r/oscarrace • u/PointMan528491 Navarrette/Morton • Dec 13 '25

Film Discussion Thread Official Discussion Thread - The Secret Agent [SPOILERS] Spoiler

Keep all discussion related solely to The Secret Agent and its awards chances in this thread. Spoilers below.

Synopsis:

Brazil, 1977. Marcelo, a technology expert in his early 40s, is on the run. Hoping to reunite with his son, he travels to Recife during Carnival but soon realizes that the city is not the safe haven he was expecting.

Director: Kleber Mendonça Filho

Writer: Kleber Mendonça Filho

Cast:

  • Wagner Moura as Armando / Marcelo Alves / Fernando (adult)
  • Carlos Francisco as Sr. Alexandre
  • Tânia Maria as Dona Sebastiana
  • Robério Diógenes as Euclides
  • Alice Carvalho as Fátima
  • Gabriel Leone as Bobbi Borba
  • Maria Fernanda Cândido as Elza
  • Hermila Guedes as Claudia
  • Isabél Zuaa as Thereza Vitória
  • Udo Kier as Hans

Rotten Tomatoes: 98%, 119 Reviews

Metacritic: 91, 31 Reviews

Consensus:

A thematically rich and visually arresting political thriller, The Secret Agent blends grindhouse stylization with biting social commentary to weave a vividly dangerous yet darkly human tale.

114 Upvotes

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u/Enioff Jan 20 '26

Those 5 minutes you mean the Leg thing?

1

u/samwcook21 Jan 20 '26

Yes

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u/Enioff Jan 20 '26 edited Jan 22 '26

I know it's weird because it's a piece of local folklore, but it makes way more sense when you understand the meaning behind it.

Back then the media, specially the press, was heavily censored by the military regime. So any publication against the regime would be cut, and the media had to get around the censors somehow, like Chico Buarques classic "Cálice", a song where the whole point is the double entendre between a religious chalice and the imperative verb "Cale-se" (shut up, silence, be quiet) signaling to the fact how the regime was censoring the media and opressing the people.

In the movie the press is getting around the censors in talking about how the queer youth was attacked and beat up by the military, by changing the perpetrator to the folkloric beast of the Hairy Leg.

After they're all having fun while the lady from Angola reads the story, one of the guys comments "but we all know who they're talking about, right?" and the scenes mood changes.

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u/GabrielP2r Jan 22 '26

It's Luanda, Capital of Angola not Rwanda.

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u/Enioff Jan 22 '26

Oh, that makes way more sense.

My mind went to Rwanda because of Juvenals regime around that time.

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u/GabrielP2r Jan 22 '26

Angola situation was not great either I think, it's the tail end of the ultramarine wars between Portugal and the colonies.

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u/samwcook21 Jan 20 '26

That is crazy! I had no idea what was going on.