God's Crooked Lines

2022 2h 35m ES

👍

7.3

SOLID

⭐

7.1

IMDB

★7.3TMDB · 870★7.1IMDB · 27,150

DramaMysteryThriller

Synopsis

Spoiler shield

Alice Gould, a private investigator, pretends to be mentally ill in order to enter a psychiatric hospital and gather evidence for the case she is working on: the death of a patient in unclear circumstances.

“Some stories are better left unspoiled.”

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Where to watch · US

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Cast

Bárbara Lennie
Alice
Eduard Fernández
Samuel Alvar
Loreto Mauleón
Monserrat Castell
Javier Beltrán
César Arellano
Pablo Derqui
Urquieta
Federico Aguado
Ruipérez
Adelfa Calvo
Doctor Bernardos
Antonio Buíl
Ruiz de Pablos

Credits

Behind the camera

Director: Oriol Paulo
Writers: Guillem Clua, Oriol Paulo, Lara Sendim
Languages: Spanish
Countries: Spain

Want more? Switch to Cinephile mode in the header for DP, composer, budget, box office, production companies, keywords, and release history.

Did you know?

Fun facts 🍿

1 / 7

RUNTIME

Did you know

Clocks in at 155 minutes — on the longer side of feature-length cinema.

MoodPlayr · trivia#01

2 / 7

ERA

Did you know

Released 4 years ago.

MoodPlayr · trivia#02

3 / 7

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Directed by Oriol Paulo, shot by Bernat Bosch. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.

MoodPlayr · trivia#03

4 / 7

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Original score by Fernando Velázquez. Worth a dedicated listen after — most great films lose half their impact without the score.

MoodPlayr · trivia#04

5 / 7

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Editor Jaume Martí shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.

MoodPlayr · trivia#05

6 / 7

CAST

Did you know

Bárbara Lennie and Eduard Fernández and Loreto Mauleón carry the top of the cast.

MoodPlayr · trivia#06

7 / 7

WILD

Did you know

IMDB entry: tt13229894 — still the authoritative cross-reference for credits and trivia.

MoodPlayr · trivia#07

Cinephile deep dive

The take

Oriol Paulo directs. Bernat Bosch behind the camera. Fernando Velázquez scores. Jaume Martí cuts. Produced in Spain. Dialogue in Spanish.

Trivia

Things worth knowing

1Clocks in at 155 minutes — on the longer side of feature-length cinema.
2Released 4 years ago.
3Directed by Oriol Paulo, shot by Bernat Bosch. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.
4Original score by Fernando Velázquez. Worth a dedicated listen after — most great films lose half their impact without the score.
5Editor Jaume Martí shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.
6Bárbara Lennie and Eduard Fernández and Loreto Mauleón carry the top of the cast.
7IMDB entry: tt13229894 — still the authoritative cross-reference for credits and trivia.
8Classified under 23 themes, including "husband wife relationship", "based on novel or book", "psychiatric hospital", "co-workers relationship".

The technical file

Cinematography: Bernat Bosch
Original score: Fernando Velázquez
Editing: Jaume Martí
Production design: Sylvia Steinbrecht
Makeup / hair: Montse Sanfeliu
VFX supervisor: Àlex Villagrasa
Sound: Laura Díez Mora
Stunt coordinator: Lluís Rivera
Runtime: 155 min · 2h 35m
Status: Released
Original language: ES
IMDB: God's Crooked Lines (2022)
IMDB rating: 7.1/10 · 27,150 votes
MPAA: TV-MA

Awards

4 wins & 20 nominations total

Gaudí Award for Best Makeup
Gaudí Award for Best Costume Design

Individual records documented via Wikidata; the summary above may count more.

Also by

Oriol Paulo

Trailers & featurettes

Watch the pieces

Community reviews

What people are saying

Dean2026-09-13
★ 9/10
Director Oriol Paulo delivers an exceptional psychological thriller set in a 1970s asylum that keeps you constantly guessing whether protagonist Alice is a brilliant private investigator trapped in a conspiracy or a masterfully manipulative patient in her own delusion. Bárbara Lennie carries the entire film with commanding charisma, alongside Eduard Fernández as the stoic hospital director. With its fantastic production design and tense score, this layered puzzle box of a film makes every minute engaging and stands as essential viewing for fans of cerebral mystery thrillers.
CinemaSerf2026-09-27
★ 7/10
"Alice" (Bárbara Lennie) is a private investigator trying to get to the bottom of what she thinks might have been a murder in a prestigious sanatorium. She concludes that the best way to do that is to feign being worthy of admission but once she is through the large metal gates of this establishment, she soon realises that it's boss "Dr. Alvar" (Eduard Fernández) is not a man to be crossed. That's going to make her investigation quite difficult, especially once she realises that she can glean little from the heavily drugged patients nor from the loyal team of medical professionals who run the place. Running in parallel to her detective work, we learn of another fatality at the institution and so now "Alice" has to conclude if these events might be connected - all against an increasingly perilous background for herself as it appears that perhaps "Alvar" is aware that she isn't all she claims to be. There isn't really any need for this film to go on for quite so long, indeed if it condensed the last hour into half of that time, it would greatly increase the accruing sense of complicated menace that auteur Oriol Paulo has crafted here. There are twists and turns galore as the plot thickens and by half way through, the questions of just how we measure who is sane and who is not are posing a real puzzle for us watching. Is "Alice" all we think she is, or is there something altogether more complex being played out here? There are clues and counter-clues, and even by the end it's by no means predictable what might play out and who the enigmatic "Dr. Donadio" is. Simultaneously, this also presents us with quite an authentic critique of how this particular Cuckoo's Nest functions and at how automated and medicated the lives of so many of the inmates have become. Is this treatment or is this merely incarceration by another name? Lennie holds this together really quite effectively but it's Fernández who exuded the more compellingly manipulative degree of menace that kept me guessing right until the last few scenes... Perhaps make a directory's cut that's shorter? In any case, if you like your thrillers heavy on the psychology, then you'll enjoy this.