The Secret Agent Review (2026) — 84% Celluloid Score
Directed by Kleber Mendonça Filho · 2026 ·
The Secret Agent (2026) earns a 84% Celluloid Score — Recommended. Recommended — recommended by most critics and audiences.Critics (93%) were notably more enthusiastic than audiences (80%).
Averaged from five public sources (critic, audience, Metascore, Letterboxd, IMDb). See how we calculate scores.
Five-source breakdown
Neon Where to watch in Indonesia
- Hulu
Why this score?
- Strong critic approval (93% positive).
- General viewers mostly liked it (80%).
- Metascore signals universal acclaim (88/100).
- Letterboxd diarists rate it highly (4/5).
- Celluloid Score 84% averages all five public rating sources — our own composite, not a third-party trademark score.
Best for
- Viewers who want a well-regarded thriller, drama pick
- Epic-length viewers who want a big-screen experience
- Critics' darlings — stronger with reviewers than general viewers
Not ideal for
Scores reflect data indexed at build time. Component sources are shown on this page; Celluloid Score is our composite, not a third-party trademark. Scoring policy
Is The Secret Agent worth watching?
Yes — The Secret Agent earns a 84% Celluloid Score. Recommended — recommended by most critics and audiences.
Critics Consensus
Wagner Moura's haunted lead and Kleber Mendonça Filho's Cannes-winning direction make this 93% political thriller the year's definitive Brazilian export — Metacritic midyear lists and Empire's world-cinema column both rank it among 2026's essential non-English theatricals.
Celluloid Critics Consensus
Critics (93%) were notably more enthusiastic than audiences (80%).
What is The Secret Agent about?
Recife, 1977: Marcelo, a technology expert hunted by Brazil's military dictatorship, returns to his hometown hoping to reunite with the son he barely knows. Kleber Mendonça Filho folds archival dread, family melodrama, and paranoid thriller mechanics into a sprawling portrait of a city — and a nation — learning to live inside surveillance.
Watch the Trailer
Critic Reviews
The Secret Agent Review: Wagner Moura in Kleber Mendonça Filho's 1977 Recife Thriller
★★★★½
Brazil's 2026 export of the year — Wagner Moura flees dictatorship surveillance in a 93% political thriller that Metacritic and Empire both placed among essential non-English theatricals.
Masterpiece-tier world cinema — the Brazilian title I would send any reader to first on the 2026 leaderboard.
More Like This
FeaturedCannes 2025 The Secret Agent
Thriller · 2h 10m
Cannes 2019 Parasite
Thriller, Drama · 2h 12m
Cannes 2000 Amores Perros
Drama, Thriller · 2h 34m
FeaturedCannes 2024 The Seed of the Sacred Fig
Drama, Thriller · 2h 48m