With two actors picking up Oscars in as many years Spanish thespians are very much enjoying success outside of their own country as the likes of Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem have broken into the Hollywood big time.
So to further celebrate the Spanish film industry FemaleFirst takes a look at some of the best actors to have graced the big screen.
Penelope Cruz is currently that has been grabbing all the headlines when she picked up a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her role in Vicky Cristina Barcelona last month.
Her first major role came in Jamon Jamon in 1992, it was a movie that was recognised by the Academy winning Best Foreign Language Film.
She stayed with Spanish film for several years appearing in Belle Epoque, Todo es maentira and Todo sobre mi madre. But it wasn't long before commercial success came her way as Hollywood came calling.
All the Pretty Horses, Woman on Top, Blow and Vanilla Sky cemented her as an acting talent and her appearance in American movies became constant.
However it was her return to her Spanish roots in Volver that saw her pick up her first Best Actress Oscar nomination back in 2006.
In February she became Spain's first female Oscar winner.
Just twelve months before Cruz's triumph it was actor Javier Bardem that was basking in Oscar glory as he became the first Spanish actor to win an Academy Award.
Jamon Jamon was also the first international hit for the actor before going on to appear in Came tremula and Huevos de oro.
Reinaldo Arenas' 2000 movie Before Night Falls was Bardem's big breakthrough role as he went on to be nominated for a Best Actor Oscar.
He began working on more American movies such as Mondays in the Sun and Collateral. But it was the Coen Brothers' No Country for Old Men and the role of Anton Chigurh that really announced Bardem's arrival on the international movie scene.
Sara Montiel began working in movies at the age of sixteen and it was the movie Locura de Amor in 1948 that signaled her arrival.
But it was Mexico that benefited from her talents as she made a dozen movie in just five years before Hollywood came calling.
American audiences got their introduction to the young actress in 1954 when she starred alongside Gary Cooper and Burt Lancaster in war film Vera Cruz.
Columbia Pictures were desperate to snap her up and offered Montiel a seven year contract, she turned it down for fear of being typecast.
She chose instead to freelance and worked on the likes of Serenade, Run of the Arrow, Samba and Varietés before retiring from acting in 1974.
Francisco Rabal, better known as Paco Rabal, began his career in the theatre before moving into extra work in movies and television in the late forties.
It took several years for Rabal to consolidate himself as a big screen actor but he cemented himself with performances in Nazarin, Viridiana and Belle de jour.
During his career he worked with some of the industry's most famed directors including Gillo Pontecorvo, Michelangelo Antonioni.
He passed away in 2001 from compensatory dilating emphysema.
Other Spanish acting stars include Adolfo Marsillach, Leonor Watling, Gael Garcia Bernal and Diego Luna.
FemaleFirst Helen Earnshaw
Tagged in Penelope Cruz