November 26, 2025
by Carla Hay
Directed by Kleber Mendonça Filho
Portuguese with subtitles
Culture Representation: Taking place in Brazil, primarily in 1977, the dramatic film “The Secret Agent” features a predominantly Latin cast of characters (with some white people and black people) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.
Culture Clash: A widower father, who has worked as an academic scientist/technology researcher, changes his identity and moves to another city because he fears his life is in danger for his political activities against the authoritarian Brazilian government that is ruled by the Brazilian military.
Culture Audience: “The Secret Agent” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners, filmmaker in Kleber Mendonça Filho, and artistically made movies about people living in political turmoil.
“The Secret Agent” is a sprawling and absorbing drama about a man trying to escape his past while living in resistance of an oppressive Brazilian government in 1977. The movie is gritty and unpredictable, with a few unexplained bizarre moments. The biggest drawback to “The Secret Agent” is the movie’s uneven pacing, because it takes a while (at least 30 minutes) before this 160-minute movie really gets to the heart of the matter and delivers considerable suspense. Viewers with patience will be rewarded by an impactful turn of events, with a poignant epilogue.
Written and directed by Kleber Mendonça Filho, “The Secret Agent” had its world premiere at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival, where it won the prizes for Best Director, Best Actor (for Wagner Moura), and the FIRPRESCI Prize, an award from film critics. “The Secret Agent” also screened at other festivals in 2025, including the Telluride Film Festival and New York Film Festival. The movie, which is told in three chapters, takes place in various cities in Brazil, was filmed in Recife, Pernambuco, Brazil. “The Secret Agent” is Brazil’s official entry for Best International Feature for the 2026 Academy Awards.
“The Secret Agent” begins by showing a 43-year-old man named Marcelo Alves (played by Moura) driving in a rural area to a gas station in his yellow Volkswagen Beetle. The first thing that Marcelo notices is that there’s dead man (played by Italo Barbosa) on the ground near the gas station pumps. The man’s body has been covered over with some fabric, but the decomposed nature of the body indicates that this man has been dead for at least a few days. Flies surround the body, and feral dogs come out of the bushes to try to get to the body.
The gas station attendant who’s on duty (played by Joálisson Cunha) casually tells Marcelo that the dead man was caught trying to steal gasoline and “the bastard got what he deserved.” The attendant says that the body has been there since Sunday, and police told him that they’re too busy to collect the body because of Carnival, but they will pick up the body on Ash Wednesday. The attendant also mentions that he can’t leave the gas station unattended, or else he’ll lose his job.
Marcelo is at the gas station when two highway patrol officers drive up and inspect Marcelo’s car and asks if he’s carrying guns or drugs. Marcelo says no. One of the cops tells Marcelo that he has a balding tire, but Marcelo says the tire in in good-enough condition to use.
The way that the cops are lingering around Marcelo makes it obvious to him that they’re looking for any reason to arrest or detain him, unless he can give them a bribe to go away. Marcelo doesn’t have enough cash, since he already spent what he had on gas, so he offers one of the cops a pack of cigarettes instead. This bribe does the trick, and the cops drive away.
All of this happens within the first 15 minutes of “The Secret Agent,” which reveals from the start that this Brazilian government and law enforcement are corrupt. It’s revealed much later in the story that Marcelo (who is a widower) isn’t this man’s real name. His real name is Armando Solimões, and he desperately wants to leave Brazil with his son.
“The Secret Agent” goes back and forth between telling what life was like for Armando before and after he changed his name to Marcelo Alves. When he was living as Armando, he was an academic scientist/technology researcher, who developed a patent for lithium battery technology. A corrupt political minister named Henrique Ghirotti (played by Luciano Chirolli) tried to steal this patent for a private company, so that Henrique could personally profit. Armando resisted this corruption and refused to willingly give up this patent.
Armando’s life and the life of his family (his wife and underage son) came under threat, when he was put under surveillance and began getting menacing messages. Armando’s wife Fátima Nascimento (played by Alice Carvalho) died of pneumonia. Armando made the difficult decision to change his identity and make enough money to leave Brazil with his son Fernando (played by Enzo Nunes), who’s about 5 or 6 years old when the main story takes place.
In the meantime, Fernando has been living in Recife with Fátima parents: Alexandre Nascimento (played by Carlos Francisco) and Lenira Nascimento (played by Aline Marta, also known as Aline Marta Maia), who are loving and protective. Armando/Marcelo visits them in secret when he can. Alexandre is a projectionist at a movie theater named Cinema São Luiza, which plays a pivotal role in the story. A mysterious woman named Elza (played by Maria Fernanda Candido) is recommended to Armando/Marcelo as someone who can provide him with fake immigration documents for him and his son Fernando
During the course of the movie, Armando/Marcelo crosses paths with several other people who have a role in what happens to him. Some of them know his true identity, while others don’t but they might find out. He meets other people who are in the resistance movement or are political refugees, including some who live in the apartment where he is hiding out. These allies include Dona Sebastiana (played by Tânia Maria), who acts like matriarch; a married couple named Antonio Vitória (played by Licínio Januário) and Tereza Vitória (played by Isabél Zuaa), who are Angolan immigrants; a middle-age woman named Claudia (played by Hermila Guedes); and a young man named Haroldo (played by João Vitor Silva).
Other characters in “The Secret Agent” include a police chief named Euclides Valvacandi and his two co-worker sons Arlindo (played by Italo Martins) and Sergio (played by Igor de Araújo); resistance political activists; a gangster named Augusto Burobu (played by Roney Villela) and his partner-in-crime stepson Bobbi (played by Gabriel Leone); and an assassin named Vilmar (played by Kaiony Venâncio). Udo Kier has a small role as a German-speaking immigrant named Hans, who is harassed by Euclides because Euclides mistakenly assumes that Hans used to be a former Nazi. Hans is actually a Jewish survivor of the Holocaust.
The movie takes a few strange detours in showing what happened to the dismembered body of an unidentified man, whose body parts were found in a dead shark. Euclides, Arlindo and Sergio become involved in investigating this man’s death. One of the man’s legs ends up in a university’s scientific lab. And in a very surrealistic scene, the leg is shown going on killing rampage at night in a park where several men are having sexual hookups.
Although “The Secret Agent” shows some indications that Armando/Marcelo has post-traumatic stress disorder (he has difficulty sleeping, and his dreams are often nightmares), the movie is more of a political thriller than a psychological thriller. Amid the explicit violence and undercover schemes, “The Secret Agent” shows with disturbing clarity how a society can rot with complacency when an oppressive government is accepted as too powerful to stop.
Moura’s acting is top-tier talented in “The Secret Agent,” where he has to play three roles: Armando, Marcelo and (in the movie’s last few scenes) an adult Fernando. “The Secret Agent” can be recommended for anyone who wants an insightful look at how an authoritarian government can affect everyday people. Although “The Secret Agent” is a fictional movie set mostly in 1977 Brazil, this searing story tells many unfortunate truths about what life has been and is currently like for untold numbers of people in many countries.
Neon released “The Secret Agent” in select U.S. cinemas on November 26, 2025. The movie was released in Brazil on November 6, 2025.