Black Bag Makes Espionage Up Close and Personal— Plus Four Other Thrilling Spy Stories

Black Bag—directed by Steven Soderbergh and written by David Koepp—is a suspenseful, stylish addition to the world of spy films. When George Woodhouse (Michael Fassbender), a counterintelligence agent for Britain’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), learns of a mole who might have inside information about a new cyber worm called Severus, he must find the traitor before it is too late. Among the likely suspects are four colleagues (Regé-Jean Page, Marisa Abela, Naomie Harris, and Tom Burke) and his wife, Kathryn (Cate Blanchett). Caught between his marriage vows and patriotic oath, George must find a way to save his country and home. The Wrap writes, Black Bag “is an insidiously great spy movie, mature and satisfying.”

The pulse-quickening mystery at the center of Black Bag is a reminder of how entertaining and exciting such thrillers can be. We’re highlighting four other great spy films whose secrets and lies will keep you watching to the very end.

Black Bag is in theaters on March 14 — so get your tickets now!

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy

In Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, Tomas Alfredson brings to the screen the John le Carré novel that the Los Angeles Times called “perhaps the great spy tale of our time.” In the 1970s at the height of the Cold War, George Smiley (Gary Oldman) is assigned the seemingly impossible task of finding a mole buried deep inside MI6. With an all-star cast––which includes Colin Firth, Tom Hardy, John Hurt, and Benedict Cumberbatch––the film moves from London to Budapest to Istanbul as it maps out the agency hunts for the truth. Beyond the global action, Oldman tells Indiewire, “It’s a story about friendship, love lost, betrayal, loyalty, and all of those things that we as people connect to.” Featured on Collider’s list of “the best spy films of the 21st century,” Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy “makes your heart pound, gets your pulses racing, and sends your brain cells into overdrive,” writes the Telegraph.

Watch Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy now on Apple TV or Amazon.

Atomic Blonde

Atomic Blonde is “a very modern take on the spy genre,” says director David Leitch in The Writing Studio. As British agent Lorraine Broughton, Charlize Theron revs up the action with her hard-hitting, adrenaline-fueled performance. Adapted from Antony Johnston’s hit graphic novel series The Coldest City, the movie captures the chaotic days before the collapse of the Berlin wall when, as Theron notes in the press notes, “Graft, bribery, blackmail, violence…was the daily diet.” Forming a fragile alliance with station chief David Percival (James McAvoy), Broughton will break any rule or bone to keep critical intelligence from falling into the hands of the KGB. Theron performs, according to The Observer, “the cold-as-ice secret agent shtick backward, and in red patent-leather stilettos, in the hugely engaging spy-vs-spy thriller.”

Watch Atomic Blonde now on Apple TV or Amazon.

Burn After Reading

When a CIA chief (played by J.K. Simmons) instructs an agent to "report back to me when all this makes sense" in the Coen brothers’ spy spoof Burn After Reading, you know you’ll never see him again. For George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Frances McDormand, John Malkovich, Tilda Swinton, and Richard Jenkins, D.C. is a crazy world fueled by political intrigue, personal secrets, and plastic surgery. When a gym trainer mistakes the bombastic memoir of a CIA analyst to be top-secret classified documents, the intelligence community goes into a tizzy. The resulting comedy of errors is, Newsweek writes, “populated with a cast of delusional dunces who are a wonder to behold.”

Watch Burn After Reading on Apple TV or Amazon.

Lust, Caution

In Lust, Caution, Ang Lee unfolds with grand style an epic spy drama set in China. Spurred on by the Japanese occupation, a cadre of drama students in Hong Kong plot to assassinate the head of the puppet government. Wong Chia Chi (Tang Wei) moves to Shanghai to set up Mr. Yee (Tony Leung Chiu-Wai) to be killed by seducing him. But when she falls for her target, her mission takes an unexpected and devastating turn. The film’s combustible mix of sex and secret agents made it an international hit, proving, Rolling Stone writes, that Lee is “a true master, and his potently erotic and suspenseful Lust, Caution casts a spell you won't want to break.”

Watch Lust, Caution on Apple TV.