10 Best Movies Set in or About Cuba

10 Movies Set in or About Cuba

Foreign-led films whose sustained setting or subject remains centered on Cuba.

1. 

   1. The Godfather Part II

   1974

   Interweaving the young Vito Corleone's rise in early-1900s New York with his son Michael's ruthless consolidation of power decades later — including ambitions in pre-revolutionary Cuba — this epic charts a family's grip tightening even as it rots. A towering crime saga.

2. 

   2. Scarface

   1983

   A ruthless Cuban refugee who lands in Miami during the 1980 boatlift claws his way to the top of the cocaine trade, his greed and paranoia swelling along with his empire. Brian De Palma's blood-soaked, operatic gangster epic.

3. 

   3. Amistad

   1997

   In 1839, enslaved Africans aboard a ship bound from Cuba seize control in a bloody revolt, only to be captured and put on trial in the United States, where their fate becomes a landmark battle over freedom and law. Steven Spielberg's historical drama based on true events.

4. 

   4. Thirteen Days

   2000

   In October 1962, President Kennedy and his advisers navigate thirteen harrowing days on the brink of nuclear war after US spy planes discover Soviet missile sites in Cuba. A tense political thriller dramatizing the Cuban Missile Crisis.

5. 

   5. Our Man in Havana

   1959

   A hapless British vacuum-cleaner salesman in pre-revolutionary Havana is recruited as a spy and, short of any real intelligence, simply invents it — with alarming consequences as his fabrications take on a life of their own. A witty Cold War satire from Graham Greene.

6. 

   6. Cuba, an African Odyssey

   Cuba, une odyssée africaine · 2007

   This documentary chronicles Cuba's remarkable and little-known military and political involvement in Africa's liberation struggles during the Cold War, from the Congo to Angola. A sweeping historical account.

7. 

   7. Waiting for Fidel

   1974

   A quirky documentary crew — including a former Newfoundland premier — travels to Cuba hoping to film an interview with Fidel Castro, and while they wait and wait, the country itself becomes their subject. A wry, self-aware portrait.

8. 

   8. Cuban Dancer

   2021

   A proud young ballet student at Cuba's national school sees his life upended when his family emigrates to Florida, and he must rebuild his dream far from the stage and the partner he loved. An intimate coming-of-age documentary.

9. 

   9. The King of Havana

   El Rey de La Habana · 1999

   Fresh out of reform school, a young man scrapes by on the desperate streets of 1990s Havana amid hunger, rum, and fleeting romance during one of Cuba's harshest decades. A raw, unsentimental portrait of survival.

10. 

    10. CUBA: Defending Socialism, Resisting Imperialism

    2010

    This documentary gathers voices from Cuba to make the case for the island's socialist project and its resistance to US pressure, framing it as a struggle on behalf of the world's poor and oppressed. A partisan political essay.