While everyone's been obsessing over the usual Oscar suspects, a Brazilian political thriller just landed with critics scores that put the frontrunners to shame.
The Secret Agent, directed by Kleber Mendonça Filho, carries a 98% on Rotten Tomatoes and a 92 on Metacritic. Those aren't "pretty good for a foreign film" numbers. Those are "we might have a masterpiece" numbers.
The film stars Wagner Moura - yes, Narcos' Pablo Escobar - as Marcelo, a fugitive technology expert returning to Recife, Brazil in 1977 during the height of the military dictatorship. He's seeking refuge during Carnival. He finds something considerably darker.
Mendonça Filho won Best Director at Cannes last year, and Moura took home Best Actor. Critics are calling it "thematically rich and visually arresting," which is awards-speak for "this movie demands your attention." The cinematography apparently captures 1970s Brazil as both vibrant and gritty, merging grindhouse stylization with biting social commentary.
In other words: Mendonça Filho made a film that's both entertaining and smart. Rare combination.
Here's why The Secret Agent matters beyond the review scores: it's the kind of film the Academy claims to want to reward but often ignores in favor of safer English-language prestige pictures. A politically charged thriller from Brazil that doesn't hold your hand or apologize for its perspective? That takes guts to champion.
Wagner Moura has been a respected character actor for years, but this might be his breakthrough moment in the same way Amour was for Jean-Louis Trintignant or The Father was for Anthony Hopkins. One performance that forces the industry to reckon with an actor they've been undervaluing.
Will it break through in the awards race? Honestly, probably not. The Academy loves international cinema in theory but votes for it inconsistently in practice. But 98% on Rotten Tomatoes means this isn't just critic bait - it's a film that's genuinely connecting.
And in a year where the Oscar frontrunners feel somewhat predictable, The Secret Agent offers something genuinely surprising: a film that's both artistically ambitious and suspenseful enough to justify the "thriller" label. Mendonça Filho proved with Bacurau that he can blend genre thrills with social commentary. Now he's done it again, at an even higher level.
In Hollywood, nobody knows anything - except when critics agree this enthusiastically, you should probably pay attention.
