The best Othon Bastos’s movies
We present our ranking of the best Othon Bastos’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 Othon Bastos.
Astral City: A Spiritual Journey
6.4/10
The selfish Dr. André Luiz dies and awakes in the limbo called "Umbral". After a painful period in the gruesome swamp, he is rescued and brought in a white light to "Nosso Lar" (meaning "Our Home"). He finds a place of harmony, where people live in peace awaiting
Behind the Sun
7.6/10
Brazilian badlands, April 1910. Tonho is ordered by his father to avenge the death of his older brother. The young man knows that if he commits this crime, his life will be divided in two: the twenty years he has already lived and the few days he has left to live, before the other family avenges their son's death. He is torn between fulfilling his ancestral duty and rebelling against it, urged by his younger brother Pacu. That's when a tiny travelling circus passes through the vast badlands where Tonho's family lives.
Central Station
8/10
An emotive 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.
Black God, White Devil
7.2/10
Cowherd Manoel and his wife are on the run in the drought-plagued and violent Brazilian badlands of 1940 after he kills a rich grazier. Moving credulously from one allegiance to another, they finally learn that the land belongs neither to God nor the Devil, but to the people.
Four Days in September
7.4/10
Fernando, a journalist, and his friend César join terrorist group MR8 in order to fight Brazilian dictatorial regime during the late sixties. Cesare, 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.
Antonio das Mortes
7/10
A new incarnation of Cangaceiro bandits, led by Coirana, has risen in the badlands. A blind landowner hires Antônio to wipe out his old nemesis. Yet after besting Coirana and accompanying the dying man to his mountain hideout, Antônio is moved by the plight of the Cangaceiro’s followers. The troubled hitman turns revolutionary, his gun and machete aimed towards his former masters.
Brainstorm
7.7/10
A trip to the mental institution hell. This odyssey is lived by Neto, a middle class teenager, who lives a normal life until his father sends him to a mental institution after finding drugs on his pocket. The maconha cigarrete is just the final drop that exposes the family tragedy. Send to a mental institution, Neto gets to know a completely absurd, inhumane reality in which the people are devoured by a corrupt and cruel institution system. The documentary type language used by the director give this movie a sensation of realty that increases even more the impact of the emotions Neto goes through. In the mental institution, Neto is forced to mature. The transformations that he goes through change this relations with his father.
Heleno
6.8/10
José Henrique Fonseca crafts an ambitious and long overdue homage to a central icon in Brazil’s 20th century history. Reminiscent of film noir classics, the biopic tells the glorious and tragic story of the legendary football striker Heleno de Freitas. The sumptuous black and white cinematography reflects the chic life of Rio de Janeiro in the 1940s as it fell under the spell of sports royalty. Heleno was no doubt one of the most popular players of his time for his bravura in the field and magnificent goal-scoring that lead the Botafogo team to the top and himself into a vicious downward spiral.
The Given Word
8.3/10
Zé is a very poor man whose most prized possession is his donkey. When his donkey falls terminally ill, Zé makes a promise to Saint Bárbara: If his donkey recovers, he will carry a cross - like Jesus - all the way from his city to Saint Bárbara's church, in the state capital. Upon the recover of his donkey, Zé leaves on his journey. He makes it to the church, but the priest refuses to accept the cross once he discovers the context of Zé's promise.
CELEBRAÇÃO - 100 ANOS DO CINEMA NACIONAL
"Portraits and excerpts from Brazilian films from all times. Actors, directors and images that affirm cinema."
Capitu
6.4/10
Adaptation of Machado de Assis’s classic novel “Dom Casmurro”. Bentinho and Capitu are friends since childhood and end up marrying. But Bentinho destroys his life when he starts suspecting Capitu has an affair with his best friend and that his son is not really his.
S. Bernardo
7.8/10
The story of Paulo Honório, a poor ploughman who becomes a rich farmer. Obsessed by his desire to get even richer, he doesn't pay much attention to his wife, Madalena, a teacher who reacts against his tyrannical ways.
The Nutty Boy
6.5/10
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.
O Paciente - O Caso Tancredo Neves
6.6/10
The true story of Tancredo Neves, the first civilian president of Brazil after a 20-year military dictatorship, and the infamous hospitalization which led to his death before he ever managed to take office.
O Vestido
5.7/10
Ulisses has failed in his professional life, but leads a happy life with his wife Ângela and their two daughters. Until the day he is introduced to Bárbara, a very beautiful woman living in Rio de Janeiro. Ângela becomes her friend and gives her the dress Ulisses had given her. From then on, marital problems arise, and he becomes increasingly attracted to Bárbara.
Pitanga
6.9/10
This documentary investigates the aesthetic, political and existential trajectory of emblematic Black Brazilian actor Antônio Pitanga. He career spans over five decades, and he has worked with iconic Brazilian filmmakers Glauber Rocha, Cacá Diegues and Walter Lima Jr. He was a prominent figurehead and outspoken activist during the Brazilian dictatorship, a period of unrest in Brazilian cinema. Pitanga deep dives into the world of Antônio and the history of Brazil. The documentary was directed by his daughter Camila Pitanga, one of widely recognised faces in Brazilian television and cinema right now. The film is also a poem, and a tender ode to fatherhood.
Milagrez
Documentary on "Antonio das Mortes", Glauber Rocha's 1969 film.
Of Gods and the Undead
6.3/10
In the 1930s, in the South of State of Bahia, Brazil, an adventurer with no name or history, who has already been shot seven times, gets involved in the battle for land and cacao plantations. His plan is to take the place of "Colonel" Santana, taking his wife and money. He starts a bloody conflict, in which many simple people and landowners die.
Zuzu Angel
6.9/10
Covering the last years of the famous Brazilian fashion designer in her doomed quest for justice, Zuzu Angel follows the case of her activist son Stuart's arrest, torture, murder, and subsequent corpse disposal by the military forces in early 1970s Rio de Janeiro, during the darkest era of Brazilian military regime and media censorship.
Fogo Morto
6.9/10
