The Edge of Democracy

The Edge of Democracy is a Brazilian documentary about the political turmoil that engulfed the country during the 2010s. Made by director Petra Costa, who also wrote the screenplay, it blends an account of national events with a first-person perspective. The film looks at the rise and fall of two presidencies: Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who came out of the labour movement to lead Brazil, and his successor Dilma Rousseff, the country's first woman president. Drawing on access to both figures, it follows the corruption investigations and impeachment proceedings that divided the nation and set the stage for Jair Bolsonaro's ascent. The cast includes Rousseff, Lula, Michel Temer, Eduardo Cunha, Bolsonaro and judge Sérgio Moro, all appearing as themselves.

The documentary was released in January 2019 and runs just over two hours. It was produced by Doc Society and Busca Vida Filmes, with Shane Boris, Joanna Natasegara and Costa as producers. It is the first of two films Costa has directed, followed by Apocalypse in the Tropics in 2025.

Audiences have received the film favourably: it holds a 7.3 rating on IMDb from around 17,000 votes and a 7.7 on TMDB from a much smaller pool of users, while critics gave it 7.7 from 34 reviews. The similar scores suggest broad approval across viewers and reviewers alike.