Maria Luísa Mendonça

Acting

Maria Luísa Mendonça

Born 1970-01-30 · Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Maria Luísa Mendonça (Rio de Janeiro, January 30, 1970) is a Brazilian actress, director and presenter. Known for her complex and dramatic characters, she became one of the most renowned actresses in the country.

Acting credits

Carandiru poster
7.6

When a doctor decides to carry out an AIDS prevention program inside Latin America’s largest prison: the Casa de Detenção de São Paulo – Carandiru, he meets the future victims of one of the darkest days in Brazilian history.

Carandiru

2003

Amanhã Nunca Mais poster
6.4

Walter is an absent father and husband who works in a hospital without time for his family. His redemption happens when his wife sends him to the birthday cake for her daughter, but she does not know is that during the return trip home, the impossible will happen so that everything goes wrong.

Amanhã Nunca Mais

2011

Blue Desert poster
1.0

A man who is tormented by his intuitions and by dreams goes away to find answers to his discomfort. Revelations are made to him along his path, until he meets his soul mate and is prepared to the Blue Desert.

Blue Desert

2013

Nossa Vida Não Cabe Num Opala poster
5.0

The father of a family of lower middle class of São Paulo dies. But he did not realize this and starts to watch the reactions of his children and the collapse of the fragile family structure. Based on a novel of Mário Bortolotto.

Nossa Vida Não Cabe Num Opala

2008

Horácio poster
5.5

Horacio, an old smuggler hiding from the law, lives in a surreal, baroque apartment with Petulia, his daughter, and Milton, his favorite thug. While he keeps his daughter locked up in her bedroom, Horácio flirts with his goon, for whom he has had repressed feelings for years. However, Milton's love for a mysterious woman, and Petula's attempts to free herself with the help of a former lover, clash with Horacio's tyrannical whims.

Horácio

2019

The Man from the Future poster
7.2

Zero is a brilliant scientist. However, 20 years ago, he was publicly humiliated when he lost Helena, the love of his life. One day, an accidental experience with one of his inventions causes him to travel back in time to 1991. Having taken the opportunity to change history, Zero returns to own time to find totally changed.

The Man from the Future

2011

Underground Game poster
6.3

To find the woman of his life, man makes a game up: he enters a subway train wagon, picks a woman he likes and waits to see whether she's going to take the same course and connections as he. If she is, he tries to make contact.

Underground Game

2005

If I Were You 2 poster
6.1

Claudio and Helena are on the verge of breaking up, until the couple experiences another strange phenomenon that looks to help them understand one another more.

If I Were You 2

2009

The Invisible Woman poster
6.1

A man is abandoned by his wife and then falls in love with his neighbor, the perfect, ideal woman. The only problem: she doesn't exist!

The Invisible Woman

2009

Dear Death: The Movie poster
6.5

This is an adaptation of the 2015 TV show, featuring two intertwining love triangles that drive the plot. The first triangle involves Aragão, his wife Arlinda, and her lover, Chico. The second triangle unites Malvina, Lena, and Gabriel, who is the son of Arlinda and Chico but raised by Aragão.

Dear Death: The Movie

2017

Habi, The Foreigner poster
4.8

Analía’s mother sends her to Buenos Aires to deliver some handicrafts. She is expected to return home quickly to the country town where she is to take on her family’s hairdressing salon. But by chance an address mix-up leads her to a Muslim community where she finds herself taking part in a ritual completely unknown to her. Enthralled by the new world she has entered, Analía decides on the spur of the moment to take on another identity.

Habi, The Foreigner

2013

My Drywall Cocoon poster
8.0

Virginia’s death during her 17th birthday shakes up a luxurious building complex. For most residents, it’s a passing tragedy. For her mother and her friends, it is the beginning of a transformation: the crack in their drywall cocoon.

My Drywall Cocoon

2024

Todo Clichê do Amor poster
5.8

A man who lost his taste and his blind wife; an almost deaf girl and her consumerist stepmother; an adult movie actor in love and his completely passionate woman; a sign language teacher and his dilemmas with dumb students. Characters full of love and full of inabilities to cope with their emotional side.

Todo Clichê do Amor

2018

A Mulher do Meu Amigo poster
5.2

Thales, a successful businessman, is in crisis with his profession. He is married to the rich and spoiled Renata, and works with her father, the powerful businessman Augusto. One day, while on vacations at the home of his friends Rui and Pamela, Thales decides that will stop working. This unusual decision affects the lives of everyone around him.

A Mulher do Meu Amigo

2008

The Three Marias poster
4.9

A mother, with her three daughters, exacts revenge on her former fiancé for killing her husband and sons.

The Three Marias

2002

Querô poster
6.2

Querô is an orphan teenager, living alone near the docks in Santos, Brazil. His mother, a prostitute, died when he was a baby, and he was raised in the bordello where she worked. Believing he rules his own destiny, he refuses to compromise with anyone else, the corrupt policemen always chasing him, the oppressive discipline in the juvenile institution Febem, or the drug dealers who try to lure him. But this independence has a price.

Querô

2007

Who Killed Pixote? poster
6.0

The true story of the boy who became famous when he was cast for the main part on the Brazilian film Pixote: A Lei do Mais Fraco (1981). After the film was over, he tried to work as an actor on other projects, with little success. As time went by, he got involved with crime.

Who Killed Pixote?

1996

Meu Álbum de Amores poster
6.0

Julio is a peaceful, uptight dentist who planned his life 80 years in advance. Suddenly dumped by his girlfriend, he also finds out he is the son of a womanizer, a popular singer of the 1970s, and the brother of an intense gay musician, both of whom he never knew—until now.

Meu Álbum de Amores

2022

An Eye and a Knife poster
4.0

A group of friends working on an offshore oil rig maintain close bounds and do their best to face the difficulties presented by living and working isolated out in the middle of the sea. A job promotion triggers events that disrupt, in an irreversible way, the group friendship and the protagonist’s own life on land. He is tested by the force of destiny and experiences the drama of an ordinary man facing a gradual process of isolation.

An Eye and a Knife

2018

Extreme Happiness poster
4.4

Shortly after World War II, the city of Rio de Janeiro experiments a period of great cultural, political and economic effervescence, when all the dreams – or nearly all – seem possible. In this exciting scenery of transformation, Paulo discovers love, friendship and sex through his childhood and adolescence in the 1950’s and 1960’s.

Extreme Happiness

2010

L.O.C.A. – Liga das Obsessivas Compulsivas por Amor poster
7.8

Manuela is journalist in her thirties who faces love and professional crises. In an unexpected incident, she gets to know Elena, who takes her to a support group for women who love too much or are excessively jealous: the League of those who are Obsessive-Compulsive for Affection (L.O.C.A., Brazilian slang for "crazy"). The therapist seems to be an extremely mature and structured psychologist. Manuela sees this group as a chance to write an incredible article about the current female roles and wishes.

L.O.C.A. – Liga das Obsessivas Compulsivas por Amor

2021

Foolish Heart poster
5.0

Living with his parents, 17-year-old Juan hangs out with several intellectuals who would like to photograph the human soul. The girlfriend of the group's financier is Ana, and Juan is attracted to her, despite the knowledge that she spent two years at a clinic because she was "crazy." Juan sees Ana when he can and trains as a door-to-door salesman, but when the German photographer on the soul project gives him a viewfinder, it changes his life, putting him on the path to his later success as a Hollywood director.

Foolish Heart

1998

Light in Darkness: The Return of Red Light Bandit poster
5.2

Jorge, bastard child of the infamous Red Light Bandit, decides himself to pursuit a life of crime after meeting with his father, who has been incarcerated for the last 30 years.

Light in Darkness: The Return of Red Light Bandit

2012

O Magnata poster
5.0

An upper-middle class punk singer Andre, Magnata spends his time with his low-class friends, singing in clubs and wasting money. When he accepts a challenge to steal a Ferrari, he gets involved in a thriller that can lead him to a tragic consequence.

O Magnata

2007

Behind the camera