The Fifth Empire

The journey of Michael Padovic, an American professor who arrives with his wife, Helene, at a Portuguese convent where he expects to find the documents needed to prove his theory: Shakespeare was born in Spain; not in England.

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.

Luciano, fresh out of jail, was taken by his brother, Flórido, to serve in the home of wealthy Alfreda. He was surprised when she told him that her greatest desire was to see the Virgin Mary. Now comes this rich land owner with her sublime pretensions. Isn't it enough for her to have an Aston Martin and a Jaguar in the garage and ten different dresses per season? It was all professor Heschel's fault. Or someone else's. Anyway, to go beyond the promise is heresy. Alfreda said that she wouldn't rest until she saw the Virgin and made her some questions. Filipe Quinta, the Forger, says he has a solution. Meanwhile, Bahia, her husband, listens do music.

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.

Manoel de Oliveira's autobiographical documentary about returning to his hometown.

This is an intriguing avant-garde look at what motivates the leisurely classes in Portugal, for better or worse, by director Manoel de Oliveira. Set in a spacious country home peopled with a wide-ranging cast of characters, the drama begins as the friends of a widow come to console her on the loss of her husband. But at one point, the widow goes upstairs, encounters her husband, and is faced with his accusations about the past. This event and others provide the means of revealing the petty, self-serving, egocentric, and romantic pursuits of the melange of people in the house. - Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi

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.

A long-hidden, personal doc about leaving a beloved house by the late, revered Portuguese director Manoel de Oliveira.

The story of Father Antonio Vieira, a 17th-century Portuguese priest who lived in Brazil and worked for better treatment of the Indians and to abolish slavery.

A blind beggar is robbed of his chest of money. The theft leads to a dramatic situation in the street where he begs every day.

This odd film is a major representative of an even odder film genre: direct-to-celluloid opera. It was commissioned by the Portuguese master of style, director Manoel de Oliveira from composer João Paes. Musically, it ranges from 19th-century romanticism to popular, modernist and even "post-modernist" styles. In the initially tame story, a host-narrator tells the story of a wedding between the two lovebirds: Viscount d'Aveleda and the beautiful Marguerite. However, what happens in the bridal chamber is incredibly bizarre. The events after that are even stranger, and the wedding guests and family indulge in cannibalism, among other perversions.

Manoel de Oliveira plays his film in three stages: the first part - a play, the second can be roughly defined as a silent film (with the behind the scenes read excerpts from Beckett works), but in the end the director brilliantly performs the same material of the avant-garde exercise. Surprisingly, a joke, repeated three times, each time everything sounds fresh and develops into an almost verbatim adaptation of the biblical "Book of Job" - a spectacular point in a parable about how hard to empathize with other people's misery, when you have your own.

In the time of King Leonardo, a war and the plague that accompanied it depopulated Traslândia. Ignoring these tragic events, Queen Isménia, Princess Camila and lady-in-waiting Narcisa, coming from a distant kingdom, arrive in Traslândia, when the war approaches the end.

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".

In 1336, Pedro, heir to the Portuguese crown, marries Constanza Manuel de Villena, a Castilian noblewoman, for political reasons; but the impulsive prince ends up giving in to his love for Inés de Castro, his wife's lady-in-waiting.

This four-part historical drama follows the end of Catherine the Great's reign and her affair with Russian military leader Grigory Potemkin that helped shape the future of Russian politics.

A sweeping epic of good and evil, treachery and intrigue, violence and beauty, a sensuous, spirited story set against a backdrop of war, religious strife and power struggles in 12th Century England.

Acclaimed blackly comic historical drama series. Set amidst a web of power, corruption and lies, it chronicles the reigns of the Roman emperors - Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula and finally Claudius.

The epic tale of the idealistic young knight Ivanhoe and his battle against the evil Templar Bois-Guilbert. Caught between the rivalries and religious struggles are Ivanhoe's betrothed Rowena and the brave, beautiful Jewess healer Rebecca, who wins Ivanhoe's heart with her courage. This grand six-part adaptation of Sir Walter Scott's rousing adventure of the Middle Ages is set against the historical backdrop of a Britain straining under the corrupt rule of Prince John while Richard the Lionhearted fights in the Crusades.

A story about doomed love between two people from different worlds and the impact in their lives. Based on the novel of the same name by Portuguese writer Camilo Castelo Branco.

The story of a girl created by the gypsy community but who in fact is heiress of a great empire. The woman who robbed her in the past now sees her future threatened. The return of the Heiress unleashes struggles of power and affections and a love to withstand anything.

The story of Shell, one of several spy networks operating in Portugal during the Second World War. Directed by the British who operated in Portugal between 1941 and 1942, it had a plan to destroy infrastructures and act as a counterintelligence unit in case the country was invaded by the Germans.