Combining elements of film noir and melodrama, J. A. Bardem's "Death of a Cyclist" is a scathing critique of the Franco regime then in power in Spain. His characters are mostly members of the bourgeoisie and in their self-centred, materialistic outlooks, Bardem paints a portrait of a then-modern day Spain which highlights the moral bankruptcy of the powers-that-be.
The film begins with two characters - adulterous lovers - in a car that suddenly and unexpectedly hits a cyclist. At first they stop and investigate the situation but decide to leave the poor man to die by the side of the road and not report the horrible accident. The remainder of the film centres around the guilt and despair experienced by the two central characters as they try to deal with the reality of their decision to kill a man and not report it to the local authorities.
There are many other side-stories and detours that the story takes along the way. The man, Juan (Alberto Closas) is an assistant professor at a university and his preoccupation with the accident causes him to not concentrate on an important testing that would subsequently result in the failing grade of a young female student. This leads to chaos as the student body protests the fate of the woman.
Another character, Rafa (Carlos Casaravilla) a musician and art-critique has seen the two wayward lovers together and threatens to blackmail them.
It turns out that the cyclist, in the end, will not be the only one to perish and all moral equilibrium is finally restored in the end. Along the way, we are given an interesting, suspenseful tale from the mind of a brilliant Marxist director.
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