The Secret Agent

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Victor Juca/courtesy NEON

Wagner Moura in 'The Secret Agent.'

Wagner Moura in 'The Secret Agent.'

Did you know that Thursday nights, the UW-Madison’s Cinematheque features Madison premieres? The series has been extended this semester and the last of the bunch is the lauded 2025 film The Secret Agent (in Portuguese with English subtitles) directed by Kleber Mendonça Filho. It’s a thriller set in Brazil in the late 1970s, in which a man attempts to rescue his son from life under a corrupt regime. But it’s the widescreen cinematography that may steal the show. The film won Best Director and Best Actor at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival. Free, as all Cinematheque films are, at 4070 Vilas Hall.

media release: Brazil, France, Netherlands, Germany | 2025 | 158 min. | Portuguese with English subtitles

Director: Kleber Mendonça Filho

Cast: Wagner Moura, Gabriel Leone, Maria Fernanda Candido

In 1977 Brazil, a man is on the run from government hit men. Hiding out under an alias in Recife, he becomes enmeshed in a nefarious web of rampant surveillance and official corruption. Dazzlingly filmed in ultra-saturated widescreen, this world class political thriller is precise as a razor and expansive as a novel. Winner of Best Director and Best Actor at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival, writer/director Kleber Mendonça Filho’s followup to Bacurau is one of 2025’s essential films.