New political thriller movie The Secret Agent has debuted to a perfect score on Rotten Tomatoes following its first reviews.
Written and directed by Kleber Mendonça Filho, the film is set during the Brazilian dictatorship of the 1970s and centres on a technology expert named Marcelo (Wagner Moura), a man on the run.
Marcelo flees from a mysterious past to his hometown of Recife during carnival week, hoping to reunite with his son, though he soon realises that the city is far from being the refuge he seeks.
The Secret Agent premiered at the Cannes Film Festival last week and has debuted to glowing reviews, earning it a perfect score of 100% on Rotten Tomatoes from 14 reviews at the time of writing.
Little White Lies described the film as "gripping", adding that the "large ensemble cast, plural and charming and ever-interesting to look at and listen to, crowns a film that grabs at the fabric of a people with the confident, hungry hands of those who love it".
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Here's what some of the other critics have been saying:
The Hollywood Reporter
"Moments of anarchic humour amid genuine suspense are exactly the kind of thing that makes Kleber Mendonça Filho’s fourth narrative feature such a thrilling original."
Variety
"Mendonça shows a remarkable ability not just to re-create, but to transport us back to that time, with its oppressive heat and paranoia."
The Wrap
"Its messiness is part of its charm and part of the point; a film that took itself more seriously than this one wouldn’t let a climactic gun battle turn into an almost cartoonish grand guignol splatter-fest."
IndieWire
"With The Secret Agent, Filho exhumes the past as the basis for a purely fictional story, and in doing so articulates how fiction can be even more valuable as a vehicle for truth than it is as a tool for covering it up."
Screen International
"A sweat-saturated riot of a movie: a dual-timeline thriller powered by the kind of anarchic, erratic energy that you would expect to find at the end of a two day bender."
A release date for The Secret Agent is TBC.
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Social Executive, Entertainment Portfolio After completing her joint honours degree in Journalism and English Literature at Cardiff University, Iona joined Digital Spy as a Content Production Intern in 2022, where she wrote across both news and features, specialising in TV and movies. Following her internship, Iona continued contributing to the site as a freelance reporter, becoming social executive for the Hearst UK entertainment portfolio in summer 2025. Iona now leads the DS social channels, covering red carpets with stars such as Paul Mescal, Austin Butler, and more.
