‘The Secret Agent’ is named best film of the year by The Hollywood Reporter

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“Set in 1977, at the height of Brazil’s long military dictatorship, Kleber Mendonça Filho’s sinuous reframing of the political thriller presents a Wagner Moura at his best as Armando, a technology expert who returns to his hometown — and also the director’s — Recife, in the Northeast, after a disturbing confrontation with a corrupt federal official. Widower Armando hides in a left-wing safe house, making plans to get his young son out of the country safely as gunmen approach,” the magazine says.

“Filled with generous notes of absurdist humor, haunting reflections on history and memory, turbulent emotional currents, intense colors and a deep love of cinema, This is a sui generis masterpiece. A ‘WTF’ scene that hilariously evokes an urban legend begins with capybaras grazing in a field at night and progresses to a severed leg terrorizing a queer hangout — a deft metaphor that contrasts the tranquility of nature with the chaos and persecution of the regime,” he concludes.

1. “The Secret Agent”, by Kleber Mendonça Filho
2. “One Battle After Another” by Paul Thomas Anderson
3. “Sirat” by Oliver Laxe
4. “The Day of Peter Hujar” by Ira Sachs
5. “Marty Supreme”, de Josh Safdie
6. “Sentual value”, by Joachim Trier
7. “Sinners” by Ryan Coogler
8. “Train Dreams” by Clint Bentley
9. “The Mastermind”, de Kelly Reichardt
10. “Frankenstein” by Guillermo del Toro

Record engagement and follower growth: study shows the impact of ‘The Secret Agent’ on networks

The famous World Cup atmosphere that contaminated the Brazilian (and global) internet with the trajectory of “I’m still here” in the last awards season is back. Brazil’s bet for the 2026 Oscars, “The Secret Agent” has already been making noise on the networks, which is reflected in the strong engagement of posts about the film and also in the growth of followers of names involved in the production.

A study carried out by Nexus – Pesquisa e Análise de Dados and shared with O GLOBO analyzed the film’s repercussion on the X, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and Bluesky networks, between April, when Kleber Mendonça Filho’s film was announced in the competitive exhibition at the Cannes Festival, and November, the month of the commercial launch of the production and the increase in Wagner Moura’s international promotion schedule.

During the period analyzed, the film was the target of 26.4 million interactions on social networks. The vast majority of publications came from X. The network was responsible for 92% of the volume of posts about “The Secret Agent”. Instagram came next with 4%, followed by Facebook and Bluesky, each with 2%.

The months of May, with the film’s double award at Cannes, and September, with the Brazilian Cinema Academy choosing to represent Brazil at the Oscars, were the record holders for interactions.

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The survey also analyzed the impact of Wagner Moura’s photo published on the profile of the Hollywood Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences on November 17th. The photo taken at the Governors Awards reached more than 1 million interactions, 3.5 times more than the runner-up.

“There were more than 1 million interactions, which are divided into 843 thousand likes and 168 thousand comments. The second photo that most mobilized users was of the North American actress Lili Reinhart, famous for playing Betty Cooper in Riverdale, with 281 thousand interactions, a value 3.5 times lower than the results achieved by Wagner Moura”, highlights the study.

Photos of popular names like Jennifer Lopez, Hugh Jackman, Kate Winslet, Natalie Portman, Kristen Stewart and Jacob Elordi didn’t come close in terms of engagement.

The analysis of the word cloud on social networks in the universe of “The Secret Agent” presents the name of Wagner Moura at the center of the conversations. Without social media, the star is no stranger to the social phenomenon that the film represents, especially because he has colleagues who are very active on social media, such as director Kleber Mendonça Filho and actress Alice Carvalho.

Alice, by the way, has seen her number of followers grow 53% since the boom of “The Secret Agent” in May. Who also became a networking phenomenon was artisan Tânia Maria, 78 years old. At the end of the survey, the actress had 21 thousand followers on Instagram. Today, the number is already 38 thousand.

Methodology: The study data was obtained through various social listening tools such as Sprout, BrandWatch, Stilingue and Social Blade. The selection of actors and the creation of the timeline per social network were prepared according to the metrics available in the tools and platforms. To analyze conversations on social media between 4/1/25 and 11/9/25, searches were made using social listening tools. In total, the sample reached 255 thousand posts, bringing together content from X, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and Bluesky.