This paper aims at showing how, since the beginning of 20th century, poetry has been incorporated in the narrative of many avant-garde films, such as Un Chien Andalou, by Luis Buñuel, Limite, by Mário Peixoto, L´année dernière à Marienbad, by Alain Resnais, and The Pillow Book, by Peter Greenaway. These films approach poetry not only by cinematically exploring synaesthetic effects of poetic language, but also by transfiguring some ordinary scenes of reality, through plays of light and shadow, unusual framing techniques, and unexpected combinations between the sublime and the prosaic.