El Mariachi El Mariachi El Mariachi is a 1992 American contemporary western action film and the first installment in the saga that came to be known as Robert Rodriguez's "Mexico Trilogy". It marked the feature length debut of Rodriguez as writer and director. The Spanish language film was shot with a mainly amateur cast in the northern Mexican bordertown of Ciudad Acuña, Coahuila, Mexico across from Del Rio, Texas, the home town of leading actor Carlos Gallardo. The US$7,225 production was originally intended for the Mexican home video market, but executives at Columbia Pictures liked the film and bought the American distribution
El Mariachi a 73 out of 100 rating based on 9 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". "El Mariachi" won multiple international awards, and writer/producer/director Rodriguez went on to gain international fame; he was interviewed on such shows as "Sábado Gigante" and proceeded thereafter to secure Hollywood-backing for films such as "The Faculty" and "Sin City". In December 2011, "El Mariachi" was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the United States Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry. Citing it as the film that "helped usher in the independent movie boom of the early 1990s", the Registry