Brazilian cinema
Items in this hypelist
Movies
The Machine
João Falcão · 2006
In Nordestina, a small town lost in the Brazilian badlands, young Karina dreams of becoming an actress and leaving to explore the world. Before losing his love, Dona Nazaré’s son, Antônio, takes the first step in a kamikaze crusade to bring the world to Karina. For that, Antônio leaves town and announces, in a TV show that he will set off on a sensational adventure: a trip into the future, starting from Nordestina’s square. A story where dreams contradict reality, geographical and political conditions threaten to block life, and love plays the part of the transforming element.
Lisbela and the Prisoner
Guel Arraes · 2003
Lisbela is a young woman who loves going to the movies. Leléu is a con man, going from town to town selling all sort of things and performing as master of ceremonies for some cheesy numbers, such as the woman who gets transformed into a gorilla. He gets involved with Linaura, a sexy and beautiful woman who happens to be the wife of the most frightening hitman of the place. The hitman finds out his wife's affair and goes after Leléu, who has to leave in a hurry. In another town, he meets and falls instantly in love with Lisbela, who is engaged to Douglas, a hillbilly who tries hard to pass for a cosmopolitan Rio de Janeiro dweller.
Carandiru
Héctor Babenco · 2003
When a doctor decides to carry out an AIDS prevention program inside Latin America’s largest prison: the Casa de Detenção de São Paulo - Carandiru, he meets the future victims of one of the darkest days in Brazilian History when the State of São Paulo’s Military Police, with the excuse for law enforcement, shot to death 111 people. Based on real facts and on the book written by Dráuzio Varella.
Praça Paris
Lúcia Murat · 2017
Camila is a Portuguese therapist who works at Rio de Janeiro State University, where she attends Glória, the university's elevator operator. Throughout the sessions, Camila faces a very violent reality, since Glória was raped by her own father as a child and her brother Jonas is a dangerous bandit that is in prison. Increasingly frightened by the reports she hears, she feels threatened at the same time that Glória sees her as essential in her life.
The Rogue's Trial
Flávia Lacerda · 2024
After 20 years missing, João Grilo returns to Taperoá to join his old friend Chicó and, after his story of resurrection spreads, he is disputed as an electoral candidate by the two most powerful politicians in the city.
Mars One
Gabriel Martins · 2022
The Martins family are optimistic dreamers, quietly leading their lives in the margins of a major Brazilian city following the disappointing inauguration of a far-right extremist president. A lower-middle-class Black family, they feel the strain of their new reality as the political dust settles. Tércia, the mother, reinterprets her world after an unexpected encounter leaves her wondering if she’s cursed. Her husband, Wellington, puts all of his hopes into the soccer career of their son, Deivinho, who reluctantly follows his father’s ambitions despite secretly aspiring to study astrophysics and colonize Mars. Meanwhile, their older daughter, Eunice, falls in love with a free-spirited young woman and ponders whether it’s time to leave home.
A Happy Family
José Eduardo Belmonte · 2024
In a happy family perfectly protected in a gated community, a mother is harshly accused of hurting her twin daughters and newborn baby. However, the truth behind the high walls may reveal unexpected cruelty.
Nina
Heitor Dhalia · 2004
After losing her job, an unstable woman sinks further and further into a violent fantasy world.
Amarelo Manga
Cláudio Assis · 2002
The lives of a macho butcher, his wife, a lonely waitress, a sadist and a flophouse manager intersect in Recife, Brazil.
O Ano em Que Meus Pais Saíram de Férias
Cao Hamburger · 2006
A boy is left alone in a Jewish neighborhood in the year of 1970, where both world cup and dictatorship happen in Brazil.
O Palhaço
Selton Mello · 2011
The life of the owners of Circus Esperança, Puro Sangue e Pangaré, father and son, who plays two clowns. At a certain point, Pangaré starts showing tiredness and sadness for being an unhappy clown.
Cinema, Aspirinas e Urubus
Marcelo Gomes · 2005
1942, in the middle of Northeastern Brazil, two very different men meet along the road: Johan, an aspirin salesman avoiding the German draft, and Ranulpho, a rural Brazilian seeking escape from the drought.
Tatuagem
Hilton Lacerda · 2013
Paulete, the star of a daring theater group, is visited by his military brother-in-law, the young Fininha. A torrid relationship arises between the two, and now the soldier must deal with the prevailing repression during the Brazilian military dictatorship.
Praia do Futuro
Karim Aïnouz · 2014
Donato fails in his attempt to save a drowning man, and meets one of the man's friends. He decides to start his life over, but pieces of his past keep coming after him.
Madame Satã
Karim Aïnouz · 2002
A story inspired by the life of one of the most remarkable figures in Brazilian popular culture, João Francisco dos Santos (1900-1976). In turn, bandit, transvestite, street fighter, brothel cook, convict and father to seven adopted children, dos Santos – better known as Madame Satã – was also a notorious gay performer who pushed social boundaries in a volatile time.
Edifício Master
Eduardo Coutinho · 2002
"Master" is the name of a 12-story apartment building in Copacabana, Rio de Janeiro's neighborhood for nightlife. Over the course of four weeks in 2001, Eduardo Coutinho's film crew rented one of the 276 apartments and used it as home base to make a film about the building's residents. We get to know the building manager, who succeeded in turning the troubled residence into a family complex within just a few years. Using interviews and a few stolen moments in the corridors of the building, Coutinho explores this world. Most of the building's residents come from the lower middle class and are just getting by, but that's just about the only thing they have in common - so many people, so many stories, sometimes told in a self-confident tone, sometimes with averted eyes. The fact that a film crew is interested in their stories puzzles some of them. Hope, fear, dreams, memories, love and loneliness all appear from behind the doors of this average apartment building.
A Hora e a Vez de Augusto Matraga
Vinicius Coimbra · 2011
Based on Guimarães Rosa's (classic Brazilian author) short story, the movie tells the story of Augusto Matraga, a bankrupt and violent farmer who lives above the Law in Minas Gerais' hinterland. During a difficult time, he finds himself in the middle of a trap that nearly kills him. Born again, Matraga resorts to faith and hard work in the pursuit of redemption. Years later, he arrives at the village reigned by the hinterland's ruler and his thugs. This new friendship will challenge his destiny. Inside Matraga, the Saint and the Warrior will duel until his time comes.
Hoje Eu Quero Voltar Sozinho
Daniel Ribeiro · 2014
Leonardo is a blind teenager dealing with an overprotective mother while trying to live a more independent life. To the disappointment of his best friend, Giovana, he plans to go on an exchange program abroad. When Gabriel, a new student in town, arrives at their classroom, new feelings blossom in Leonardo making him question his plans.
Marte Um
Gabriel Martins · 2022
The Martins family are optimistic dreamers, quietly leading their lives in the margins of a major Brazilian city following the disappointing inauguration of a far-right extremist president. A lower-middle-class Black family, they feel the strain of their new reality as the political dust settles. Tércia, the mother, reinterprets her world after an unexpected encounter leaves her wondering if she’s cursed. Her husband, Wellington, puts all of his hopes into the soccer career of their son, Deivinho, who reluctantly follows his father’s ambitions despite secretly aspiring to study astrophysics and colonize Mars. Meanwhile, their older daughter, Eunice, falls in love with a free-spirited young woman and ponders whether it’s time to leave home.
Aquarius
Kleber Mendonça Filho · 2016
Clara, a vibrant former music critic and widow with flowing tresses is the only remaining apartment owner in a beautiful older building targeted for demolition by ruthless luxury high-rise developers. Clara proves to be a force to be reckoned with as she thwarts the builders plans to kick her out of the apartment.
Bicho de Sete Cabeças
Laís Bodanzky · 2001
Neto is a middle class teenager living a normal life. After his father finds a marijuana cigarette on his pocket, he is sent to a mental institution, where he gets to know a completely absurd and inhumane reality in which people are devoured by a corrupt and cruel system.
Carandiru
Héctor Babenco · 2003
When a doctor decides to carry out an AIDS prevention program inside Latin America’s largest prison: the Casa de Detenção de São Paulo - Carandiru, he meets the future victims of one of the darkest days in Brazilian History when the State of São Paulo’s Military Police, with the excuse for law enforcement, shot to death 111 people. Based on real facts and on the book written by Dráuzio Varella.
A Marvada Carne
André Klotzel · 1987
Nhô Quim has only one dream in his life: to eat red meat. He meets Carula, a young woman anxious to get married, who promises him that in their wedding her father will kill him an ox. But, before that, Nhô Quim must pass a series of tests.
Babilônia 2000
Eduardo Coutinho · 2001
Documentary on poor people living in a slum in Rio de Janeiro, on the occasion of New Year's Eve of 1999.
Reflexões de um Liquidificador
André Klotzel · 2010
After receiving a patch, a blender suddenly gains consciousness. As it grapples with existential questions, it becomes the sole companion to the grieving wife of a missing man.
Casa de Areia
Andrucha Waddington · 2005
A woman is taken along with her mother in 1910 to a far-away desert by her husband, and after his passing, is forced to spend the next 59 years of her life hopelessly trying to escape it.
Ó Paí, Ó
Monique Gardenberg · 2007
Acompanhe a vida dos moradores de um animado cortiço do Pelourinho, o coração de Salvador, no ultimo dia de Carnaval. Entre a falta de dinheiro e o desejo de se divertir, tipos curiosos sobrevivem à custa de muita criatividade, ironia, sensualidade e música.
O Que é Isso, Companheiro?
Bruno Barreto · 1997
Fernando, a journalist, and his friend César join terrorist group MR8 in order to fight Brazilian dictatorial regime during the late sixties. César, however, is wounded and captured during a bank hold up. Fernando then decides to kidnap the American ambassador in Brazil and ask for the release of fifteen political prisoners in exchange for his life.
Retratos Fantasmas
Kleber Mendonça Filho · 2023
Downtown Recife’s classic movie palaces from the 20th century are mostly gone. That city area is now an archaeological site of sorts that reveals aspects of life in society which have been lost. And that’s just part of the story.
Levante
Lillah Halla · 2023
On the eve of a future-defining championship, promising volleyball player Sofia (17) is faced with an unwanted pregnancy. Seeking an illegal termination, she becomes the target of a fundamentalist group determined to stop her at any cost – but neither Sofia nor those who love her are willing to surrender to the blind fervor of the swarm.
Malu
Pedro Freire · 2024
Malu — a mercurial, unemployed actress living with her conservative mother in a precarious house in a Rio de Janeiro slum — tries to deal with her strained relationship with her own adult daughter while surviving on memories of her glorious artistic past.
Motel Destino
Karim Aïnouz · 2024
Dayana lives an abusive marriage with former police officer Elias, owner of Motel Destino. When 21-year-old Heraldo finds himself at the motel after messing up a hit and going on the run, Dayana finds herself intrigued and lets him stay. As the two navigate a dance of power and desire, a dangerous plan for freedom emerges.
A Vida Invisível
Karim Aïnouz · 2019
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 1950. In the conservative home of the Gusmão family, Eurídice and Guida are two inseparable sisters who support each other. While Guida can share with her younger sister the details of her romantic adventures, Eurídice finds in her older sister the encouragement she needs to pursue her dream of becoming a professional pianist.
O Som ao Redor
Kleber Mendonça Filho · 2012
An independent private security firm arrives at a middle-class neighborhood in Recife, Brazil.
Cidade de Deus
Fernando Meirelles · 2002
In the poverty-stricken favelas of Rio de Janeiro in the 1970s, two young men choose different paths. Rocket is a budding photographer who documents the increasing drug-related violence of his neighborhood, while José “Zé” Pequeno is an ambitious drug dealer diving into a dangerous life of crime.
Pedágio
Carolina Markowicz · 2023
Suellen is a toll booth attendant who starts using her job to help a gang of thieves steal watches from people driving to the coast. But only for a noble cause: to send her son to an expensive gay conversion workshop.
Carvão
Carolina Markowicz · 2022
In the Brazilian countryside, a family straining to care for their bedridden patriarch have their lives changed when a shady nurse offers a diabolical deal: put their elder to rest and host an Argentinian drug kingpin who urgently needs a place to hide.
Estômago
Marcos Jorge · 2007
In a dog-eat-dog world, Raimundo Nonato has found an alternative way to move ahead: he cooks. No matter what social strata this deceptively innocent young man inhabits, he hones his skills and sharpens his knives—and then he falls in love. Jorge's nimble comic fable provides a smartly constructed gastronomic allegory for ambition and survival.
O Cheiro do Ralo
Heitor Dhalia · 2006
A pawn shop proprietor buys used goods from desperate locals – as much to play perverse power games as for his own livelihood, but when the perfect rump and a backed-up toilet enter his life, he loses all control.
Lisbela e o Prisioneiro
Guel Arraes · 2003
Lisbela is a young woman who loves going to the movies. Leléu is a con man, going from town to town selling all sort of things and performing as master of ceremonies for some cheesy numbers, such as the woman who gets transformed into a gorilla. He gets involved with Linaura, a sexy and beautiful woman who happens to be the wife of the most frightening hitman of the place. The hitman finds out his wife's affair and goes after Leléu, who has to leave in a hurry. In another town, he meets and falls instantly in love with Lisbela, who is engaged to Douglas, a hillbilly who tries hard to pass for a cosmopolitan Rio de Janeiro dweller.
O Auto da Compadecida
Guel Arraes · 2000
The lively João Grilo and the sly Chicó are poor guys living in the hinterland who cheat a bunch of people in a small town in Northeastern Brazil. When they die, they have to be judged by Christ, the Devil and the Virgin Mary before they are admitted to paradise.
Tapete Vermelho
Luiz Alberto Pereira · 2005
Quinzinho has a promise to keep: to take his son, Neco, to the city to watch a Mazzaropi movie. They live in a small farm in São Paulo. In this odyssey through the towns of São Paulo, he also takes his wife Zulmira, who goes unwillingly, and their donkey Policarpo. On their journey, they find regional peculiarities and undergo magical situations related to popular belief.
Central do Brasil
Walter Salles · 1998
An emotional journey of a former school teacher, who writes letters for illiterate people, and a young boy, whose mother has just died, as they search for the father he never knew.
Bom Dia, Verônica
Raphael Montes · 2020
Uma policial investiga um predador sexual e acaba descobrindo um casal com um segredo horrível e um esquema de corrupção sinistro.
Os Outros
Lucas Paraizo · 2023
Dois casais vizinhos entram em choque após a briga de seus filhos, com consequências absurdas. Uma série atual sobre até onde a falta de diálogo pode levar as pessoas.
O Céu de Suely
Karim Aïnouz · 2006
In northern Brazil, Hermila patiently waits for her husband. However, he has abandoned her. Sexy, restless and resolute, she raffles off "a night in paradise" with herself. This beautifully-shot portrait doesn't shy away from the burdens of a young scarred woman, but it also celebrates her courage to live according to her own rules.
Terra Estrangeira
Walter Salles · 1996
During a time of political upheaval in Brazil, two strangers meet by coincidence in a foreign land and end up caught in the middle of a gem smuggling ring.
Fim
Fernanda Torres · 2023
Um grupo de amigos que não acredita que a vida se limita a encontrar o amor e ser feliz para sempre. Uma história sobre a vida, vista pelos olhos de quem acaba de deixá-la.
Bacurau
Kleber Mendonça Filho · 2019
Bacurau, a small town in the Brazilian sertão, mourns the loss of its matriarch, Carmelita, who lived to be 94. Days later, its inhabitants notice that their community has vanished from most maps.
O Lobo Atrás da Porta
Fernando Coimbra · 2013
Based on real events, and set in Rio de Janeiro, A Wolf at the Door is the nerve-rattling tale of a kidnapped child and the terror of the parents left behind. When Sylvia discovers her six-year-old daughter has been picked up at school by an unknown woman, police summon her husband, Bernardo, to the station for questioning. From that point on, the film takes increasingly sinister turns as it delves into the events that led to the girl’s kidnapping. With plot twists that will keep the audience on the edge of their seats, A Wolf at the Door is a darkly disturbing journey into the extreme limits of the human capacity for obsession and revenge.
Que Horas Ela Volta?
Anna Muylaert · 2015
After leaving her daughter Jessica in a small town in Pernambuco to be raised by relatives, Val spends the next 13 years working as a nanny to Fabinho in São Paulo. She has financial stability but has to live with the guilt of having not raised Jessica herself. As Fabinho’s university entrance exams approach, Jessica reappears in her life and seems to want to give her mother a second chance. However, Jessica has not been raised to be a servant and her very existence will turn Val’s routine on its head. With precision and humour, the subtle and powerful forces that keep rigid class structures in place and how the youth may just be the ones to shake it all up.
Ainda Estou Aqui
Walter Salles · 2024
In the early 1970s, the military dictatorship in Brazil reaches its height. The Paiva family - Rubens, Eunice, and their five children - live in a beachside house in Rio, open to all their friends. One day, Rubens is taken for questioning and does not return.
Durval Discos
Anna Muylaert · 2002
Durval and his mother Carmita live at the back of "Durval Discos", a record store they own in São Paulo, specializing in vinyl records. They lead a boring and unattractive life, until the day Durval hires a maid, Celia, to help his mother with the housekeeping. However, on her second day, Celia goes away leaving a 5-year-old child behind, Kiki, and a note promising to be back in a couple of days. Durval and Celia are charmed by the child at first, but soon they see some sad news about Celia and Kiki on TV that will change the whole situation.
Terra e Luz
Renné França · 2017
In a future not so distant, humanity has almost been extinguished by vampires. The dark of night is deadly and, while trying to survive it, a man finds a chance to redeem himself.
As Boas Maneiras
Juliana Rojas · 2017
Clara, a lonely nurse from the outskirts of São Paulo, is hired by mysterious and wealthy Ana as the nanny for her unborn child. The two women develop a strong bond, but soon Clara discovers a terrifying secret about the child.
O Animal Cordial
Gabriela Amaral Almeida · 2018
A restaurant owner going over the edge when an armed robbery is attempted at his establishment. He holds everyone captive at gunpoint – criminals and customers alike – and situations corrode into a nightmare state, guided by manipulation and raw compulsion.
