Two film festivals place the Basque in the international film scenario. The most important festival, second to Cannes or Berlin is San Sebastian International Film Festival.

Every September, filmmakers and audiences from all over the world arrive in San Sebastian to enjoy the best of the filmmaking. The festival has different sections: the Official competition, Zabaltegui (this section gives a panorama of the state-of-the-art of film showing movies that have been screened in other international festivals), Latin Horizons, Classic, Contemporary and Thematic Retrospective, and the International Meeting of Film Schools. In every edition, the Festival honors a film celebrity with the Donostia Award. The first to have received the award was Gregory Peck in 1986, and Laureen Bacall, Anthony Hopkins, Warren Beatty, Sean Penn, Woody Allen, among many other artists have also received the award.

Bilbao has its own film festival not at famous as San Sebatian's but boasting a strong spirit and a taste for the daring and pasionate filmmaking. It is the International Festival of Documentary and Short Film of Bilbao. This competitive festival takes place in the last week of November and first of December. The festival gives different awards that include: the Great Award of the Festival, the Award to a Spanish Film, the award to Basque Film, Golden and Silver Mikeldi to an Animation movie, Golden and Silver Mikeldi to a Documentary and a Fiction Movie, among other awards.