Before making box-office smash hits like Sin City, Predators, and the Spy Kids franchise, Austin-based Robert Rodriguez went to Mexico with $7,000 and a screenplay about a Mariachi singer who gets mistaken for a hitman. Unfolding with cinematic precision and tongue-in-cheek humor, El Mariachi’s low budget couldn’t dampen its thrills. The film was bought by Columbia Pictures, screened at the Sundance Film Festival, and set Robert off on his Hollywood trajectory. Along with El Mariachi, his next two feature films, Desperado and Once Upon a Time In Mexico, would form his “Mexico Trilogy.”