Barreto slipped into a coma in 2009 after being involved in a car accident in Rio de Janeiro and, in August 2014, was reported to be in a minimally conscious state.

His brother is the fellow filmmaker Bruno Barreto, responsible for the 1976 international box office hit Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands, starring Sônia Braga.

[2] His first feature was Índia, a Filha do Sol, starring Glória Pires as a Native-Brazilian who tries to survive the brutality of diamond mining in Central-Western Brazil and ends up falling in love with a white soldier.

In 1986 he directed O Rei do Rio, based on a play by Dias Gomes, which tells the story of two friends who enrich through illegal gambling game jogo do bicho and became rivals in the struggle for political power.

In 1997 he directed his first English language film, Bela Donna (released in the United States as White Dunes), starring Natasha Henstridge and Andrew McCarthy.

He would only return to directing a few years later, releasing Nossa Senhora de Caravaggio and the Brazilian version of Desperate Housewives (filmed in Argentina) in 2007.

[2] In an interview with Cult magazine, Barreto said his film Lula, o filho do Brasil did not have any political connotations, and gave his opinion about the President: "Lula represents a revolution over the course of Brazilian society, because he is deeply disturbing in a serious thing that has always existed in Brazil, called inferiority complex [...] So, he is responsible for [...] leaving [the elite] actionless, for showing how the 'enlightened' elite is intellectually colonized.

According to firefighter Wagner Generoso, a car came too near to the filmmaker's vehicle, which hit a stone wall, flew to another lane and overturned.

[7] Several friends of Fábio visited his family in the hospital, such as fellow filmmakers Guel Arraes, and Sérgio Rezende, Nossa Senhora de Caravaggio star Cristiana Oliveira, Frei Betto, Glória Pires' husband, singer Orlando Morais, O Quatrilho star Patrícia Pillar, and her husband, former presidential candidate Ciro Gomes.