According to Sunglassestracker, the film industry, however, began to structure itself only after the advent of sound. It is significant, in fact, that the first two sound films (made with an optical system, that is to say with the soundtrack printed in the positive copy that is projected in the cinema), released a few days apart from each other, were also the first produced by two production houses destined to have a fundamental role in the history of Argentine cinema. Argentina Sono Film, founded by Angel Mentasti, made ¡Tango! (1933, released April 27) by Luis Moglia Barth; Lumiton made its debut with Los tres berretines (1933, released May 10) by Enrique Telémaco Susini (but actually shot as a collective work by the entire team of Lumiton, of which Susini was one of the founders).

In the Thirties the annual production amounted to about thirty films, many of which exported throughout the Latin American continent, in particular the musical melodramas interpreted by Libertad Lamarque and Tita Morello and the comic films starring Luis Sandrini, actors who would later become the first stars of Argentine cinema. The production focused on some successful genres, such as melodrama, detective and comedy, as well as musical films, whose absolute protagonist was the tango. These were works intended for the middle class, mostly of an entertainment nature. The films of Mario Soffici, a rigorous creator of social dramas such as Prisioneros de la tierra (1939), by Leopoldo Torres Ríos (father of another of the protagonists of Argentine cinema, departed from this trend) Leopoldo Torre Nilsson) and, later, by Hugo del Carril. Torres Ríos, who can be considered Ferreyra’s pupil, developed a cinema – in films such as La vuelta al Nido (1938), Pelota de trapo (1948) and Aquello que amamos (1959) – attentive to popular and urban themes, and characterized by a particular taste for the construction of environments and atmospheres. Del Carril, actor and singer even before being a director, developed, first with Historia del ‘900 (1949) and then above all with Las aguas bajan turbias (1952; The desperados of the green jungle), a personal style in which social drama is immersed in a romantic atmosphere. Pelota de trapo (1948) and Aquello que amamos (1959) – attentive to popular and urban themes, and characterized by a particular taste for the construction of environments and atmospheres. Del Carril, actor and singer even before being a director, developed, first with Historia del ‘900 (1949) and then above all with Las aguas bajan turbias (1952; The desperados of the green jungle), a personal style in which social drama is immersed in a romantic atmosphere. Pelota de trapo (1948) and Aquello que amamos (1959) – attentive to popular and urban themes, and characterized by a particular taste for the construction of environments and atmospheres. Del Carril, actor and singer even before being a director, developed, first with Historia del ‘900 (1949) and then above all with Las aguas bajan turbias (1952; The desperados of the green jungle), a personal style in which social drama is immersed in a romantic atmosphere.

As the years went by, Argentine cinema developed by varying themes and styles, and elaborating a division into genres that basically presented itself as a national version of the Hollywood one. ranks first as a Spanish language film producing country for Latin America. But the solidity of its industry underwent a sharp downsizing when, following the choice of neutrality during the Second World War, in 1942 most of the funding for cinema from the United States ceased. In a short time the position of dominance passed to Mexico (to which most of the US funds went). This situation, combined with the fact that the Argentina did not yet have a solid production and distribution network (especially if compared to that of Mexico), triggered a crisis that continued into the following decades. With the government of JD Perón the situation changed slightly: protectionist laws were passed in order to further develop domestic film production and limit imports. From 1944 the intervention of the state became more and more visible, to the point of transforming itself from an incentive policy into a form of control and censorship. After the fall of Perón in 1955, the new democratic governments (in particular that of Argentina Frondizi, from 1958 to 1962) had an attitude of openness towards cinema and the experimentation of new expressive languages. In 1957, for example, a law was enacted which guaranteed funding for the production of independent films; in 1959 the first edition of the Mar del Plata Festival was inaugurated. This situation favored a new generation of directors who made their debut in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Autonomous from the production house system, they shared the search for new languages ​​for a cinema capable of staging the contradictions and conflicts of Argentine society.

Among all, L. Torre Nilsson emerges, a visionary filmmaker, influenced by American and European cinema (and perhaps also for this reason among the first to be known overseas); he created claustrophobic and evocative images as in La casa del ángel (1957), Fin de fiesta (1960) and La mano en la trampa (1961), about the decadence of the bourgeois class. Fernando Ayala instead made political films such as El jefe (1958) and El candidate (1959), in which the mastery of a style capable of recontextualizing the expressive forms of modern European cinema is evident. In 1956 he had also founded, with the producer Héctor Olivera, the Aries Cinematográfica Argentina, a production company destined to a long life.