20+ Portuguese TV Shows (With Subtitles) That You Can Stream

When I first wrote this article, there were very few European Portuguese TV shows with subtitles. There were a handful on RTP, but there was no easy way to find them — and there still isn’t. Which is strange, given how many people in Portugal presumably have hearing difficulties and would like to search for them.

There were also no Portuguese TV shows with English subtitles, despite a growing expat population.

Now, I’d like to say a lot has changed. Maybe that isn’t quite true. But some things definitely have. Netflix has real European Portuguese shows now — Glória, Rabo de Peixe — with actual budgets. YouTube’s auto-generated subtitles are a lot better than they were, which quietly makes YouTube useful. And RTP has kept adding subtitled drama, some of it genuinely good.

It’s still nowhere near what you get in English. That’s a far bigger market and always will be. But there’s finally enough here that you can pick something because you want to watch it, rather than sitting through a documentary about electrical infrastructure because it happened to have captions.

One note before we start: almost everything here is Portuguese subtitles only. English subtitles on Portuguese shows are still rare outside Netflix. I’ve flagged the exceptions.

Before You Try Any of This: Get Your Ear In

I’ll be honest — I jumped the gun on this. I went straight for the shows above and bounced off. Portuguese subtitles on a real Portuguese drama, when you’re not ready for it, isn’t learning. It’s staring at words while people shout over them.

What actually got me caught up was Practice Portuguese — get 15% off here — specifically their Shorties. They’re short audio and video sketches in European Portuguese, with synchronized transcripts, English translations, and slow playback. Real speech, real speed, but short enough that you can replay a thirty-second clip until it clicks. Their audio content is what bridged the gap for me between “I know these words on paper” and “I can hear these words when someone says them at full speed.”

Work through those first. Then come back to Rabo de Peixe and it’ll feel like a show rather than a test.

Start Here: The Ones Worth Watching

These are the three I’d recommend to someone who wasn’t trying to learn Portuguese at all.

Rabo de Peixe / Turn of the Tide (Netflix)

The best of the lot, and my personal favorite. Loosely based on a true story from June 2001, when a boat carrying cocaine ran into trouble off the Azores and hundreds of kilos washed up on the shore of a small fishing village. A young fisherman called Eduardo and his friends decide to sell it. It goes about as well as you’d expect.

It’s the first Portuguese series to break Netflix’s global Top 10 — number 10 on May 29th 2023, number 7 the next day, and in the Top 10 in 33 countries. Season 2 landed in October 2025. The third and final season premiered on April 10, 2026, with Joaquim de Almeida joining the cast, so the whole thing is now there to binge: three seasons, 19 episodes.

▶ Turn of the Tide on Netflix · The companion documentary

Subtitles: Portuguese (Portugal) and English. Audio: European Portuguese.

Fair warning: this is São Miguel Azorean, which is genuinely hard — mainland Portuguese people joke about needing the subtitles themselves. I’d still take it over anything else on this list. The story is that good, and the accent stops being a wall after two or three episodes. The police characters sent from Lisbon speak standard mainland Portuguese, so you get a built-in contrast.

If you want the real story afterwards, there’s a documentary, Turn of the Tide: The Surreal Story of Rabo de Peixe.

Glória (Netflix)

Netflix’s first Portuguese original, and still the best-looking thing Portugal has put on television. It cost around €6 million, which made it the most expensive Portuguese series ever produced — beating TVI’s Equador (2008) at €5.7 million.

A Cold War spy thriller set in 1968 at RARET, a real CIA-operated Radio Free Europe station in the village of Glória do Ribatejo that beamed anti-communist broadcasts into the Eastern Bloc. João Vidal, a young engineer from a family tied to the Estado Novo regime, is working for the KGB. Directed by Tiago Guedes, created by Pedro Lopes, and it sits at about 7.8 on IMDb. Ten episodes, one season — never renewed, so it works as a self-contained miniseries.

▶ Glória on Netflix

Subtitles: Portuguese (Portugal) and English. Audio: European Portuguese (original).

Good too — I enjoyed it, and the dialogue is far kinder to a learner than Rabo de Peixe. It’s period drama, so people speak in full, clearly enunciated sentences. If the Azorean accent defeats you, start here instead.

Pôr do Sol (RTP Play & Netflix)

If you have a sense of humor, this might be the one.

Pôr do Sol is a merciless parody of the Portuguese telenovela — evil twins, sudden amnesia, absurdly wealthy farm dynasties, dramatic zooms. It takes every trope of the genre and destroys it. RTP’s programming director called it “um sucesso gigantesco,” and he wasn’t exaggerating. Season 1 has 16 episodes, season 2 has 20.

▶ Pôr do Sol on RTP Play (free) — also on Netflix

Subtitles: Portuguese and English — as far as I can tell, the only RTP show with both. Audio: European Portuguese.

Here’s the lovely irony: because the actors are mocking the overwrought delivery of soap operas, they hyper-enunciate everything. A parody of bad acting turns out to be an excellent listening exercise.

The Rest of RTP Play (Free, No Login)

RTP Play is free, needs no account, and works from most places in the world. Some titles are geo-blocked outside Portugal, but most of these aren’t. The catch is finding the subtitled ones — more on that below.

Drama and comedy

Curral de Moinas – Os Banqueiros do Povo — Quim and Zé, the village double act, inherit a bank and move to Lisbon. Broad, silly, very Portuguese. 10 episodes. Note: the first episode has no subtitles — start on episode 2.
Conta-me Como Foi — The Lopes family through 1980s Portugal: Chernobyl, the ’86 World Cup, joining the EEC. Miguel Guilherme and Rita Blanco. It’s the Portuguese take on a Spanish format and it’s beloved. Season 8 is the most recent; season 6 is here. Subtitles are inconsistent across seasons — check per episode.
O Nosso Cônsul em Havana — Eça de Queirós, Portugal’s greatest novelist, was also a diplomat. This is his consulship in Havana in 1873, dealing with the Chinese indentured laborers on the sugar plantations. Elmano Sancho plays Eça. 13 episodes. If you like literary history, it’s a treat.
Ao Largo — A woman on the run from a criminal hides in the van of a man drowning in debt. Renato Godinho, Mikaela Lupu, Joaquim Monchique. 13 episodes.
Capitães do Açúcar — Young people with no prospects start distributing a new drug called Açúcar. Bleak and well made. 9 episodes. 16+.
4Play — Sex, drugs and rock’n’roll in underground Porto. 13 episodes. 16+. Good northern accent exposure.
Emília — A 25-year-old who dreams of being a ballerina but has never done anything about it. Six episodes — short, and a manageable first series.
Irreversível — Crime series with Margarida Vila-Nova and Rafael Morais, directed by Bruno Gascon.
Madre Paula — Historical drama about King João V and the nun.
Os Nossos Dias — Long-running family drama.
Água de Mar — Coastal drama, three seasons.
Bem-vindos a Beirais — Lisbon family moves to the countryside. Gentle and easy.
Os Boys — Cult drama.
O Sábio · Dentro · Aqui Tão Longe · Miúdo Graúdo — all subtitled, at least in part.
Nelo & Idália · Agora a Sério — comedy.

Also carrying subtitles, though I haven’t verified links: Terra Nova, Crónica dos Bons Malandros, Luz Vermelha, Hotel 5 Estrelas (2020 episodes), O Alto, Refrigerantes e Canções de Amor.

RTP has also been producing a lot lately — Lume, Matilha (a spin-off of Sul), Espias, Erro 404, Ponto Nemo, Motel Valkirias, O Crime do Padre Amaro and others are all on RTP Play. Subtitle availability varies, so check the player.

Cultural stuff

O Preço Certo — The Portuguese Price Is Right, hosted by the eternal Fernando Mendes since 2003. It’s the longest-running gameshow in the world and an absolute institution — over 4,000 episodes. It carries the subtitle badge, and it’s ideal: ordinary people from all over the country, real regional accents, and a free education in what things cost in Portugal and what Portuguese households actually buy.
Cuidado com a Língua! — A whole show about the quirks, idioms and history of Portuguese. Made for natives, perfect for learners. Almost every episode is subtitled. Season 9 · Season 10
Visita Guiada — Beautifully shot documentaries on Portugal’s monuments. Clear, slow narration.
Portugueses pelo Mundo — Portuguese emigrants show you round the city they’ve moved to. Easy and conversational.
Biosfera — Environmental documentary series, now well past 20 seasons.
Chefs de Casa — Cooking. Great for food vocabulary, which is the vocabulary you’ll actually use.
O Povo Que Ainda Canta — Traditional music and the communities keeping it alive.
Literatura Agora — Note the first four episodes have no subtitles. Literatura Aqui has them from season 2 onwards.

For kids (and beginners)

Slow, clear and repetitive — exactly what you want early on.

Era Uma Vez a Vida
Animais Anónimos — Season 1 · Season 2
Isto Não É Um Chapéu — A 24-minute animated film about a fox talked into stealing the king’s crown. Subtitled.

Elsewhere: Prime Video, Max, Disney+

Portugal’s better dramas are scattered across platforms, which is annoying but here we are.

Sul (Max) — A moody noir detective series set in Lisbon during the financial crisis. Won the Sophia Award for Best Series from the Portuguese Film Academy and the SPA authors’ prize, was selected for Berlinale’s CoPro Series, and Público called it the best Portuguese series of 2019. Probably the best-reviewed Portuguese show nobody outside Portugal has heard of.
Causa Própria (RTP Play / Max) — From the same writing team as Sul. A judicial drama Portuguese critics compared to Mare of Easttown and Your Honor.
Auga Seca (Max / RTP Play) — The first Portuguese series to land on HBO. A Luso-Galician arms-trafficking thriller, two seasons. Some dialogue is Galician.
Operação Maré Negra (Prime Video / RTP Play) — Drug-smuggling thriller with Nuno Lopes and Lúcia Moniz, based on the true story of a homemade submarine crossing the Atlantic. Three seasons. Reviews are mixed rather than glowing, but it’s watchable.
Codex 632 (Disney+ / RTP Play) — José Rodrigues dos Santos’s bestseller about the true identity of Columbus. A Portugal–Brazil co-production, so you get both accents in one show.

How to Actually Find Subtitled Shows on RTP

This is still the most frustrating part, and it hasn’t improved.

There is still no way to filter or search RTP Play for subtitled content. You cannot browse by “has subtitles.” I’ve looked. Repeatedly.

What you can do:

Look for the “S” badge on a programme’s page — it sits next to the age rating and category. That’s RTP telling you subtitles exist.
Open the player and check for the CC button. The only reliable confirmation. These are European Portuguese closed captions made for deaf and hard-of-hearing viewers, not translations.
Check episode by episode. Subtitles are not consistent across a series — Curral de Moinas has them on everything except episode 1; Literatura Agora is missing its first four; Conta-me Como Foi varies by season.

A tip on links: RTP rotates individual episode IDs while keeping the programme page intact. If you bookmark rtp.pt/play/p3677/e307875/madre-paula, it’ll break. Bookmark rtp.pt/play/p3677/madre-paula instead. This is why several links in the old version of this article had died — I’ve fixed them, and Filha da Lei has been removed from RTP Play entirely.

For live TV, RTP’s accessibility site lists what’s being subtitled via teletext: acessibilidades.rtp.pt

SIC and TVI

Still not much. SIC subtitles a fair amount of its broadcast output via teletext page 888 — check the SIC listings for the 888 marker — but very little carries over to streaming. SIC’s streaming service Opto has good original drama (A Generala, O Clube, Vanda), though it’s aimed at viewers in Portugal and subtitle support is inconsistent. TVI Player is mostly telenovelas.

YouTube: Better Than It Was

YouTube’s auto-generated Portuguese subtitles used to be a joke. They’re a lot better now, and that matters — it means a pile of Portuguese content nobody ever subtitled is suddenly usable.

A realistic expectation, though: they work best on clear, formal, well-recorded speech. News reports, documentary narration, one person talking to camera in a quiet room — those come out well. Two friends talking over each other in a café is a different story. European Portuguese is also a harder problem than Brazilian Portuguese, because Brazil has vastly more speakers feeding the training data, and because European Portuguese swallows unstressed vowels in a way machines find difficult. So expect good results from a Portuguese news channel and shakier ones from a vlogger.

How to use it:

Click CC. If the menu says “Portuguese (auto-generated),” that’s the machine. If it just says “Portuguese,” someone uploaded a real subtitle track — always better.
Use Filters → Subtitles/CC on the search page to show only captioned videos.
Open Show transcript under the video to read the whole thing as text and scan for unknown words.
Drop playback to 0.75x. No shame in it.

RTP posts plenty of full episodes and clips to YouTube, and most Portuguese broadcasters have channels.

Brazilian Portuguese Shows

This article is mainly about European Portuguese, but Brazil makes more TV and funds it better. The accent difference is real but not fatal — and you’ll hear Brazilian Portuguese in Portugal constantly anyway.

Most of these are on Netflix with both Portuguese and English subtitles, which makes them noticeably easier to learn from than the RTP catalog.

3% — In a fractured future Brazil, everyone gets one shot at 20 to pass a brutal selection process; 3% make it to the wealthy Offshore. Four seasons. Clear dialogue — a good entry point.
Sintonia — Three childhood friends navigating funk music, evangelical church and the drug trade in São Paulo. Netflix’s most successful Brazilian franchise.
O Mecanismo (The Mechanism) — José Padilha’s political thriller about the Lava Jato corruption investigation. Two seasons.
Bom Dia, Verônica — A police clerk uncovers a serial killer operating from inside the force. Dark, gripping, three seasons.
Cidade Invisível (Invisible City) — Brazilian folklore creatures hiding among humans in Rio.
Senna — 2024 biopic series about Ayrton Senna, reportedly the biggest Brazilian production ever.
Cangaço Novo (New Bandits) — Prime Video. A modern Western in the Brazilian northeast; a bank clerk discovers his father was a legendary outlaw. Great Nordestino accent exposure.
Cidade de Deus: A Luta Não Para — Max. Sequel series to the film, two decades on. Heavy Carioca slang; advanced.

The Netflix Dubbing Trick

Netflix lets you change the audio on plenty of non-Portuguese shows to Portuguese. It’s almost always Brazilian dubbing rather than European, but it’s still practice.

One caveat from experience: watching English-language shows dubbed into Portuguese is strange. The lip-sync is off and your brain keeps reaching for the original audio it knows is under there.

It works far better with a language you don’t speak. I watched La Casa de Papel (Money Heist) with Brazilian Portuguese audio and it was fine — I wasn’t fighting the original Spanish, so my brain just accepted it. Spanish and Portuguese also share enough rhythm that the dub doesn’t feel unnatural. Worth trying with any Spanish, Korean or French series.

And One From Africa

Portuguese isn’t just Portugal and Brazil. Windeck is an Angolan telenovela set in the cutthroat world of a Luanda lifestyle magazine, and it’s a genuinely big deal — nominated for an International Emmy for Best Telenovela in 2013, making Angola an Emmy nominee for the first time, and the first African novela to air in both Brazil and Portugal.

The Angolan accent is distinct and lovely, and the show flips between the formal Portuguese of Luanda’s elite and much more colloquial street speech. Finding it with reliable subtitles is the problem — episodes are on YouTube, but there’s no clean official streaming home. Worth knowing about; harder to actually use.

The Short Version

Not ready yet? Practice Portuguese Shorties, then kids’ programming on RTP Zigzag. Don’t do what I did and jump straight in.

Ready?

Rabo de Peixe is the best show — take the accent hit, it’s worth it.

Glória if you want something kinder to your ear.

Pôr do Sol if you want to laugh, and it’s free on RTP Play.

Things have improved. Slowly, and from a low base, but they’ve improved. There’s finally enough good Portuguese television that you can pick something because you want to watch it — not because it was the only thing with captions.