The victory, Verstappen's third race win of the season, moved him to third place in the driver's championship, 11 points ahead of Ferrari's Charles Leclerc with only the Abu Dhabi GP on December 1 to go.
The Dutch driver controlled nearly all the race in Sao Paulo and was a deserved winner at the Interlagos circuit, but the real drama happened behind him in the closing stages.
The major talking point was a stunning late collision between Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel and Leclerc when they fought for fourth position with only five laps to go.
The scene was reminiscent of when Vettel collided with Australian Mark Webber at the 2010 Turkish Grand Prix, an incident that left both Webber and his boss at Red Bull Christian Horner incensed.
With both Ferraris failing to finish as a result of the incident, the reaction of the Italian team will be just as critical.
"I think at the end that both of them have got at least a small or part percentage of responsibility," Ferrari boss Mattia Binotto told the F1 website.
"But I don't want to judge now and tell my own opinion on the crash … in the heat [of the moment].
On team radio, Vettel initially blamed Leclerc for the incident, saying "what was he doing", before adding "sorry".
Leclerc was less diplomatic: "What the hell?"
That incident bought out the safety car, congesting the field to set up a grandstand finale, after which Toro Rosso's Pierre Gasly got his first F1 podium in second place.
The Frenchman finished just 0.062 seconds provisionally ahead of six-time F1 champion Lewis Hamilton in a thrilling drag race down the final straight.
Hamilton finished third, but was then penalised five seconds for causing Albon to spin and drop down to 14th.
Hamilton, who won at Interlagos in 2018, said Verstappen was "just quicker than us on the straights" and "there was nothing more we could do".
The six-time world champion was overtaken twice by the Dutch driver in the little time he spent ahead at Interlagos — after a pit stop and after a safety car.
The Brazilian GP on Sunday was the penultimate race of the season, with only next month's Abu Dhabi race left.
Hamilton already secured the season title in the previous race in the United States.
