Brazil enjoyed a historic night at the 83rd edition of the Golden Globe Awards, winning two of the ceremony’s most significant honors. Wagner Moura took home the award for Best Male Actor in a Motion Picture – Drama for his performance in Kleber Mendonça Filho’s The Secret Agent / O Agente Secreto, which was also crowned Best Motion Picture in a Non-English Language. The Brazilian production was additionally nominated for Best Motion Picture – Drama, marking a rare crossover recognition.
With its victory, The Secret Agent became only the second Brazilian film to win the Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture in a Non-English Language, following Walter Salles’ Central Station. Moura’s win was equally historic: he is the second Brazilian actor—and the first male—to receive a Golden Globe, following Fernanda Torres’ triumph last year for her performance in Salles’ I’m Still Here / Ainda Estou Aqui.
Since its acclaimed world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival last May, where it won three major awards—Best Director, Best Actor, and the FIPRESCI Prize—The Secret Agent has emerged as the most lauded Latin American film of the year. The film appeared on numerous year-end top ten lists, including The New York Times, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, NPR, and Rolling Stone, and was named Best International Feature by the New York Film Critics Circle, the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, the National Society of Film Critics, and the Critics Choice Awards.
Set in the late 1970s, during the final years of Brazil’s military dictatorship, The Secret Agent is a taut political thriller that follows a former intelligence operative pulled back into an increasingly tightening web of surveillance, state violence, and personal reckoning. Through its deft combination of genre tension and incisive political commentary, the film revisits one of the darkest chapters of Brazil’s recent history while resonating with contemporary global anxieties.
Its Golden Globe triumph should give the Brazilian film a significant boost in its Oscar campaign. Currently shortlisted for Best International Feature, The Secret Agent is also building strong momentum for potential nominations in Best Actor and Best Picture.
