Best Portuguese fantasy movies

A disgraced soccer star seeks redemption but is exploited by a variety of causes hoping to capitalize on his celebrity.

On his deathbed, his royal highness Alfredo, King without a crown, is taken back to distant youth memories and the time he dreamt of becoming a fireman. The encounter with instructor Afonso from the fire brigade, opens a new chapter in the life of the two young men devoted to love and desire, and the will to change the status quo.

In a world of darkness and fear, ruled by mercenary's and savages, the search for the ring of INFINITIUM, has led a girl and her friends to a forsaken land, after discovering the secret of the ring, she must reach safety.

The melancholy of the young daughter of a wealthy family and her constant attempts of escaping through complex reveries.

Natália, trapped in a tedious routine, leaves in search of a stolen heart. In a surreal world where hearts are the common currency, she endures several perils, in order to decide if she wants to give her heart up or keep it for herself.

Irene is an agent for an insurance company. She is given the job of investigating the disappearance of an elderly librarian in a provincial town. During her investigations she meets a history teacher - Ricardo - who knew the librarian and is interested in local legends. Irene happens to hear about a very old medieval castle which, according to legend, has a secret entrance that opens mysteriously on Christmas night as the clock strikes twelve.

Follows Dan, a young Venezuelan man currently living in Lisbon, who collects magic mushrooms in the forest and distributes them in the city to those in need of help - like a New Age Robin Hood - using pigeons as carriers.

Francisco, behave! I Know it's your birthday, you are thirty now, it's carnival, you've dressed as a cowboy for the school party and you are surrounded by kids you hate. But that's no reason to be so annoying... Francisco, repeat after me: "Up to your 30s you have the face God has given you. After that, you get the face you deserve".

Inspired by popular cult, O COVEIRO is part light part darkness, a bedtime story and almost a nightmare. A child is born and his parents die of fright just to see him. André Gil Mata revisits the traditional Portuguese tale, in a fantastic movie where heads bounce, but you hear a song.

In a small coastal African village, Jaki lives, in a house full of cousins ruled with an iron fist by grandmother Agnette and haunted by the mysterious figure of Grandmother Catarina. The life of the neighbourhood revolves around the construction of a Mausoleum for a deceased President that threatens to demolish the local residents’ houses. “Granma Nineteen and the Soviet’s Secret” is an adaptation of Ondjaki's novel.

Surreal imagery divided into sections and inspired by Vasco Ayala's own dreams.

In a natural crisis scenario, the entire population of Azores is forced to evict due to an uncontrolled plague of hydrangeas, a common flower in these islands. Two young soldiers, bound to the beauty of the landscape, guide us to the stories of sadness of those forced to leave and the inherent desire to resist by inhabiting the islands. The filmic wandering becomes a nostalgic and political reflection on territorial belonging and identity, and the roles we assume in the places we came from.

At the age of 71, a highly regarded writer, José Cardoso Pires, suffers a major stroke and loses his memory and the ability to relate to the rest of the world. Everybody seems to defy the famous author to write another novel that recounts this adventure telling his "last story", the most conclusive of his career, the one of his accidental journey to the clear shadows territory.

Nine-year-old Paulo stumbles upon a photograph of Miguel, the grandfather he never met, sets out to track him down and eventually meets him, at which point the magic begins.

A short film that reflects the desires and pulses that surround us.

Manô, an obscure and anonymous character from popular comedies of the 1920s, escapes the destruction of an old movie studio, materializing into the real world from a celluloid film. Manô tries to adapt and survive in present-day Lisbon, for which he is unprepared. Mariana, an unemployed photographer, meets Manô and tries to help him discover the reason for his return, despite Marco, a psychologist with little sense of humor, disliking this clumsy black-and-white character.

In the remote village of Pé da Serra in the mountains of Portugal, a monk arrives wielding a demonic sword. Before long, the mystical weapon ends up in the hands of the town drunk António da Luz (who plays himself). Together, the drunkard and the sword will have to learn together to fight the encroaching evil.

This film is the pearl of his pioneer work in Madeira Island and captures the most of his methodology: good stories taking the most of Madeira's natural scenery, and provoking the audience with some ironic and "double-sense" scenes. The film tells the story of an English girl travelling with her father, a botanic, and a guide from madeira in the deep mountains of the island. The girl has some mental disturbs and is always scaring about an attack from the native man, appearing as a half-man/half-monster.

Tiaga tells the story of a poor old woman, played by Isabel de Castro, to whom a good wizard offers the gift of youth to reward the help she provided him. A version of “Faust” seen through the female eye and featuring some unusual moments, such as a shot of a black goat while José Afonso sings, as well as nightmare sequences in which Tiaga is chased by the devil.

The lives of two women intersect.

Parallel tales of young couples desperately escaping cruel false fathers, each couple on the run across different regions of the country and during increasingly contemporary time periods.

A film of a dying world populated by mythic creatures and spirits, our personal meditation on nature and the environment captured on Super 8 film.

A Visigoth count conquers a small village town from the Moors in the Lusitanian mountains, only to loose his possessions through the mysterious workings of a woman from parts unknown.

The adventures of a couple of unruly siblings who, one fine day, decide to go out of their way to school and get involved in fanciful adventures in extraordinary worlds based on traditional Portuguese fables that evoke, for their strangeness and surrealism, Lewis Carrol's Alice in Wonderland.

When the child Manuel wanders into a garden that is off-limits to him, he meets an unidentified fisherman, and another boy -- the boy is actually himself several years down the road. Manuel experiences three different versions of his encounters in the garden, revealing that fate can have several twists and turns in one's life, depending on decisions that are made early on.

Monteiro moved far away from the visual opulence defined by his earlier films with his inspired adaptation of radical Swiss writer Robert Walser’s anti-fairy tale. Carefully restricting the image track, Monteiro maintains an almost totally black screen in order to focus instead on the voices of Snow White, the Prince, the Queen and the Hunter, engaged in an extended debate about love, free will and the events leading up to the fateful attempt on the maiden’s life. Despite its visual austerity, Snow White is haunted by the arresting images with which it begins – infamous black-and-white photographs of Walser lying dead in the snow after his heart attack outside a Swiss asylum at the age of seventy-eight, a strange realization of the “death of the author” so central to postmodern literary criticism.

Manuel bids farewell to his routine and boards a 15th century vessel under pirate law. Treason on board triggers a series of terrible events our protagonist overcomes while keeping his moral principles intact.

The story of a couple who can not get rid of the pain of losing a daughter, until one night that they are confronted with the dark and sinister paths of guilt and penance.

Nova, immersed in metaphors that cross her unconscious, is guided by fate, door to door.

A group of performers – some with, some without disabilities – explore the island of Madeira, where the rich flora and fauna, artificial intelligences and underwater beings all make collective mischief.

Luisa and Manuel begin the existence of married, having only their dream and hope. He judges himself a Tarzan in the jungle of life, able to face all the threats, next to his companion.

A little girl tries to outwit the ghoul chasing her.

Whilst a university student prepares to go to sleep, he finds a spirit already on his bed.

This home video release features two episodes from the Wondrous Myths and Legends series, in which schoolgirl Lisa and her brother Nick accidentally discover the Cavern of Mythos, which allows them to travel into another world where the great myths of history are fact -- and they've become active participants. In "The Mystery of the Loch Ness Monster," Lisa and Nick are transported to Scotland, where they encounter the famous Loch Ness monster and discover he's not the menace they expected. And "The Valor of St. George, the Dragonslayer" finds Nick and Lisa in medieval days, where Nick is believed to be a valiant knight and is sent out to do battle with a ill-tempered, fire-breathing dragon.

In an empty theatre, a woman is watching an American film - "Ma's Sin" - which tells the weird revenge story of a middle-aged wife, driven mad by jealousy and a deep feer of dying. During the screening, the viewer's fantasies embodied in male characters harass her. Thus she will live the double adventure of the projected motion picture and of her own mental film. But as the lights turn on, she leaves the theatre, apparently unaffected.

In 1200, a sacred relic is sought by the Mad Bishop, surrounded by the Knights Templars, he sends them on a mission to recover it, but that won't be so easy to achieve.

A woman wanders through the forest. Scenes of mysticism and fantasy where shadows lurk.

A debate arises between Jesus Christ and a beautiful nun about her nightlife and whether the scriptures address any punishment for her sins.

In the time of King Leonardo, a war and the plague that accompanied it depopulated Traslândia. Ignoring these tragic events, Queen Isménia, Princess Camila and lady-in-waiting Narcisa, coming from a distant kingdom, arrive in Traslândia, when the war approaches the end.

Siren's Song is inspired on a story by Júlio Dinis, in an place populated by characters taken from Greek mythology.

On an isolated Portuguese island, a nameless man makes a mental journey which brings him into contact with the strange and menacing world without peace and harmony.

The secret history of a curse upon an astrologer and esoteric initiate, who was a Portuguese poet and essayist: Fernando Pessoa.