Best Brazilian documentary movies

Faggots, The Documentary (2016)

This documentary is a collection of interviews of homosexual boys who are proud to be labeled queers. They discuss the stigma behind the word and how they reacted to homophobic attacks they've face at some point of their lives.

The Edge of Democracy (2019)

A cautionary tale for these times of democracy in crisis—the personal and political fuse to explore one of the most dramatic periods in Brazilian history. With unprecedented access to Presidents Dilma Rousseff and Lula da Silva, we witness their rise and fall and the tragically polarized nation that remains.

The Salt of the Earth (2014)

During the last forty years, the photographer Sebastião Salgado has been travelling through the continents, in the footsteps of an ever-changing humanity. He has witnessed the major events of our recent history: international conflicts, starvations and exodus… He is now embarking on the discovery of pristine territories, of the wild fauna and flora, of grandiose landscapes: a huge photographic project which is a tribute to the planet's beauty. Salgado's life and work are revealed to us by his son, Juliano, who went with him during his last journeys, and by Wim Wenders, a photographer himself.

Isle of Flowers (1989)

A tomato is planted, harvested and sold at a supermarket, but it rots and ends up in the trash. But it doesn’t end there: Isle of Flowers follows it up until its real end, among animals, trash, women and children. And then the difference between tomatoes, pigs and human beings becomes clear.

Waste Land (2010)

An uplifting feature documentary highlighting the transformative power of art and the beauty of the human spirit. Top-selling contemporary artist Vik Muniz takes us on an emotional journey from Jardim Gramacho, the world's largest landfill on the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro, to the heights of international art stardom. Vik collaborates with the brilliant catadores, pickers of recyclable materials, true Shakespearean characters who live and work in the garbage quoting Machiavelli and showing us how to recycle ourselves.

The Cleaners (2018)

A deep dive into the hidden industry of digital cleaning, which rids the Internet of unwanted violence, porn and political content.

Emicida: AmarElo - It's All for Yesterday (2020)

Between scenes from his concert in São Paulo's oft-inaccessible Theatro Municipal, rapper and activist Emicida celebrates the rich legacy of Black Brazilian culture.

Acústico MTV: Engenheiros do Hawaii (2004)

A Life Too Short: The Isabella Nardoni Case (2023)

When a 5-year-old girl falls from her father's apartment, her mother embarks on a quest for justice — and is put under the national spotlight.

Racionais MC's: From the Streets of São Paulo (2022)

Armed with music and a message, influential hip-hop group Racionais MC's turned their street poetry into a powerful movement in Brazil and beyond.

City of God: 10 Years Later (2013)

City of God – 10 Years Later investigates what happened to the actors who took part in the award-winning film directed by Fernando Meirelles and Katia Lund. This documentary shows what City of God’s worldwide success meant to their lives. Were the actors prepared for the film’s success? Did the social background of some of them prove stronger than the opportunity that came their way?

Pictures of Ghosts (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.

White Out, Black In (2014)

Shots fired inside a club frequented by black Brazilians in the outskirts of Brasilia leave two men wounded. A third man arrives from the future in order to investigate the incident and prove that the fault lies in the repressive society.

Madonna: The Celebration Tour in Rio (2024)

Madonna celebrates her four-decade career in a special concert for over 1.6 million people at the Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro.

Playing (2007)

Following a newspaper ad, ordinary women tell part of their life stories to director Eduardo Coutinho, which are then re-enacted by actresses, blurring the barriers between truth, fiction and interpretation.

The Team (2014)

Documentary about the victorious German national football team - called "Die Mannschaft" - and their journey to the 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil.

Raul: O Início, o Fim e o Meio (2012)

As the world boiled in the rush of Easy Rider bikes, in the frenetic pace of Elvis Presley, in Beatniks poets, in the explosion of counterculture, a boy from Bahia gave birth to Rock in Brazil. A runaway flying saucer that abducted the hearts and minds of thousands of fans, Raul Seixas, a man who became a myth. Raul died young because he lived intensely. Rock n 'roll, free love, alternative society, drugs, black magic, military dictatorship, women and daughters. A man who wanted to live from his work and died for it. The beginning, the end and the middle are confused, because the story is not over. The film reveals through rare images of archive, meeting with relatives, conversations with artists, producers and friends, the trajectory of the legend of Rock.

Twenty Years Later (1984)

Eduardo Coutinho was filming a movie with the same name in the Northeast of Brazil, in 1964, when there came the military coup. He had to interrupt the project, and came back to it in 1981, looking for the same places and people, showing what had ocurred since then, and trying to gather a family whose patriarch, a political leader fighting for rights of country people, had been murdered.

Outcast Rockstar (2021)

The life and career of Brazilian singer Chorão, Charlie Brown Jr's frontman. The story of one of the most important rock stars in Brazil, from testimonies about his personal and professional life and archival footage. Beginning in the early 1990s, when his band released their first album and hit the radio stations, Chorão lived two intense decades of national and international success, full of controversial moments, until his premature death in 2013.

Waiting for the Carnival (2019)

A documentary film about the Brazilian town of Toritama, the self-proclaimed capital of jeans. The workers of the city’s self-managed small businesses only get one real break from their self-exploiting lives in the textile business: the annual Carnival.

Son of a Mother (2022)

This film is for those who really miss Paulo Gustavo! 'SON OF A MOTHER' shows the delightful complicity between the actor and Dona Déa, his inspiration to create Dona Hermínia. With never-before-seen footage, the film follows the funny and exciting backstage of the artist's last tour. Get ready to laugh, cry and remember why Paulo Gustavo is unforgettable.

Master, a Building in Copacabana (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.

Laerte-se (2017)

In this film, Laerte conjugates the body in the feminine, and scrutinizes concepts and prejudices. Not in search of an identity, but in search of un-identities. Laerte creates and sends creatures to face reality in the fictional world of comic strips as a vanguard of the self. And, on the streets, the one who becomes the fiction of a real character. Laerte, of all the bodies, and of none, complicates all binaries. In following Laerte, this documentary chooses to clothe the nudity beyond the skin we inhabit.

The Trial (2018)

The impeachment and removal from office of Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff in 2016 was triggered by a corruption scandal involving, among others, her then vice-president Michel Temer. Director Maria Augusta Ramos follows the trial against Rousseff from the point of view of her defence team. This is a courtroom drama that unfolds slowly: the appearances of the various parties gradually turn the proceedings into something akin to theatre. Inside the courtroom, grand emotions are played to full effect whilst, on the other side of the doors, lobbyists and supporters pace the corridors. Meanwhile, outside, in front of Brasília’s modernist government buildings, demonstrators are chanting like a Greek chorus. Only the main character, Rousseff herself, remains professional and aloof.

Mussum: Um Filme do Cacildis (2019)

The trajectory of musician and comedian Mussum as vocalist of the group "Os Originais do Samba" and later in cinema and TV as a member of "Os Trapalhões", a group that revolutionized the way of making humor on Brazilian television.

The Territory (2022)

The Indigenous Uru-eu-wau-wau people have seen their population dwindle and their culture threatened since coming into contact with non-Native Brazilians. Though promised dominion over their own rainforest territory, they have faced illegal incursions from environmentally destructive logging and mining, and, most recently, land-grabbing invasions spurred on by right-wing politicians like President Jair Bolsonaro. With deforestation escalating as a result, the stakes have become global.

José & Pilar (2010)

A deeply moving story about love, loss and literature, this documentary follows the days of José Saramago, the Nobel-laureate Portuguese novelist, and his wife, Pilar del Río. The film shows their whirlwind life of international travel, his passion for completing his masterpiece "The Elephant's Journey", and how their love quietly sustains them throughout.

Mamonas Forever (2009)

In less than ten months, the music band Mamonas Assassinas went from being completely unknown to becoming one of the biggest phenomena in Brazilian music. Irreverent, intelligent, sarcastic and creative, the band took over Brazil and sold two million albums in just six months. Never-before-seen footage and interviews from family, friends, producers, and musicians tell the band’s story, their challenges, their rise to fame, and the tragic aeroplane accident that killed all its members in 1996.

The Phenomenon (2022)

Featuring contributions from legendary team-mates and opponents, friends and family, this is the definitive story of Ronaldo, encompassing his meteoric rise, his spectacular fall (including one of football’s biggest mysteries) and the World Cup’s greatest ever redemption story.

Vini Jr. (2025)

Vini Jr. has it all: talent, resilience and boldness. Follow his dancing, unpredictable feet on his inspiring journey to becoming a global soccer star.