Best movies like Pra Frente, Brasil
Last updated March 2024
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Plot Summary:
The film is set on mid-1970, when the military regime's "economic miracle" and the victory of the Brazilian national football team on the FIFA World Cup serves as a distraction for the persecution of opposition leaders by the political police of the dictatorship. Under this context, Jofre Godoi da Fonseca, an alienated middle class man, is mistaken for Sarmento, a political activist he met at an airport prior to his assassination. He is then arrested and brutally tortured by a paramilitary group of vigilantes sponsored by influential businessmen to hunt down people deemed "subversive" by the regime.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 514
Genere: Crime, Drama
Country: Brazil
Duration: 105 min
Plot tags: political
Best tv shows and movies like Pra Frente, Brasil (1982):
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Marighella (2019)
Plot Summary:
Afro-Brazilian poet and politician, the legendary Carlos Marighella. Driven to fight against the erosion of civil and human rights following the CIA-backed military coup of 1964 and the brutal, racist right-wing dictatorship that followed, the revolutionary leaves behind his wife and son to take up arms, becoming a notorious enemy to the power structure.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 56000
Genere: Action, Drama, History, Thriller
Country: Brazil
Duration: 155 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 75%
Playing in the Dark (2004)
Plot Summary:
A revolutionary, fighting against dictatorship in Brazil, is wounded in a gun-fight with the police, and is isolated in another man's apartment, where he meets a young woman who will change his life.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 276
Genere: Drama
Country: Brazil
Duration: 107 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 86%
The Penal Colony (1970)
Plot Summary:
A foreign journalist arrives on a small Pacific island 200 miles off the coast of South America. Once a leper colony, the island was later transformed into a prison and then, under U.N. mandate, made into an independent republic. Yet despite democratic structures, the inhabitants--who speak a strange dialect composed of Spanish and English--still obey the old prison rules. After sending back detailed accounts of the torture and repression seen everywhere, the journalist realizes that she"s fallen into the trap created for her by the islanders: lacking natural resources, the island"s main export is news. The clearest anticipation of Ruiz"s later European work, The Penal Colony is a powerful document of the tensions and contradictions in Chile in the months before Allende"s electoral victory.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 70
Genere: Drama
Country: Chile
Duration: 75 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 84%
The Man That Was Turned Into Juice (1980)
Plot Summary:
Deraldo, a popular poet from Northeast Brazil, arrives in the capital of São Paulo, making a living only from his poetry and pamphlets. All is well until he is mistaken for a multinational worker who killed the boss at a party where he received the title of symbolic worker.
IMDB Rating: 7.6
IMDB Votes: 387
Genere: Drama
Country: Brazil
Duration: 97 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 84%
The Isle of Forbidden Pleasures (1979)
Plot Summary:
There's the continent ruled by a repressive government and there's an island where political activists of the continent take refuge on running away from the continent's police. This island is their last stand – there they live in a way not possible in the continent – free love, no possessions, brotherhood… In the continent, a killer is sent to the island to kill the revolutionary leaders. The killer is a woman , Ana (Neide Ribeiro). She will go there as a journalist sent there to interview the leaders of the movement. On arriving to the island, she will find out that things were much different from what she expected. Will Ana be involved by the "island of forbidden pleasures." Will she fulfill her mission?.
IMDB Rating: 5.2
IMDB Votes: 161
Genere: Adventure, Crime, Drama, Mystery
Country: Brazil
Duration: 96 min
Plot tags: sex comedy
Similar in 77%
Kidnap Capital (2015)
Plot Summary:
Imagine leaving everything you have, everyone you know, everyone you love, behind. Having to cross half a continent on foot, atop freight trains, inside truck trailers. Swimming across wild rivers. Crossing borders illegally. Walking across the Arizona desert. Being shot at, robbed and beaten. Raped. Surviving it all. Crossing into the USA, after life in the poorest parts of Central America. Succeeding. Now. In the “promised” land, you don’t belong, legally; or socially. You don’t understand the language. No one knows you arrived, no one knows you exist. Imagine…. being Nobody. Then imagine a bag being shoved over your head. Getting your clothes stripped from you. Getting tossed in a closed room with a dozen others. A loaded gun is pointed at your head. You are forced to call back home and beg for money, a ransom for your life.
IMDB Rating: 6.0
IMDB Votes: 682
Genere: Crime, Drama
Country: Canada
Duration: 93 min
Plot tags:
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Night of the Pencils (1986)
Plot Summary:
The Night of the Pencils was a series of kidnappings and forced disappearances, followed by the torture, rape, and murder of a number of young students during the last Argentine dictatorship (known as the National Reorganization Process). The kidnappings took place over the course of several days beginning on September 16, 1976.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Crime, Drama, History, Thriller, War
Country: Argentina
Duration: 105 min
Plot tags: political, disturbing, manga, mindfuck
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Baptism of Blood (2006)
Plot Summary:
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.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 741
Genere: Drama, History
Country: Brazil
Duration: 110 min
Plot tags:
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The Unscrupulous Ones (1962)
Plot Summary:
This film captures the criminal behavior of two young Copacabana thugs (the "cafajestes"). The two plan a blackmail coup against a rich old man, using nude pictures of a lady on a deserted beach. But things don't always happen as planned.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 541
Genere: Crime, Drama
Country: Brazil
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: tense, sexy, serious, realistic, sexual
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Veronica (2008)
Plot Summary:
A teacher takes a student to his house in the slum, but on arrival discovered that drug traffickers killed his parents and now are at your demand.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 415
Genere: Crime, Drama
Country: Brazil
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 78%
Prime Time Soap (2011)
Plot Summary:
In Brazil, in 1978, under the dictatorship, the country lives the euphoria of disco fever and the fantasy life of Dancin' Days, a prime time soap. After a fatal incident, Amanda, a high-class prostitute addicted to TV, and her maid Dora, are forced to flee São Paulo to Rio. While Amanda dreams of visiting the Dancin' Days disco, Dora prepares to confront her secret past. Their destinies will eventually intersect with those of João Paulo, a diplomat who feels like a foreigner in his own country, the revolutionary Vicente and his brother Pedro, and the teenager Caio, raised by his grandparents and relying on the support of his friend Mônica as he struggles to be accepted as a gay man. Both youngsters are crazy about disco fever and fascinated by the soap Dancin' Days.
IMDB Rating: 6.1
IMDB Votes: 149
Genere: Drama
Country: Brazil
Duration: 105 min
Plot tags: soap opera
Similar in 83%
Night Over Chile (1977)
Plot Summary:
A Soviet docudrama chronicling the events surrounding the military coup which toppled the leftists Chilean government of Salvador Allende. This film confines its efforts to the main events themselves and is based on interviews with eyewitnesses, including many who resisted the takeover.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 81
Genere: Drama
Country: Soviet Union
Duration: 97 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 86%
Midnight (1998)
Plot Summary:
On December 31st 1999, destiny brings a fugitive prisoner and a depressed middle class teacher together, as the new millennium approaches bringing hope to everyone.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 766
Genere: Crime, Drama
Country: France, Brazil
Duration: 75 min
Plot tags: serious, realistic
Similar in 88%
Bossa Nova (2000)
Plot Summary:
Bossa Nova is a romantic comedy that enfolds many love convergences and divergences, in today’s Rio de Janeiro. It’s in the city’s “useless landscape” that the lonely hearts of nine characters will cross destinies and they’ll discover new passions. The meeting place for these journeys is a charming English teacher, Mary Ann Simpson, former airline stewardess, who’s been living in Rio for two years, since she became a widow, and the newly separated Pedro Paulo. They approach each other without a hint that their lives will be linked by many characters and incidents.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Comedy, Romance, Drama
Country: Brazil, USA
Duration: 95 min
Plot tags: touching, romantic, feel good, humorous, realistic, semi serious, fairy tale, funny, light, sexy
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They Don't Wear Black Tie (1981)
Plot Summary:
Otavio is an idealistic union leader trying to organize workers at a factory to resist the company's exploitative practices. His son, Tião, one of the employees, is more of a realist and doesn't want to risk losing his job by striking. This clash of perspectives puts the father and son at odds. Fortunately, Tião's mother, Romana, is on hand to act as a moderator between the two opinionated men.
IMDB Rating: 8.2
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: Brazil
Duration: 120 min
Plot tags: political, thought provoking, bleak, serious, realistic
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Captive (2003)
Plot Summary:
Cristina's life is thrown into turmoil when she is suddenly escorted from her strict Catholic school in Buenos Aires and told that she is really Sofía Lombardi, the daughter of activists who disappeared in the '70s. Questioning everything she once thought true, Cristina embarks on a journey to find her true identity. Meeting others like herself, the young girl soon discovers the real-life horrors of Argentina's relatively recent past and the nightmare that claimed tens of thousands of lives during the country's "dirty war.".
IMDB Rating: 7.5
IMDB Votes: 719
Genere: Drama
Country: Argentina
Duration: 115 min
Plot tags: serious, emotional, realistic, suspenseful, political, bleak
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Garage Olimpo (1999)
Plot Summary:
A beautiful Argentine activist receives preferential treatment from a man supposed to torture her.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama
Country: Italy, Argentina, France
Duration: 98 min
Plot tags: political, mindfuck, psychological, thought provoking, serious, realistic, disturbing
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Assault on the Pay Train (1962)
Plot Summary:
Film about the true events in Rio de Janeiro, in 1960, when a gang having the infamous outlaw Tião Medonho as a leader performed a sensational railroad hold-up on a train carrying a small fortune.
IMDB Rating: 7.9
IMDB Votes: 831
Genere: Crime, Drama
Country: Brazil
Duration: 102 min
Plot tags: tense, rough, serious, realistic, suspenseful
Similar in 81%
Chronically Unfeasible (2000)
Plot Summary:
Filmed over a five-year period, Chronically Unfeasible dissects Brazilian problems, using six people who meet in a restaurant in São Paulo as models to illustrate political, sociological and economic disparities between Brazil's upper and lower classes.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 672
Genere: Crime, Drama
Country: Brazil
Duration: 101 min
Plot tags: disturbing, rough, thought provoking, serious, realistic, biting, suspense
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Lucio Flavio (1977)
Plot Summary:
History of a famous Brazilian bandit of the early seventies and his fight against a death squad.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 788
Genere: Crime, Drama
Country: Brazil
Duration: 118 min
Plot tags: tense, rough, serious, realistic, suspenseful
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The Year My Parents Went on Vacation (2006)
Plot Summary:
A boy is left alone in a Jewish neighborhood in the year of 1970, where both world cup and dictatorship happen in Brazil.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 7000
Genere: Drama
Country: Brazil
Duration: 110 min
Plot tags: sentimental, serious, emotional, touching, realistic, sincere, spectacular, period piece, masterpiece
Similar in 77%
Kamchatka (2002)
Plot Summary:
The movie show us how life was in Argentina for dissident people, in the seventies, under the military government.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 4000
Genere: Drama
Country: Argentina, Spain, Italy
Duration: 106 min
Plot tags: sentimental, sincere, serious, realistic, political, touching
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What the Eye Doesn't See (2003)
Plot Summary:
Through out six different and yet parallel stories that take place during the corrupted goverment during the 90s in Peru, Lombardi tells the moral decomposition that ran through all classes and generations of the peruvian society.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 287
Genere: Crime, Thriller, Drama
Country: Peru
Duration: 95 min
Plot tags: tense, serious, realistic, suspenseful, mind bending, independent film
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Tattoo (2013)
Plot Summary:
Brazil, 1978. The military dictatorship that resulted from a coup in 1964 begins to stumble. In a cabaret-like theater located on the periphery between two cities in the northeast of Brazil, a group of artists challenges power and conventional morality with theater plays and public interferences. Led by Clécio Wanderley, the troupe Chão de Estrelas, strongly supported by its homosexual audience, along with intellectuals and other artists, practices political resistance through anarchy and mockery.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: Brazil
Duration: 110 min
Plot tags: sincere, touching, serious, disturbing, captivating, realistic, period piece, queer cinema, gay cinema
Similar in 89%
A Twelve-Year Night (2018)
Plot Summary:
Uruguay, 1973. Having been crushed by the military dictatorship, surviving members of the Tupamaro guerillas are imprisoned and tortured. They must find a way to endure the coming 12 years.
IMDB Rating: 7.5
IMDB Votes: 11000
Genere: Adventure, Biography, Crime, Drama, History
Country: Uruguay, Spain, Argentina, France, Germany
Duration: 122 min
Plot tags: psychological, captivating, realistic, tense, inspirational, political, sad, art house, informative
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State of Siege (1972)
Plot Summary:
Like most of Costa-Gavras' political thrillers, the French State of Siege is based on a true story. The incident dramatized herein is the kidnapping of a U.S. official somewhere in Latin America. The director's sympathies clearly lie with the kidnappers, especially since the official (played by Yves Montand), ostensibly an expert in traffic control, has been assigned as special advisor to the government's secret police, training these worthies in the art of the torturing of political prisoners. Uruguay was the country where this story actually took place; though no names are given, there's little doubting the identity of Costa-Gavras' fictional locale. Despite its up-to-date radicalism, State of Siege adheres to time-honored Hollywood formula, with ugly, vulgar bad guys vs. handsome, articulate good guys.
IMDB Rating: 7.7
IMDB Votes: 6000
Genere: Crime, Drama, Mystery, Thriller
Country: France, Italy, West Germany
Duration: 130 min
Plot tags: political, social, political thriller, tense, rough, serious, captivating, realistic, suspenseful, talky
Similar in 84%
Pixote (1980)
Plot Summary:
Pixote, a 10-year-old runaway boy, is arrested on the streets of Sao Paulo during a police round-up homeless people. Pixote endures torture, degradation and corruption at a local youth detention center where two of the runaways are murdered by policemen who frame Lilica, a 17-year-old transvesite hustler. Pixote helps Lilica and three other boys escape where they make their living by the life of crime which only escalates to more violence and death.
IMDB Rating: 7.9
IMDB Votes: 9000
Genere: Crime, Drama
Country: Brazil
Duration: 128 min
Plot tags: disturbing, depressing, bleak, realistic, rough, atmospheric, serious, political, controversial, hood
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Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion (1970)
Plot Summary:
A chief of detectives, homicide section, commits a murder and deliberately leaves clues to prove his own responsibility for the crime.
IMDB Rating: 8.0
IMDB Votes: 13000
Genere: Crime, Drama
Country: Italy
Duration: 115 min
Plot tags: tense, bleak, surreal, psychological, atmospheric, political, satirical, surprise ending, suspenseful, serious
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City of Men (2007)
Plot Summary:
Best buddies Acerola and Laranjinha, about to turn 18, discover things about their missing fathers' pasts which will shatter their solid friendship, in the middle of a war between rival drug gangs from Rio's favelas.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 16000
Genere: Crime, Drama
Country: Brazil
Duration: 106 min
Plot tags: tense, bleak, suspense, harsh, disturbing, rough, serious, captivating, emotional, realistic
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City of God (2002)
Plot Summary:
Cidade de Deus is a shantytown that started during the 1960s and became one of Rio de Janeiro’s most dangerous places in the beginning of the 1980s. To tell the story of this place, the movie describes the life of various characters, all seen by the point of view of the narrator, Buscapé. Buscapé was raised in a very violent environment. Despite the feeling that all odds were against him, he finds out that life can be seen with other eyes.
IMDB Rating: 8.6
IMDB Votes: 788000
Genere: Crime, Drama
Country: Brazil, France, Germany
Duration: 130 min
Plot tags: disturbing, rough, bleak, hood, stylized, visual, cult classic, visually stunning, captivating, emotional