Ruiz soon developed a reputation among European critics and cinephiles as an avant-garde film magician, writing and directing a remarkable number of amusing, eccentric, complex, and highly literary low-to-no-budget films in the 1970s and 1980s (often for France's Institut national de l'audiovisuel and then for Portuguese producer Paulo Branco). The best known of these often oneiric, fabulist films are: "Colloque de chiens" (1977), a short which marked the start of Ruiz's long-term working relationship with Chilean composer Jorge Arriagada; "The Suspended Vocation" (1978); "The Hypothesis of the Stolen Painting" (1978); "On Top of the Whale" (1982); "Three Crowns of the Sailor" (1983); "City of Pirates" (1983); "Manoel's Destinies" (1985); "Treasure Island" (1985) and "Life is a Dream" (1986). A special issue of "Cahiers du cinéma" was devoted to Ruiz in March 1983.