El Mariachi is a 1992 action thriller film. It is the debut film of writer/director Robert Rodriguez.

The Spanish language film was shot in the northern Mexican border town of Ciudad Acuña with a mainly amateur cast. The US$ 7,000 production was originally intended for the Hispanic home video market, but executives at Columbia Pictures liked the film so much that they bought the American distribution rights. Columbia eventually spent several times more than the 16 mm film's original budget on 35 mm transfers, promotion, marketing and distribution.

The success of Rodriguez's directorial debut led him to create two further entries, Desperado (1995) and Once Upon a Time in Mexico (2003), in what came to be known as the Mexico Trilogy.