General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20265 min read

Girls from Ipanema

Girls from Ipanema (Brazilian Portuguese: Coisa Mais Linda) is a Brazilian period drama series produced for Netflix, set in Rio de Janeiro in the late 1950s as bossa nova is emerging. It follows Maria Luiza, a wealthy young woman from São Paulo who arrives in Rio to open a restaurant with her husband, discovers he has abandoned her and taken all the money, and rebuilds her life by opening a bossa nova club.¹ The series ran for two seasons, from March 22, 2019 to June 19, 2020, and was canceled after 13 episodes.²

Key fact	Detail
Original title	Coisa Mais Linda; known internationally as Girls from Ipanema³
Network and run	Netflix; season 1 premiered March 22, 2019, season 2 on June 19, 2020; canceled after 2 seasons and 13 episodes²
Creators	Heather Roth and Giuliano Cedroni; directors Caito Ortiz, Hugo Prata, and Júlia Rezende⁴
Setting	Rio de Janeiro, late 1950s, amid the rise of bossa nova¹
Lead cast	Maria Casadevall (Maria Luiza), Pathy Dejesus (Adélia), Mel Lisboa (Thereza), Fernanda Vasconcellos (Lígia), Larissa Nunes (Ivone)⁵
Reception	IMDb rating 7.8/10 from about 4,200 users; Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer 100% based on 5 reviews³^•⁴

Spoilers

Premise and characters

Season 1 is set in the late 1950s. Maria Luiza, called Malu, is a rich paulistana, a person born in São Paulo, who moves to Rio de Janeiro to open a restaurant with her husband. On arrival she finds he has abandoned her and run off with all the money. Recovering from the betrayal, she pursues a new dream amid the city's vibration to the sound of the emerging bossa nova, helped by three women: Lígia, her childhood friend with a beautiful voice; Adélia, a black carioca, a person born in Rio de Janeiro, a worker with what Netflix's synopsis calls sheer determination and unshakeable strength; and Thereza, a modern and independent writer.¹ After her husband disappears, Malu turns his property into a bossa nova club and comes into her own as an independent woman.⁴

Season 2 continues the four women's stories. Malu remains a determined woman, dedicated mother, and loyal friend, now hardened by a trauma. Thereza dedicates herself to family and housework but realizes she is missing another kind of accomplishment and takes work at a radio channel. Before marrying, Adélia reflects on her childhood and her father, Duke, and wants to start fresh with Capitão. Her sister Ivone grows from a typical teenager into a talented aspiring artist who, with Malu's help, gets the chance to prove her abilities in an industry dominated by men.¹

Themes and critical reading

An academic analysis by Simone Rocha, Livia Arantes, and Marcos Silva of the Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, published in the journal Series, reads Girls from Ipanema as centered on the difficulties Malu, Adélia, Lígia, and Thereza face in confronting patriarchy and prejudice and their struggle for independence. The obstacles to their desires take the form of legal impediments, prejudices, or violence, and plot progression makes the protagonists' motivations professional achievement and the search for autonomy. Romantic pairings are kept lateral to the protagonists' trajectories: Malu's involvement with the singer Chico is casual and sporadic, and Adélia's relationship with Capitão stays in the background while her story focuses on racism, poverty, daily life in the favela, and even her friends' condescending gaze when she decides to become a business owner.⁶

A study published in the journal Esferas analyzed how LGBTQIAP+ identities are treated in the first season and concluded that LGBTQIAP+ representation and female protagonism are points of transformation in relation to what is traditionally observed in Brazilian teledramaturgy, the country's conventional television drama production.⁷

Title and production

The title is inspired by a verse of Garota de Ipanema, the internationally recognized 1962 song by Tom Jobim and Vinícius de Moraes.⁸ The series was produced by the Brazilian company Pródigo Films, whose producer Beto Gauss described it in an interview as entertainment that talks about important things.⁹

The international title changed between seasons. In April 2020, Netflix announced that the second season would premiere in June and that the title shown to users outside Brazil would become Girls From Ipanema.⁸ A Brazilian report on the series' release noted that rather than translating the title into English as something like Most Beautiful Thing, the production is known abroad as Girls From Ipanema, a name that evokes the historical success of Jobim's song for Brazilians and foreigners alike. Cast members interviewed in the same report connected the music to the show's social context: actress Larissa Nunes said that bossa nova occupied a place of privilege while samba was consumed as popular celebration, and Mel Lisboa said the sound transports the viewer into the show's world.¹⁰

Reception

The series holds a 7.8/10 rating on IMDb from about 4,200 users, with an unweighted mean of 8.0 and the most ratings coming from Brazil, the United States, Portugal, the United Kingdom, and Turkey.³ On Rotten Tomatoes it shows a 100% average Tomatometer based on 5 reviews.⁴ It was canceled after its second season, with the final episode airing on June 19, 2020.²

References

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026