Pedro Almodóvar’s early films originate in the sub-cultural urban movement of the late 1970s and early 1980s that came to be known as La Movida. This pedigree has often been described as being at the root of Almodóvar’s countercultural stance in opposition to the oppressive recent past of Franquist dictatorship. At the same time, these films, including Pepi, Luci, Bom y otras chicas del montón (1980), Laberinto de pasiones (1982), and Entre tinieblas (1983), betray a dependence on patterns of describing and codifying contemporary reality that can be linked to the tradition of costumbrismo. I argue that it is precisely the narrative techniques established in the costumbrista tradition that, in combination with sub-cultural strategies of both rejecting and recombining elements of the dominant parent culture, have helped to transform Almodóvar’s excentric fictions into a virtually undisputed part of national self-perception.