7 Best Movies from Angola to Watch First

7 Essential Films from Angola

Ranked native cinema in Angola’s own creative voice.

1. 

   1. Sambizanga

   1972

   Set at the onset of the Angolan war of independence in 1961, this landmark African film follows a woman searching for her husband, a tractor driver secretly working for the liberation movement, after he is seized by the Portuguese colonial police. As she moves from prison to prison, the machinery of resistance turns quietly around her.

2. 

   2. Air Conditioner

   Ar Condicionado · 2020

   In sweltering Luanda, air conditioners begin mysteriously falling from apartment buildings. When a security guard is ordered to replace his boss's unit by the end of the day, his errand leads him to an eccentric electronics repairman and a city thick with strange enchantment. A dreamlike Angolan fable.

3. 

   3. Our Lady of the Chinese Shop

   Nossa Senhora da Loja do Chinês · 2022

   When a Chinese merchant brings a peculiar plastic figurine of Our Lady into a Luanda neighborhood, its arrival stirs very different hopes: a grieving mother seeks solace, a barber founds a new cult, and a street kid nurses thoughts of revenge. A satirical mosaic of faith and longing.

4. 

   4. Njinga: Queen Of Angola

   Njinga, Rainha de Angola · 2013

   In the 17th century, a formidable warrior woman rises to become queen of her people and lead their resistance against Portuguese colonizers. After witnessing brutal humiliations, she devotes herself to their liberation. A historical epic drawn from Angolan history and legend.

5. 

   5. The Hero

   O Herói · 2004

   In the aftermath of Angola's long civil war, the lives of several people in Luanda quietly intertwine — among them a maimed veteran struggling to rebuild his sense of purpose. A Sundance-winning drama about dignity and survival in a scarred nation.

6. 

   6. Hollow City

   Na Cidade Vazia · 2004

   As Angola's civil war rages, a young boy orphaned by the fighting is sent toward the relative safety of Luanda but slips away to wander the unfamiliar city alone. One of the first films made in Angola after the war, it follows his search for a place to belong.

7. 

   7. Santana

   2020

   Two estranged brothers — one a narcotics agent, the other a military general — close in on the drug lord who murdered their parents years earlier. As the hunt intensifies, their own rivalry threatens to undo them before they reach their target. An Angolan action thriller.