---
name: "Fernando León de Aranoa"
canonical: "https://film.one/person/fernando-leon-de-aranoa"
roles: ["Producer","Director"]
born: "26 May 1968"
reviewed_on_fi1m: 1
average_as: "producer"
average_over: 0
updated: "2026-09-18T08:48:51.175103+00:00"
licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL."
---

# Fernando León de Aranoa

Producer and director. Born 26 May 1968 in Madrid, Spain.

## Details

- **Work:** Producer, Director
- **Born:** 26 May 1968, Madrid, Spain
- **Elsewhere:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fernando_Le%C3%B3n_de_Aranoa, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1398481, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0508208/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/15602

## Coming up

- *Un bon patron* (2026-11-04), Original Film Writer

## Streaming the US now

- **Amazon Prime Video:** [*The Good Boss*](https://film.one/film/the-good-boss.md) (67)

For United States; add `?region=XX` for another country.

## Fi1m on Fernando León de Aranoa

> Fernando León de Aranoa makes films about work: who has it, who has lost it, who decides. He is at his best when he lets an actor carry the point, and at his weakest when the script insists on making it again.

Javier Bardem stands in a scales factory in a cardigan and talks about balance. He says it to the workers he calls family, he says it in speeches, it is on the walls and in the logo, and by the time the judges for a regional business award are a week away, León de Aranoa's script had used the word so often that we began to count. That is *The Good Boss* (2021) in short: a fine performance and a writer-director who does not quite trust it to do the job alone. It is also the clearest example of what he has been doing since the mid-1990s, which is looking at Spanish working life and asking who holds the power at work and who has to ask for it.

He came in from television scripts and advertising illustration, and he still draws his films before he shoots them, storyboarding at length. *Familia* (1996) was the debut, as writer and director. *Barrio* (1998), a portrait of city kids, and *Mondays in the Sun* (2002), with Bardem as a shipyard worker on the wrong side of the gates, made his name at home. He set up his own company, Reposado, in 2004 and put *Princesses* (2005), about lives on the margins, through it first. For a long time the reputation stayed inside Spain. *The Good Boss* was the film that carried it further, and it is telling that it did so with a joke rather than a wound.

Bardem is the constant, three films together, and the pairing works because León de Aranoa writes men who are neither villains nor saints and Bardem enjoys the space between. *Mondays in the Sun* was angrier and sadder than *The Good Boss*, which looks at the same country from the manager's office and is a more comfortable film for it, an odd thing for a satire to be. He has said, "I'm interested in labor relationships, and what happens in the workplaces nowadays," and the interest is plain; the discipline comes and goes. At 120 minutes *The Good Boss* has a middle where the subplots take turns and none of them moves, Vanessa Marimbert cuts at an unhurried pace that suits the boss but not the comedy, and Zeltia Montes's plucked score keeps prompting laughs Bardem has already earned. Then the final scene arrives, quiet and exact, and it is the only one that left a mark on us.

So the pattern is a director with a subject he understands, a leading man he understands better, and a tendency to say his one thing several times. Start with *Mondays in the Sun* if you want the anger and *The Good Boss* if you want Bardem enjoying himself. The next one, if it trusts its actor and loses twenty minutes, might be the one we tell strangers about.

## Biography

Fernando León de Aranoa is a Spanish film director and screenwriter. Born in Madrid in 1968, he began his career writing screenplays before making his directorial debut with *Familia* (1996), for which he received the Goya Award for Best New Director.

He is known for films including *Barrio* (1998), *Mondays in the Sun* (2002), *Princesses* (2005), *A Perfect Day* (2015) and *Loving Pablo* (2017). He has directed and written *The Good Boss* (2021), on which he also served as producer. He has won three Goya Awards for Best Director.

*Sources: en.wikipedia.org, imdb.com.*

## On Fi1m (1)

- *The Good Boss* (2021), Fi1m 67, Screenplay, Producer, Director — [page](https://film.one/film/the-good-boss.md)

## Complete filmography (27)

Every credit, newest first. Titles without a page can be requested for review on the HTML page.

- *Un bon patron* (2026), Original Film Writer
- *Until My Voice Breaks* (2025), Thanks
- *The Talent* (2025), Screenplay, Producer
- *Feeling It* (2022), Director, Writer, Producer, Camera Operator
- *The Good Boss* (2021), Director, Screenplay, Producer — Fi1m 67, [page](https://film.one/film/the-good-boss.md)
- *Loving Pablo* (2017), Writer, Director
- *Politics, Instructions Manual* (2016), Director, Writer
- *A Perfect Day* (2015), Director, Producer, Screenplay
- *A Perfect Family* (2012), Original Film Writer
- *Amador* (2010), Director, Screenplay, Producer
- *Invisibles* (2007), Writer, Director
- *Princesses* (2005), Director, Screenplay, Producer
- *L'uomo perfetto* (2005), Original Film Writer
- *Mondays in the Sun* (2002), Screenplay, Director
- *La guerrilla de la memoria* (2002), Writer
- *Fausto 5.0* (2001), Writer
- *Caminantes* (2001), Writer, Director
- *Living It Up* (2000), Writer
- *The Back of the World* (2000), Writer
- *Barrio* (1998), Director, Writer
- *Cha Cha Chá* (1998), Writer
- *Sleepless in Madrid* (1998), Writer
- *Corazón loco* (1997), Writer
- *Family* (1996), Director, Writer
- *Sirenas* (1995), Director, Writer
- *Los hombres siempre mienten* (1995), Writer
- *Alone, at Last!* (1994), Writer

## Awards

### Other awards — 5 won, 3 nominated

- European Film Award for Best Comedy 2022: European Film Award for Best Comedy (won), for *The Good Boss*
- Goya Award for Best Director 2022: Goya Award for Best Director (won), for *The Good Boss*
- Goya Award for Best Original Screenplay 2022: Goya Award for Best Original Screenplay (won), for *The Good Boss*
- Premio Feroz for Best Director 2022: Premio Feroz for Best Director (nominated), for *The Good Boss*
- Premio Feroz for Best Screenplay 2022: Premio Feroz for Best Screenplay (won), for *The Good Boss*
- Medalla del Cercle d'Escriptors Cinematogràfics al millor guió original 2021: Medalla del Cercle d'Escriptors Cinematogràfics al millor guió original (nominated), for *The Good Boss*
- European Film Award - People's Choice Award for Best Director 2003: European Film Award - People's Choice Award for Best Director (nominated), for *Mondays in the Sun*
- Goya Award for Best Director 1999: Goya Award for Best Director (won)

*From Wikidata, which records wins more completely than nominations.*

---
© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/person/fernando-leon-de-aranoa