The Secret Agent
Kleber Mendonça Filho (Bacurau, NYFF57) returns with a thrillingly unpredictable, shape-shifting epic set in his hometown of Recife during the late 1970s, starring a magnetic Wagner Moura as a man on the run from his past. Winner, Best Director and Best Actor at Cannes. Nominated for four Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Actor (Wagner Moura).
2026 Academy Award nominations: Best Picture, Best Actor (Wagner Moura), Best International Feature Film, and Best Casting.
The Brazilian director Kleber Mendonça Filho, who has gifted us such breathtakers as Aquarius (NYFF54) and Bacurau (NYFF57), returns with a thrillingly unpredictable, empowering political fable about people swept up in forces beyond their control. A dynamic, shape-shifting epic set in Mendonça’s hometown of Recife during the late 1970s, The Secret Agent earned him the Best Director award at Cannes. Wagner Moura was also deservedly honored as Best Actor at the festival for his magnetic performance as a widowed former university researcher whose life has been violently upended by the greed and vengeance of a government bureaucrat. On the run and living under an alias during the country’s military dictatorship, he tries to escape, while also reconnecting with the young son he had to leave behind. Even this brief description cannot fully prepare the viewer for the zigzagging subplots and delights of Mendonça’s eccentric and affectionate ode to the movies and the Brazil of his youth—and to maintaining individuality amid abuses of power. An NYFF63 Main Slate selection. A NEON release.
The Brazilian filmmaker Kleber Mendonça Filho embraces a freewheeling sensibility, and finds laughter amid the terror.
—Manohla Dargis, The New York Times Critic's Pick
★★★★★. Brilliant. Visually and dramatically superb In every way.”
—Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian
Wagner Moura gives a star turn of revelatory magnetism.”
—Justin Chang, The New Yorker
A masterpiece.”
—Carlos Aguilar, The Playlist
Astoundingly ample and generous—passionately engaging drama ... yielding political and emotional jolts.”
—Richard Brody
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