7 Prisoners

7 Prisoners (2021) is a Brazilian crime drama directed by Alexandre Moratto — stream it online on iFILM. Mateus is eighteen, from a poor village, and has just arrived in São Paulo chasing a legitimate job. On day one, his passport disappears. The man who hired him turns out to run a modern-day debt bondage operation stripping stolen cars.

Christian Malheiros carries the film almost entirely on his own, with Rodrigo Santoro as the trafficker Luca — menacing precisely because he's reasonable, even paternal. The six other trapped workers each handle captivity differently. Mateus watches and calculates. Every choice he makes to survive costs something he can't get back.

Brazil submitted the film for the Academy Award in the international feature category, and Netflix picked it up for global release — rare for a project this raw and close to the ground. It's the kind of film that works through accumulation rather than plot twists, and it lands hard. Watch 7 Prisoners (2021) online on iFILM.