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© 2026 The Couch Critic
Browse 35 movies from Les Films de l'Après-Midi
In a sumptuous lakeside hotel, the perfect routine falters when disaster strikes.
Sep 2026
With her abusive husband in jail and a coveted divorce pending, hardworking Noura can almost grasp a happy, new life with lover Lassaad — but when the best-laid plans are upended, Noura must tap her unshakable will to fulfill her dream.
Nov 2019
In a family-run hotel near the northern coast of Portugal, several women from the same family, spanning different generations, live together. Their relationship, poisoned by bitterness, struggles to survive in the decaying hotel. The unexpected arrival of a granddaughter in this claustrophobic space provokes turmoil and rekindles latent hatreds and accumulated resentments.
May 2023
Day breaks on the eighth floor in a suburban neighbourhood of Lisbon and 14-year-old David’s grandfather is still in hospital. Doctors give him only a few days to live. The imminence of death and the void that it will leave force David to become the man of the house, where he lives with his mother Mónica, who is in her 30s, and his three-year-old sister.
Dec 2015
In a war-torn African country, a small group of young people, led by Mão-de-Ferro, a traumatized and violent war child, arrive in a mysterious city where children, abandoned by adults, have created their own utopian republic.
Oct 2012
Ernania is hospitalized in a psychiatric hospital in Mozambique. She dreams about her little son, Hanic, and her husband, Pak, who is a soldier of the war. In the meantime, a quirky musical instrument plays: her own bed. Ernania’s musical virtuosity, attracts the attention of the hospital nurses. One day, her song is played in a radio program and Rosa, an evangelical priest of “Rádio Moçambique”, goes to the hospital to listen to Ernania’s song. Ernania takes the priest’s visit as an opportunity to run away from the hospital.
Dec 2018
A blissful night is unexpectedly interrupted by a sound from downstairs. Different reactions are triggered as well as the relentless indifference.
Sep 2018
Rafa is a 13 years old kid concerned with his mother, held in a police station for driving without a license. The director shows a day in the life of a teenager who lives on a problematic area and discovers that her mother was arrested because of an automobile accident.
May 2012
Lucy, regarded as crazy, has a son.
Feb 2018
50-year-old Victor Ganz owns a thriving civil engineering company that operates worldwide. But when some very costly problems on a site force him to go to Morocco, he is confronted with memories from his youth, that he had so far managed to bury. Between his meetings in ministries, the reappearance of a lost love who had mysteriously disappeared and an investigation into the local underground, Victor Ganz plunges into a labyrinthine world where present and past intertwine.
It’s springtime in Lisbon and Nicolau turns 24, but he’s not celebrating. Living in his parents’ house, hostage to a dream of being a musician that never comes true and plagued by the ideal image of an ex-girlfriend who left him a year ago and never came back, Nicolau feels incapable of moving forward and inventing a life of his own. He takes odd jobs until the day he discovers that his mother is just as dissatisfied with life as he is. Nicolau is shaken, but he doesn’t stumble.
May 2025
Abandoned at birth in the Greek mountains on a stormy night, Jon is taken in and adopted, without having known his father or mother. As a young man, he meets Iro, a warden in the prison where he is incarcerated after a deadly tragic accident. She seems to seek out his presence, takes care of him, records music for him. Jon’s eyesight begins to fail... From then on, for every loss he suffers, he will gain something in return. Thus, in spite of going blind, he will live his life more fully than ever.
Mar 2023
Zai, a bride-to-be in present-day Dhaka, is in love with her groom and dreams of a fairytale wedding, but secretly struggles with her body’s resistance to wedding rituals. As stress and emotional pain intensify, a mysterious woman with long hair begins appearing in Novera’s imagination.
The hotel room as a place where everyone is a stranger. A place that is yours for just a moment. A temporarily intimate space entered by a maid in order to clean it while, if possible, not leaving a trace of her visit. Each episode of Stranger is set in such a place, and each is captured in one long take. Weaving together a series of episodic stories – some humorous and absurd, some poignant and mysterious – that all unfold within a seemingly confined space, Stranger explores the idea of home while being away from it, and sheds light on the distinctive yet universal experiences of isolation and loneliness.
Jul 2024
A photographer, Isaac, is asked by hotel owners to take portraits of their recently deceased daughter Angélica. When he looks at her through the lens of his camera, she appears to come back to life just for him. He instantly falls in love with her. From that moment, he will be haunted by Angélica day and night.
Dec 2010
A chance meeting on a train in the Turkish countryside leads two women to a journey that shows them the importance of setting a path for one's life.
Apr 2017
Shimu, 23, works in a clothing factory in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Faced with difficult conditions at work, she decides to start a union with her co-workers. Despite threats from the management and disapproval of her husband, Shimu is determined to go on. Together the women must fight and find a way to register their union.
After being the sole unfortunate witness to a domestic quarrel that ends up in murder, Patrascu finds himself at odds with two very close neighbors: one is the bizarre murderer. The other is his very own conscience.
Sep 2015
On a train to Algarve, a young man recounts to a fellow passenger his past relationship with an eccentric young woman.
Apr 2009
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".
Sep 2007