Quinqui cinema encompassed a series of Spanish crime films with a unique national sensibility, as they reflected the times of the Franco dictatorship transition. Guided by academics Mery Cuesta and Tom Whittaker, this featurette explores this explosive subgenre.

A woman recalls her childhood growing up in the North of Spain, focusing on her relationship with her father.

Following the events of El pico, the heroin-addicted Paco faces jail time due to his involvement in a double murder.

José is an unemployed 18-year-old living in a cramped apartment in the slums of Madrid. Marginalized by poverty, José spends his time with his friend Antonio. However, when Antonio gets his girlfriend, Rosario, pregnant, the two friends try anything to get the money to pay for her to have an abortion.

Leandro, an unemployed mason and his friend, Tocho, attempt to rob a tobacconist in the Vallecas district of Madrid, but Mrs. Justa, the tobacconist, impedes it alerting the neighbors who notify police. Inside the shop, the confrontation between the two friends and their 'hostages', the tobacconist and her niece Angeles, is relaxing, and a budding sympathy arises between them.

A young Catholic girl takes viewers through a changing Spanish political and social landscape as she develops from her confirmation day to adulthood. Her first experience with the real Spain comes when her Jewish godfathers cannot come to her confirmation. One of the godfathers, using a ring, poses an early challenge to her innocence that puts her in danger. He later returns, indirectly introducing her to a new boyfriend. If he is one of the symbols for Jewish life under Franco, or for a Judeo-Christian interaction, that interaction is complex. The young woman encounters different lovers as she grows into adulthood, but at the same time she is burdened with financially supporting her father and his own rather decadent lifestyle. Again, this difference in generations could be understood as a difference between the "new" and "old" Spain; it is up to the viewers to interpret the story elements as they decide.

A chronicle of the life of Jaro, the leader of a juvenile delinquent gang, depicting his rise from street urchin to outlaw anti-hero on the way to his inevitable end.

In Madrid, a Lawyer gets the freedom for "El Chirlo" a usual 20 years old crook. Chirlo wants to thank Jaime, his lawyer, the defense and treat him for a meal with Rocio, Jaime's girlfriend. Jaime leave so Chirlo and Rocio go together to take a walk. Since then, everything turns bad.

Rafael, a young man from the provinces, works as a waiter in a resort and helps himself economically having sex for money with rich older women. During a bomb threat, he is discovered in bed with one of the guest, Leonor Marchioness of Montenegro, and he is fired as a consequence. The Marchioness of Montenegro is an aging aristocrat, ruined economically, but still with wealthy and influential friends. She helps Rafael finds a new job in Madrid as the gardener in the mansion of Antonio Fernández Herrador, Minister of economy in the new democratic Spanish government.

Pablo and Fernando, owners of a children's book publishing company about to go bankrupt, have managed through unorthodox means to contract the country's best-selling author, Adela Mora. The evening of the official signing, Paco asks his friend to let him use his house for a love tryst while Fernando wines and dines Adela. At the same time, Paco's wife, Carmen, will be taking her lover to Rosa's house. From here on the rout begins, as Paco tries to get rid of Silvia, his secretary, and Carmen, her husband. Fernando thinks Rosa is cheating on him with Oscar, who thinks Fernando is gay and having an affair with his partner, while the soldier thinks his girlfriend is a professional...