Best Brazilian history movies

Os Senhores da Guerra (2016)

During the Rio Grande do Sul revolution of 1923, two brothers fight on opposite sides.

Sertânia (2019)

When bandits take the town of Sertânia, Antão gets shot, arrested, and left to die. Bleeding out, Antão's delirious mind begins to recall the events that led up to the incident through a sequence of increasingly unreliable fever dreams.

The Head of Gumercindo Saraiva (2018)

A fiction based on true events, which happened at the end of the Federalist Revolution in 1895, in the south of Brazil. When Gumercindo Saraiva was killed in an ambush and buried at graveyard at some roadside, the legalists discovered it, unburied the body, and cut its head off so it would be taken to the Governor as a war trophy. Major Ramiro de Oliveira and two men were chosen for the unusual task. The film tells the saga of the Capitan Franciso Saraiva, son of Gumercindo, and his team of five riders in the attempt to recover his father's head. The moments of approximation and distancing between the pursued and the pursuers, the confrontation and the conflicts, the duels that happened on both sides until the final encounter, when there are only Ramiro and Francisco left standing; all these events are thoroughly narrated in the film. The lessons learned in the journey blossom at end and both men, due to everything they went through, decide for an honorable outcome for them both.

Road 47 (2014)

During World War II, looking up the Mountain, in Italy, a Brazilian Expeditionary Force - FEB - mines weeping platoon is hit by a panic-attack that sets them running aimlessly right in the middle of 'no man's land'. Desperate cold and hungry, the ill-prepared soldiers have to choose between facing military court or delve deeper into enemy lines. After a tense discussion, they decide to save their faces with the Brazilian Army by tackling a daring military objective: to disarm the most feared minefield in Italy. On their way there, they end meeting two others deserters; a remorseful Italian soldier trying to join the Partigianos and German officer who is just simply tired of war. with unexpected help of their ex-enemy, the soldiers are set to accomplish a mission that so far had been deemed impossible.

The Battle of Canudos (1997)

At the end of the 19th century, a poor family comes to the rural Canudos, a community led by Antônio Conselheiro, seen by many as a holy prophet. Their ways bother the powerful people of the region, and the newly founded Republic sends their army to destroy the settlement, which culminates in one of the bloodiest wars in the history of Brazil.

Dirty Hearts (2012)

In 1945, Japan surrendered to the United States and the Second World War was over. Right? Wrong. For eighty percent of the Japanese community in Brazil, Japan had won the war and defeat was nothing more than American propaganda. The few immigrants that accepted the truth were persecuted. Some were hunted down and assassinated - by their own countrymen - causing the start of a new, private war. Dirty Hearts is a thriller and love story told by the wife of one of the fanatics dedicated to preach Japanese victory. Little by little, she watches her husband, a hard-working immigrant, become an assassin and their love story fade away.

Cafundó (2005)

Cafundó is a 35 mm color film which blends fact with fiction in the life of João de Camargo, a former black slave (1858-1942, Sorocaba, Brazil) who, in his old age, works miracles and devotes himself to assisting others in order to attain his freedom. João de Camargo represents the genesis of religious and cultural syncretism in Brazil.

A Matadeira (1994)

Canudos was a small village in northeastern Brazil, founded by the messianic leader Antônio Conselheiro and massacred by a powerful army until the death of the last of its 30,000 inhabitants, on October 5, 1897. The film tells the story of the Canudos massacre from an English cannon, nicknamed by the backlands people "A Matadeira", which was transported by twenty teams of oxen through the backlands to fire a single shot.

Netto Perde Sua Alma (2002)

The story of a man who invented a country.

Brave New Land (2000)

Diogo is a cartographer and artist who is encharged to set the new frontiers of Portuguese Colonies in South America. When he reaches the center of the continent, finds apparently nothing but wilderness and ‘uncivilized’ natives with strange ways of living. But Captain Pedro, the rude scout who guides him through the jungle, involves Diogo in an involuntary act of violence which will tie him in an unusual way to that far away country. At the same time, the Portuguese colonists are trying to make peace with Guaicuru Indians (one of the few natives with horse-riding abilities). But peace doesn’t ever have a low price.

Guerra do Paraguay (2016)

A soldier coming home after the Paraguay War meets a theater group. A shock between war and art.

Hallelujah Gretchen (1976)

A German family moves to a small town in the interior of the state of Paraná, Brazil, and buys a hotel there, which soon becomes sort of a meeting point for Nazi sympathizers.

A Certain Captain Rodrigo (1971)

A knight, half soldier, half gaudério, dolphinfish hair in the sun, guitar on his back, enters the sleepy town of Santa Fe. Nobody could imagine that this man was also getting into their lives. Singing and drinking was winning the hearts of women and admiration of men. A storyteller of adventures, wars or lies? Based on the book by Erico Verissimo.

Baptism of Blood (2007)

In São Paulo, in the late 1960s, the convent of the Dominican friars became a trench of resistance to the military dictatorship that governs Brazil. Moved by Christian ideals, frets Betto, Oswaldo, Fernando, Ivo and Tito came to support the guerrilla group Ação Libertadora Nacional, commanded by Carlos Marighella.

Naive Cinema (1979)

An essay film on the editing of erotic movies.

Of the Observatory I Saw (2020)

Nigim is an ufologist from the city of Passa Tempo in MG who recorded numerous appearances of et’s from the Planet of Jov. But now, it seems like who is being watched is him.

APOTHEOSIS 85 (2025)

In 1985, a spy risks everything to stop a conspiracy that threatens to prolong the dictatorship in Brazil. While facing the military, she becomes involved in a forbidden romance with the heiress of a megacorp.

The Maias: Story of a Portuguese Family (2014)

The tragedy and comedy in Carlos' life begins, grows and ends like the tragedy and comedy of Portugal. In the company of his close friend, João da Ega, allegedly a brilliant writer, Carlos, with his idle existence as an aristocratic doctor, spends his time to enjoying friends and lovers. Until he falls in love. She is a new character in this revolutionary novel. It's a vertiginous passion that goes beyond that past gloominess to reach a new and darker abyss, incest.

The Dead Queen (2018)

Inspired on the true events of the Portuguese king Don Pedro (14th Century) which unburied his mistress to make her queen after dead. This film tells the story of Pedro, a man admitted to a psychiatric hospital for traveling by car with the corpse of his beloved, recalling simultaneously three different lives: one from the past, another from nowadays and another one from an distopic future.

Desmundo (2002)

The story of Orisbela, a young and religious woman who comes from Portugal to Brazil to marry Francisco de Albuquerque, a rude sugar-cane plantation owner, in 1570.

Resistance (2019)

Brazil, 1961. In the underground of the Piratini Palace, the governor of Rio Grande do Sul, Leonel Brizola, awaits a bombing by the Brazilian armed forces. The country is on the verge of a civil war, following the resignation of president Jânio Quadros and the movement to keep vice-president João Goulart from taking office. Using the radio transmitter from his improvised bunker, Brizola sets up the Legality movement, to ensure Goulart's right to the presidential chair. Caught in the crossfire, two brothers who are in love with the same woman unite to fight alongside Brizola.

A Moreninha (1970)

Carolina gathers some old friends in her house on Paquetá Island, in Rio de Janeiro. She will find, among them, the boyfriend she had during her childhood and with whom she had exchanged vows of eternal love.

Brenda Lee and the Palace of Princesses (2021)

A musical that brings a bit of the history of Brenda Lee, called the "guardian angel of transvestites", activist who founded the first support house for people with HIV/AIDS in Brazil. She has a pension for transvestites who, for the most part, live off prostitution. Despite the reality of violence in which they live, inside the house, the transvestites are welcomed by Brenda, who teaches them to want more out of life.

Tico-Tico no Fubá (1952)

Tico-Tico no Fubá is a 1952 Brazilian comedy film directed by Adolfo Celi and starring Anselmo Duarte. It was entered into the 1952 Cannes Film Festival. The film is a fictionalized biography of Brazilian composer Zequinha de Abreu (1880–1935), who penned the song "Tico-Tico no Fubá" that became an international hit in the 1940s.

Minha Fama de Mau (2019)

An emotional dive into the music and life of Erasmo Carlos, from his years as a young rock-and-roller looking for gigs through his enduring musical partnership with Roberto Carlos.

Meu Nome é Gal (2023)

Film about the Bahian singer dives into the moment when shy Gracinha becomes Gal Costa, during the violent, innovative and mind-blowing years that helped shape Brazil's greatest singer.

Guerra Civil (2024)

All the Dead Ones (2020)

The story of the decline of the Soares family in the final months of the 19th century. Isabel is the dying mother, and her daughters are Maria and Ana. The three women try hard to forget about their pasts in the coffee farm and face the industrial times that start to take over Brazil.

Carlota Joaquina, Princess of Brazil (1995)

The Spanish Infanta Carlota Joaquina is promised to D. João VI at the age of 10. Forced to leave for Portugal, Carlota suffers a great disappointment when she meets her promised prince. With the death of D. José, Carlota Joaquina and D. João VI inherit the Portuguese crown. However, frightened by the French Revolution and the approach of Napoleon's army, they decide to flee to their colony: Brazil.

Heleno (2011)

José Henrique Fonseca crafts an ambitious and long overdue homage to a central icon in Brazil’s 20th century history. Reminiscent of film noir classics, the biopic tells the glorious and tragic story of the legendary football striker Heleno de Freitas. The sumptuous black and white cinematography reflects the chic life of Rio de Janeiro in the 1940s as it fell under the spell of sports royalty. Heleno was no doubt one of the most popular players of his time for his bravura in the field and magnificent goal-scoring that lead the Botafogo team to the top and himself into a vicious downward spiral.