Bacurau, a small town in the Brazilian sertão, mourns the loss of its matriarch, Carmelita, who lived to be 94. Days later, its inhabitants notice that their community has vanished from most maps.

Paulete, the star of a daring theater group, is visited by his military brother-in-law, the young Fininha. A torrid relationship arises between the two, and now the soldier must deal with the prevailing repression during the Brazilian military dictatorship.

Dirceu, 30 years old, has origins that go back to the aristocracy of Northeast Brazilian backlands. Settled in a kind of subjective amnesia, Dirceu tries to bury his family's past. He is a demolition man in Recife, an urban landscape undergoing an uncontrolled process of transformation. Maria shares the same country origins, but she uses the city for a different purpose. She is a carefree and joyful music student. If Dirceu aspires to a world that is stable and present, Maria lives in discord with the present. To her, nothing is as it should be. Maria's apparition unleashes in Dirceu an urge for being somebody else. On a route of escape through the desert of the backlands, a unique encounter is set to happen. Boa sorte, meu amor (Good luck, sweetheart) is an anti-romance of the impact between music and silence.

In tropical Recife, in northeastern Brazil, temperatures drop to impossible lows and the inhabitants have to adapt. This 'mockumentary' gradually turns critical, looking at the climate, urban development and social interaction from every angle. Does a ray of sun pierce the clouds, after all?