Brazilian filmmaker Kleber Mendonça Filho’s The Secret Agent may have been smuggled into American cinemas late last year but it really had its cover blown this winter when it triggered considerable awards attention. At the Golden Globes it won Best Actor — Drama and Best Foreign Language Film and became the first Brazilian film to be nominated for Best Picture — Drama. At the 98th Academy Awards (which, by the way, have you started to think about how insufferable the 100th Oscars are going to be?) it earned four nominations, although it didn’t win any. While it may seem like a coup, once you see it, you can’t notice it has many of the hallmarks of the kinds of movies the Academy adores in the 21st Century – especially, and unfortunately, fellow 2025 critical darling One Battle After Another (with a tasteful splash of No Country For Old Men).
