this film – in which a man fakes his death so that he can haunt his girlfriend and gaslight her into coming back to him – is when the woman's new boyfriend realizes (and is relieved) that this man is alive and not a ghost. Real men you can fight, he says, ghosts are another matter.

Los Tarantos (1963)

Los Tarantos is essentially a close adaptation of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet with covert nods both to West Side Story and to Lope de Vega's Fuenteovejuna. The R&J stuff doesn't really work, and the film never lifts off while worrying about revenge or family dynamics – the entire backstory feels half-baked and mostly contrived. The highlight of Los Tarantos is the flamenco dancing, especially by Antonio Gades, who is incredible.