Best Portuguese thriller movies

Get ready to binge. We've found a collection of must-watch thriller films from Portugal, now streaming on Netflix, HBO, Hulu, Prime Video, and other top services!

  • Poster for Night Train to Lisbon

    Night Train to Lisbon 2013

    Raimund Gregorius, having saved a beautiful Portuguese woman from leaping to her death, stumbles upon a mesmerizing book by a Portuguese author, which compels him to suddenly abandon the boring life he has led for years and to embark on an enthralling adventure. In search of the author, Gregorius acts as detective, pulling together pieces of a puzzle that involves political and emotional intrigue and the highest possible stakes. His voyage is one that transcends time and space, delving into the realms of history, medicine and love, all in search of true meaning to his life.

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  • Poster for State of Emergency

    State of Emergency 2012

    Chaos consumes a small town when a chemical facility explodes releasing a deadly toxin. Moments after the leak, the town's residents show signs of mutation, causing the military to quarantine the area leaving any survivors helpless and trapped inside. The story follows Jim, a young man isolated within the red zone, as he eludes flesh eating zombies in an attempt to win back his freedom.

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  • Poster for Adrift

    Adrift 2017

    When a group of friends fail to lower the ladder of their boat, they find themselves stranded in the surrounding waters and struggle to survive.

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  • Poster for Call Girl

    Call Girl 2007

    A powerful entrepreneur wants to build an exclusive resort hotel in Villanova, but he discovers the location he has in mind is protected by local land-use regulations. He hires Maria, a beautiful and elegant prostitute, to seduce the mayor, leaving him open to blackmail if he won't give the entrepreneur what he wants. Maria has no trouble twisting Meireles around her finger, but police detectives Madeira and Neves get wind of the plan and set out to expose the plot...

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  • Poster for Bad Investigate

    Bad Investigate 2018

    Romeu, a corrupt cop, hires the services of Cid and Alex, to catch a notorious criminal, who left Mexico and is on his way to Galicia, Spain to find the killer of his brother, also trying to catch the same criminal is an FBI agent.

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  • The Call 2015

    Seven years ago a young man murdered his parents, was sent to a mental institute after his departure from it, he returns to his life surrounded by crime, with an insatiable desire for revenge.

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  • Poster for The Last Time I Saw Macao

    The Last Time I Saw Macao 2012

    A filmmaker returns to Macao, China, to help a friend who is in trouble.

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  • Poster for A Instalação do Medo

    A Instalação do Medo 2016

    The Woman opens the front door. Two men greet her by saying "Good morning my lady, we came to install the fear.".

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  • Poster for Quarta Divisão

    Quarta Divisão 2013

    The film tells the story of Martin, a child of nine years, who one day disappears from private school where he studied. Police mounted a major search operation across the city to find him. All hypotheses are possible: What happened?

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  • Poster for My Engine's Fragile Sound

    My Engine's Fragile Sound 2012

    Gabi, a burn unit nurse, is in charge of the mother of an unborn child, burned and comatose from a serial killer assault. The cop handling the case, a friend of Gabi, asks for her help to identify the serial-killer if she wakes up.

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  • Poster for Trial

    Trial 2007

    In 1970, a man is tortured and murdered by the regime's secret police. Now nearly 40 years later, his friend, who had also been tortured, recognizes the man he deems responsible for the murder of his friend. Along with three old friends and the victim's daughter, they kidnap the man and take him to an isolated house. Once there, the concepts of justice and revenge begin to mix dangerously in a private trial with irreversible consequences.

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  • Poster for Paterno

    Paterno 2025

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  • Poster for Uma Vida Sublime

    Uma Vida Sublime 2018

    Dr. Ivan has found two radical cures for unhappiness: the diagnosis of fake terminal cancers and the temporary elimination of some of the 5 senses. But will the therapies result or will they have unforeseeable side effects?

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  • Poster for Low-Flying Aircraft

    Low-Flying Aircraft 2002

    Based on a the short story "Low Flying Aircraft" by J.G. Ballard and set in a near future where humans are dying breed. Judite and André flee to a semi-abandoned apartment complex to protect their mutant child from certain death.

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  • Poster for Operation Autumn

    Operation Autumn 2012

    A film about General Humberto Delgado's brutal assassination by the Portuguese fascist police in 1965.

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  • Poster for Cândido

    Cândido 2024

    A national coach working in Lisbon during World War II also acted as a spy for the Allies, leading a risky double life

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  • Poster for Gypsy

    Gypsy 2013

    Sebastian is a wealthy young man. He finds out he has a flat tire and ends up accepting help from a Gypsy passer by. In return Sebastian will have to give him a ride home - but they won't reach their expected destination.

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  • Lux Aeterna 2019

    It is not possible to escape the feeling of isolation that an indifferent and busy city causes in a person. This short follows the day in the life of a girl constantly trying to escape this feeling, eventually getting lost in the complexity of her own subconscious.

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  • Poster for O Intruso

    O Intruso 2024

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  • Poster for The Man with the Crooked Eyes

    The Man with the Crooked Eyes 1918

    The Man with the Crooked Eyes is a unfinished 1918 Portuguese silent film made for Lusitânia Film and directed by José Leitão de Barros, starring Filipe Melo. This was restored and edited together in 2007 using all existing raw footage.

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  • Poster for The Drunk

    The Drunk 2024

    Contemplating the failure of his life, Rogério drinks until losing control of his actions and involves himself in a bar brawl. His alcoholic drift takes him to the city port, where he falls asleep while watching passing ships. When a young woman appears in the night, seemingly running from something, Rogério offers to help and enters a nightmare he never imagined it could become his.

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  • Death Bed Game 2022

    A man awakens in a room, in a strange bed, when he tries to get out, he can't, because there's traps everywhere, if he leaves the bed, he dies, now he must find a way to escape this nightmare.

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  • Poster for O Pio dos Mochos

    O Pio dos Mochos 2023

    Miranda do Corvo, 1933. Tomé, a young worker haunted by guilt over his betrayal, is chosen by his colleagues for an important mission in the union's struggle against the Estado Novo. Faced with this moral challenge, he confronts not only the real dangers of police repression, but also his own demons.

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  • Poster for Before We Squeak

    Before We Squeak 2025

    A strange golden insect crawls into a bedroom on a stifling summer night. As it invades the sleeping body, the walls begin to shift and pulse — and the nightmare begins.

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  • Poster for O Táxi Nº 9297

    O Táxi Nº 9297 1927

    The story of this film is based on actual facts, the murder of actress Maria Alves, and the investigation that ensued, covered by Reinaldo Ferreira himself. Ferreira also wrote a novel based on the same facts.

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  • Poster for 88

    88 2002

    A 14-year-old kid, addicted to videogames, goes with his parents to a shopping mall and separates from them to go to a game store called UTOPYA. He doesn't come back. His parents get in despair, and his father tries everything he can to bring him back.

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  • Poster for When the Earth Bleeds

    When the Earth Bleeds 2022

    And only the Man remains immune. Consumed by desperation, in an attempt to save the Woman and protect his Son, the Man goes looking for help and travels through the village where nothing is as it seems. During a surreal and hallucinating night, the Man, haunted by memories of another life, begins to lose track of reality.

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  • Poster for Portugal S.A.

    Portugal S.A. 2004

    The story of the CEO of a recently privatized company.

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  • Poster for Cronos - A Relíquia do Tempo

    Cronos - A Relíquia do Tempo 2021

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  • Poster for Fado

    Fado 2016

    The mysteriously familiar face of a deceased young woman shakes young surgeon Fabian out of his lethargy. On a whim, he leaves Berlin for Portugal, determined to win back his former girlfriend Doro, who works at an architectural company in Lisbon.

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  • Poster for Inversão

    Inversão 2011

    On a day in January, working on a documentary, listening to people's accounts, I realized that the world was upside down and nobody had noticed that. Several social values had changed, a daughter who kills her father, another father who kills his child, an absent mother without a place, violence and the strange feeling that all that is bad comes from the lower classes and the politicians. Nobody noticed that the bad comes from the inside ... inside us, what was not achieved or no longer brings pleasure, everything comes to light in a selfish attitude to be fine! Nobody is so good or so bad.

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  • Poster for O Efeito Isaías

    O Efeito Isaías 2015

    Isaías never heard about quantum mechanics or parallel universes. One night his reality perception will be irredeemably changed.

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  • Poster for Mustang

    Mustang 2000

    Two sons dream of the return of their father who left fifteen years earlier, and all this time without any sign of life...

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  • END 2013

    When is one life more valuable then another? A boy (Fabio Santos) and a girl (Cristina Gomes) will have to discover the answer in a few seconds, but ... Not everything is what it seems! A story of Tony Simoes with the directing of Eduardo Rodrigues, comes END, the new short film from the duo!

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  • Poster for Monsanto

    Monsanto 2000

    Rui Sequeira, a former fighter in the Colonial War, resident of a small village of Alentejo, celebrates another anniversary of the Carnation Revolution in the company of his wife and her daughter, the young Sara, with which he has a not so good relationship. On the night of the celebrations, the death of a friend forever alters his live, waking up a whole past long dormant.

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  • Poster for Mariphasa

    Mariphasa 2017

    Paulo works as night security in a deactivated industrial complex. He lost his daughter in dramatic circumstances, and no regrets would console him. He sleeps at Luisa's house and witnesses the repeated transgressions of an unstable neighbour. Everything threatens to crack.

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  • Poster for Selfwatch

    Selfwatch 2020

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  • Poster for A Prisão

    A Prisão 2025

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  • Poster for Boca de Ouro

    Boca de Ouro 1999

    Boca de Ouro was born in a back room of a dance hall, and his first crib was a bathroom sink where his mother left him. The boy grows up and becomes a feared and respected bookie—an almost mythological figure in the community where he lives. Fascinated by the story of the recently deceased criminal, journalist Caveirinha seeks out the criminal's ex-lover, D. Guigui, to gather material for an article. Her accounts of Boca reflect her emotional state.

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  • Poster for Land of Storms

    Land of Storms 1997

    Lena disappears mysteriously during the winter of 1976. This is the last stop on a journey that begins in colonial Mozambique on new year's eve at 1957 gives way to 1958. Ningo, a black boy brought up by Lena's parents, and her childhood friend, comes to Lisbon to help find her, at the request of Lena's mother. Using the letters that Lena has left behind as a testament to her life, in wich she has rebelled against the challenged the powers that be, Ningo discovers the identity of her kidnapper - Jorge Matos - a former secret policeman who has followed her from Lourenço Marques, motivated by morbid desire. Lena's kidnapper dies from two inexplicable snake bites to the neck, in accordance with a legend and ritual that had been part of Lena and Ningo's childhood.

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  • Poster for A Known Woman

    A Known Woman 2025

    Follows Patricia paying a surprise visit to Marc, who lives alone in his remote Douro villa.

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  • Poster for Light Traps

    Light Traps 1993

    Mário was involved in a terrorist attack in Africa. Everyone thinks it was an accident but Mário knows it wasn’t. Now, hiden in Alentejo, he knows that sooner or later " they" will find him, yet he does not want to flee with a new identity until he finds his lover Alice. "They" find him and he has to escape with the help of Matilde. A fascinating woman who will now give him shelter and pretends to help him find Alice. Time is running out for Mário and Alice.

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  • Poster for Seven Bullets for Selma

    Seven Bullets for Selma 1967

    World peace is at stake if a spy-ring obtains the electronic device

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  • Poster for Kassandra

    Kassandra 2013

    For women, this is happening all over the world, every single day. This is their horror story.

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  • Poster for A Shot in the Dark

    A Shot in the Dark 2005

    A baby is kidnapped in a Brazilian airport. Years later, the mother lives in Lisbon and works in a strip-tease bar so she can survive. When she is fired, she joins a gang of bank robbers...

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