8 Best Wagner Moura Movies & TV Shows to Watch After The Last House
Although Wagner Moura’s name is steadily earning more global acclaim with every passing year, he has already been revered and adored in his home country of Brazil for two decades.
From starting his career starring in mainstream films like the action-drama Elite Squad to his breakout role as Pablo Escobar in Narcos, not to mention receiving a Best Actor Oscar nomination for his performance in the arthouse political thriller The Secret Agent, Moura has proven that he is an artist capable of consistently delivering emotionally profound, energetically measured, and even comedic performances.
You might have most recently caught Moura in Netflix’s The Last House, where he plays the father of a family trapped by a mysterious force inside their own home. Moura brings the same unique style to the movie as he does in all his other roles, injecting emotional power and depth as he navigates new territory in the horror genre.
If you just checked out The Last House and are keen to see more of Moura, watch eight of his best performances in the films and TV shows below, which we’ve listed in ascending order.
In one of his earliest roles, Wagner Moura plays a prisoner in the brutal Brazilian drama Carandiru.
Although his part is small, his performance as the prisoner Zico contributes a powerful, brooding aura to the story of Dr Varella’s tenure as the only doctor on call at the notorious Carandiru prison, showing his promise as an actor in the early stages of his career.
This wild Brazilian sci-fi rom-com might be one of the weirder entries on this list, but it is a great window into earlier days of Wagner Moura’s career before Narcos.
The Man From the Future sees Moura play Zero, a disillusioned, brilliant physicist who invents a way to go back in time to change a humiliating public breakup — only to find it completely distorts his reality back in the present. Basically, his time meddling results in three versions of him running around, and each wants something different.
The result is a series of truly fun performances from a young Moura that provide a glimpse of the acting powerhouse he was already becoming.
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In the stellar Apple TV+ series Dope Thief, Wagner Moura plays recovering addict and small-time thief Manny, who commits petty crimes alongside his lifelong best friend Ray (played by Spider-Man: Brand New Day‘s Brian Tyree Henry).
While this eight-episode series is a bit long for its content, Moura and Henry deliver truly spectacular performances. Moura finally gets to demonstrate that he is not only a brilliant dramatic actor, but he also has great comedic timing.
While Dope Thief is ultimately a crime drama, the banter between the two friends and the dark humour scattered throughout make it often feel like a comedy made delightfully deep through Moura and Henry’s unexpected team-up.
In Apple TV+’s thriller series Shining Girls, Moura again delivers a nuanced performance that gives his character, journalist Dan Velazquez, a satisfyingly three-dimensional quality.
The series stars Elisabeth Moss as Kirby Mazrachi, who survives a violent attack by a serial killer that leaves her living in an ever-shifting reality. After a body with similar wounds to the ones she sustained is discovered, she and Moura’s Dan team up to find the killer.
Dan could easily have been a simple sidekick, yet Moura’s performance allows him to become a warm, grounding presence for Kirby (and the audience) while displaying true vulnerability through his flaws, regrets, and hard lessons learned.
Although Puss in Boots: The Last Wish is an animated film, Wagner Moura provides the perfect voice for the film’s overarching antagonist.
This sequel to 2011’s Shrek spinoff Puss in Boots could have been a dud, but instead surprised fans and critics alike by becoming a favourite to win the Oscar for Best Animated Feature in 2023. The film’s moral message and rather moving contemplation of the value of life are brought to a head by Moura’s wolf character, who first appears as a bounty hunter before revealing he is, in fact, Death, and is intent on killing Puss in Boots because he has not valued any of his past eight lives.
Moura’s vocal performance conveys the wolf’s complexity, confidently attacking Puss in Boots’ moral character, and ultimately catalysing a change of heart in the furry protagonist.
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Moura’s role in Alex Garland’s hard-hitting dystopian drama Civil War really put him on the map for English-speaking audiences who hadn’t seen Narcos.
He plays Joel, a journalist who partners with Kirsten Dunst’s Lee on a mission to Washington, DC, in the midst of a grotesque, deadly civil war raging across the United States. Both a reporter dedicated to journalistic integrity and an adrenaline junkie, Joel is a complex mix of despicable and extremely likeable.
Wagner does not shy away from showing Joel’s unlikeable side while dedicating just as much energy to displaying the character’s admirable qualities. In addition, this is one of his first major roles in English, proving just how strong an actor he is, regardless of language.
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Still his most well-known role to date, Wagner Moura played the notorious Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar in the first two seasons of the Netflix crime series Narcos.
Moura had to both learn Spanish and gain over 18 kg for the role. Although the body transformation and language skills already demonstrate an impressive dedication to the craft, it’s his portrayal of Escobar as both a psychopathic and sympathetic character that brought the series critical acclaim and earned him a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actor.
The 2025 Brazilian political drama The Secret Agent propelled Wagner Moura to a new level of acclaim — and for good reason. This intensely moving film about a researcher who goes into hiding from the military dictatorship in 1977 Brazil is both an immersive and deeply personal window into that dark time in history.
Already known as a formidable actor, Wagner delivers a captivating performance as the hunted Armando Solimões. Deeply emotional and raw, yet somehow warm, his portrayal of Armando balances the character’s moral struggle, grief about his life, and his deep political conviction as he tries to stay alive and protect his son.
Moura’s performance won him the Best Actor award at both the 2025 Cannes Film Festival and the Golden Globes, and a Best Actor nomination at the Oscars.
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