Bad Education (La mala educación) is a 2004 film by Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar about two reunited childhood friends (and lovers) in the vein of an Alfred Hitchcock murder mystery. Sexual abuse by Catholic priests, transsexuality, drug abuse, and a metafiction are also important themes and devices in the plot.

Enrique (Fele Martínez), a successful film director, is visited by a stranger (Gael García Bernal) in his office, an actor looking for work who claims to be Enrique's boarding school friend and first love interest Ignacio. "Ignacio" has brought a short story with him that is about their time at the Catholic school together and the physical and sexual abuse they suffered at the hands of Father Manolo (Daniel Giménez Cacho). It also includes a fictionalized account of their (Enrique's and Ignacio's) reunion after all those years.

Enrique remains skeptical, for he feels the Ignacio he loved and the Ignacio of today are totally different persons. He drives to Galicia to Ignacio's mother and learns that the real Ignacio has been dead for four years and that the man who came to his office is really Ignacio's younger brother, Juan.

Enrique's interest is piqued and he decides to do the movie with Juan in the role of Ignacio to find out what drives Juan. Enrique and "Ignacio" start a relationship and Enrique revises the script so that it ends with Father Manolo, who Ignacio was trying to blackmail over the abuse to get money for sex reassignment surgery, having Ignacio murdered. When the scene is shot, "Ignacio" breaks out in tears unexpectedly.

The movie set is visited by Manuel Berenguer (Lluís Homar), who has read in the newspaper about the film and is none other than the real Father Manolo who has resigned from Church duty. Manuel confesses to Enrique that the new ending of the film is not far from the truth: The real Ignacio blackmailed Manuel, who somehow managed to scratch together the money but also took an interest in Ignacio's younger brother Juan. Juan and Manuel started a relationship and after a while realized they both wanted to see Ignacio dead. This was facilitated by the fact that Ignacio was a heroin addict. Juan got some heroin laced with strychnine, so that his brother would die once he shot up.

Enrique is understandably shocked and not at all interested in Juan's weak vindications for what he did to his brother. Finally, before he leaves, Juan gives Enrique a piece of paper: A letter to Enrique that Ignacio was in the middle of typing when he died.

From the style of the opening credits to the score that is heavily reminiscent of the works of Bernard Herrmann, this movie is an homage to classic Hitchcock thrillers such as Vertigo, in which a femme fatale from the protagonist's past surfaces again but has a double identity and hides a dark secret.