Like its titular character, Emilia Pérez is many things. “You have an action movie that’s not an action movie, a drama that’s not a drama, a comedy that’s not a comedy,” star Karla Sofía Gascón told Netflix. “It is such a great gift, and I’m so proud to be part of it.”

The film is also, among the many other genres Gascón cites, an operatic musical. “During the first lockdown, I wrote a treatment quickly, and I realized along the way that it was closer to an opera libretto than to a film script — it was broken down into acts, there were few sets, the characters were archetypal,” writer and director Jacques Audiard told Netflix. “The idea of doing an opera had crossed my mind as I was working on [1996’s] A Self-Made Hero.”

So, to paraphrase Gascón, Emilia Pérez is an opera that’s not an opera. Unbound by theatrical constraints, the film’s scale is grand, and its characters are more complex than the archetypes Audiard originally sketched out. You can see for yourself in the trailer above.

Emilia Pérez tells the story of high-powered lawyer Rita (Zoe Saldaña) who takes on an unexpected assignment: helping a Mexican cartel leader (Gascón) fake their death and undergo gender-affirming procedures. 

“Rita wishes that she would just have this one opportunity, just any opportunity that will make her break out and break this glass ceiling that she finds herself never being able to shatter,” Saldaña said. “And when the opportunity presents itself, she doesn’t think twice. She just takes it.” So the cartel leader begins a new life under a new name — Emilia Pérez.

That decision changes not just the lives of Rita and Emilia, but also that of Emilia’s wife, Jessi (Selena Gomez). “In the beginning of the film, Jessi is very much content with the life that she’s living with the family in Mexico, and that’s kind of where she was rooted,” Gomez said. “I think she gets so discombobulated once there is a sudden move, and she doesn’t know what to do.”

When Emilia abruptly returns to Rita and Jessi’s life, the stage is set for a collision course that will upend their circumstances all over again. Set to music by 
Clément Ducol and Camille, Emilia Pérez is an operatic, energetic tale of love and loss. 

Read on to learn more. 

Shanna Besson

What is Emilia Pérez about?

From renegade auteur Jacques Audiard comes Emilia Pérez, an audacious fever dream that defies genres and expectations. Through liberating song and dance and bold visuals, this odyssey follows the journey of four remarkable women in Mexico, each pursuing their own happiness. The fearsome cartel leader Emilia (Karla Sofía Gascón) enlists Rita (Zoe Saldaña), an unappreciated lawyer stuck in a dead-end job, to help fake her death so that Emilia can finally live authentically as her true self. Written and directed by Audiard (Rust and Bone, A Prophet), the double Cannes-winning film also stars Selena Gomez, Adriana Paz, and Édgar Ramírez.

Audiard was initially inspired by Boris Razon’s novel Écoute, but the book only served as a starting point. “Halfway through the book, a transgender drug dealer comes along who wishes to have surgery,” Audiard said. “As the character wasn’t that developed over the following chapters, I decided to start my story there.”

Saldaña leapt at the opportunity to work with Audiard, but it took a moment to wrap her head around the film’s script. “It was described to me as this film noir that didn’t really exist in any of the conventional kind of genres, but it was a musical,” she said. “It was actually an opera, and based in a crime world, but there was going to be a sense of justice, and validation, and sanctification. And I was just like, ‘What?’ I had to read it more than once. And then, I couldn’t stop thinking about it.”

Can I watch Emilia Pérez on Netflix?

Yes! Emilia Pérez is now streaming on Netflix in the US, Canada, and the UK. 

Who is in the cast of Emilia Pérez?

Emilia Pérez stars:

• Karla Sofía Gascón (El Señor de los Cielos, The Noble Family) as Emilia
• Zoe Saldaña (Avatar, From Scratch) as Rita
• Selena Gomez (Only Murders in the Building, Spring Breakers) as Jessi
• Adriana Paz (Rudo y Cursi, Las Horas Muertas) as Epifania
• Édgar Ramírez (Florida Man, Carlos) as Gustavo

The title part was a dream come true for Gascón. “Emilia Pérez is a phenomenal role,” Gascón said. “It’s a dream role that is hard to find because it has so much depth, so much richness. And for an actor to get into it, it needs a lot of dedication, and a lot of work because you have two voices that also sing with a Mexican accent. It is so huge.”

Audiard planned much of the production around making sure Saldaña could participate. “Zoe ticked all the boxes all at once — she could sing and dance as a lead dancer; plus, her acting is strikingly charismatic,” he said. “She really wanted to do the film, but she was busy. We waited for her for a year.”

The third side of Emilia Pérez’s triangle is Selena Gomez, who made quite the impression on Audiard at their first meeting. “I met Selena Gomez one morning in New York,” he recalled. “I remembered her from Harmony Korine’s Spring Breakers, but I hardly knew anything about her. In 10 minutes, I knew it would be her. I actually told her, and she wouldn’t believe me. When we called her a year later to tell her that the film was greenlit, she thought I’d forgotten about her!”

Audiard recently said, in conversation with director Tom McCarthy, “I was very lucky ... My actresses were formidable and they were so open to experimenting, and I brought them all over the place. In a musical, there’s so much that can happen, there’s all these dance pieces and there’s so many different things that can take place. And I felt that I was so free to change as I was going along on the fly, even on set, because they were solid enough to accept all of that.”

Shanna Besson

Is Emilia Pérez a musical?

Yes! Singer-songwriter Camille and composer Clément Ducol worked to create the 16 original songs featured in the movie, along with its score. You can read more about the music in the film here. 

Are those really Saint Laurent costumes in Emilia Pérez?

Yes. Artistic director and costume designer Virginie Montel worked with Saint Laurent’s creative director Anthony Vaccarello to create unforgettable outfits for Rita (Saldaña), Jessi (Gomez), and Gustavo (Ramírez). 

“We shared our references from a wide range of sources, from painting to film to photography, to come up with a mood board for each character,” Montel told Netflix. “Together we found inspiration in the Saint Laurent archives and picked out pieces that worked for what we wanted. We created certain designs, such as for Jessi in the scene where she opens her blouse in front of Gustavo. For Rita’s character, only the specific color at a certain moment required fabrication; the collection was very close to what we imagined for her character. Gustavo was a perfect fit for the Saint Laurent style.”

Has Emilia Pérez been nominated for or won any awards?

Yes! At the 77th Cannes Film Festival in May 2024, Audiard and his cast were met with a lengthy standing ovation and multiple accolades; Audiard took home the Festival’s Jury Prize, and Gascón, Saldaña, Gomez and their co-star Adriana Paz shared Best Actress. 

Ahead of the 82nd Annual Golden Globe Awards, Emilia Pérez picked up an impressive 10 nominations, and during the Jan. 5 ceremony, it won four awards — making history along the way. The film won in the following categories: Best Picture — Musical or Comedy; Best Non-English Language Motion Picture; Best Supporting Female Actor — Motion Picture (Zoe Saldaña); Best Song — Motion Picture (“El Mal,” music and lyrics by Clément Ducol and Camille and Jacques Audiard).

These awards are momentous because this is the first win for Saldaña and the first time a non-English language film has won Best Picture.

Also, on Jan. 8, the film received the following three nominations for the 31st Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards: Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture; Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role (Karla Sofía Gascón); and Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role (Zoe Saldaña). At the Feb. 23 ceremony, Saldaña was honored with the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role.

The film also earned 11 nominations for the 2025 EE BAFTA Film Awards: Best Film; Best Director; Best Actress in a Leading Role (Karla Sofía Gascón); Best Actress in a Supporting Role (Zoe Saldaña); Best Adapted Screenplay; Best Film Not in the English Language; Best Cinematography; Best Editing; Best Makeup and Hair; and Best Original Score.  

Emilia Pérez continued to make history when the nominations for the 97th Academy Awards were announced on Jan. 23. The musical crime drama received 13 nominations, becoming the most nominated non-English language film ever. The film is nominated in the following categories: Best Picture; Best International Feature Film; Best Actress in a Leading Role (Karla Sofía Gascón); Best Actress in a Supporting Role (Zoe Saldaña); Best Director (Jacques Audiard); Best Adapted Screenplay; Best Editing; Best Original Song (both “El Mal” and “Mi Camino”); Best Original Score; Best Sound; Best Cinematography; and Best Makeup and Hairstyling. At the Mar. 2 ceremony, the film won two Academy Awards: Best Actress in a Supporting Role for Saldaña, and Best Original Song for “El Mal.”