Best South American war movies

On a faraway mountaintop, eight kids with guns watch over a hostage and a conscripted milk cow.

Based upon the true story of Olga Benário, the German-born wife of Brazilian communist leader Luís Carlos Prestes. During the dictatorship of Getúlio Vargas (1930-1945) she was arrested and sent to Nazi Germany, where she was put to death in a concentration camp. After World War II began, Vargas decided to uphold the Allies.

Based on Érico Verissimo's literary trilogy, Time and the Wind follows 150 years of the Terra Cambará family and their opponents, the Amaral family. The struggles between the two families begin in the missions and lasts until the end of the 19th century. The film also features the period of formation of the state of Rio Grande do Sul and the dispute of territory between the Portuguese and Spanish crowns.

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.

Argentine film about the experiences of conscripts in the Malvinas Islands War.

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.

Dreaming of great adventures and of standing up for his homeland, a young Portuguese man enlists in the army during World War I and is sent to the front line in Mozambique, Africa. Left behind by his platoon, he sets out on a grueling trek across the mystic Makua native land, walking for over a thousand kilometers, in search of his dream.

The third movie about a Chinese special force soldier with extraordinary marksmanship.

Buenos Aires, 1880. A journalist interviews Manuel Esteban Corvalán, one of the last living men who crossed the Andes in 1817 with José de San Martín, during the Argentinian and Chilean wars of independence, as one of his secretaries, when he was only 15 years old.

The military anti-terrorist army takes control of "Chuspi", an unknown and faraway small village, isolated by the terrorist group "Sendero Luminoso" (Shining Path). A soldier called Vitin Luna, and other young soldiers face an invisible, perhaps superior force. Their unit is commanded by a brutal lieutenant who declares the entire village guilty of treason. In the face of this crisis, Vitin must choose between blind obedience and his own conscience.

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 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.

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.

Dálvaro José de Oliveira survived the German attack that sank two Brazilian ships in 1942.

A vision of Colombia's inhuman armed conflict, seen through the eyes of a young - and pregnant - girl soldier.

After winning yet another battle, Jorge is decorated as the new captain of the army, and now finds himself faced with his greatest challenge, whether to be faithful to his faith or succumb to the excesses of Emperor Diocletian.

At the dawn of the 19th century, a whole generation of extraordinary men fights to get rid of the Spanish yoke and turn Chile into an independent nation. Among these brave men a legendary figure rose: Manuel Rodríguez. Passionate and brilliant, the lawyer Rodríguez became the attorney of the local authority, deputy, minister for several government departments and supreme director by popular acclaim. However, he wasn't as successful in any of his official positions as he was in his role as a spy and guerrilla commander, leading the resistance against the enemy.

The story of a man who invented a country.

The whimsical and joyous parade of ridiculous events satirize the war that rages in Colombia right now and exposes the real spirit of those who inhabit such a beautiful country.

A story of faith and courage that shows how a humble sheepherder defeated the giant Goliath and transformed himself like twelve tribes of Israel into a great, strong and respected nation.

Based on the life of Simón Bolívar, a Latin American military and political leader who fought against Spanish colonial rule.

The drama tells the story of an Argentine elementary-school teacher sent by the government to a rural hamlet located in the northwestern province of Jujuy. It shows how he touches the lives of the villagers, especially the young and impressionable boy Verónico, whose mother died and father left to seek work when he was an infant. The film is based on a non-fiction book written by Fortunato Ramos, a rural teacher in northwest Argentina, that discusses his teaching experiences.

In 1934, Bolivia is at war with Paraguay. Liborio and Ticona and other Bolivian indigenous soldiers are lost in the hell of the Chaco, under the commandment of German Captain Kundt. They're looking for the Paraguayan enemy that they haven't seen for months, and that they will never find. They leave together in a search that will make them realize, progressively, the destiny they have been pushed into and the inevitable condition of a defeated troop. They're walking like shadows, wandering forever in the middle of dust and silence.

Documentary about the Falklands War, composed of interviews with Argentine soldiers and footage taken on the islands during the conflict. The film constructs a narrative of the conflict, from the landing of Argentine troops to their surrender, highlighting the role played by the Armed Forces in combat.

Héroes: O'Higgins is part of a Chilean television film series produced by Channel 13 that is one of most ambitious projects intended to commemorate historical events that culminated with the Chilean independence.

1943, World War II. The northeastern coast of Brazil is an strategic region for the Allies. Giancarlo, an Italian immigrant married to a Brazilian woman, lives nearby the Parnamirin Field, the largest military base built by the USA outside of their territory. In this new base, Brazilian recruits who speak English suddenly find themselves reaching privileged positions.

This is a film with music. Or about the music and texts that accompany, in a poetic way, a decisive battle between Unitarian and Federalists. The vicissitudes of the birth of a nation based on the play written by Mariano Llinás and Gabriel Chwojnik, whose images achieve some hypnotic strength.

Edipo, is appointed mayor of a town plunged in misery and violence. His first mission is to discover and punish the murderers of Layo, a well-known potentate of the region. His investigation is directed towards all the armed factions that exist in Colombia.

INVASION is a documentary about the collective memory of a country. The invasion of Panama by the U.S in 1989 serves as an excuse to explore how a people remember, transform, and often forget their past in order to re-define their identity and become who they are today.

A history of Argentina's last military dictatorship (1976-1983). After "La Republica Perdida" was made, which covered 1930 to 1976, there was an important part of Argentina's history yet to be told, which was too recent to be covered by the first documentary. The first movie was made at the end of the last dictatorship. This second documentary covers this last dictatorship from 1976 to 1983.

A group of soldiers who naively went to fight in the Falklands War remains forgotten in those desolate lands a month after the end of the conflict.

The story of the irregular forces on the north of Argentina, fighting against the Spanish Crown for the independence.

The Peruvian Andes. Andean shepherdess Margarita finds Lautaro, a dying Chilean soldier who has fled from a battle. She takes him home and nurses him. When he finds this out, her father decides to hide him, putting his family at risk. His only condition is that the soldier must leave when he recovers. Over time and despite the linguistic differences, the shepherdess and the soldier establish an intimate relationship. When he is discovered, the Chilean is taken prisoner but his life is spared as the shepherdess is expecting his child.

A boy and a dog try to survive in the middle of a battlefield.

"O Corneteiro Lopes" is a story of love and courage. The city of Salvador is under siege by Brazilian troops, however, they lose strength in the course of battles. The Portuguese Luiz Lopes, alongside the Brazilian army, contrary to the orders of General Labatut, changes the fortunes of the Battle of Pirajá.

The movie dramatizes the last Indian uprising in Argentina, which happened in the north of the country, in the Chaco region, in the early 1900s.

Based on the lives of four boys, all of different social classes and psychological makeup, this film tries to reflect through them the political history of Argentina during the years leading up to the Malvinas War.

The story is centered on the human drama of three young people from a small town in Traslasierra, Córdoba, who from very different ideological places, are forever transformed by the war in Malvinas Argentinas (Falkland Islands).

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.

Told by gauchos from Brazil, Argentina and Uruguai, the legend says that Anahy de las Missiones wandered around the Plata Basin during the time of Cisplatina War (1825-1828), stealing the dead.

2006, a mysterious mining accident in a remote territory unleashes an unspeakable horror that creates a zombie horde with an appetite for human flesh. It decimates large portions of the country. The only course of action is to rapidly enclose the infected areas and seal them off from the rest of the remaining, living population. NOW. 15 years later the tattered remains of the government and the mining corporation responsible where the initial event took place commit themselves to finding out what may have happened at the mining complex. The solution is to send in a group of mercenaries and scientists into the quarantined zone to find answers.

October 1982: War is waged between Britain and Argentina over the Falkland Islands. A British soldier stumbles upon an Argentinean soldier. They share a few minutes of uneasy respite before national hostilities re-emerge.

Three street mimes pretend to be guerrilla fighters who want to rejoin society thus obtaining permission from the government to go into exile in Spain in exchange for demobilizing...

A detailed account of each of the details of the Malvinas War based on interviews, dramatic scenes, maps and other elements of historical roots without ignoring the historical antecedents from the 18th century that ended in this confrontation.

Revolves around the naval Battle of Iquique between the Peruvian ironclad monitor 'Huáscar' and the Chilean wooden corvette 'Esmeralda'.

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

A turbulent era in Argentine politics is highlighted in this well-wrought drama, set in Buenos Aires at the end of 1945, about Clara (Graciela Borges), a young, half-Jewish woman awakening to the reasons behind the political conflicts of her time and place. Clara's father was a Communist who fought the Nazis in Argentina and possessed a list of the top Nazi exiles and their contacts. Through a former lover, Clara -- a successful broadcast journalist -- begins to see her Jewish roots (and the leftists) in a whole new light. Meanwhile, the political storms sweeping through Argentina are setting the stage for the Peronist government to come.

The legend of the life of Antonio 'Gauchito' Gil and the construction of the myth are axes of this story. 40 years after his death, an old man goes through the towns telling the legend of the pagan saint. He tells the story of his miracles and the exploits of the Gaucho, who knew how to do justice in times of war.

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.

Narrative of a period of life (1926 - 1934) of the Nicaraguan revolutionary leader Sandino, who was known as "The general of free men."

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.

In 1913, in the state of Santa Catarina, Brazil, the Government gives some lands to a foreign railway company, giving rise to revolt by the former owners of the land. The episode became known as Guerra dos Pelados.

Between 1864 and 1870, South America was the scene of the biggest and bloodiest armed conflict of the century, known as the "Paraguay War," or "Big War," for Paraguayans. Mixing reality and fiction, the documentary discusses this "draft" of World War I, which involved Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay, decimating around one million people.

The last actions of the Riojan caudillo Chacho Peñaloza until his death and beheading.

Malvinas, history of betrayals is an Argentine-Mexican co-production documentary film directed by Jorge Denti from a script by Irene Selzer and Alberto Adellach.

Satirical short comprising wartime footage, purporting to be from the Soviet Film Agency and depicting a successful bomb strike on Washington.

While sick in the small town of Saldán, the General José de San Martín remembers his life and achievements

During the English invasions, a merchant forces his daughter to marry a soldier.

Based on Erico Verissimo's masterpiece, O Sobrado follows the Terra-Cambará family during the siege imposed to their house by enemies due to political differences. As the siege goes, the family tensions start to show off.

A war film set during World War II, which delves into the psychology of the inhabitants of a city waiting to be bombed. Described by critics as an "artistic essay" and a "experimental film".

TV Movie based on the life of Antonio José de Sucre, the Gran Mariscal de Ayacucho