He was also an actor in more than a dozen feature films by Manoel de Oliveira, under the pseudonym Duarte d'Almeida. He played a role in the film Recordações da Casa Amarela – 1989, directed by João César Monteiro. João Bénard da Costa had a very close relationship with Manoel de Oliveira. When the director turned one hundred years old, the Cinematheque also turned fifty years old, and João Bénard da Costa dedicated the closing festivities of the Cinematheque's anniversary to him, with a nearly complete retrospective of his work to date, from 17 October 2008 to 17 December 2008 – leaving out only Visitas ou memórias de confissões, from 1982, which Manoel de Oliveira himself decided could only be shown after his death.

In addition to the aforementioned post of Chairman of the Committee for the Commemoration of the Day of Portugal, Camões and the Portuguese Communities, which he held for eleven years from 1997 to 2008, João Bénard da Costa was an honorary member of the National Centre for Culture and member of the Portuguese Academy of History.

As for prizes and honours, he was awarded the Order of Infante D. Henrique by President Mário Soares in 1990, and in 2005, with the Grand Cross of the Military Order of Christ, by President Jorge Sampaio. In November 2005 he was awarded with the rank of Commandeur des Arts et des Lettres from France (he had been an Officier since 1983) and in the same month, he was awarded the Medal of Honour from the Escola Superior de Teatro e Cinema, as an honour from the school. In April 2006, he was awarded the Order of the Star of Italian Solidarity. In 1995, he was awarded the first Prize of Film Studies from the Universidade de Coimbra. The Pessoa Prize was given to him in 2001. Finally, in 2008 he was awarded the João Carreira Bom prize for chronicles, and in September of that same year he was awarded the Medal of Cultural Merit by the Minister of Culture.

Until the end of his life, João Bénard da Costa loved and surrendered himself completely to the cinema. His passion permeated dates and events with a very characteristic symbolism: he left the Cinematheque on the last working day of 2008. On 22 May 2009 – the day after his death – while his body lay in the church that he had chosen for his funeral, according to António Rodrigues, "the Cinematheque, with its doors open to all, ran his 'film of a lifetime', which by secret paths was perhaps, in a way, the film of his life: Johnny Guitar. It was the last film screening scheduled by João Bénard da Costa (...)" (Magníficas obsessões 'Magnificent Obsessions', 2011, p. 159). All that he did for Portuguese culture in general and especially for its cinema will never be forgotten. He will remain “muito lá de casa”, or rather, João Bénard da Costa will be forever in our home.

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