A soulful Wagner Moura stars as a fugitive from the corrupt dictatorship of 1970s Brazil in writer/director Kleber Mendonça Filho’s latest film, a gripping political thriller.

After escaping a vengeful bureaucrat in São Paulo, a widower (Moura) takes the name “Marcelo” and flees to the coastal city of Recife in the state of Pernambuco to reunite with his young son, Fernando (Enzo Nunes). The former university professor has angered the corrupt official by refusing to research exploitable business concerns. Dona Sebastiana (Tânia Maria, delightful), the gossipy senior den mother for a group of dissidents and refugees, provides him with an apartment, cash, and sympathetic contacts who will help him find a job in the state identification archive and navigate the day-to-day needs of his undercover life.

Law enforcement has put a hit out on Marcelo. A federal official and industrialist, Ghirotti (Luciano Chirolli, brilliantly odious) presents a public appearance of fairness, yet is the two-faced shark heading up the plan, with violence escalating to the absurd, gore-soaked level of an exploitation flick. In Brazil during this era, the military dictatorship targeted political opponents, often under the pretense of combating communism. The regime was responsible for torture, murder, and the disappearance of countless so-called enemies.

Meanwhile, in a forensic lab, a human leg found in the belly of a shark becomes a lurid tabloid headliner. In a farcical and surreal digression from the main storyline, the disembodied hairy leg kicks and tramples men having sex in a park at night. In real life, an urban legend about the menacing appendage was created by journalists as a coded reference to hushed-up police action against pot smokers, gays, and “longhairs,” presumably leftists. (Fernando, under the care of his maternal grandparents, is obsessed with sharks and begs to see Jaws, programmed by a local movie theater in response to the community’s excitement over the tabloid story.)

The film includes interludes that emphasize how routinely crooked authorities in the government and military wield power: a Jewish man (Udo Kier, in one of his last roles) is bullied into exposing his wounds from World War II, a wealthy woman is shielded from punishment for negligence in a child’s death, and a theft at the morgue seems practically routine.

Marcelo’s story is amplified by flashbacks to his days as a principled university scholar and flash-forwards to the present day, in a library where student historians are listening to cassette tapes of his meetings with Elza (Maria Fernanda Cândido), a comely leader in the resistance movement. Researcher Flavia (Laura Lufési) is particularly interested in Marcelo’s trajectory, as she also hails from Pernambuco.

Moura, best known to audiences for his role as kingpin Pablo Escobar in the Netflix series Narcos, gives weight to the complex Marcelo—a devoted father, a handsome lady-killer, a man who resists carrying a gun until he learns the thugs are closing in. Later, in a lab coat and shorter hair, Moura plays Fernando in middle age. Prior to the movie’s berth in the main slate of the New York Film Festival, Moura won the Best Actor award and Mendonça Filho Best Director at the Cannes Film Festival, where the 160-minute film premiered.

The Secret Agent is the culmination of achievements from Mendonça Filho’s four previous features, all set in his hometown of Recife. Neighboring Sounds (2012) delved into societal behavior; Aquarius (2016) examined the human toll of urban development; Pictures of Ghosts (2023) honored the filmgoing culture of the city; while Bacurau (2019) delved into and toyed with genre tropes.

The film’s crafts are superb. Through the work of composers Tomaz Alves Souza and Mateus Alves, lively music and revelers bopping to the beat during an exuberant Carnival parade add a sense of chaos and escalating suspense. The soundtrack hails from the era, with radio hits such as Donna Summer’s “Love to Love You Baby” and Chicago’s “If You Leave Me Now,” as well as samba that swells as the bad guys close in.

Production and costume design, by Thales Junqueira and Rita Azevedo, respectively, create a convincingly authentic atmosphere. (Marcelo even carries what was known as a “man purse,” an accessory for the modern, open-minded guy.) Using Panavision anamorphic lenses, cinematographer Evgenia Alexandrova captures the colorful palette that defined the era, such as Marcelo’s bright yellow Volkswagen Beetle in the arresting opening sequence.

The Secret Agent is Brazil’s official entry for the 98th Academy Awards. Last year’s winner, I’m Still Here from Walter Salles, mined similar territory in a very different, straightforward style—a biographical drama following the family of a man who was disappeared by the Brazilian military.

Neon is rolling the film out across the U.S. on November 26.