The Secret Agent
Opens December 18, 2025
Kleber Mendonça Filho (Bacurau) 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.
The Brazilian director Kleber Mendonça Filho, who has gifted us such breathtakers as Aquarius and Bacurau), 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.
- Original Language Title: O Agente Secreto
- Director: Kleber Mendonça Filho
- Principal Cast: Wagner Moura, Maria Fernanda Candido, Gabriel Leone
- Country: Brazil, France, Netherlands, Germany
- Year: 2025
- Running Time: 159 min.
- Screenplay: Kleber Mendonça Filho
- Awards: Cannes 2025 (Best Director, Actor, FIPRESCI Award - Competition), Chicago International Film Festival 2025 (Special Jury Prize)
- Filmography: Pictures of Ghosts (2023), Bacurau (2019), Aquarius (2016)
- Language: Portuguese
- Has Subtitles: Yes
- US Distributor: NEON
- International Sales: mk2