FitzcarraldoMovies like Fitzcarraldo
- Key Features:
- Exploration, Obsession, Man vs. Nature, Entrepreneurship, Cultural clash, Opera, Ambition, Exploitation, Jungle, Historical context, Director-driven, Adventure, Perseverance, Determination
- Tone:
- serious, dramatic, earnest
- Target Audience:
- Film enthusiasts, Intellectual viewers, Adventure seekers, World cinema fans
- Emotional Arc:
- Intrigue → Frustration → Determination
Fitzcarraldo

Fitzcarraldo is a dreamer who plans to build an opera house in Iquitos, in the Peruvian Amazon, so, in order to finance his project, he embarks on an epic adventure to collect rubber, a very profitable product, in a remote and unexplored region of the rainforest.
Fitzcarraldo
The Amazon rain forest, 1979. The crew of Fitzcarraldo (1982), a film directed by German director Werner Herzog, soon finds itself with problems related to casting, tribal struggles and accidents, among many other setbacks; but nothing compared to dragging a huge steamboat up a mountain, while Herzog embraces the path of a certain madness to make his vision come true.

A few decades after the destruction of the Inca Empire, a Spanish expedition led by the infamous Aguirre leaves the mountains of Peru and goes down the Amazon River in search of the lost city of El Dorado. When great difficulties arise, Aguirre’s men start to wonder whether their quest will lead them to prosperity or certain death.

To escape the crisis in Venezuela, and his alcoholism, Roque retreats into the Amazon jungle to renovate a cabin he built during happier times. He struggles with feverish visions caused by alcohol abstinence, and his desire for redemption becomes distorted when he joins old friends to work in an illegal gold mine controlled by Colombian guerrillas. The violence required to work in the mine plunges Roque into a cycle of self-destruction that devours his interior. He will need the fortitude to get out and start anew.

A fearsome 19th century bandit, Cobra Verde cuts a swath through Brazil until he arrives at the sugar plantation of Don Octávio Countinho. Not knowing that his new guest is the notorious bandit and impressed by his ruthless ways, Don Octávio hires Cobra Verde to oversee his slaves. But when Cobra Verde impregnates Don Octávio’s three daughters, the incensed plantation owner exiles the outlaw to Africa where he is expected to reopen the slave trade. Following his trans-Atlantic journey, Cobra Verde exploits tribal conflicts to commandeer an abandoned fortress and whips an army of naked warriors into a frenzied bloodlust as he vies for survival.

An eccentric scientist in the Amazon jungle rejects his research assistant for being a woman, but as bulldozers threaten their work on a potential cancer cure, they learn to collaborate and begin to fall in love.

This 2004 documentary by Werner Herzog diaries the struggle of a passionate English inventor to design and test a unique airship during its maiden flight above the jungle canopy.

For ten years, engineer Bill Markham has searched tirelessly for his son Tommy who disappeared from the edge of the Brazilian rainforest. Miraculously, he finds the boy living among the reclusive Amazon tribe who adopted him. And that's when Bill's adventure truly begins. For his son is now a grown tribesman who moves skillfully through this beautiful-but-dangerous terrain, fearful only of those who would exploit it. And as Bill attempts to "rescue" him from the savagery of the untamed jungle, Tommy challenges Bill's idea of true civilization and his notions about who needs rescuing.

When João goes to Brazil in search of a better life, he meets punk music enthusiast Maria and falls in love with her. But his involvement in the local drug trade makes him the target of a vicious drug lord.

An epic journey of a young hero and her Spirit Guides, 'Dillo' a cute and humorous armadillo and "Vaca" a goofy oversized tapir, who embark on a quest to save their home in the spectacular Amazon Rainforest.

In 1981, an enthusiastic young adventurer follows his dreams into the Bolivian Amazon jungle with two friends and a guide with a mysterious past. Their journey quickly turns into a terrifying ordeal as the darkest elements of human nature and the deadliest threats of the wilderness lead to an all-out fight for survival.

A true-life drama in the 1920s, centering on British explorer Col. Percy Fawcett, who discovered evidence of a previously unknown, advanced civilization in the Amazon and disappeared whilst searching for it.

A group of student activists travel from New York City to the Amazon to save the rainforest. However, once they arrive in this vast green landscape, they soon discover that they are not alone… and that no good deed goes unpunished.

It's a jungle out there for Blu, Jewel and their three kids after they're hurtled from Rio de Janeiro to the wilds of the Amazon. As Blu tries to fit in, he goes beak-to-beak with the vengeful Nigel, and meets the most fearsome adversary of all: his father-in-law.

A princess in the Amazon rain forests tries to fight a conglomerate threatening the forests by going to Los Angeles. There she links up with a rich kid who tells her that she must get on television to succeed with her mission. Quick as a wink, the two come up with the idea of winning a lambada dance contest.

French Guyana, not so long ago. Eliott, a young and naive anthropology researcher, goes on an expedition to study the Otopis, a mysterious tribe from the Amazon rainforest. It is also an opportunity for him to get away from the grip of his possessive mother, Chantal de Bellabre, an ethnologist hated by the profession for her biased and cold-hearted practices. Arriving in the forest Elliot realizes the Otopis are not the “good savages” he had imagined. Alcoholic, violent, crooked: they will turn his expedition into real hell in the jungle. Fortunately, Chantal, consumed by remorse and worried about her son, decides to abandon her own expedition and goes looking for him in the jungle, with the help of the not so helpful Lieutenant-Commander Raspailles and his men.

A 'National Geographic' film crew is taken hostage by an insane hunter, who takes them along on his quest to capture the world's largest — and deadliest — snake.

Dr. Lily Houghton enlists the aid of wisecracking skipper Frank Wolff to take her down the Amazon in his dilapidated boat. Together, they search for an ancient tree that holds the power to heal – a discovery that will change the future of medicine.

Kenny Wells, a modern-day prospector, hustler, and dreamer, is desperate for a lucky break. Left with few options, Wells teams up with an equally luckless geologist to execute a grandiose, last-ditch effort: to find gold deep in the uncharted jungle of Indonesia.

The epic story of the first contact, encounter, approach, betrayal and, eventually, life-transcending friendship, between Karamakate, an Amazonian shaman, last survivor of his people, and two scientists that, over the course of 40 years, travel through the Amazon in search of a sacred plant that can heal them. Inspired by the journals of the first explorers of the Colombian Amazon, Theodor Koch-Grunberg and Richard Evans Schultes.

A young soprano becomes the obsession of a disfigured and murderous musical genius who lives beneath the Paris Opera House.

Eight people embark on an expedition into the Congo, a mysterious expanse of unexplored Africa where human greed and the laws of nature have gone berserk. When the thrill-seekers -- some with ulterior motives -- stumble across a race of killer apes.

The story of Francisco, a very simple and poor man whose dream was to see his children become country music stars, and who made all the efforts to make it happen.

Marc Châtaigne, an intern at the Ministry of Standards, is sent to French Guiana to implement European construction standards at Guyaneige: the first Amazonian ski slope, intended to boost tourism in French Guiana. There, he meets Tarzan, an attractive intern at the National Forestry Office, with whom he’ll get lost on a journey through the jungle that will take him far, far away…

A spiritual adventure film chronicling the discovery of ancient scrolls in the rainforests of Peru. The prophecy and its nine key insights predict a worldwide awakening, arising within all religious traditions, that moves humanity toward a deeper experience of spirituality.

A young woman seeks vengeance and finds love when her parents are killed in the Amazon and she is taken prisoner by an indigenous tribe of headhunters.

A struggling circus crew gets deceived by its former partner, as it embarks on a tour in Thailand. During the journey through a Southeast Asian rainforest, they encounter attacks by a giant python. They meet a mysterious man named Jeff who offers to help, but they soon realize he's a poacher. As they search for Jeff's boat, they face life-and-death struggles with the python and Jeff himself.

Three unlikely heroes - Nachi, a free-spirited coati; Xochi, a fearless monarch butterfly and Pako, a hyperactive glass frog - embark on an adventure to stop wicked coral snake Zaina from destroying their rain forest homeland.

A series of terrifying accidents and brutal murders leave a bloody trail into the subterranean caverns of an Opera house. Below the theatre stalks a man raised by creatures of the underworld.

An American Merchant Marine captain, rescued from a Chinese Communist jail by local villagers, is "shanghaied" into transporting the entire village to Hong Kong on an ancient paddle steamer.

In a remote Amazon jungle village, a group of angry diamond prospectors revolt when the local government undertakes a violent crackdown.

Professor Challenger leads an expedition of scientists and adventurers to a remote plateau deep in the Amazonian jungle to verify his claim that dinosaurs still live there.

A music-loving kinkajou named Vivo embarks on the journey of a lifetime to fulfill his destiny and deliver a love song for an old friend.

Spanish soldiers battle indigenous tribes and their own brutal natures as they search for a legendary city built of gold.

When a sprite named Crysta shrinks a human boy, Zak, down to her size, he vows to help the magical fairy folk stop a greedy logging company from destroying their home: the pristine rainforest known as FernGully. Zak and his new friends fight to defend FernGully from lumberjacks — and the vengeful spirit they accidentally unleash after chopping down a magic tree.

When the idealistic Paula resumes her work as a volunteer doctor in the Amazon, Teto convinces his partners to establish their tomato cooperative in a village in the region. But to win back Paula's heart and save the company from bankruptcy, Teto must definitely overcome his spoiled playboy habits and face the interests of a powerful farmer, who stands in his way.

A New York University professor returns from a rescue mission to the Amazon rainforest with the footage shot by a lost team of documentarians who were making a film about the area's local cannibal tribes.

A married couple on the brink of divorce becomes trapped in quicksand while hiking through a Colombian rainforest. It’s a struggle for survival as they battle the elements of the jungle and must work together in order to escape.

French military man Adrien Dufourquet gets an eight-day furlough to visit his fiancée, Agnès. But when he arrives in Paris, he learns that her late father's partner, museum curator Professor Catalan, has just been kidnapped by a group of Amazon tribesmen who have also stolen a priceless statue from the museum. Adrien and Agnès pursue the kidnappers to Brazil, where they learn that the statue is the key to a hidden Amazon treasure.

When a well-known environmental researcher is murdered in the Amazon jungle, an arrogant photojournalist joins forces with a beautiful young activist to find out who is responsible. Along they way, they fall in love as they discover the men responsible for the killing would be more than willing to murder again if it will keep them quiet.

A young opera singer is stalked by a deranged fan bent on killing the people associated with her to claim her for himself.

The true story about legendary explorer Thor Heyerdahl and his epic crossing of the Pacific on a balsa wood raft in 1947, in an effort to prove it was possible for South Americans to settle in Polynesia in pre-Columbian times.

In a crime-plagued area of Rio de Janeiro, a team of honest cops, including a determined rookie, fights corruption and mistrust on all sides.

An inventor spurns his city life and moves his family into the jungles of Central America to make a utopia.

A beautiful woman hires an intrepid adventurer to help find her father, who has disappeared in the jungle while searching for a rare and priceless butterfly. Along the way they run into cannibals, a race of Amazon warriors and all the usual attractions one would expect to find in a lost jungle.

Jim Douglass arrives in the small town of Rio Arriba in order to witness the hanging of the four men he believes murdered his wife. When the convicts escape, Jim tracks them into Mexico, determined to see that justice is done. But the farther Jim goes in his quest for vengeance, the more merciless he becomes, losing himself in an unrelenting spiral of hatred and violence.

Two men commit a robbery. One is caught but the other escapes. He ends his escape on a lonely and deserted beach where he meets a beautiful woman named Erótica. They start a passionate love affair that is interrupted when the other con man escapes from prison and joins them. A sexual/sentimental love triangle begins leading to a violent confrontation between the two men.

Donato fails in his attempt to save a drowning man, and meets one of the man's friends. He decides to start his life over, but pieces of his past keep coming after him.

Sergio is a brooding, alienated man who works as a trash collector in Lisbon by day and roams the city streets by night seeking rough, anonymous sex with men. One night he meets a man who seems to be the embodiment of his tormented fantasies, and he becomes obsessed with the stranger until loneliness and unfulfilled desire propel him finally into a dark and dangerous animalistic state.

Iremar works at the rodeo in North East of Brazil. From his home, the truck he uses to transport the animals, he dreams of a future in the region's booming clothing industry.

On the beaches of Kenya they’re known as "Sugar Mamas" —European women who seek out African boys selling love to earn a living. Teresa, a 50-year-old Austrian and mother of a daughter entering puberty, travels to this vacation paradise, moving from beach to beach.

A group of young backpackers' vacation turns sour when a bus accident leaves them marooned in a remote Brazilian rural area that holds an ominous secret.

1942, in the middle of Northeastern Brazil, two very different men meet along the road: Johan, an aspirin salesman avoiding the German draft, and Ranulpho, a rural Brazilian seeking escape from the drought.

A London opera house is haunted by tragic events on its opening night, but when its star is kidnapped, a producer tracks down the Phantom who is intent on seeking his revenge.

In 1980, best friends Juliano and Joaquin join the gold rush at Serra Pelada, Bald Mountain, a mountain town near the mighty Amazon river. As the town grows in numbers, it also sees an explosion in violent crime and pollution. Soon the friends' dreams of hitting the jack pot are shattered. Winner of the 2014 Cinema Brazil Grand Prize.

A scientist blames the head of a large company for an ecological disaster in South America. But when a volcano begins to show signs of erupting, they must unite to avoid a disaster.

As a director and his crew shoot a controversial film about Christopher Columbus in Cochabamba, Bolivia, local people rise up against plans to privatize the water supply.

Paddington travels to Peru to visit his beloved Aunt Lucy, who now resides at the Home for Retired Bears. With the Brown Family in tow, a thrilling adventure ensues when a mystery plunges them into an unexpected journey through the Amazon rainforest and up to the mountain peaks of Peru.

Ellesmere Island, northern Canada, 1908. Josephine, a brave but naive woman, embarks on a dangerous journey through inhospitable regions in search of her husband, the explorer Robert Peary, who tries to find a route to the North Pole.

Four men from different parts of the globe, all hiding from their pasts in the same remote South American town, agree to risk their lives transporting several cases of dynamite (which is so old that it is dripping unstable nitroglycerin) across dangerous jungle terrain.

In 1999, a woman's life is forever changed after she survives a car crash with two bank robbers, who enlist her help to take the money to a drop in Paris. On the way, she runs into another fugitive from the law — an American doctor on the run from the CIA. They want to confiscate his father's invention – a device which allows anyone to record their dreams and visions.

An epic cinematic and musical collaboration between SHERPA filmmaker Jennifer Peedom and the Australian Chamber Orchestra, that explores humankind's fascination with high places.

Born a fully grown black man in a village in the Brazilian jungle, Macunaíma later magically transforms into a white man before making an adventure-filled trip to the city of São Paulo. Once there, he becomes something of a dandy, falling in love with Ci, a revolutionary who dies in an accidental bombing. After robbing a ruthless industrialist, Macunaima returns to his village where he finds his newly acquired knowledge and possessions of little use.

The fairy tale story of Maria da Graça, a small town girl with big time dreams of becoming a singer, who moves to Rio de Janeiro to pursue her ambitions.

A viceroy, a nobleman and a bullfighter court a comedy-troupe actress in 18th-century Peru.

A plane crashes in the Amazon jungle, and its passengers must battle their way through cannibals, slave traders, wild animals and murderous piranha fish to safety.

Oregon, a small town near the sea, around 1870. Henry, a grieving man who aspires to preach as a way to overcome his unfortunate past, reunites with eccentric pioneer Samuel Alabaster, who has hired him to officiate at his marriage to the precious Penelope. What Henry ignores is that both must embark on a dangerous journey through the inhospitable wilderness to meet her.

Jake Remy leads a gang of outlaw cutthroats making their escape toward Mexico from a successful robbery. Barring their way is a river--crossable only by means of a ferry barge. The barge operator, Travis, refuses to be bullied into providing transport for the gang and escapes across river with most of the local populace--leaving Remy and his gang behind, desperately seeking a way across. A river-wide stand-off begins between the gang and the townspeople, both groups of which have left people on the wrong side of the river.

At the start of the First World War, in the middle of Africa’s nowhere, a gin soaked riverboat captain is persuaded by a strong-willed missionary to go down river and face-off a German warship.

A libidinous construction worker uses his charm and bravado in an attempt to attain enough finances to build his dream project.

In Buenos Aires, 17-year-old Bennie seeks out his estranged brother Tetro, a once-promising writer haunted by their family’s past. As Bennie uncovers Tetro’s hidden manuscript, old secrets and rivalries resurface, forcing both men to confront the truth about their father and the tangled legacy that tore their family apart.

Franck just had the most crazy and wonderful idea for a company that would finally get him and his friends proper jobs. As Uber delivers food, Amazon daily items, Song Express will deliver songs. To your friends, or your loved one, or yourself, anywhere you want. It is brilliant, it is foolish, it could work… For Franck, Jean-Claude, Sophie and José, Song Express becomes something more than just a professional challenge: it is the dream of a lifetime.

Drama about the tragic Nanga Parbat expedition by the two Messner brothers in 1970, on which Reinhold Messners younger brother Günther died.

Rollins' gang wants to grab land by inciting the settlers in a war against the Indians but Winnetou and Old Shatterhand try to keep the peace, until Rollins frames Winnetou up for the murder of Jicarilla Chief's son.

Wealthy rancher Bick Benedict and dirt-poor cowboy Jett Rink both woo Leslie Lynnton, a beautiful young woman from Maryland who is new to Texas. She marries Benedict, but she is shocked by the racial bigotry of the White Texans against the local people of Mexican descent. Rink discovers oil on a small plot of land, and while he uses his vast, new wealth to buy all the land surrounding the Benedict ranch, the Benedict's disagreement over prejudice fuels conflict that runs across generations.

United States, 1926: Dutch 24-year-old Willy Wolters has immigrated to the American continent with her parents as a child. She dreams of becoming a conductor, but this is an ambition that no one takes seriously. Unbeknownst to her, she'll also become Antonia Brico.

Spain, 2003. An accidental discovery leads Clarence to travel from the snowy mountains of Huesca to Equatorial Guinea, to visit the land where her father Jacobo and her uncle Kilian spent most of their youth, the island of Fernando Poo.

Genoan navigator Christopher Columbus has a dream to find an alternative route to sail to the Indies, by traveling west instead of east, across the unchartered Ocean sea. After failing to find backing from the Portugese, he goes to the Spanish court to ask Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand for help. After surviving a grilling from the Head of the Spanish Inquisition Tomas de Torquemada, he eventually gets the blessing from Queen Isabella and sets sail in three ships to travel into the unknown. Along the way he must deal with sabotage from Portugese spies and mutiny from a rebellious crew.

In Ancient Polynesia, when a terrible curse incurred by Maui reaches an impetuous Chieftain's daughter's island, she answers the Ocean's call to seek out the demigod to set things right.

Martin and Hazel Quarrier are small-town fundamentalist missionaries sent to the jungles of South America to convert the Indians. Their remote mission was previously run by the Catholics, before the natives murdered them all. They are sent by the pompous Leslie Huben, who runs the missionary effort in the area but who seems more concerned about competing with his Catholic 'rivals' than in the Indians themselves. Hazel is terrified of the Indians while Martin is fascinated. Soon American pilot Lewis Moon joins the Indian tribe but is attracted by Leslie's young wife, Andy. Can the interaction of these characters and cultures, and the advancing bulldozers of civilization, avoid disaster?

The Leiningen South American cocoa plantation is threatened by a 2-mile-wide, 20-mile-long column of army ants.

Struggling to make ends meet, former special ops soldiers reunite for a high-stakes heist: stealing $75 million from a South American drug lord.

The construction of the Great Western Railroad creates heavy conflict between the railway company and neighboring Indian tribes. Worse, criminal gang leader Santer sets his eyes on a gold mine located on holy Indian land and influences the construction supervisor to re-rout the planned railroad straight through Apache land. Old Shatterhand, who works as a measurement technician, discovers the evil plan and searches contact with the Apaches in an effort to avert war.

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 recovery 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.

A photographer in the rain forest is captured by wild natives, and after months of living with them, he marries the chief's daughter and helps protect the village from a vicious cannibal tribe.

Intrepid photographer Emanuelle is taken deep into the Amazonian jungle to search for a cannibalistic tribe long believed to be extinct.

Mr. Conductor's supply of magic gold dust, which allows him to travel between Shining Time and Thomas's island, is critically low. Unfortunately, he doesn't know how to get more. Meanwhile, Thomas is fending off attacks by the nasty diesel engines. Getting more gold dust will require help from Mr. C's slacker cousin, his new friend Lily and her morose grandfather, plus the secret engine.

A ship sent to investigate a wave of mysterious sinkings encounters the advanced submarine, the Nautilus, commanded by Captain Nemo.

A young apprentice struggles to master nanotechnology on an alien world and prove herself to her enigmatic master. Will her herculean goals remain tantalizingly out of reach, or will she fulfill them and in the process, change life as we know it?

Three stories about persons forced to think about the ethics and moral issues raised by medical advances.

When Travis, the mouthy son of a criminal, disappears in the Amazon in search of a treasured artifact, his father sends in Beck, who becomes Travis's rival for the affections of Mariana, a mysterious Brazilian woman. With his steely disposition, Beck is a man of few words -- but it takes him all the discipline he can muster to work with Travis to nab a tyrant who's after the same treasure.

In Colombia just after the Great War, an old man falls from a ladder; dying, he professes great love for his wife. After the funeral, a man calls on the widow - she dismisses him angrily. Flash back more than 50 years to the day Florentino Ariza, a telegraph boy, falls in love with Fermina Daza, the daughter of a mule trader.

Inter-tribal rivalry leads to a competition to erect a huge Maoi statue in record time before Make can take part in the race to retrieve the egg of a Sooty Tern. The reward for winning this race is to rule the island for one year.

Tokyo engineer Kariya arrives on a primitive tropical island, where he interacts with the Futori clan, to drill a well to power a sugar mill.

Herzog and cinematographer Peter Zeitlinger go to Antarctica to meet people who live and work there, and to capture footage of the continent's unique locations. Herzog's voiceover narration explains that his film will not be a typical Antarctica film about "fluffy penguins", but will explore the dreams of the people and the landscape.

Having fought in the First Carlist War, Martin returns to his family farm in Gipuzkoa only to find that his younger brother, Joaquín, towers over him in height. Convinced that everyone will want to pay to see the tallest man on Earth, the siblings set out on a long trip all over Europe, during which ambition, money and fame will forever change the family’s fate. A story based on true events.

In the '40s, three brothers decide to live a great adventure and enlisting in the Roncador-Xingu Expedition, which has a mission to tame the Central Brazil. The Villas Boas brothers: Orlando, 27, Claudius, 25, and Leonardo, 23, engage in a fantastic and incredible saga. Soon start to lead the expedition that opens new paths 1,500 km, navigates over 1,000 miles of unspoilt rivers, opens 19 airfields for airplanes Army, gives rise to the creation of 43 towns and 14 make contact with wild Indian tribes, unknown, as the Xavante, courageous and feared warriors, no casualties on both sides. This adventure allows the Villas Boas brothers the creation of the Xingu National Park, the first major Amerindian reservation in Brazil, the size of Belgium, transforming them into true contemporary heroes.

Two brothers living a hard life of manual labor in rural Mexico have a simple dream: saving enough money to build their mother her dream house. But fate has other plans. A friendly game of soccer leads to first Rudo, then to Cursi being taken on by the nation’s top talent scout. Suddenly, they find themselves living the high life of star athletes: fame, fortune, fast cars and beautiful women.

A bizarre black comedy about a man whose overwhelming ambition in life is to be a renowned serial killer of women, and will stop at nothing to achieve it - but not everything goes according to plan...

