Cangaço Novo

Cangaço Novo is a Brazilian action drama series released worldwide on Amazon Prime Video on August 18, 2023. Created by Mariana Tesch, Eduardo Melo, and Rodrigo Pesavento, the eight-episode production was made by O2 Filmes and directed by Aly Muritiba and Fábio Mendonça.

Its central character is Ubaldo (Allan Souza Lima), a bank employee living in São Paulo who learns that he has inherited land in the northeastern town of Cratará. After traveling there, he meets two half-sisters: Dinorah (Alice Carvalho), a skilled robber and leader of a local gang, and Dilvânia (Thainá Duarte). The inheritance pulls Ubaldo into a family history he never knew and into conflicts shaped by the sertão.

The show uses this discovery to connect contemporary crime with the historical memory of cangaço, the armed banditry that operated across Brazil’s Northeast during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Rather than presenting Ubaldo as an already formed hero, the story follows his uncomfortable transformation from an urban outsider into someone expected to make decisions for people who see resistance and survival differently from him. The series places robberies, family revelations, and violent confrontations alongside questions about poverty, local power, and belonging.

Cratará, although fictional, is presented through recognizable sertão landscapes and social tensions. Filming took place in Paraíba, including Cabaceiras and other locations used to represent the dry interior. The visual design recalls cangaceiro imagery without simply reproducing a period story: firearms, leather clothing, and references to bandit legends appear in a present-day narrative involving banks, vehicles, and organized crime. This contrast is central to the title, which suggests a “new cangaço” rather than a historical reenactment.

Allan Souza Lima’s performance anchors Ubaldo’s shift from restraint to desperation, while Alice Carvalho gives Dinorah an authority that makes her more than a conventional action antagonist or ally. Thainá Duarte plays Dilvânia, whose relationship with her siblings adds another layer to the family conflict. Marcélia Cartaxo also appears in the cast. The acting ensemble keeps the supernatural out of the premise: Ubaldo’s apparent destiny is explained through kinship, memory, and the material pressures surrounding the family.

The first season ends with Ubaldo’s identity and loyalties still contested, leaving the consequences of his choices open beyond the initial inheritance. Cangaço Novo’s specific achievement is its fusion of a modern Brazilian crime plot with regional history, rather than treating the Northeast as a backdrop only.