Spy movies are a perfect mixture of action movies and intense thrillers. This combination creates a much deeper story than most action movies, and at the same time, with the high stakes and fast pace, that is so entertaining to watch. This is one of the reasons why these types of stories have been popular for a very long time. One of the most famous spies in movie history? He likes his Martinis shaken, not stirred.
You don't need to particularly like the subgenre to know the character James Bond. With 25 movies (or 26, including Never Say Never Again), the British spy franchise has accomplished something no one ever had. However, because this character is so popular and keeps reinventing himself in every movie (sometimes quite literally when it changes the actor who plays him), many viewers don't try out other spy narratives that are just as good.
Here are some of the best spy movies that don't involve the agent licensed to kill.
8 Kingsman: The Secret Service
Not all spy stories and films are serious, and some are incredibly funny. Making fun of the 007 franchise and the subgenre as a whole, Kingsman: The Secret Service takes all the well-loved elements (that can sometimes be a bit ridiculous if you really think about it) and explores them.
The chemistry and the storyline between Colin Firth and Taron Egerton make this more than a satirical take on the genre. Also, there was no better actor than Samuel L. Jackson, to play an outrageous villain and nail it. The action, high stakes, and impeccable suits pleased the audience so much that a second movie, Kingsman: The Golden Circle, was made.
7 Argo
Some of the best spy movies blend action with political thrillers, and the Academy Award-winning movie Argo does that. Ben Affleck directed and starred as the agent who has the best bad idea (as said in the movie) to get the six American prisoners being held hostage in Iran — they are going to pretend they are shooting a film to get inside the country.
With a killer ensemble cast, it is an intense movie that also doesn't shy away from how absurd the plan is, and uses a bit of comedy when it's much needed. While the film is based on a true story, it has been criticized for changing a few facts, such as stating that the British and New Zealand embassies had turned away the U.S. ambassadors when they helped them get the prisoners.
6 BlacKkKlansman
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Directed and written by Spike Lee, BlacKkKlansman may not fall into every category of a spy movie. However, it dives into one of the most extreme and intense situations a spy and police officers have to do: going undercover. Lee won an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay because the film is based on a memoir called Black Klansman by Ron Stallworth.
Dealing with racial segregation and the Ku Klux Klan is a heavy subject that Lee masterfully manages to balance with humor. A Black police officer, Ron Stallworth (John David Washington), infiltrates the KKK with the help of Flip Zimmerman (Adam Driver), a Jewish white man who ends up infiltrating the Klan.
5 Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
Based on John Le Carre's novel, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy was inspired by the author's experiences in the special investigations section. There was a lot the movie had to do to surpass the 1979 miniseries by BBC.
The film is directed by Tomas Alfredson, who brings the same cold, tense style he perfected in his vampire film, Let the Right One In. This film is set in the Cold War when an agent (Mark Strong) has the mission to find out who is the Soviet spy that infiltrated MI6. The cast is filled with stars, including Gary Oldman, who is now playing another spy in the Apple TV+ show Slow Horses. This is a much more cerebral thriller rather than an action-packed one.
4 Bridge of Spies
A 2015 spy movie directed by none other than Steven Spielberg, Bridge of Spies is based on a true story. There are a lot of spy stories set in the Cold War, so it can be hard to innovate and stand out from the rest. Nevertheless, the astute director tells an emotional and thrilling story in this movie starring Tom Hanks and Mark Rylance.
The U.S. and the Soviets negotiate to exchange prisoners. From the government assessing how much information and how valuable their citizens are to the actual visual of the Bridge of Spies, a bridge with snipers at both sides where the exchange happened, it's an intense and well-written screenplay by the Coen Brothers.
3 Three Days of the Condor
The leads of these types of espionage movies are usually charming and highly physical guys who can take everyone down in seconds. However, when bookish CIA researcher Joseph Turner (Robert Redford) comes back from lunch and finds all his colleagues murdered in the office, he has to learn quickly who he can trust. Directed by Sydney Pollack, Three Days of Condor dives into the American people's distrust and betrayal regarding the government in the 1970s.
The film stands out from the other spy movies, as most like to idolize and see the government through rose-colored glasses and make the other countries always the bad guy. The film is an adaptation of the novel by James Grady and Richard Elms, a former CIA director, who worked as a consultant.
2 The Conversation
Written and directed by Francis Ford Coppola, The Conversation is a claustrophobic story about obsession and moral dilemmas. The movie was released when the Watergate scandal was unwinding. The film is a mystery thriller that dives into ethics when a surveillance expert is paid to tape a couple's conversation.
The expert (played to perfection by Gene Hackman) starts to question what he should do, haunted by an old case that went wrong when the tape reveals a potential murder. It could be said that the 1970s were Coppola's decade, as The Conversation lost the Best Picture Academy Award to The Godfather Part II — another one of his productions — prior to his masterpiece Apocalypse Now.
1 North by Northwest
It can be debated whether anyone has changed cinema, especially a single genre, as much as Alfred Hitchcock has. North by Northwest is his spy movie that has one of the most iconic scenes in movie history: the crop-duster chase.
The Master of Suspense creates a thrilling story about mistaken identity and a chase across the country. The movie was released in 1959, so it's safe to say that it probably influenced, in some way or another, the spy movies that came after — especially the ones on this list.