The Secret Agent

"This movie, visually and dramatically superb in every way, moves with unhurried confidence across the screen, pausing to savour every bizarre bit of comedy or erotic byway, or note of pathos, on its circuitous path to the violent finale."
– THE GUARDIAN

"The movie’s writer and director, Kleber Mendonça Filho, crafts a tight story with startling freedom, leaping between characters in order to conjure their fateful interconnections, while giving them all, persecuted and persecutors alike, an identity and a voice. In the process, he brings history to life with bracing immediacy—a feat all the rarer for the audacious twists of cinematic form with which he renders the movie an act of archival reclamation."
– THE NEW YORKER

"What initially seems like a series of cryptic aside soon turns into a bigger-picture revelation about what Filho has been chasing all along: the passage of time, and how it never really heals all wounds. That’s not really a secret. But it is a point that bears repeating, especially when its echoed in a movie as graceful and gratifying as this one."
– ROLLING STONE

"An imposing masterpiece steeped in history and a palpable adoration for cinema, Kleber Mendonça Filho’s THE SECRET AGENT stands as the director’s most ambitiously monumental effort in a career with no missteps thus far."
– THE PLAYLIST

"Rich, evocative, crafty and exciting, it’s one of the few standout movies of the year."
– WALL STREET JOURNAL

"For his latest knockout, The Secret Agent, the Brazilian filmmaker Kleber Mendonça Filho embraces a freewheeling sensibility, and finds laughter amid the terror."
– NEW YORK TIMES

"If you’re willing to bend with the story, The Secret Agent will take you places movies rarely go."
– ROGEREBERT.COM