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Kleber Mendonça Filho

Brazilian filmmaker and former film critic; directed Neighboring Sounds (2012), Aquarius (2016), Bacurau (2019) and The Secret Agent (2025), which won him Best Director at Cannes.

4 things

Bigger Than LifeOther Nicholas Ray

loved

Bigger Than Life is a modern take on U.S. society in the 1950s that was unusual at a time when Hollywood and television were invested in depicting picture-perfect nuclear families. The film is both disturbing and fascinating.

Criterion Collection Top 10 list by Kleber Mendonça Filho, the entry for Bigger Than Life.

2020-05-06·criterion.com ↗

Hard BoiledOther John Woo

loved

U.S. cinema has made the action film a national product, but all in all I keep thinking of two films that have rewritten filmed and staged action: George Miller’s Mad Max 2, from Australia, and Woo’s Hard Boiled, from Hong Kong.

Criterion Collection Top 10 list by Kleber Mendonça Filho, the entry for Hard Boiled.

2020-05-06·criterion.com ↗

Secret SunshineOther Chang-dong Lee

loved

When I was preparing my film Aquarius, I looked at a number of films I admire. Two of them were from South Korea, Bong Joon-ho’s Mother and Lee Chang-dong’s Secret Sunshine.

Criterion Collection Top 10 list by Kleber Mendonça Filho, the entry for Secret Sunshine.

2020-05-06·criterion.com ↗

Heaven’s GateOther Michael Cimino

liked

Heaven’s Gate was so brutalized at the time of its release, but all things considered one feels most of the assessments now are actually positive. I think time has been kind to it; it’s an American epic that feels closer to a Soviet experiment than to straight-up Hollywood.

Criterion Collection Top 10 list by Kleber Mendonça Filho, the entry for Heaven’s Gate.

2020-05-06·criterion.com ↗

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