The plot is simple. A professor named Juan and his married lover Maria accidentally hit a bicyclist. Instead of helping the severely injured bicyclist, Juan and Maria decide to drive off and leave him for dead. It’s not long before a man claims he knows what Juan and Maria did. Does he really know their secret? Will Juan and Maria get caught or will their fear and paranoia get the best of them?

Of all the films yet to be released on DVD, I have to wonder why Criterion chose "Death Of A Cyclist." Even though the film is filled with wonderful symbolic imagery (like the scared couple attending a circus) and is generally an effective character study about human fear and weaknesses, the movie is essentially a short film stretched out to 88 minutes. There’s simply not enough material here to fill a feature film and it shows in some of the drawn out conversations the characters have. Even worse, the movie's ending feels entirely forced and over the top. I understand what Juan Antonio Bardem was aiming for, but the finale would have been far more pleasing had a certain someone just drove away without incident (You'll see what I'm talking about if you watch the flick).