The Best TV Shows on RTP1

Every RTP1 Show Ranked From Best To Worst

As of June 2026, we’ve curated over 20 of RTP1’s premier shows for your viewing pleasure. Eurovision Song Contest and Cinzas represent the pinnacle of RTP1’s programming, launching in 1956 and 1992. With its programming history stretching from 1956 to 2022, RTP1 offers an impressive lineup of over 20 shows.

  • Cinzas
    Cinzas (1992)10.0

  • Desencontros
    Desencontros (1995)10.0

  • A Senhora das Águas
    A Senhora das Águas (2001)10.0

  • A Banqueira do Povo
    A Banqueira do Povo (1993)9.0

  • Roseira Brava
    Roseira Brava (1996)9.0

  • Vidas de Sal
    Vidas de Sal (1996)9.0

  • Filhos do Vento
    Filhos do Vento (1997)9.0

  • Terra Mãe
    Terra Mãe (1998)9.0

  • Ajuste de Contas
    Ajuste de Contas (2000)9.0

  • Tell Me How It Happened
    Tell Me How It Happened (2007)8.7

    Television drama series which has been broadcast on RTP1 of Rádio e Televisão de Portugal from 2007 to 2011 and since 2019. It recounts the experiences of a middle-class family, the Lopes (Portuguese: Os Lopes), during the last years of the Estado Novo. In February 2019, RTP announced that the series, after eight years shelved, would be renewed, with the storyline moving firmly into the 1980s. The first episode of the sixth season was broadcast on 7 December 2019 with the Lopes entering 1984.

  • Taskmaster Portugal
    Taskmaster Portugal (2022)8.6

    Five public figures are challenged by “Taskmaster” Vasco Palmeirim and his assistant Nuno Markl to overcome a series of fun tests with a small dose of madness.

  • Verão Quente
    Verão Quente (1993)8.0

  • Primeiro Amor
    Primeiro Amor (1996)8.0

  • A Lenda da Garça
    A Lenda da Garça (1999)8.0

  • 3 Women
    3 Women (2018)8.0

    A historical fiction series that, from the biographies and cultural and civic intervention of the poet Natalia Correia, the editor Snu Abecassis and the journalist Vera Lagoa (pseudonym of Maria Armanda Falcão), recalls the last years of the Estado Novo (Second Republic) - 1961 to 1973 - from the beginning of the colonial War to the eve of the April Revolution.

  • Eurovision Song Contest
    Eurovision Song Contest (1956)7.2

    The Eurovision Song Contest is an international song competition, organised annually by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and featuring participants representing primarily European countries. Each participating country submits an original song to be performed on live television and radio, transmitted to national broadcasters via the EBU's Eurovision and Euroradio networks, with competing countries then casting votes for the other countries' songs to determine the winner.

  • Na Paz dos Anjos
    Na Paz dos Anjos (1994)7.0

  • Mysteries of Lisbon
    Mysteries of Lisbon (2011)6.4

    The tragic story of the many lives of Father Dinis, his dark origins and his pious works, and the different fates of all those who, trapped in a sinister web of love, hate and crime, cross paths with him through years of adventure and misfortune in the convulsed Europe of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. (A longer television version of the film of the same name, released in 2010.)

  • Silent Cargo
    Silent Cargo (2022)6.3

    November 2019. A semi-submersible loaded with three tons of cocaine is seized off the Galician coast after having crossed the Atlantic. The captain, Nando, a promising young amateur boxer, travels accompanied by a Brazilian mechanic and a Colombian hitman. Three strangers locked up for almost a month in a claustrophobic handmade boat.

  • 21st Avenue
    21st Avenue (2008)6.0

    Raul Vasconcelos and Helena Brito founded a partnership over 20 years ago and has over a hundred lawyers in its service. Raul has an ego as big as the world and it was that self-assuredness that made him notorious in the courtroom. Besides being an astute lawyer, he’s a hopeless playboy who with age developed the tendency to say and do whatever he feels like. His trouble is that he’s constantly abusing that privilege. Helena is a confident woman, albeit more discreet and concerned about the firm's public perception, constantly considering how her actions might negatively affect the partnership and its bottom line. Her personality led her to take over managing the firm, taking care of all bureaucratic affairs. Other lawyers stand out in the firm, as is the case of Pedro Pimentel, who just made senior partner. He’s impeccably put together and has a smile that wins over most women, but behind this agreeable façade of his there’s a person with a lust for power and fame.