LOS ANGELES — Neon’s Cannes-winning political thriller “The Secret Agent,” starring Brazilian actor Wagner Moura, expanded to more U.S. theaters Friday as awards season accelerates. The rollout puts the Brazil-set dictatorship thriller in front of more voters as it lands on key Oscar shortlists and rides fresh Golden Globe nominations, Dec. 20, 2025.
Directed by Kleber Mendonça Filho, the 2 1/2-hour film is set during Carnival in 1977 Recife and follows Armando — living under the alias Marcelo — a widowed father and low-profile scientist who becomes a target after crossing a businessman tied to Brazil’s military regime, according to The Associated Press. Moura told the AP that Armando is in danger “simply for being who he is, for holding the values he holds,” adding, “That’s how authoritarianism works everywhere.”
The Secret Agent widens in U.S. theaters
The expansion is timed for a familiar awards-season playbook: start small, build reviews, then widen while the conversation is hottest. In a Washington Post review, the paper emphasized the film’s slow-burn dread and the way Mendonça Filho turns ordinary spaces — a safe house, a movie theater, a crowded street — into a living map of surveillance and fear.
The film’s push also got a visibility boost when the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences put “The Secret Agent” on the 15-title shortlist for international feature and on the 10-title shortlist for the new casting award, according to an Academy press release. The same week, the AP reported Golden Globe nominations for the film (best drama, best non-English film) and for Moura (best actor in a drama) — the kind of precursor pileup that can turn a platform release into a must-see.
The Secret Agent’s runway from Cannes to the Oscars
The current run is the latest step in a campaign that has been building since May. At Cannes, Reuters reported that Mendonça Filho won best director and Moura took best actor — a rare double that quickly elevated the film’s profile from festival standout to awards-season fixture. The festival’s official page for O Agente Secreto reflects that pedigree.
Distribution followed fast. A May report from CNN Brasil noted that Neon had acquired U.S. rights, setting up a stateside rollout aimed at the winter corridor. By September, Cinema Tropical reported that Brazil selected “The Secret Agent” as its official submission for the Academy Awards’ international feature race — a key step that kept the film’s campaign moving through the fall and into year-end voting.
Why The Secret Agent’s Brazil-dictatorship story is landing now
The timing matters beyond trophies. The AP noted that “The Secret Agent” arrives after the international success of “I’m Still Here,” which won this year’s Oscar for best international feature, and at a moment when Brazilian filmmakers are returning to the dictatorship years with renewed urgency. Mendonça Filho has described that period as “a trauma that was never truly examined,” and his film plays like a reminder that forgetting is rarely neutral.
In “The Secret Agent,” that argument sits under every uneasy exchange: a man shaving down his identity, a city partying while danger closes in, and a family story threatened by the machinery of the state. For U.S. audiences, the wider release means more chances to catch the film in theaters. For Moura, it means more voters seeing the performance at the center of his most serious awards push yet — and a campaign gaining speed at exactly the right moment.
