12 Best Portuguese Movies to Watch

A washed-up boxer reflects on his career in one of Portugal's first great documentary-fiction hybrids.

Directed by Fernando Lopes · 1h 12m

A road movie loosely inspired by Nobel laureate Jose Saramago's own travel memoir.

Directed by Sérgio Tréfaut · 1h 15m

A prison guard's routine takes a dark turn when inmates are forced into an underground fighting ring.

Directed by João Salaviza · 0h 15m

A young woman's illness forces her to confront a family she's long kept at a distance.

Directed by Stephanie Zari · 1h 19m

A doctor's letters home from the Portuguese Colonial War reveal a marriage quietly falling apart.

Directed by Ivo M. Ferreira · 1h 45m

A destitute painter drifts through a Lisbon boarding house full of eccentric fellow lodgers.

Directed by João César Monteiro · 2h 02m

A lonely refuse collector's isolation curdles into an increasingly obsessive fixation.

Directed by João Pedro Rodrigues · 1h 27m · Rated NR

An ageing stage actor rebuilds his life after his family dies in a car accident.

Directed by Manoel de Oliveira · 1h 30m

A photographer becomes obsessed with the ghost of a bride he was hired to photograph.

Directed by Manoel de Oliveira · 1h 37m

A colonial-era love affair in Africa is recalled by an old woman's dying neighbour, told in two sharply different halves.

Directed by Miguel Gomes · 2h 00m · Rated NR

A dim-witted star striker sees giant fluffy puppies on the pitch and gets caught up in a bizarre political conspiracy.

Directed by Daniel Schmidt & Gabriel Abrantes · 1h 36m

Three shepherd children in 1917 Portugal claim to see visions of the Virgin Mary that draw national attention.

Directed by Marco Pontecorvo · 1h 53m · Rated PG-13