Spy Films to See

Spy cinema is a two-faced world. On one hand, there is the pyrotechnic spectacle: the secret agent as a secular superhero, the glittering gadgets, the impeccable tuxedos, and the adrenaline-fueled action of sagas like James Bond or Mission: Impossible, which have defined the collective imagination.

But on the other side, there is a darker, more restless territory. It is a landscape of psychological warfare, moral corrosion, and existential angst. It is the cinema that dismantles the myth, replacing glamour with “dirty work,” action with unnerving waiting, and ideological certainty with an ambiguity that infects every character and every decision. It is a descent into the abyss of the human soul and the windowless rooms of institutional power.

This guide is a journey across the entire spectrum. It is a path that unites the great classics of action espionage with the most complex independent works. These are character studies, ruthless critiques of power systems, and meditations on the price of truth in a world built on lies.

🕵️ Shadows and Silence: The New Espionage Movies

Pacifiction (2023)

On the island of Tahiti in French Polynesia, De Roller (Benoît Magimel) is the High Commissioner of the Republic, a seasoned politician managing local problems with a mix of charisma and veiled threats. His indolent routine is broken by a persistent rumor: the presence of a ghost submarine off the coast, heralding the resumption of French nuclear testing. In Pacifiction, espionage is not made of gadgets, but of paranoid observation: De Roller moves between neon nightclubs, cryptic admirals, and local activists, trying to decipher signals in a paradise about to turn into a geopolitical nightmare.

Catalan director Albert Serra signs the most atypical and hypnotic spy movie of recent years. There are no shootouts, just a dense, sweaty, and menacing atmosphere. It is a sensory work on the paranoia of power and neocolonialism, where the “enemy” is never seen but perceived in the sound of the waves and elusive glances. An existential thriller redefining the timing and methods of the genre, transforming waiting into pure cinematic tension.

Reality (2023)

June 2017. Reality Winner (Sydney Sweeney) is a young NSA translator and yoga teacher who returns home to find two FBI agents waiting for her on the lawn. A surreal interrogation begins, first outside the house and then in a bare room, as the agents try to make her confess to leaking a top-secret document on Russian interference in the US elections. Reality is not fiction: the script is composed word-for-word from the actual FBI transcript of the recording from that day.

This is a claustrophobic chamber thriller showing modern espionage in its most vulnerable form: whistleblowing. There are no chases, only the unbearable tension of language, hesitation, and things left unsaid. The film is an X-ray of state power crushing the individual. Sydney Sweeney offers an incredible performance, delivering the complex and contradictory humanity of an accidental “spy,” light years away from cinematic stereotypes.

Phantom (Yuryeong) (2023)

Korea, 1933. During the Japanese occupation, the new Governor-General is targeted by an anti-Japanese resistance organization. Five suspects are arrested and locked in an isolated hotel on a cliff: hiding among them is the “Phantom,” the resistance’s infiltrated spy. In Phantom, the hotel becomes a deadly trap à la Agatha Christie, where suspects must use cunning, deception, and martial arts to discover the Phantom’s identity or escape before execution.

From South Korea comes a film blending the elegance of period drama with the tension of a whodunit and brutal action. Visually sumptuous and chromatically bold, the film explores the theme of double-crossing and identity in wartime. Unlike Western spy movies, here the emotion is palpable: the mission is not just professional, but patriotic and desperate. A refined cat-and-mouse game exploding into a finale of rare visual power.

Kompromat (2023)

Mathieu, a French diplomat directing the Alliance Française in Siberia, suddenly finds himself arrested by the FSB on infamous (and false) charges of child pornography and abuse of his daughter. He is the victim of a kompromat, a maneuver by Russian secret services to destroy him politically. In Kompromat, the man realizes no one is coming to save him and his only option is an impossible escape through the immense and hostile forests of Russia to reach the border.

Loosely based on a true story, Jérôme Salle’s film is a return to the solid, anxiety-inducing “old school” spy thriller of the 70s. It stages the Kafkaesque nightmare of a common man crushed by the gears of a dictatorship that needs no evidence to condemn. It is not a superhero movie: the “spy” here is a dirty, hungry, and terrified fugitive whose only skill is the desperation of someone wanting to see their family again.

🕵️ Beyond the Dossier: Investigate Other Genres

Espionage is a game of shadows, but cinematic tension has many faces. If you love conspiracies, secrets, and adrenaline, here are the essential guides to explore the borderlands where mystery meets pure action.

Thriller Movies

The line between espionage and thriller is razor-thin. If what you seek is psychological suspense, unsolved mysteries, and the constant feeling of imminent danger, here you will find the stories that will keep you on the edge of your seat until the very last second.

👉 GO TO THE LIST: Thriller Movies

Action Movies

Sometimes diplomacy fails, and only weapons remain. If you prefer spies when they stop talking and start running, this list gathers films where the pace is frantic and survival depends on reflexes, not just cunning.

👉 GO TO THE LIST: Action Movies

Cult Movies

The great masters, from Hitchcock to Fritz Lang, defined the rules of suspense long before modern special effects. Discover the immortal masterpieces that taught the world how to build tension and how to tell a secret.

👉 GO TO THE LIST: Cult Movies

Independent Spy Movies

Forget James Bond and impossible gadgets. Real espionage is made of bureaucracy, nerve-wracking waiting, and ambiguous moral choices. In our streaming catalog, you will find independent cinema gems telling the story of “tradecraft” with raw, unfiltered realism.

👉 BROWSE THE CATALOG: Stream Spy Movies

🧥 The Shadow Game: Espionage Classics

Before smartphones, satellites, and digital surveillance, spying meant getting your hands dirty. This is the golden age of “Tradecraft”: microfilm hidden in heels, meetings in the rain in East Berlin, and payphones. From Fritz Lang’s silent masterpieces to Cold War paranoia and 70s political thrillers, here are the films that turned betrayal and double identity into an art form. Stories where tension comes not from explosions, but from the excruciating doubt of trusting no one.

Spies (Spione) (1928)

In a metropolis dominated by shadows, Haghi is the head of a massive international espionage ring stealing government secrets and manipulating the stock market, hiding behind the respectable facade of a banker and stage clown. Agent 326, a brilliant but impulsive detective, is tasked with stopping him but finds himself trapped in a web of deceit when he falls for Sonya, a Russian spy in Haghi’s service. In Spies, master Fritz Lang creates the archetype of the supervillain controlling the world from his office, anticipating James Bond villains by decades.

This is the “father” of all modern spy movies. Lang introduces here every single element that would become standard in the genre: gadgets, secret codes, double-crossing, the tragic femme fatale, and frenetic action (train chases and shootouts). Visually stunning, it uses German Expressionism to turn the city into an oppressive maze. Watching it today means witnessing the birth of the grammar of cinematic suspense.

Notorious (1946)

Alicia Huberman (Ingrid Bergman), the daughter of a convicted Nazi spy, is recruited by government agent T.R. Devlin (Cary Grant) to infiltrate a group of Nazis who fled to Rio de Janeiro after the war. To gain their trust, Alicia must seduce and marry Alexander Sebastian (Claude Rains), an old friend of her father who is still in love with her. In Notorious, the espionage mission turns into a heartbreaking love triangle, where Devlin is forced to push the woman he loves into another man’s arms for the sake of the mission.

Directed by Alfred Hitchcock, this is perhaps the most elegant and psychologically cruel spy movie ever made. The suspense does not come from explosions, but from tiny details: a cellar key that goes missing, a poisoned cup of coffee, a withheld glance. It is a masterful work on the boundary between duty and feeling, with a finale of unbearable tension that needs no shootouts to leave the viewer breathless.

The Man Who Never Was (1956)

During World War II, British intelligence conceives a daring and unusual deception: “Operation Mincemeat.” They plan to drop a corpse with fake documents off the coast of Spain to mislead the Nazis about the upcoming invasion of Sicily. The film details the meticulous and risky planning of this real-life operation.

This film is a “spy procedural” that builds tension not through action, but through the intellectual and logistical challenges of deception. It celebrates the ingenuity of intelligence work, showing the painstaking creation of a fictitious identity for the corpse as the core of the drama. Its strength lies in the methodical execution of a brilliant and audacious idea, demonstrating that a spy’s greatest weapon can be their imagination.

North by Northwest (1959)

Roger Thornhill (Cary Grant), an absolutely innocent New York ad man, is mistaken for a non-existent spy named George Kaplan by an enemy espionage organization. Kidnapped, interrogated, and wrongly accused of murder, he is forced into a daring escape across the United States to prove his innocence. In North by Northwest, the common man finds himself projected into a world of secrets he doesn’t understand, chased by a crop duster in the middle of nowhere and hanging from the faces of presidents on Mount Rushmore.

If Notorious was psychological espionage, this is the grandfather of the modern action-spy movie. Hitchcock creates the perfect mechanism of the “wrong man in the wrong place,” mixing sophisticated humor, romance, and iconic action scenes that have been copied endlessly. It is pure entertainment, but constructed with geometric precision. A film that defines the concept of cinematic “escape.”

The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1965)

A weary British agent, Alec Leamas, accepts one last, seemingly simple mission in East Germany. He soon discovers he is just a pawn in a complex game of deception, where the lines between friend and foe, right and wrong, are hopelessly blurred. His disillusionment becomes a mirror of a world where loyalty is a commodity and human life a calculated cost.

This film is the definitive antithesis of the Fleming narrative, the point of no return for the genre. Martin Ritt’s raw and unadorned black-and-white photography does not just capture the setting; it creates an “atmosphere of anguish, fear, and rage” that permeates every frame. The film paints a ruthlessly cynical picture of intelligence agencies, both Western and Eastern, showing them as morally bankrupt entities that chew up and spit out their own agents. The central theme is not heroism, but the profound human cost of a game with no winners.

The Ipcress File (1965)

The working-class spy Harry Palmer, a deliberate contrast to the Eton-educated Bond, investigates the kidnapping and brainwashing of British scientists. He moves through a world of bureaucratic paperwork and sudden, brutal violence, uncovering a conspiracy that reaches the highest levels of the secret service. Palmer is not a hero, but a civil servant trying to survive.

The film creates a revolutionary archetype: the “working-class” spy. Michael Caine embodies an insolent, sarcastic agent far from glamour, rooted in a reality of shabby offices and tedious procedures. This choice makes the moments of danger more jarring and realistic. Sidney J. Furie’s distinctive visual style, with its skewed angles and a voyeuristic “keyhole” feel, immerses the viewer in an atmosphere of paranoia and secrecy, defining an aesthetic that would influence decades of cinema to come.

Le Samouraï (1967)

Hitman Jef Costello lives and operates by a strict personal code, a modern samurai in a nocturnal, rainy Parisian world. After a contract killing, he finds himself hunted by both the police and his employers, navigating a world of betrayal with stoic, ritualistic precision. His solitude is his armor and his condemnation.

Jean-Pierre Melville’s masterpiece transcends the gangster genre to become an existential spy film. The analysis focuses on its key themes: the protagonist’s profound loneliness, the ritualistic nature of his work, and adherence to a personal code of honor in a corrupt world. Melville’s minimalist style—sparse dialogue, controlled performances, and a cold, blue-gray color palette—creates a poetic and dreamlike atmosphere of inescapable fatalism, turning a thriller into a meditation on death and solitude.

Army of Shadows (L’armée des ombres) (1969)

In Nazi-occupied France, Philippe Gerbier leads a small cell of Resistance fighters. The film offers an anti-heroic and harrowing portrait of their daily lives, focusing on the constant fear, brutal choices, and psychological weight of their clandestine war against an overwhelming enemy. There are no easy victories, only survival and compromise.

Melville’s work creates a claustrophobic and minimalist atmosphere to convey the psychological weight of the Resistance’s work. The true subject of the film is not the action, but the agonizing process of secret operations: the paranoia, the moral compromises in executing a traitor, and the constant, draining tension of survival. The film’s bleakness serves as a powerful tribute to the unsung, and often doomed, heroes of the French Resistance, showing espionage as a terrible duty rather than an adventure.

The Spook Who Sat by the Door (1973)

The first Black officer in the CIA, Dan Freeman, endures years of tokenism and desk work. After resigning, he uses his elite training in espionage and guerrilla warfare to organize Chicago’s street gangs into a revolutionary army, turning the state’s weapons against the state itself.

This film is a radical subversion of the spy genre, used to explore themes of Black liberation and institutional racism. The film uses the trope of the “invisible man” as a political weapon: Freeman’s ability to be underestimated within the CIA becomes his greatest strength. It is a powerful critique of American society and a piece of political cinema so prescient and dangerous that it was deliberately suppressed upon its release, remaining an underground cult classic for decades.

The Day of the Jackal (1973)

After several failed attempts, the OAS (a French paramilitary group) hires an English professional killer known only as “The Jackal” (Edward Fox) to assassinate President Charles de Gaulle. While the killer meticulously prepares his plan—building a custom rifle and changing identities like a chameleon—France’s best detective begins a desperate manhunt based on fragmentary clues. In The Day of the Jackal, we witness a deadly chess match between two professionals who never meet until the very last second.

Fred Zinnemann signs the masterpiece of the espionage “procedural.” There are no melodramas or romantic subplots, only the cold and fascinating mechanics of murder and investigation. The film is almost a documentary on how to build an assassination plot and how to foil it. The tension is built on methodology, bureaucracy, and pure intelligence. An absolute cult classic for those who love realism and the technical details of the trade.

The Conversation (1974)

Harry Caul (Gene Hackman) is an audio surveillance expert, a lonely and paranoid man who records conversations for clients without ever asking questions. During a routine assignment, he intercepts a conversation between two lovers in a crowded San Francisco square. Re-listening to the tapes and filtering out the noise, he becomes convinced that the couple is in mortal danger. In The Conversation, Harry violates his golden rule of not getting involved, spiraling into a vortex of guilt and paranoia that will destroy his sanity.

Francis Ford Coppola, between the two Godfathers, made this existential thriller that is a milestone on privacy and alienation. Released at the height of the Watergate era, it perfectly captures the anguish of being watched. It is not a film about spies saving the world, but about those who listen to it. The ending, with Hackman taking his apartment apart piece by piece looking for a bug that may not exist, is one of the most powerful depictions of loneliness in cinema.

Three Days of the Condor (1975)

Joseph Turner (Robert Redford) is a CIA analyst working in a clandestine office in New York, reading books to find secret codes. When he goes out to get lunch, a hit squad enters the office and wipes out all his colleagues. Left alone and not knowing who to trust, Turner must survive in a city that has become a death trap. In Three Days of the Condor, he discovers that the enemy is not a foreign power, but a rogue cell within the CIA itself, tied to dark geopolitical interests.

Sydney Pollack defines the paranoid thriller of the 70s. The film flips the idea of the spy as a hero: Turner is an intellectual, a “reader,” forced to use his brain to survive brute force. It is a prophetic indictment against the cynicism of intelligence agencies and the war for energy resources. Elegant, tense, and politically sharp, it remains terribly relevant.

Hopscotch (1980)

After being demoted to a desk job, veteran CIA agent Miles Kendig quits the agency and decides to publish a tell-all memoir exposing its dirtiest secrets. This triggers a cat-and-mouse game across the globe as the CIA, led by his enraged former boss, tries to stop him.

Hopscotch is a satirical and comedic deconstruction of the spy genre. Walter Matthau’s character ridicules the bureaucracy and self-importance of the CIA, using his wit to make his former employers look foolish. The film presents itself as a clever thriller that finds its tension not in violence, but in the intellectual superiority of a man who simply refuses to play by the rules.

The Little Drummer Girl (1984)

A pro-Palestinian English actress, Charlie, is recruited by Israeli intelligence. She is tasked with infiltrating a Palestinian terrorist cell by playing the role of a dead revolutionary’s lover. Her identity begins to blur as she delves deeper into a complex and emotionally charged conflict, losing the line between fiction and reality.

Despite the film’s mixed reception, its analysis focuses on its ambitious attempt to tackle the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through the lens of performance and identity. It explores the central theme of acting as an act of espionage, where Charlie’s skills as an actress are weaponized. Though flawed, the film is a fascinating and early attempt to portray the moral and psychological ambiguities of a conflict that defies simplistic narratives.

The Falcon and the Snowman (1985)

Based on a true story, the film follows two young, middle-class Southern California men—a disillusioned CIA contractor and his drug-dealing friend—who decide to sell government secrets to the Soviets. Their amateur foray into espionage quickly spirals out of control, turning an act of idealistic rebellion into a nightmare.

The film explores themes of disillusionment with American idealism and the betrayal of one’s country. It critiques the CIA’s actions during the Cold War, suggesting that institutional cynicism can breed treason in the young and naive. The focus is on the characters’ transformation from misguided idealists to trapped criminals, showing how good intentions can pave the road to ruin.

Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (2002)

Based on the “unauthorized autobiography” of television producer Chuck Barris, the film presents his claim of leading a double life: by day, the creator of hit TV shows like “The Dating Game,” and by night, a deadly CIA assassin. His life becomes a stage where reality and fiction blur.

The analysis examines the film’s unique blend of biographical fantasy and spy thriller. George Clooney’s directorial debut uses this premise to satirize the blurred lines between entertainment and espionage, and to explore themes of pop culture, amorality, and identity in 20th-century America. The visual style, which shifts to reflect different eras and mental states, is a key element in understanding a man whose life itself might be his greatest lie.

Munich (2005)

After the massacre of 11 Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics by Black September, Mossad authorizes Operation “Wrath of God.” Avner (Eric Bana), a young bodyguard for Prime Minister Golda Meir, is tasked with leading a secret squad of assassins to track down and kill the Palestinian perpetrators in Europe. In Munich, the mission of revenge turns into a moral nightmare: as the target list shortens, the agents begin to doubt the legitimacy of their actions and fear for their own safety and souls.

Steven Spielberg abandons all heroic rhetoric to sign his darkest and most complex film. It is a work on espionage as an endless cycle of violence, where every murder begets another and the difference between terrorist and counter-terrorist becomes increasingly blurred. Raw, realistic, and devoid of glorification, it shows the devastating human cost that “serving the country” imposes on those who must pull the trigger.

The Lives of Others (Das Leben der Anderen) (2006)

East Berlin, 1984. A devoted Stasi agent, Gerd Wiesler, is assigned to surveil a celebrated playwright and his actress lover. Immersing himself in their world of art, literature, and love, he begins to question his own loyalty and the morality of the state he serves, discovering a humanity he thought was lost.

This film is a deep dive into the theme of the humanization of a perpetrator and the transformative power of art. The direction contrasts the gray, controlled, and desaturated world of the Stasi with the vibrant, intellectual life of the artists. The “Sonata for a Good Man” scene is the emotional and thematic turning point, suggesting that empathy, born from art, is the ultimate antidote to ideology. The secret that is revealed is not a piece of information, but a repressed historical and human truth.

Black Book (Zwartboek) (2006)

In Nazi-occupied Holland, a young Jewish woman, Rachel Stein, joins the resistance after her family is murdered. Tasked with seducing a high-ranking Gestapo officer, she finds herself in a dangerous game of double-dealing where loyalties are uncertain and the line between hero and villain is perilously thin.

Paul Verhoeven challenges the traditional morality of war cinema, portraying both the resistance and the Nazis with moral ambiguity, suggesting that heroism and betrayal can exist on both sides. The character of Rachel is central: a protagonist who uses her femininity as a weapon but also develops genuine feelings for her target, complicating the narrative and defying easy categorization. The film is a bold exploration of the gray areas of war.

The Counterfeiters (Die Fälscher) (2007)

Based on a true story, the film follows Salomon Sorowitsch, a Jewish counterfeiter forced to lead a team of prisoners in a secret Nazi operation to forge Allied currency. He and his fellow inmates must walk a moral tightrope between collaboration, which ensures their survival, and sabotage, which could cost them their lives.

This film explores a profound moral dilemma, blurring the lines between victimhood and collaboration. It has been described as a “corrupted Schindler’s List,” where the act of survival is fraught with ethical compromise. The central conflict between Sorowitsch, the pragmatic survivor, and Burger, the ideological resister, serves as a microcosm of the impossible choices faced by those living under a totalitarian regime, questioning the price of life and conscience.

Lust, Caution (Se, jie) (2007)

Shanghai, 1940s, during the Japanese occupation. Wong Chia Chi (Tang Wei), a shy university student, is recruited by a radical resistance group to seduce Mr. Yee (Tony Leung), a powerful official collaborating with the Japanese, and lure him into a trap to assassinate him. In Lust, Caution, what starts as an act becomes a sadomasochistic and obsessive relationship that blurs the lines between hate and love, putting the entire operation at risk.

Ang Lee’s Golden Lion winner is a masterpiece of intimate espionage. There are no codes or satellites, only the human body used as a weapon and a battlefield. It is a visually sumptuous but emotionally brutal film, exploring how prolonged lying can corrode identity until one no longer knows who they really are. Tony Leung and Tang Wei offer brave performances in an erotic noir that digs into the darkest depths of betrayal.

Carlos (2010)

This epic biopic chronicles two decades in the life of Ilich Ramírez Sánchez, the Venezuelan revolutionary and terrorist known as “Carlos the Jackal.” The film traces his rise as a charismatic icon of left-wing militancy to his eventual decline into a hunted and obsolete figure.

The focus is on the film’s epic scope and its portrayal of Carlos not just as a terrorist, but as a symbol of the seismic political shifts of his era. Olivier Assayas explores the rise and fall of a revolutionary icon, examining the intersection of ideology, ego, and violence. The film’s length and detail are essential to its thesis on the complex legacy of 20th-century radicalism.

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011)

In the 1970s, intelligence officer George Smiley is secretly brought out of retirement to hunt for a Soviet mole at the top of the British Secret Service. Smiley must navigate a labyrinth of past betrayals and institutional paranoia to unmask the traitor among his former colleagues.

Tomas Alfredson’s direction is a masterclass in atmosphere, offering an anti-spectacular and almost suffocating depiction of espionage. The visual style, with its use of rectangles, flattened imagery, and a muted color palette, creates a voyeuristic “keyhole” feeling of compartmentalized and secret lives. The film is less a whodunit about “who” the mole is and more a melancholic study of the emotional and moral decay of men who have dedicated their lives to a game of shadows.

A Most Wanted Man (2014)

In post-9/11 Hamburg, a German intelligence unit led by the world-weary Günther Bachmann tracks a half-Chechen, half-Russian immigrant who may be an Islamist militant. Bachmann tries to use the suspect as bait to catch a bigger fish, navigating a treacherous landscape of competing international agencies.

This film is a tribute to Philip Seymour Hoffman’s final leading performance, embodying a man crushed by the bureaucratic frustrations of the “War on Terror.” In true Le Carré style, the film depicts modern espionage as a game of patience and moral compromise, often thwarted by political expediency and inter-agency rivalry. It is a bleak portrait of a world where victory is never clean.

The Guest (2014)

A soldier introduces himself to the Peterson family, claiming to be a friend of their son who died in action. Welcomed into their home, he seems to be the perfect guest, but a series of deadly incidents and revelations suggest a much darker and more dangerous secret, tied to a military program creating perfect, uncontrollable soldiers.

The Guest is a unique thriller that blends home invasion, action, and black comedy with an underlying spy conspiracy. The mysterious character of “David” subverts the “perfect soldier” archetype, using it as a lens to critique military experiments and the creation of psychopathic, unstoppable weapons. The film brings the unseen consequences of secret operations directly into an American family’s home, with terrifying and stylized results.

Bridge of Spies (2015)

During the Cold War, insurance lawyer James B. Donovan (Tom Hanks) is tasked with defending Rudolf Abel, a Soviet spy arrested in New York, to prove that American justice is fair. When an American U-2 pilot is shot down and captured by the Soviets, Donovan is sent to East Berlin to negotiate a prisoner exchange on the famous Glienicke Bridge. In Bridge of Spies, the battle is not fought with guns, but with words, patience, and moral integrity in a world divided by the Wall.

Written by the Coen brothers and directed by Spielberg, this film is an ode to the “old school” of diplomatic espionage. It is a film of dialogue, heavy coats, and smoky rooms, celebrating the importance of compromise and humanity even in the face of the enemy. Mark Rylance (Academy Award winner for this role) portrays the Soviet spy with unforgettable stoic dignity, reminding us that in the great game of nations, the pawns are still men.

Beirut (2018)

A burnt-out American diplomat is called back to war-torn 1980s Beirut to negotiate for the life of a kidnapped friend. He must navigate the treacherous and factional landscape of the Lebanese civil war, confronting the ghosts of his past in a city that does not forgive.

The film positions itself as a character-driven thriller in the vein of John le Carré. It focuses on the portrayal of a cynical, world-weary protagonist forced back into the game, using his wits and negotiation skills rather than force. The exploration of the complex political landscape of 1980s Beirut is a key element that elevates it above a simple hostage drama.

Official Secrets (2019)

The true story of Katharine Gun, a British intelligence whistleblower who, in the run-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, leaked a top-secret NSA memo exposing an illegal spying operation designed to push the UN Security Council to sanction the war.

This film is a “whistleblower spy drama” rather than a traditional thriller, focusing on “nuclear-level office politics.” It explores the personal, professional, and legal consequences Gun faced, critiquing the political machinations behind the Iraq War. In this new era, the ultimate act of espionage is no longer stealing the enemy’s secrets, but leaking your own, redefining the spy as a dissident whose loyalty is to the truth, not the state.