Film Forum

U.S., 1987
Written and Directed by Luis Valdez
Starring Lou Diamond Phillips, Esai Morales, Rosanna DeSoto, Elizabeth Peña, Joe Pantoliano
Approx. 108 min. 

“My mom reckons I’m going to be a star. And stars don’t fall from the sky.” Lou Diamond Phillips electrifies in a star-making performance as influential Mexican American rocker Ritchie Valens (né Richard Valenzuela), whose meteoric rise to rock and roll fame tragically ended “the day music died” at the age of 17. LA BAMBA vividly chronicles Valens’ journey from farm work to San Fernando High School, where he meets his sweetheart Donna and joins a cover band, to signing with a label and recording his own songs, to tour dates in front of screaming fans... as well as the fateful “Winter Dance Party” tour, with the Big Bopper and Buddy Holly. With indelible performances by Esai Morales as Valens’ troubled half-brother and Rosanna DeSoto as their steelily supportive single mom. Featuring energetic renditions of Valens’  songs “Come On, Let’s Go,” “Donna” the top-40 title hit (Los Lobos’s version, recorded for this film, reached #1 in 1987), and cameos by Brian Setzer (as Eddie Cochran), Howard Huntsberry (Jackie Wilson), and Marshall Crenshaw (Buddy Holly). Plus, Los Lobos performing an acoustic “La Bamba” in a Tijuana brothel. A commercial breakthrough for Valdez, considered the father of Chicano theater and film, this remains the highest-grossing Latino film in Hollywood history.

Read Yolanda Machado’s 2021 interview with Luis Valdez and Lou Diamond Phillips in The New York Times.

Presented with support from The Roy Lichtenstein Foundation Fund

Reviews

“An exciting tribute to the early magic of rock n roll.” 
– Linda Deutsch, Associated Press

“A powerful vision... in telling Ritchie Valens’ story in a mainstream film, Valdez created a path for other representations of Chicano life to be not only welcome in pop culture but viewed as American culture as well... [remaining] both a portrait of Chicano life and a testament to the survival of the community through the opportunity to tell our own stories.”
– Yolanda Machado, Criterion