It’s a good time to be a fan of spy cinema. No matter what flavor of espionage action you like, from pensive dramas to scorching political fables, twisted romances, or classic shaken-not-stirred sex appeal, there’s been a great spy movie molded in that fashion since the turn of the 21st Century. Heck, for time there, we had James Bond, Ethan Hunt and Jason Bourne all in peak form, turning out top-notch spy franchises left and right.
Bourne and Bond may have taken a tumble in their most recent films (though somehow theseMission: Impossiblemovies keep delivering remarkable quality), but the spy genre at large remains in fine form, and as popular as ever. Which means there’s been no shortage of great spy movies since the turn of the century. But if you’re looking to go undercover, gear up with gadgets, and get behind the wheel of a luxury car, we’ve got you covered with the best spy movies of the 21st Century.
The Bourne Trilogy
Any list of the best modern spy films would be incomplete without the first threeBournefilms, which redefined the spy genre for modern audiences and cementedMatt Damonas an A-list leading man. Executed with a tight balance of character, action and intrigue, the trilogy honors its roots in the espionage thriller while fulfilling all the explosive requirements of a tentpole blockbuster. And it’s all anchored by Damon’s understated, kinetic performance as Jason Bourne.
All three films in the original Bourne trilogy –The Bourne Identity,The Bourne Supremacy,andThe Bourne Ultimatum– excel at balancing brutal combat, paranoid conspiracies and a traceable character arc for a man who’s never really sure who he is, and the trilogy evolves along with its title character, becoming richer with each film. The joy of the first film is discovering Bourne’s exceptional skills as he does; each newfound ability providing an “oh shit” moment for the audience and character alike. BySupremacy, both Bourne and the audience know full well what he’s capable of. By the third film, Bourne – the character and the franchise – is a well-oiled machine, executing the maneuvers with smooth coherence and skill.
Together, they make an ideal action trilogy; each film self-contained but linked by an overarching architecture, packed with action set-pieces that constantly escalate without ever becoming ludicrous, and devoted to the unique delights of the spy thriller.
Burn After Reading
Nobody explores the monsters behind the mask of civilized humanity with quite the sharp wit and cynical edge the Coen brother’s bring to the table, andBurn After Readingis all about the antics that flourish when social contracts breaks down. Along with that razor-sharp edge, the 2008 satire boasts all the technical excellence we’ve come to expect from theJoelandEthan Coen’s work – flawless casting, whip-smart writing, and tonal specificity that allows for laugh-out-loud humor that’s just a half-click shy of tragic.
Despite teetering on the edge of disturbing throughout it’s runtime (before full charge leaping off the cliff in the end),Burn After Readingis a hoot to watch. Each performance from the cast of A-list players is hammed up to perfection:Brad Pittas a human puppy—buoyant, excitable and riotously dumb;Frances McDormandas the self-loathing, desperately lonely middle aged woman on the quest for physical perfection;George Clooneyas the smarmy, perverse, pitifully dependent manchild; and special mention must be made ofJohn Malkovichas the cog at the center of all the nonsensical fuckery – a bitter, scathing has-been CIA agent who wears his pretentiousness on his sleeve, swallowing the “R"s in words like “chevre” and “memoir” with a sickening smirk. Each performance is hilarious and honest, living in that Coen sweet spot between riotously funny and devastatingly sad.
Burn After Reading is a spy movie in the way thatThe Big Lebowskiis a detective movie, which is to say the Coen’s clever comedies have a way of deftly slipping between genre labels while paying homage to those very genres they evade. Shot and edited like a classic paranoid espionage thriller,Burn After Readingis a sketch of a spy film colored in with farce.
Based on a true story, the 2013 Best Picture winner follows the rescue of six US Embassy employees loose in the streets of Iran during the 1972 uprising by the Tehran revolutionists led by Ben Affleck’s CIA agent Tony Mendez. Affleck, who also directed the picture plays his spy as quietly efficient and confident, but with a lived-in quality that hints at the hard-earned knowledge that everything can go wrong in a hair turn.
Despite Argo’s blatant award-contender constructs, Affleck navigates the line and rarely panders. He sets up the horrific life-or-death stakes without devolving into an exploitative torture show, and refuses to embrace the good American/bad foreigner binary. As a grounded historical take on a CIA spy craft,Argodispenses of the glamor and “sexiness” of the trade without dwelling on the psychological toll, focusing instead on the hard work of those who tackled the job at hand. The hero doesn’t win the day through shootouts are explosions, but through courage, composure, and calm under pressure.
What really makes Argo one of the best is the final act; an expertly constructed half-hour of stomach-turning tension that teaches the audience what edge-of-your-seat really means. With the help of a sterling cast andChris Terrio’s sharp script, Affleck spent the whole movie establishing a set of stakes the audience can buy into, and in the final act of the film he delivers a set-piece that takes the audience past intellectualizing the tension of covert ops to actually feeling it, making for an emotional, cathartic tale about the hard-won heroics of a covert job well done.
Billed as a two-hander betweenRobert RedfordandBrad Pitt,Spy Gameis really Redford’s show – a fine return to the genre for the iconic star ofThree Days of the Condor. Told through a series of flashbacks,Spy Gameexplores the mentor-mentee relationship between two master spies, Nathan Muir (Redford) and Tom Bishop (Pitt); one on the eve of his retirement, the other his execution. The agency is ready to write Bishop off as a lost asset, prompting Muir to embark on a long-distance covert rescue mission under the nose of his authorities.
Redford crafts his character with a mysterious blend of realpolitik cunning and surprising loyalty, and as we follow him over a 24-hour period, Muir lies, schemes and manipulates in order to save his protege. Redford channels his elegant skill as a leading man and makes it a blast, and some of the film’s most enjoyable moments are watching Muir deftly obfuscate answers while his agency superiors grill him for intel. Aside from Redford’s enduring performance,Spy Gameis an entirely respectable espionage thriller, blending classic genre beats with directorTony Scott’s trademark zeal, flourish for explosive action, and restless editing.
Red Sparrow
Red Sparrow is a shockingly grim film, made with a sizable studio budget and a bonafide movie star cast featuringJennifer Lawrence,Joel Edgerton, and freakingCharlotte Rampling. But don’t walk in expecting an adventurous romp through the action-packed life of a superspy,Red Sparrowis a darker, more dangerous film that boils down to a character drama about surviving sexual assault.
Lawrence stars as Dominika Egorova, a prima ballerina who is blackmailed into spycraft after a calculated accident leaves her incapable of dancing, and a subsequent assault leaves her witness to a clandestine crime. Forced into the so-called “Sparrow School,” inspired by real-life incidents of intelligence agencies that trained young women to influence and blackmail men through sexual and psychological prowess, Dominika becomes a seductive agent of the state, but when she’s tasked with targeting a CIA Agent, she eyes an escape.
As always, Lawrence is downright fantastic in the role, grounding the pulpier elements of the material in a wholly crafted character, and dragging you through hell with Dominika while inviting you to marvel at her strength. She’s matched by smart direction from Francis Lawrence, who directed the last three Hunger Games films and wisely steers away from exploitation in the midst of his twisted tale. Red Sparrow didn’t get it’s due in theaters, but the unusual story and technical elegance point to a film that will hold up well through the lens of time.
[Note: This feature was initially posted at a prior date, but in an effort to highlight Collider’s great original content, we’ve bumped it up to the front page.]
Kingsman: The Golden Circle
Kingsmanis the shock and awe approach to the spy genre. It’s rowdy, raunchy, occasionally tasteless pure spectacle that wears a veneer of the gentleman spy’s elegance as an embellishment on a machismo shockfest. It’s the sort of irreverent self-referential filmmaking that can only happen after a genre has taken such a firm foothold in the cultural conscience as the spy movie has.
DirectorMatthew Vaughnhas a blast with the genre tropes, and whether he’s leaning into them or subverting them, he’s a clearly a man who loves spy films and gets a kick out of prodding at their structure.Colin Firth’s Harry Hart is a perfect example: A gentleman spy, Hart is top-tier – sophisticated, stylish, efficient – and when he is fully unleashed in a sequence that so obviously wants your outrage, he becomes a nightmarish inversion of our revered super spies.Kingsmanoccasionally becomes just a shade too trashy, but that underlying sense of debauchery is part of what gives the film such a wild, absurd sense of fun. These men, these esteemed, expertly trained spies, who have held such a prominent position in the landscape of cinematic fantasy, simply should not be behaving this way, and for goodness sake, the villain’s henchman bounces around on lethal stilts.
Kingsman doesn’t want you to take it too seriously, it wants to you to strap in for a good time, and with a fearless, cheeky abandon, it rarely misses the mark.
On the surface,Steven Spielberg’sMunichis about the aftermath of Black September, a terrorist attack on the 1972 Olympics that left 11 Israelis dead. Beyond the surface story, the Best Picture-nominated film dives deeper to examine relative truth, failure to communicate, and the cost of waging an unwinnable, eternal war.
Munich follows a team of spies and assassins assembled to seek retribution for the death of their countrymen. Based on a true story, the film is an approximation of history at best, but in telling the partly fictionalized version of the tale, Spielberg broaches deeper truths with a cinematic flair. As the team eliminates the perpetrators one by one, they are consistently replaced again and again, each death only opening the spot for new, more dangerous terrorists, each act of violence returned with only more death. The questions become, What is gained? What is lost? In truth, it feels diminutive to callMunicha spy film, but it also feels wrong to leave it off the list. No doubt there are excellent set pieces, filled with brutal action to rival the greatest summer blockbusters, and the film explores the intricacies of espionage – in the unique context of teamwork – butMunichis, at heart, a story about humanity and the unquenchable thirst for revenge.
Like all the best tales about mankind’s complex morality, there are no snarling blackhats or grinning heroes inMunich. In the tradition of great spy dramas,Munichexplores the cost of espionage and Tony Kushner’s script eschews the good guy/bad guys mentality, endowing each character with a heart-breaking humanity so that every death is a punch in the gut, every lost life comes with weight and impact.
The Man from U.N.C.L.E.
Not sinceTo Catch a Thiefhas a romp through the gorgeous antiquities of Europe been so stylish, breezy and downright delicious.Guy Ritchie’s criminally underrated spy caperThe Man from U.N.C.L.E.has found a proud foothold (and a loud demand for a sequel) in the three years since it landed in theaters, and it’s a well-deserved rallying for a film that should have been a blockbuster success.
Army HammerandHenry Cavillco-star as KGB Operative Illya Kuryakin (Hammer) and CIA Agent Napoleon Solo, two dashing, determined pros – and rivals– forced to team up in order to take down a mysterious organization with a penchant for nuclear weapons. And they’re paired with two powerhouse women,Alicia Vikander’s Gaby andElizabeth Debicki’s VIctoria, who constantly keep them on their toes when they pursue their own ends.
Set in the 1960s,The Man from U.N.C.L.E. drapes the gorgeous summer scenery with decadent costuming and set decoration, not to mention the delightful action sequences and sparky chemistry between Cavill and Hammer. Neither actor was a big enough star to open a film whenU.N.C.L.E.hit theaters (though they might have the wattage now after the good will fromMission: Impossible - FalloutandCall Me by Your Name), which is a damn shame because the duo is so much fun, it’d be a thrill to watch them bicker and roughhouse their way through a franchise of films.
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
A super-condensed adaptation ofJohn le Carre’s expansive 1974 novel of the same name (John Irvin’s essential 1979 mini-series barely managed to capture it all in seven episodes), the 2011 espionage dramaTinker Tailor Soldier SpystarsGary Oldmanin an impeccable performance as George Smiley; the iconic, taciturn MI6 agent who’s tasked with uncovering a Soviet double agent at the height of the Cold War.
Directed byThomas Alfredson, the atmospheric filmmaker who brought usLet The Right One In(and in a devastating blow, later brought usThe Snowman),Tinker Tailoris an elegant, intricate drama far removed from the super-agents that populate modern spy capers. Backed by a cast so exceptional than an actor ofCiaran Hinds' caliber is essentially reduced to the role of an extra,Tinker Tailordispenses with gadgets and high-speed chases in favor of old-fashioned spy craft; tense hand-wringing sequences of manipulation and battles of wits between the best in the game. It’s a glimpse at a time before modern technology when our most intimate secrets could still be kept, milking scenes of traded documents and personal secrecy for tension and heartbreak. At it’s core, the film is a beautiful investigation into the dehumanizing cost of bureaucratic espionage, and the desperate loneliness and broken psychology that comes with a deceitful life lived under constant scrutiny. It’s a stunning slow-burn that asks a lot of its viewer, but rewards attention tenfold.
Mission: Impossible III - Mission: Impossible Fallout
The Mission Impossible franchise has been a mainstay of the American superspy market for more than two decades, and over the years, Ethan Hunt has joined the ranks of James Bond and Jason Bourne as name-brand agents of espionage – the tippy top of the spy trade A-list. And somehow these movies just keep staying excellent.
Brian De Palma’s 1996 original set the stage for a spy franchise that has consistently evolved and improved over time, and starting withJ.J. Abrams’Mission: Impossible IIIEthan Hunt began to transform into a tangible, traceable character with a stellar team of supporting characters to get him through one impossible mission after the next. AndTom Cruise’s incredible physical performance and dedication to in-camera stuntwork assures that those missions just keep getting more impressive and technically challenging with each film
But the Mission: Impossible films have also taken strides to redefine and deepen the character of Ethan Hunt, especially since writer-directorChristopher McQuarriestepped behind the camera starting withRogue Nation, and with the latest installment,Fallout,we get the most well-rounded, emotionally involved film in the franchise yet. And some stellar action scenes, of course. However, no matter which film you chose in the run betweenMission: Impossible IIIandFallout, you’re going to get one heck of a special spy movie.
