LOS ANGELES — Wagner Moura won the Golden Globe for lead actor in a motion picture drama on Sunday night for the political thriller “The Secret Agent,” becoming the second Brazilian to take home a Globes acting prize, after Fernanda Torres’ win last year for “I’m Still Here.”

“‘The Secret Agent’ is a film about memory — or the lack of memory — and generational trauma,” Moura said in his acceptance speech. “I think if trauma can be passed along generations, values can too. So this is to the ones that are sticking with their values in difficult moments.”

The win marks a major milestone in a banner awards season for the 49-year-old Moura. In “The Secret Agent,” directed by Kleber Mendonça Filho, he plays Armando, a former professor forced into hiding while trying to protect his young son during Brazil’s military dictatorship of the 1970s. The role earned Moura the actor prize at last year’s Cannes Film Festival, making him the first Brazilian performer to win that honor.

For many American viewers, Moura is best known for his star-making turn as Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar in Netflix’s “Narcos,” which ran from 2015 to 2017 and earned him a Golden Globe nomination in 2016. He has since been involved in a range of high-profile English-language projects, including the 2020 biographical drama “Sergio,” the 2022 animated sequel “Puss in Boots: The Last Wish,” in which he voiced the villainous Wolf, and Alex Garland’s 2024 dystopian thriller “Civil War,” playing a Reuters war correspondent.

“The Secret Agent,” which earlier in the evening earned the Globes award for non-English language film, marked a homecoming for Moura after more than a decade of not starring in a Brazilian production, following years spent working abroad and navigating political turmoil in his home country as well as pandemic disruptions.

Though he failed to score a nomination from the Screen Actors Guild earlier this month, Moura now heads strongly into Oscar nominations, which will be announced Jan. 22. “The Secret Agent” is Brazil’s official submission for international feature and has been one of the most honored films of the season, keeping Moura firmly in the awards conversation. Last month, he became the first Latino performer to win best actor from the New York Film Critics Circle.

Even as his career has been shaped by politically charged projects, Moura has been careful not to let that define him. “I don’t want to be the Che Guevara of film,” he told The Times last month. “I gravitate towards things that are political, but I like being an actor more than anything else.”

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