As the cinema-goers emerged, blinking and disorientated into the light, the overwhelming murmur was one of approval.

Handing back their plastic 3D glasses, they were the latest audience in Mexico City to enjoy the cinematic assault on the senses that is Gravity.

But as well as approval, there was also a certain pride among viewers here that this extraordinary piece of filmmaking - tipped for an Academy Award and prompting comparisons with legendary US film director Stanley Kubrick - was directed by a Mexican, Alfonso Cuaron.

"I'd put Gravity up there with the Golden Age of Mexican Cinema," gushed audience member Maria Esther Dominguez referring to the 1930s, 40s and 50s when Mexican films were considered among the best in the world.

Hyperbole aside, 2013 has been a hugely successful year for Mexican cinema.

For the second year running, the Best Director prize at the Cannes film festival went to another Mexican, Amat Escalante, for Heli, a powerful drama set in a drug war-ravaged region of rural Mexico.

Meanwhile, Mexican comedies Nosotros Los Nobles and Instructions Not Included have successively broken domestic box office records.

 has been on the crest of a wave of success for over a decade now. And it is still thriving despite the challenges of a global recession and fierce competition for international funding.

What, then, is its secret?

"First and foremost, there has always been great, great talent in Mexico," says Daniela Michel, director of the 11th Morelia Film Festival held last month in the state capital of Michoacan.

"The institutions and film schools here work very well and they have supported interesting projects. There is a vibrancy and a great energy at the moment."

In particular, events such as the pop-up cinema nights in Mexico City called Ambulante have given a platform for young filmmakers to show their material on the big screen.

But beyond mere talent or institutional support, which is present in many other Latin American and European genres of film, there is something about the distinctly Mexican identity of the films being produced which seems to appeal to audiences.

The new boom started, Ms Michel believes, around the time of Amores Perros, a gritty urban movie made in 2000 by Mexican director, Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, which helped put Mexican cinema back on international screens after decades in the relative wilderness.