Film & TV

Penélope Cruz's 16 Best On-Screen Fashion Moments

From playing a bohemian artist to fashion designer Donatella Versace, discover Penélope Cruz's most stylish roles on the Spanish actress' birthday.

In Almodóvar's movie Broken Embraces from 2009, Cruz

A household name in Hollywood, Penélope Cruz has conquered the American movie industry thanks to her varied performances in Spanish cinema as filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar's undisputed muse. The young star began appearing in TV and movies as a teen and has remained in the spotlight ever since. A proven talented and versatile actress, Cruz has always been able to play the part, going from a young pregnant nun in Almodóvar's All About My Mother (1999) to a mentally volatile artist in Woody Allen's Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008), to upscale mistress in Broken Embraces (2009), all the while becoming an on-screen fashion inspiration. Though there's no doubt Cruz is also considered a style icon on red carpets and at other off-screen events, too.

On the Oscar-winning actress' 50th birthday, L'OFFICIEL shares Cruz's best on-screen fashion moments.

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The romantic comedy "Jamón Jamón" from 1992 is Cruz's feature film debut alongside the man who would nearly two decades later become her husband, Javier Bardem. Here, she plays a beautiful seamstress working at an underwear factory and is always dressed in head to toe Spanish cottagecore.
In the 1992 movie "Belle Epoque," the Spanish actress' second feature, an 18-year-old Cruz plays the virginal youngest daughter Luz, in long plaid skirts and shirtwaist outfits, in a bucolic Spanish setting.
In her first film with movie director Almodóvar, "Live Flesh" from 1997, Cruz appears for only eight minutes as a pregnant prostitute in a chaste collared coat resembling a Miuccia Prada design.
Cruz plays a young nun named Rosa who works in a shelter for sex workers in Almodóvar’s screwball drama "All About My Mother," in which she wears print dresses and scarlet-red head scarves.
Cruz stars alongside actors Matt Damon, Sam Shepard, Bruce Dern, and Henry Thomas in "All the Pretty Horses," dressed in dreamy and romantic looks as she rides horseback through the canyons.
In "Captain Corelli’s Mandolin'" from 2001, a wartime romance based on the novel by Louis de Bernières, and set in the Greek island of Cephallonia, Nicolas Cage’s captain is conscripted there in World War II and falls for a local girl, Pelagia, played by Cruz. Her prim collars, floral prints, and aprons are very much a look of the times.
As the volatile girlfriend of a Medellin drug cartel boss, played by Johnny Depp, "Blow" shows Cruz in plunging necklines and satin dresses that expressed her character’s dangerous appeal and evoked the late ’70s to early ’80s fashion zeitgeist.
The Spanish actress channels sexy vibes in Almodóvar's movie from 2006 "Volver," with upswept hair and smoky eyes, clinging silhouettes, plunging necklines, and bright colored prints.
Cruz won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her performance in Woody Allen's "Vicky Cristina Barcelona" from 2008, in which she plays a troubled young artist with incredible bohemian style.
In Almodóvar's "Broken Embraces" from 2009, Cruz looks stunningly elegant in upscale '80s and '90s fashion. In one scene, she even wears a Chanel runway look featuring gold chains (see lead photo).
Reprising her role from 1998's Spanish film "The Girl of Your Dreams," Cruz returns in "The Queen of Spain" as Macarena Granada. Set in the 2950s, Cruz's character is a Hollywood star filming a movie in Spain in which she plays Queen Isabella I of Castile. Appropriately, the costumes are fit for Hollywood, and literal, royalty.
In 'Zoolander 2,' Cruz was cast as an Interpol agent helping solve the mysterious deaths of pop stars.
Cruz and Bardem come together as drug lord Pablo Escobar and a journalist who falls for him in "Loving Pablo." Set in the '80s, the audience sees Cruz in the strong silhouettes of the era.
In another still from 'Loving Pablo,' Cruz dons a white blazer and diamond jewelry.
Transforming into fashion designer Donatella Versace in Ryan Murphy's "The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story," Cruz sports vintage Versace pieces and replicas throughout the limited series.
In 'Competencia Oficial,' Cruz plays a highly determined film director who is driven by her unwavering passion for cinema and challenges conventions in pursuit of her artistic vision.

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