25. Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery
Sure, Austin Powers might not be the most high-brow selection on this list, but there’s a reason shouting “Yeah, baby!” in a British accent sounds familiar to nearly everyone. Nothing legitimizes a genre quite like lampooning it, and Mike Myers’s dorky British spin on the James Bond archetype seemed to breathe a second wind into the spy franchise for the modern age. Many of Powers’s so-called quirks (especially his non-stop attempts at seducing women) certainly haven’t aged well, but many the franchise’s one-liners and gags are timeless.
24. Mission: Impossible
No one likes explosions more than director Brian De Palma (Scarface, Carrie). Hell, he even finds a way to blow up a giant fish tank with chewing gum in Mission: Impossible. But what's most impressive here is how De Palma squeezes tension out of the quietest moments, like Cruise catching a drop of his sweat so he doesn't set off an alarm while breaking into CIA headquarters.
23. The Fury
Technically, De Palma's The Fury is only one-third spy movie. It's also part horror movie and part teen supernatural mindfuck. The director's messy yet somehow perfect masterpiece sprints from one awe-inspiring set piece to another, as Kirk Douglas's hilariously gruff ex-CIA agent tries to free his son from the clutches of a diabolical government program (led by an equally hilarious John Cassavetes).
Based on a novel no one much cares about anymore, the movie mashes up what made Carrie so successful with every other movie convention that has obsessed De Palma, from peeping Toms to elaborate escape plots—one here unfolds in near silence for about 10 minutes, and will make your heart skip a few beats. The result is pure visual ecstasy, all the way up to its (literally) head-exploding climax.
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22. Burn After Reading
The Coen brothers are masters of portraying bumbling idiots who wander into very bloody fights for power. In Burn After Reading, Brad Pitt relishes his mimbo role as a trainer at a gym working alongside Frances McDormand. When the doofuses come across a CIA agent's memoir draft, they plan to sell the text in order to pay for all their dream cosmetic procedures. Needless to say, it doesn't work out that way. Grim and unrelentingly funny, it's like if No Country for Old Men were adapted into a comedy.
21. GoldenEye
James Bond purists might scoff at the idea that Pierce Brosnan is the star of the best movie in the franchise, but I don't care. Bond is about having fun, and it doesn't get more fun than 007 barreling a tank through St. Petersburg. Or Famke Janssen as the most sadistic female Bond villain, who literally gets off at the thought of killing men. Or Sean Bean and Alan Cumming bringing their English thespian skills to a cartoonish plot about world destruction that climaxes on top of a giant satellite. GoldenEye is a stew of everything you could want in a Bond movie, and more.
20. Munich
The best Hitchcock movie he never made is about the moral consequences of being a spy. Luckily Spielberg has as much philosophical depth as he does camera trickery. Possibly the director's most underrated work, it tracks an Israeli intelligence team (Eric Bana plays the leader) exacting revenge for the murder of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympics. Spielberg (with a lot of help from writers Tony Kushner and Eric Roth) deftly folds in the main character's existential panic as he carries out one assassination after another in the name of his homeland. Neither pro-Israel nor pro-Palestine, Spielberg's clear-eyed thriller is exactly the kind of antidote we need for today's spiteful political climate.
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19. The Spy Who Came in from the Cold
Based on another work of novelist John le Carré, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold follows a seasoned MI6 agent who accepts a final assignment in East Berlin to pose as a disgraced MI6 agent in order to win the trust of East German officials. However, just when he thinks that he has pulled off his ruse and has infiltrated the enemy organization, he learns he’s been double-crossed.
18. Bourne Identity
The Bourne franchise undeniably revamped the spy blockbuster genre, and it all started with 2002's Bourne Identity. Matt Damon delivers a commanding performance as Jason Bourne, a man battling amnesia with an inexplicable arsenal of combat and intelligence skills, as he works to uncover his identity while being chased by assassins. With gritty visuals and action-packed combat, Bourne offered fans a bold reintroduction to the new age of espionage films.
17. Atomic Blonde
Charlize Theron stars as an undercover MI6 sent to Berlin just before the fall of the Berlin Wall to investigate the murder of a fellow agent, as well as to uncover a list of all double agents working in Berlin. On top of the incomparable appeal that is Theron playing a badass secret agent, Atomic Blonde’s vibrant aesthetics and ultra-80s soundtrack make this a memorable watch from start to finish.
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16. Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy
Based on the beloved espionage novel of John le Carré, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy follows a convoluted hunt to track down a Soviet double agent in the MI6. With a star-studded cast including Gary Oldman, Colin Firth, Tom Hardy, and Benedict Cumberbatch among others, the thriller features a complex and riveting ensemble performance.
15. Bridge of Spies
Directed by Steven Spielberg and starring Tom Hanks, Bridge of Spies tells the true story of James Donovan—an American lawyer assigned to negotiate a prisoner exchange with the Soviet Union at the height of the Cold War.
14. Argo
Based on the true story of the 1979 Iran hostage crisis, Argo tells the story of United States C.I.A. operative Tony Mendez’s mission to save six American diplomats by disguising themselves as a film crew scouting locations in Tehran. Ben Affleck stars as protagonist Mendez, with supporting performances from Bryan Cranston, Alan Arkin, and John Goodman among others.
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13. Zero Dark Thirty
Kathryn Bigelow's masterful portrait of a female operative (Jessica Chastain) hunting Osama bin Laden over years is about one of the most celebrated American assassinations in history. But it's the opposite of victorious. Foreign-policy wonks take issue with the facts, but Bigelow gets at the psychic cost (not to mention the body count) of the agent's single-minded devotion to her mission.
12. The Lives of Others
Set in 1983 East Berlin, this Oscar-winning drama offers a compelling commentary on the ethics of surveillance. When a German Stasi captain is assigned to monitor a playwright with believed Communist ties, his investigation of the playwright and his wife leads him to develop an emotional connection to the couple. However, his allegiances soon become even more marred when he discovers that his superior had ordered the investigation in the hopes of pursuing the playwright’s wife.
11. Sicario
The smartest movie about the War on Drugs plunges you into the nightmarish action of Emily Blunt's FBI agent on a mission across the U.S.-Mexico border, as it slowly dawns on her that she is a very small piece of a much bigger political puzzle. The ending acknowledges an unsettling truth: Spies fight wars for people they will, in most cases, never even meet, for reasons we can never fully grasp.
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10. Charade
Movies don't come more charming than this caper with Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn, whose chemistry is so infectious you'll forget about whatever twists and subtle deceptions are unraveling (which is the point). Grant is a charming hustler after her late husband's stash of gold...or not. The identities shift faster than Grant and Hepburn's screwball back-and-forth.
9. Spione
The penultimate silent film of massively influential filmmaker Fritz Lang, Spione offers an old-school spin on the enemies-to-lovers plot. Relying heavily on its action-packed visuals, Spione tells the tale of a British agent who finds himself falling for a Russian spy from an enemy ring.
8. The Manchurian Candidate
For an era defined by paranoia, the Cold War makes a perfect backdrop for a spy flick. When a platoon of Korean War veterans return home, a traumatized captain (played by Frank Sinatra) realizes that they have been brainwashed into assassins. While they might be home from war, the internal battle within themselves has just begun.
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7. Citizenfour
Sometimes the most thrilling stories can only be captured in real-time. This Oscar-winning documentary offers unprecedented access to famous whistleblower Edward Snowden, the computer intelligence consultant responsible for leaking crucial information regarding the NSA spying scandal. Journalists Laura Poitras and Glenn Greenwald meet Snowden in Hong Kong while he is still identifies as “Citizenfour,” and, over the course of 113 minutes, bear witness to Snowden’s public coming out as the ultimate hero–and, to some, traitor–of the American public.
6. Notorious
Nothing says classic Hollywood like a Hitchcock thriller starring Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergmann. Bergmann stars as Alicia Huberman, a convicted Nazi spy’s daughter, who is recruited by American agent T.R. Devlin, played by Grant, to bring down a group of Nazis hiding out in post-WWII Brazil. The duo’s joint mission, and budding romance, is challenged, though, when Alicia is required to seduce a Nazi leader.
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