The 25 best spy movies of all time, ranked

25. Mission: Impossible (1996)

Tom Cruise has turned Ethan Hunt into his own personal, age-defying performance art project, relishing the chance to give stunt performers as much time off as possible. Here, his IMF lieutenant is thrust into leadership (after a twist that pissed off fans of the original TV series to no end), gathering a squad to locate an undercover agent list before Vanessa Redgrave’s baddie can get her hands on it. Along the way, director Brian De Palma keeps things moving with signature visual aplomb. A helicopter-train duel sets the tone for even more ludicrous Mission: Impossible stunts to come, and the plot is merely a pretense to get from one crowd-popping spectacle to the next. 

Where to watch Mission: Impossible: Paramount+

24. Pascali’s Island (1988)

For some (albeit, fictional) spies, the job is one of danger, seduction, and improbable gunplay. But for others, it’s just a job, one more beset by boredom and disillusionment than exploding fountain pens and helicopter pursuits. For a lonely depiction of low-level espionage work, seek out James Dearden’s Pascali’s Island, in which Ben Kingsley plays a forgotten spy on a Greek island in the waning days of the Ottoman Empire.  

Dutifully filing reports to his uncommunicative and far-off superiors, Pascali regards his pay as proof that his work is imperative. But the arrival of Charles Dance’s mysterious Englishman sends Pascali into a tailspin of doubt about his purpose (and his friendship with a beautiful Austrian artist played by Helen Mirren). Soon, it becomes clear that his earnest attempts at spycraft may have set a political disaster in motion. Kingsley is achingly vulnerable as the loyal little man whose devotion to an indifferent government costs him the only intimacy he’s ever known. 

Where to watch Pascali’s Island: Tubi

23. True Lies (1994)

It’s easy to chide Hollywood spy movie franchises like Mission: Impossible for excess, but they’ve got nothing on James Cameron’s ludicrously entertaining, over-the-top comic action flick. Starring Arnold Schwarzenegger as a super spy improbably pulling off a double life and as an ordinary guy with his unknowing wife (Jamie Lee Curtis), True Lies bulges with heightened, well, everything. 

After missing yet another family event (to be fair, he was thwarting a nuclear threat by the dreaded “Crimson Jihad”), Arnold’s Harry Tasker struggles to reconcile his wife’s disillusionment with their marriage and prevent a terrorist plot against various major U.S. cities. With fine comic (and physical) turns from Curtis and Tom Arnold, True Lies is — in action craftsman Cameron’s hands — a bombastic hoot. 

Where to watch True Lies: Hulu

22. Bridge of Spies (2015)

Leave it to Steven Spielberg to find the bright side of espionage, as all-American icon Tom Hanks courageously leads a landmark Cold War prisoner exchange story co-written by the Coen Brothers. It’s not all rosy, of course, as Hanks’ crusading attorney continually asserts the constitutional rights of Mark Rylance’s captured Russian spy, something that Red Scare America regards as tantamount to treason. 

Rylance won an Oscar as mild-mannered minor agent Rudolf Abel, while Hanks (as real-life lawyer James B. Donovan) endures mounting suspicion for maintaining supposedly sacred American principles, facing career setbacks and death threats from his own countrymen. But it’s in the meticulously recreated Checkpoint Charlie swap (involving downed U.S. spy plane pilot Gary Powers) that Spielberg shows off what a master filmmaker can do with a suspense sequence. 

Where to watch Bridge of Spies: AppleTV+

21. Munich (2005)

Steven Spielberg proved he could also tap into the dark, violent side of spy movies 10 years before Bridge of Spies. See: His gripping account of the real-life assassinations by Mossad after the 1972 Olympics terrorist attack in Munich that murdered 11 Israeli athletes. Eric Bana and Daniel Craig embark on a global search for the Palestinians responsible for the massacre, all the while battling assassins and their own tortured consciences. Both enemies prove to be equally dangerous, while Spielberg portrays the men as dutiful but conflicted instruments of national vengeance. 

Putting lauded director Spielberg at the service of such a politically and historically loaded incident is a recipe for controversy, something Munich reaped from all sides. While garnering Oscar nominations for Best Picture and Best Director, the film was assailed for being too soft on both ends of the Israel/Palestine conflict — and for turning the thorny subject matter into a more palatable morality tale about the nature of violence. Still, Munich’s many suspense and action set pieces drive the story along with undeniable tension. 

Where to watch Munich: Amazon Prime Video (to rent)

20. Mission: Impossible—Dead Reckoning Part One (2023)

After six films spanning 27 years, the Mission: Impossible franchise continued with this nearly three-hour-long installment. (Part 2 is scheduled for summer 2025.) Once more, Tom Cruise’s Ethan Hunt is not so much a super spy as a superhero, while the now 61-year-old actor once again pushes the limits of what a (fictional or, in Cruise’s stunt person-averse case, actual) human being can withstand.

Since long-running spy series are often signposts of our fears, Dead Reckoning’s antagonist is a pernicious AI threatening the world’s military and financial systems. Director Christopher McQuarrie — with nearly $300 million and a fanatically dedicated lead actor — pulls out every stop imaginable as the crew races across the globe (like when Hunt rides his motorcycle off a towering cliff and then parachutes onto a speeding train). There’s a circular trajectory to Mission: Impossible’s brand of high-flying spy intrigue, given the filmmakers cited North by Northwest (also a major inspiration for the James Bond films) as influential to this franchise’s thrills. Regardless, Dead Reckoning is the apotheosis of the big-budget spy blockbuster. 

Where to watch Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part 1: Paramount+

19. The Bourne Supremacy (2004)

Matt Damon is the perfect actor to play Jason Bourne, an all-American soldier twisted into a pre-programmed, merciless killer by his own government. Damon’s handsome blankness as the tortured Bourne, first seen floating amnesiac in the Mediterranean in 2002’s The Bourne Identity, grounds the spy franchise’s impeccably choreographed action with a leavening somberness. This first sequel is arguably the series’ pinnacle, crafting a thrilling quest for revenge and redemption. 

After Paul Greengrass and his hand-held cameras took the directing reins from Doug Liman, The Bourne Supremacy asserted that happy endings are rarely in a spy’s cards. (Fans of the first film, or those familiar with the “women in refrigerators” cliche, might be upset at how a major character is dispatched to kick off this sequel.) With Jason Bourne framed for a mysterious bombing and theft in Germany, it’s up to Damon’s still memory-deprived agent to hop the globe, utilizing the impressive muscle memory of every dirty espionage trick he was taught by a rogue CIA super-assassin program to seek out the truth. 

The supporting cast remains stellar (Joan Allen, Brian Cox, Julia Stiles, Karl Urban), as Bourne navigates ingenious spy gambits, daring last-minute escapes, and some truly brutal fight scenes to reach his goal. The reveal of his true purpose only underscores the ugly toll of this international gamesmanship. 

Where to watch The Bourne Supremacy: Amazon Prime Video (to rent)

18. The Ipcress File (1965)

During the initial wave of James Bond mania, Michael Caine played a different sort of spy in 1965’s The Ipcress File — but that was by design. Intended as a more ironic and downbeat alternative to the then-burgeoning Bond franchise, this spy thriller (from the novel by Len Deighton) sees Caine as a dapper, lightly insubordinate, glasses-wearing British agent who uncovers clues to a conspiracy against the world’s scientists. This Caine is something of a foodie, and the film was produced by Bond’s Harry Saltzman and scored by frequent Bond composer John Barry, but that’s where Harry Palmer’s similarities to 007 end. 

Cocky, cockney, and constantly beset by everyday duties, this (along with Alfie the following year) is the birth of Michael Caine the everyman superstar. Dragooned into the service after a criminal past, Caine’s Palmer disdains oppressive authority and regulation, even while proving himself a most capable sleuth and, when need be, efficiently violent. All the Cold War staples (brainwashing, torture, top secret microfilm) are in play as Palmer (whom Caine portrayed in four additional films) doggedly proves his mettle against foes foreign and domestic. 

Where to watch The Ipcress File: Not available to steam

17. Julia (1977)

The life of writer Lillian Hellman may seem like an odd inspiration for a suspenseful spy story, but this crackling drama delivers the goods. Following the playwright’s (Jane Fonda) career and relationship with detective novelist Dashiell Hammett (Jason Robards), Fred Zinneman’s film truly comes alive in the second half, when Hellman goes to wartime Europe in search of her childhood friend Julia (a striking Vanessa Redgrave) whose own intellectual journey has turned her into an anti-fascist crusader. 

With the liberal but sheltered Hellman (herself later accused of “un-American activities”) making a dangerous voyage to Nazi Germany to supply Julia’s WWII resistance colleagues with funds, Zinneman pulls off one of the most tense and expertly performed sequences in spy movie history. After a horrifying scene in which fascists hurl academics over balconies, we watch as Julia walks Lillian through a terse exchange, with the duo’s loving reunion taking the form of a high-wire act of perilous espionage. 

Where to watch Julia: Google Play (to rent)

16. Ronin (1998)

Of course, spy movies aren’t just about sad, shadowy men poring over microphones and microfiche. Sometimes it’s about sad, shadowy men shooting it out over scenic French roadways in speeding cars, double-crosses, and foot chases. This thriller from director John Frankenheimer sees an aging and battle-worn action star in Robert De Niro encounter all of the above. 

De Niro plays a mercenary recruited to an international team by a mysterious Irish woman (Natascha McElhone) to track down and retrieve a specific metal attache case. Ronin never gets around to telling us what’s in the hotly-contested suitcase, and that’s the point — for all the assembled foot soldiers on every side, there’s always a suitcase. Frankenheimer deploys his twists (and a couple of all-time best car chases) like a devious puppet master, and De Niro, in one of his last great performances, keeps his character’s true nature expertly under wraps until the film’s final swerve. 

Where to watch Ronin: Max

15. Zero Dark Thirty (2012)

Like Munich, Kathryn Bigelow’s Oscar-nominated, fact-based tale of terrorism and the revenge reaped as many accolades as it did (often contradictory) criticism. American intelligence agencies’ hunt for Osama bin Laden is portrayed as a global manhunt, with Jessica Chastain’s dogged CIA analyst chasing down sparse and scattered leads — even when they come from the euphemistically termed “enhanced interrogation techniques” used on suspects at black sites. 

Bigelow turns Chastain’s obsession into a crackling detective story, complete with enough real-world intelligence-gathering gadgetry to put James Bond to shame. As the hunt gains momentum, a post-9/11 America’s descent into (graphically depicted) torture remains an open moral question, with the stoic Chastain maintaining her singular pursuit of justice. Above all, Zero Dark Thirty is a riveting recreation of one of the most intense intelligence operations of all time, while its lack of cut-and-dry ethical stances speaks to the darkest side of the espionage game — and human nature. 

Where to watch Zero Dark Thirty: Starz

14. The 39 Steps (1935)

If, as cinema contends, there are vast, intertwining networks of devious agents around us at all times, it’s only natural that some of the best spy movies involve regular folks finding out things they’re not supposed to. Such is the case in Alfred Hitchcock’s template-setting spy drama The 39 Steps, which sees two very different people face constant (and entertaining) peril in a pre-WWII English countryside teeming with spies lurking in unexpected places.

An innocent man (Robert Donat) drags an even more innocent bystander (Madeleine Carroll) into his escape from a network of spies after some top-secret information falls into his hands. The two naturally fall for each other (their enforced intimacy was pretty racy for the time), but not without Hitchcock putting them into some deliciously sticky situations, leading to a still-sensational finale at the London Palladium. 

Where to watch The 39 Steps: Tubi

13. On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969)

George Lazenby’s sole outing as 007 — which came between Sean Connery’s fifth and sixth films — goes above and beyond to distinguish itself as an utterly unique entry in Britain’s premier espionage franchise, injecting a welcome helping of grit and heart into the proceedings. It’s the first (and, for most of the character’s history, the only) Bond movie to add genuine emotional vulnerability to its central superspy, allowing him to fall in love with the romantic lead rather than cast her aside as another one-night stand. 

On Her Majesty’s Secret Service sees Bond called to protect Contessa Teresa "Tracy" di Vicenzo (Diana Rigg), the daughter of a prominent criminal overlord who helps him track down Ernst Blofeld (Telly Savalas) and SPECTRE’s biological warfare operation in the Swiss Alps. As his affection for the countess blossoms, we’re treated to a more complicated, well-rounded vision of the agent, which makes sense given that the relationship was possibly inspired by Ian Fleming’s real-life tragic romance during WWII. Additionally, the snowy action sequences — including chaotic downhill skiing and slippery car chases on ice — are among the very best in Bond history.

Where to watch On Her Majesty's Secret Service: Max

12. The Quiet American (2002)

A genre giant gets a deceptively muted adaptation in this Vietnam-set drama based on Graham Greene’s novel (who, like Frederick Forsyth and John le Carré, is a veteran of the intelligence service MI6). The film — while nominally a love triangle — gradually reveals itself as another instance of empathy and espionage colliding.

Michael Caine plays a sodden British journalist during the 1950s occupation of what was then known as French Indochina. Losing his much younger Vietnamese lover (Do Thi Hai Yen) to an American undercover operative (Brendan Fraser, outstanding as the brash embodiment of U.S. anti-communist foreign policy) leads the seen-it-all Caine to finally play the spy game with tragic results. It’s Caine’s movie, as his dissolute reporter’s confused tangle of self-interest and world-weariness sows the seeds of this quietly devastating story. 

Where to watch The Quiet American: Amazon Prime Video (to rent)

11. The Day of the Jackal (1973)

Frederick Forsyth is another all-time great spy writer, and his fictionalized version of the 1962 assassination attempt on French President Charles de Gaulle (from within France’s military) forms the backbone of this icy, meticulous thriller. Like le Carré, Forsyth was an associate of MI6 (as a longtime unpaid informant). The journalist used his investigative skills to craft this story about the fallout from Gaulle granting independence to colonial Algeria, which put him in the merciless crosshairs of a paid killer. 

A little-known actor at the time, Edward Fox is impeccable as “the Jackal,” an assassin hired by the right-wing group OAS to gun down the president. There’s nothing flashy or even passionate about this spy — he’s a surgically sharp instrument, assuming various disguises and dodging the several intelligence services on his quest to fulfill his contract. Michael Lonsdale matches the Jackal as the French cop tasked with thwarting the rumored assassination. When Fox’s Jackal kills, it’s out of pragmatism; when Lonsdale’s detective succeeds, it’s because his methods are similarly dispassionate and tenacious. Thus, the film’s white-knuckle finale boils down to a miniscule misstep, one that reveals how espionage is vulnerable even to a grain of sand. 

Where to watch The Day of the Jackal: Amazon Prime Video (to rent)

10. The Spy Who Came In From the Cold (1965)

Based on the John le Carré novel, Martin Ritt’s bleak spy thriller also features George Smiley (see No. 3 on this list), although the spymaster’s machinations here better exemplify just how cold-blooded someone in his position must be. Smiley tasks disillusioned MI6 agent Alec Leamas (Richard Burton) with defaming an East German intelligence officer during the height of the Cold War. Though he initially seems ripe for defection, Leamas soon discovers (and too late) that this ingeniously deadly espionage game makes mere pawns out of friends and foes alike. 

Thanks to Burton’s affecting performance, Leamas’ downward spiral feels all too real as he’s manipulated by the English and East Germans in equal, heartless measure. The puppetry trickles downward when he romances a naive British communist (a heartbreaking Claire Bloom) and makes her collateral damage in his double-agent balancing act, proving that surveillance leaves little room for sentiment. Even so, these “seedy squalid bastards” (as Leamas calls them) rely on human beings for intel, and the film’s devastating conclusion shows the cost of cutting yourself off from your soul. 

Where to watch The Spy Who Came In From the Cold: Kanopy

9. North by Northwest (1959)

One of the most purely entertaining thrillers of all time, Alfred Hitchcock mines his go-to plot — an innocent man accused — and runs it with some of the most memorable sequences in movie history. Cary Grant was never more suave and effortless than as Roger Thornhill, an unsuspecting ad man mistaken for a government agent by an ever-widening gang of thugs, spies, and an anti-American spymaster (James Mason). Along the way, our wily protagonist meets up with Eva Marie Saint’s Eve Kendall, whose quick infatuation is only partly due to him being played by Cary Grant. 

For a standard MacGuffin microfilm-and-treason plot (the explanation of which is hilariously drowned out by a convenient airplane engine), the film hooks us from the start and drags us happily from one stunning set piece to another. Eventually, the whole tangled tale hangs (literally) from the impassive visages of the presidents at Mt. Rushmore, setting a template for high-concept, outlandish thrills for decades to come.

Where to watch North by Northwest: Tubi

8. The Manchurian Candidate (1962)

For a more baroque tale of undercover operatives and the shadowy forces underwriting them, John Frankenheimer’s The Manchurian Candidate is a sure bet. Frank Sinatra could really act when he wanted to, and his hard-boiled Korean War vet is formidable as he unravels why his former army buddy and rising political candidate (Laurence Harvey) remains a blurry memory to him and his surviving squad mates. 

Crisply choreographed action (Sinatra and Henry Silva have an improbably gripping, early-for-America martial arts battle) and an all-time great villainous turn by Angela Lansbury combine with the film’s zippy, trippy tone for potent doses of Cold War paranoia. It’s a myth that President Kennedy’s assassination the following year caused Sinatra to demand The Manchurian Candidate be pulled from theaters. Still, the story of a lone gunman with seemingly shady motivations continues to prickle audiences adamant that nothing in world politics is ever what it seems on the surface. 

Where to watch The Manchurian Candidate: Tubi

7. Casino Royale (2006)

The neverending James Bond series has so informed and/or warped our ideas of spies, that choosing entries for this list means deciding which eras of over-the-top popcorn silliness comes closest to personal preference. That said, it’s tough to bet against the most recent Bond, Daniel Craig, especially in his first outing, a typically loose adaptation of Ian Fleming’s 1953 novel Casino Royale.

After the increasingly cartoonish Pierce Brosnan years, the iconic character is reinvented (again) as a brutishly effective MI6 agent who just got his license to kill. Craig’s Bond is defiant to the point of insubordination (no small feat when facing off against Judi Dench’s imperious boss, M) as he violently pursues clues leading directly to a high-stakes poker game against Mads Mikkelsen’s criminal mastermind, Le Chiffre. (That the game comes down to a round of “who has the most outrageously impossible hand” is prime James Bond.) 

Meanwhile, this 007 flirts with the requisite femme fatale (a great Eva Green), banters with enabling CIA pal Felix Leiter (an also great Jeffrey Wright), and engages in sequences that are so spectacular, they could serve as climaxes of multiple smaller-budgeted thrillers. If this glowering Bond isn’t as suave as some of his predecessors, Craig’s gravitas amidst all the over-the-top action lends him an almost-human presence. Almost. 

Where to watch Casino Royale: Amazon Prime Video

6. The Lives of Others (2006)

Many of the best spy movies mine the divide between duty and conscience in an infamously unfeeling business. This wrenchingly intimate German drama sees the late Ulrich Mühe play a dedicated surveillance expert in East Germany tasked with spying on an artist couple, only to become inconveniently touched by their lives. That the film’s story shockingly mirrors a betrayal from Mühe’s own life (his ex-wife allegedly kept tabs on the actor for the Stasi) only makes his performance as the increasingly conflicted snooper more compelling.

The Lives of Others makes a fine double feature with another movie on this list, 1974’s The Conversation (see below). Like Gene Hackman’s Harry Caul, Mühe’s Hauptmann Wiesler imagines that living in isolation will absolve him of the horrors wrought by his work. As a divided Germany grinds towards reconciliation during the latter part of the film, the race between the surveillance state’s omnipresent brutality and Wiesler’s flicker of humanity forms a decidedly modern tragedy.

Where to watch The Lives of Others: Amazon Prime Video (to rent)

5. Army of Shadows (1969)

Sticking it to the Nazis is always a crowd-pleaser, even as this French Resistance tale combines adventure and moral relativism into a bracing, crushing watch. Following Lino Ventura’s Resistance agent Gerbier as he infiltrates (and repeatedly escapes) the fascists occupying France, director Jean-Pierre Melville crafts a film that’s both a rip-roaring spy thriller and a soul-crushing examination of a good man forced to do terrible things — and the toll it takes on his soul. 

Amidst the movie’s various prison breaks (including one Nazi guard game sadistic enough to anticipate Sophie’s Choice), Gerbier gathers the titular cadre of allies to carry out his daring missions. But he knows their shadowy work will inevitably put them in positions where unthinkable calls must be made. Released in a France still reeling from President Charles de Gaulle (see The Day of the Jackal above), Army of Shadows was thought to be an unfashionably laudatory depiction of the Resistance’s violent methods. However, as times and attitudes have changed, many now regard the film as a complicated, ugly portrait of how incompatible espionage is with a clean conscience. 

Where to watch Army of Shadows: Amazon Prime Video (to rent)

4. Three Days of the Condor (1975)

Spy movies often play up the action, but there’s a lot of paperwork behind the derring-do. This exceptionally taut thriller from Sydney Pollack shows that even functionaries find themselves in the thick of things, with Robert Redford’s nominal CIA analyst (he reads spy novels in search of coded plots) accidentally uncovering sensitive information and going on the run. 

Redford’s protagonist, who must hurriedly remember that his codename is “Condor,” is forced to dodge the shadowy forces pursuing him through 1970s New York. (Including a scene-stealing hitman played by the late, great Max von Sydow.) That involves kidnapping a photographer (Faye Dunaway, also outstanding) in a desperate moment. But the gorgeous duo’s inevitable attraction never distracts from the danger — or the stakes of even the most tangential espionage. 

Where to watch Three Days of the Condor: Amazon Prime Video

3. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011)

John le Carré is one of the most adapted spy novelists, and it’s easy to see why. A former member of Britain’s MI5 and MI6, he penned exquisitely detailed fiction based on insider knowledge, with one of his finest creations being dogged spymaster George Smiley. Gary Oldman plays the iconic character to Oscar-nominated perfection in this searing spy drama from Tomas Alfredson (Let the Right One In).

With the Cold War at its height and British intelligence under siege from Russian moles, Oldman’s unassuming Smiley assembles an underground team of similarly dedicated agents after he’s ousted as head of “The Circus.” The film portrays spy work in all its understated, politicking self-importance, punctuated by shocking violence and narrow escapes. Meanwhile, Oldman and Alfredson make Smiley’s gamesmanship as masterful as it is chillingly subtle, and the cast is crowded with some of Britain’s best actors, including John Hurt, Colin Firth, Mark Strong, Toby Jones, Tom Hardy, and Benedict Cumberbatch. 

Where to watch Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy: Amazon Prime Video (to rent)

2. Notorious (1946)

Alfred Hitchcock's greatest spy movie, and one of the greatest spy movies in general, came via this romantic thriller about undercover operatives, Nazis, and a secret cache of potentially world-destabilizing secrets. Teaming Ingrid Bergman and Cary Grant at their respective heights of star power, talent, and beauty, Hitchcock crafts a suspenseful story about espionage and the unthinkable sacrifices it demands. 

In the aftermath of WWII, Bergman’s party girl tries to drink away the shame of her father being a Nazi collaborator, leaving her ripe for recruitment by Grant’s government superiors when an enclave of escaped Nazis in Rio de Janeiro starts plotting a comeback. Tasked with pimping the conflicted Bergman out as a bride to a charming fascist (Claude Rains), Grant finds himself in an untenable war between love and duty. Meanwhile, Bergman’s position undercover becomes more and more fraught with danger and compromise. 

Replete with nerve-shredding, suspenseful set pieces — the wine cellar sequence is Hitchcock at his most sadistically brilliant — Notorious, for all its melodramatic beats, explores the horrible moral tension that lurks in even theoretically altruistic espionage. 

Where to watch Notorious: Tubi

1. The Conversation (1974)

Harry Caul is a spy only in the mercenary sense. Gene Hackman’s surveillance expert is a pair of ears for hire, sent to make a seemingly impossible recording of a couple’s hushed conversation amidst a noisy crowd. That Harry succeeds (in a brilliantly conceived scene) marks him as a true master in his grimy field, but that victory is soon overshadowed by his detecting an unsettling secret. 

Directed by Francis Ford Coppola, The Conversation fits into (and exemplifies) the spy genre by interrogating how power and covert surveillance are inextricably linked to moral rot. Harry fancies himself nothing but a technician, having cut himself off from all but the most superficial personal connections after a past disaster related to his work. But taking pride in an invasive and potentially devastating craft is, as Harry discovers with increasing paranoia, destined to boomerang when the observer becomes the observed. Hackman delivers one of his greatest performances here, with Harry’s fumbling conscience laying bare the no-win situation of a professional interloper.

Where to watch The Conversation: PlutoTV