The best Manoel de Oliveira’s movies
We present our ranking of the best Manoel de Oliveira’s movies. Do you love cinema? Or are you looking for a movie of your favorite actor to watch tonight? Surely you have some to see or that you did not know yet about Manoel de Oliveira.
Lisbon Story
7.1/10
Lisbon Story is Wim Wenders' homage to Lisbon and films. A sound engineer obtains a mysterious postcard from a friend who at the moment is filming a film in Lisbon. He sets out across Europe to find him and help him.
Doomed Love
7.4/10
A story about doomed love between two people from different worlds and the impact in their lives.
Henri Langlois vu par...
Thirteen filmmakers talk about Henri Langlois and their relationship with him.
The Divine Comedy
7.1/10
In a mental institution the patients see themselves as people like Jesus, Lázaro, Marta, Maria, Adão, Eve, Sonia, Raskolnikov, Aliosha e Ivan Karamasov, a Philosopher, a Profet, Santa Teresa d'Avila, reciting the Divine Comedy.
Porto of My Childhood
7.1/10
Manoel de Oliveira's autobiographical documentary about returning to his hometown.
No, or the Vain Glory of Command
7.2/10
Episodes from entire military history of Portugal are told through flashbacks as a professorish soldier recounts them while marching through a Portuguese African colony in 1973.
A Song of Lisbon
7.7/10
Vasco is a medical student in Lisbon, supported by his rich aunts, whom he had falsely told he had already graduated. In fact, he devotes himself to a bohemian life, preferring the popular fairs and pretty women, especially Alice, a seamstress from the Castelinhos quarter, which rather upsets her ambitious father, tailor Caetano, who is familiar with Vasco's debts. After failing yet another final exam, he is surprised by his aunts' announcement that they will visit him in Lisbon to see his practice.
Anxiety
7/10
An anthology film drama featuring a poetic mirror structure based on existential identity. In "The Immortals," adapted from a Helder Prista Monteiro play, two famous doctors, an 80-year-old father, and his 60-year-old son, contemplate senility and death. "Suzy," from an Antonio Patricio story, is set in the '30s when a young courtesan dies on the operating table. "Mother of the River" is from an Agustina Bessa-Luis fable about eternal life.
Voyage to the Beginning of the World
6.9/10
Manoel is an aging film director who travels with the film crew through Portugal in search of the origins of Afonso, a famous French actor whose father emigrated from Portugal to France and in process remembers his own youth.
The Conversation Is Over
6.3/10
The film was to be a documentary, but evolved during production to a fictional film. It nevertheless adheres strictly to the poems and letters exchanged by two of the most outstanding names of the Modernist Movement, Fernando Pessoa (in Lisbon) and Mário de Sá-Carneiro (in Paris). Their endless conversation was dramatically and suddenly terminated.
The Green Years
7.5/10
Nineteen-year-old Julio heads to Lisbon from the provinces and gets a job as a shoemaker for his uncle Raul. But when he meets Ilda, a confident young housemaid who becomes a regular shop visitor, his working-class values collide with the bourgeois trappings of modern life.
Fátima Milagrosa
Aninhas (Aida Lupo), a paralyzed girl, asks for a miracle from the saint of her devotion, Our Lady of Lourdes, at the chapel of Penha (Guimarães), but her prayer is not heard - She turns her devotion to the Blessed Virgin directly, and joins the multitude that goes on a pilgrimage to the village where, ten years before, the Virgin Mary is said to have appeared to three child sheepherders.
Marcello Mastroianni: I Remember
7.8/10
In 1996, Marcello Mastroianni talks about life as an actor. It's an anecdotal and philosophical memoir, moving from topic to topic, fully conscious of a man "of a certain age" looking back. He tells stories about Fellini and De Sica's direction, of using irony in performances, of constantly working (an actor tries to find himself in characters). He's diffident about prizes, celebrates Rome and Paris, salutes Naples and its people. He answers the question, why make bad films; recalls his father and grandfather, carpenters, his mother, deaf in her old age, and his brother, a film editor; he's modest about his looks. In repose, time's swift passage holds Mastroianni inward gaze.
Visit, or Memories and Confessions
7.1/10
A long-hidden, personal doc about leaving a beloved house by the late, revered Portuguese director Manoel de Oliveira.
Christopher Columbus, The Enigma
5.7/10
A true story of a doctor and his wife who went on a journey in order to prove that discoverer Christopher Columbus was in fact Portuguese. Inspired by the book "Cristóvão Colon Era Português".
Jornal Português (1938-1951)
The newsreel series Jornal Português (1938-1951) was produced for the Secretariat of National Propaganda (SPN/SNI) by the "Portuguese Newsreel Society" (SPAC), under the technical supervision of António Lopes Ribeiro. It was conceived and employed as part of the propaganda machinery of Salazar's regime. Screened in cinema theatres prior to the main feature film, each issue of Jornal had approximately ten minutes in length and covered a variety of official government acts, national political news, major sports events and other assorted social and cultural affairs. Jornal Português is not only an indispensable document for the history of Estado Novo's propaganda, but also an unparalleled audiovisual archive of 1940s Portugal.
The 15th Stone
7.6/10
Joáo Bénard da Costa, director of the Portuguese National Film Archives [deceased in 2009], interviews the dean of contemporaneous film directors [96-years-old then]. Two humanists of different philosophical backgrounds, both with their long, entire lives dedicated to culture in general (music, painting, literature) and to film in particular, discuss freely, sometimes haltingly, the director's power as a creator or a magician, the philosophy beyond particular scenes in classic movies, film technique, the importance of color, sound and music to films, art versus entertainment, and much more. Their talk takes place in a museum room, seating in front of "The Annunciation" (a 1510 oil painting by João Vaz, a Portuguese artist), which eventually leads to a discussion of 'Leonardo da Vinci', and the relationship between a trend-setter master and his disciples.
Agnès Varda: From Here to There
7.9/10
Agnès Varda travels around the world to meet friends, artists and filmmakers for an expansive view of the global contemporary art scene.
101
An exploration of the movie "The strange case of Angelica" and an understanding Manoel de Oliveira's cinema.
Agostinho da Silva - A Living Thought
Life and legacy of Agostinho da Silva. Traversing the biographical journey, the life and work of the Luso-Brazilian philosopher, this work has testimonies from himself and various personalities of Portugal and Brazil that allow us to unravel his personality and multifaceted thought.
