1990s Brazilian Movies

An emotional journey of a former school teacher, who writes letters for illiterate people, and a young boy, whose mother has just died, as they search for the father he never knew.

Five friends meet for lunch. Nothing could be more mundane, but for some reason, no one stayed for dessert.

He loves soccer. She hates it. Perfect ingredients for a love affair.

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In the darkness of a rural night, a gypsy clan gathers to mourn their beloved patriarch's in a ritual celebrated through music and dance.

Fernando, a journalist, and his friend César join terrorist group MR8 in order to fight Brazilian dictatorial regime during the late sixties. César, however, is wounded and captured during a bank hold up. Fernando then decides to kidnap the American ambassador in Brazil and ask for the release of fifteen political prisoners in exchange for his life.

American couple move to the State of Ceará, Brazil, in the 1930s. The husband is looking for oil. His beautiful wife, Donna, soon falls in love with a rude but charming fisherman. The forbidden romance may destroy her marriage and upset the morals of the small village where they live.

What happens during the commercial breaks in the prime-time slots of our television networks? How many stories are told and repeated year after year? "Novela" is a segment of this sacred hour when the entire country eagerly awaits the scenes from the next episodes.

Nena, a journalist and former student of the Two Hearts dance academy, tries to stop the school from being sold to a group of drug dealers. She trains a group to win the Requebra dance contest that would give them the necessary money to carry their plans.

Martin and Hazel Quarrier are small-town fundamentalist missionaries sent to the jungles of South America to convert the Indians. Their remote mission was previously run by the Catholics, before the natives murdered them all. They are sent by the pompous Leslie Huben, who runs the missionary effort in the area but who seems more concerned about competing with his Catholic 'rivals' than in the Indians themselves. Hazel is terrified of the Indians while Martin is fascinated. Soon American pilot Lewis Moon joins the Indian tribe but is attracted by Leslie's young wife, Andy. Can the interaction of these characters and cultures, and the advancing bulldozers of civilization, avoid disaster?

A Lebanese photographer living in Brazil in the '30s manages to film the band of Lampião, a legendary Brazilian bandit.

Godofredo suffers a terrible blow when he comes back home earlier than usual and finds his wife in the arms of his partner. He sends his wife away to a coast town and dares his rival to a duel. But he begins to miss his wife and the company of his friend.

Elas por Ela reconstituted the history of MPB between 1920 and 1970, from the female perspective, also showing the transformation of the role of women in society over these years. Marília Pêra chose 35 singers to honor and, from 50 songs, put together the script for the show.

Cruel and brave Brazilian outlaw called Corisco, living in the backcountry in the Northeast, an arid region, rapes 12-year-old Dadá, who becomes his woman, following him and his gang. Although they were supposed to fight against social injustice, they terrorized the small villages along their way.

When the inmate Maria do Socorro Nobre reads an article about the Polish artist Franz Krajcberg in Veja magazine, she decides to write a letter to him. Socorro was sentenced to more than twenty-one years in a prison for women in Salvador, Bahia, while Franz is a tormented artist that lost his family and lived his childhood in a ghetto in Poland but survived the Holocaust. Franz moved to Brazil and recovered life wish living close to nature and inspires Socorro to dream with life again.

A woman ready to move away from Brazil is kidnapped by her jealous ex-lover.

The principal character in Helvécio Ratton's delightful film has been adapted from a book and comic created by the Brazilian cartoonist Ziraldo, and tells the tale of a happy-go-lucky 10-year-old child growing up in a city in the 60s.

A poor family, lives in a city near Salvador. The father is cleaner and, mother and daughter help making small services. Until they decide to try the luck in the big city and the father, João, get a job near Pelourinho, next to a dance academy. The daughter, Carla, in contacting music, discovers her true vocation and becomes a very successful dancer. But she does not let himself take away from fame and back to his origins, meets with poor children and teaches them to dance.

During a time of political upheaval in Brazil, two strangers meet by coincidence in a foreign land and end up caught in the middle of a gem smuggling ring.

Two sisters are newly married; Guida to Paulo and Lígia to Décio. They spend their honeymoon in the apartment, a gift from the father of the brides. They will live there. Just a wall separating the intimacy of the two couples. Guida and Paulo are very happy. But on the other side of the wall; Ligia and Decius were never able to consummate their marriage. Decius is impotent and Ligia decides to commit suicide. To avoid the tragedy Guida, asks her own husband Paul to sleep with her sister for one night to help her losing her virginity. But when they continue to see each other, Guida gets jealous.

Jesus Christ returns to planet Earth and is beaten up by the Christian community, which takes great pleasure in showing him christian affection!

This is a remake of Brazil's first international success in the cinema world. Just as its same name predecessor was, this film is a fictional version of the story of the "cangaceiros." These were bandits who sacked towns and spread terror throughout Northeastern Brazil in the 1930s. This group of outlaws is led by Captain Galdino and his wife Maria Bonita.

Is the country of the future where children get pregnant? Is the largest Catholic country in the world where more than thirty thousand women die as a result of abortion? Is the 10th largest economy on the planet where 27% of women are sterilized? VENTRE LIVRE tells the story of Vera, Ivonete, Carmen, Denise, Maria do Carmo, Marlove - people who were born in the country with the most unequal income distribution on the planet. A documentary about reproductive rights in Brazil, while the future is not yet here.

Three stories of infidelity unfold: a man falls for a married woman, a young girl draws the gaze of her sister’s fiancé, and a husband takes his unfaithful wife hostage after discovering her affair with his best friend.

In a morgue, the corpse of a young man that suddenly died on the streets probably due to a heart attack will be examined by the coroner Elizabeth (Letícia Spiller). She questions with her colleague the death of a person so young and handsome, but the brain of the dead man somehow is working and he falls in love for her. Meanwhile, a deranged man invades the morgue and threatens Elizabeth with a gun, with the witness of the dead man, who is immobilized (since he is dead) and unable to help her.

An experimental film made from a series of pictures of Raul Seixas shot by Ivan Cardoso, showing the musician in various stages of his life.

When Cunda, a man living deep in the Brazilian rainforest, is bitten by a snake, he has a hallucination of four chimpanzees. Once he recovers, he is shocked to find the four chimpanzees waiting for him at home, and, believing them to be special, decides to take them to the city in order to sell them.

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On the eve of his return to Europe after an extended involuntary stay in 16th-century Brazil, the German sailor Hans Staden is captured by a hostile cannibal Indian tribe. In order to survive he tries to convince the Indians that he is not Portuguese (their enemies) but a friend of the French (their allies), and that his God would be very angry if they were to eat him.

Peter Mandrake, a North-American photojournalist becomes embroiled in South America's dangerous underworld of pimps, drug gangs and arms smugglers when he sets out to find the killer of a local call girl.

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.

Returning to his homeland after many years away, Juvenal, an agricultural engineer with liberal ideas, finds himself caught up in the social unrest on the island of Madeira that preceded the 1974 revolution, which is condemned by his brother Álvaro, an embroidery manufacturer and staunch conservative. Exposed to the romantic schemes devised by Álvaro, Juvenal vigorously defends the exploited workers and is reunited with Elisabeth, the great love of his youth. Wounded while taking part in a popular demonstration that is violently suppressed by the police, he is sentenced to exile on the island of Sal. Elisabeth decides to accompany him, announcing that she is expecting his child... eternity!

A photo-journalist goes to Brazil to investigate a savage crime boss. She becomes infatuated with the story.

A film on the feud between samba songwriters Noel Rosa and Wilson Batista.

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The delirium of a neurotic advertising executive dissatisfied with life turns into a hallucinatory nightmare.

Story with some autobiographical touches taken from director's life.

A movie about a Brazilian entrepreneur who rivalled American's richest man at his time, well-known Rockfeller. Irineu Evangelista de Souza in 1867 had $155.000 contos de reis, meanwhile the Brazilian Governement annual budget was 97.000 contos de reis. The movie shows his life from poverty to riches and back to poverty again, as is common in Brazil, rich people die poor.

A comedy based on a true story about singer Raul Seixas.

Documentary about the people who came from all over Brazil to work in the construction of the city of Brasilia, their stories, and the abuse and humiliation they suffered in the process.