“I've read your file. I've also read your dog’s file. So let's cut the crap, shall we?” Lorraine Broughton (Charlize Theron) tells David Percival (James McAvoy) in Atomic Blonde. “This whole hungover, show-up-late, don't-know-which-way-is-up act, I'm not buying it.”

Theron nails the role of a no-nonsense MI6 agent who will stop at nothing to win at the spying game. The 2017 action thriller helped redefine the female espionage genre with a loud, clear message: Women are badass.

Here are our Top 15 saucy movies about female operatives
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The Mother (2023)

Jennifer Lopez’s breathless thriller The Mother follows a former US Army operative who comes out of hiding to protect the daughter she left behind years ago. Naturally, Lopez is fleeing from dangerous assailants along the way while brokering an arms smuggling deal between ex-SAS Captain Adrian Lovell and arms dealer Hector Álvarez. Could there be a romance in the works? (Netflix)

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‍Heart of Stone (2023)‍

Gal Gadot (Wonderwoman, Red) is kicking butt again - this time as an intelligence operative for a shadowy “peacekeeping” agency trying to stop a hacker. She’s all in as Heart of Stone’s action adventure star. Will it be as popular as the Mission: Impossible franchise? That’s the goal! (Netflix from August 11, 2023)‍
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Anna (2019)‍

Anna (Sasha Luss) is a young Russian model caught in a tussle between the CIA and the KGB. She is described as a 'skull key', someone with the potential to open many doors. (YouTube, Apple TV, Prime Video, Google Play)

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La Femme Nikita (1990)‍

In Luc Besson's action thriller, La Femme Nikita (sometimes called simply Nikita) stars as a teenager (Anne Parillaud) sentenced to life in prison for murdering policemen during an armed robbery. Her government handlers fake her death and recruit her as a professional assassin. (Apple TV, Prime Video)
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The 355 (2022) ‍

When a top-secret weapon falls into the hands of mercenaries, the CIA’s ‘Mace’ Brown joins forces with a rival German agent, a computer specialist, and a Colombian psychologist to save the world. A mysterious figure who's tracking their every move, however. Some critics panned it but The 355 has an 86 percent approval rating on the Tomatometer so be your own judge. (YouTube, Prime Video, Apple TV)

Official Secrets (2019)

GCHQ whistleblower Katharine Gun leaked a 2003 NSA memo asking Britain to help collect compromising intel on UN Security Council members to blackmail them into voting in favor of the Iraq War. Would Official Secrets actress Keira Knightly do the same? The actress isn’t sure: “I think the reality is - horrifically - I think maybe I wouldn’t. Maybe I’d look the other way and try to save myself.” (Prime Video, Netflix, Hulu, GooglePlay, iTunes, Microsoft)

Eye in the Sky (2016)‍

Col. Katherine Powell (Helen Mirren) discovers a team of Kenyan suicide bombers in Eye In The Sky, but a drone strike turns into a moral dispute when a nine-year-old girl enters the target area. Mirren’s part was initially written for a male lead, which she discovered after filming wrapped: “[That] stopped it being a macho boys movie about war - about what men do in war - and it opened the discussion up to about what we are all responsible for." (Prime Video, Apple TV, GooglePlay, Microsoft, YouTube)

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Fair Game (2010)

The US government leaked the name of CIA operative Valerie Plame as payback for an article her husband wrote criticizing George W. Bush’s administration over the 2003 Iraq War. What happened next is chilling. “It was sad because I wasn't ready to leave. I still loved what I did.”  Plame told SPYSCAPE’s True Spies podcast. (YouTube, GooglePlay, Prime Video, Apple TV)
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North by Northwest (1959)

Alfred Hitchcock’s spy thriller stars Eva Marie Saint in a tale of mistaken identity and government secrets. Saint told Vanity Fair that Hitchcock created her character from the outside in: “My hair, my makeup, my shoes, my jewelry, my purse, my gloves, everything. And just from creating that exterior for me, he gave me the sense of a spy lady. But we never talked about emotion.” Hitchcock fans will also want to check out Notorious (1946). (Prime Video, GooglePlay, YouTube, Apple TV)

A Call to Spy (2020)‍

British PM Winston Churchill is desperate for his SOE civilian spy agency to train women for covert operations to help undermine the Nazis in WWII France. ​​Sarah Megan Thomas, the writer/producer who starred as one-legged spy Virginia Hall in A Call to Spy, admired the SOE’s bravery. "They sent in women because they thought they would be more inconspicuous and they had a 50-50 chance,” Thomas said. Actress Radhika Apte co-stars as Noor Inayat Khan - codenamed Madeleine - an Indian princess turned British spy who risked her life to defeat the Nazis. (Netflix, YouTube, GooglePlay, Prime Video, Apple TV)

Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation (2015)

Actress Rebecca Ferguson plays Ilsa Faust, an ex-MI6 intelligence agent in Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation and the sequels. Ferguson had six weeks training to jump off a Vienna rooftop. “And having vertigo, that was an intense training session - just to be in a harness and gradually work your way up to 75 feet - and then actually take a leap of faith jumping...” she told ScreenSlam. (Prime Video, Apple TV, Microsoft, Netflix in some countries)

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Salt (2010)‍

Salt was reportedly written with Tom Cruise in mind but the lead role was transformed into Evelyn Salt (Angelina Jolie), a CIA agent suspected of being a KGB sleeper spy. Jolie performed many of her own stunts but said she was careful on the set. “Because I have six children, I would never do something that could kill me but there were things that could have broken my arm,” Jolie told ABC. “I’m fine to get dirty and tough… but I’m also just mommy, goofy mommy.” (Netflix, Prime Video, Hulu, GooglePlay, iTunes, Vudu)

Atomic Blonde (2017)

Lorraine Broughton (Charlize Theron) may be an MI6 hand-to-hand combat expert in Atomic Blonde, but the actress clenched her jaw so hard during rehearsals she cracked two teeth and needed surgery. That was nothing compared to the stuntmen, however, Theron said. “Everything we have of me behind the scenes is me going: ‘Are you okay?'" (Prime Video, YouTube, GooglePlay, Vudu, and iTunes.)

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Black Widow (2021)

Black Widow Natasha Romanoff (Scarlett Johansson) confronts a dangerous conspiracy with ties to her spying past. Johansson said she wouldn’t have had the confidence to have made Black Widow 10 years earlier but now she’s in awe of the character: “She doesn't dwell. [There are] no regrets for the past, even though those things might haunt her.” (YouTube, GooglePlay, Prime Video, AppleTV, Google Play, Microsoft Movies, Vudu)

No Time to Die (2021)

Lashana Lynch is the first female 007 to star opposite Daniel Craig as Bond’s equal. Only a few years before the premiere of No Time to Die, however, Lynch had two cents in the bank and worked as a temp for Britain’s National Health Service (NHS). As she told Rolling Stone magazine: “When you work, you don’t get paid straight away, so I’m the lead in this show, but still can’t afford my rent." (YouTube, Apple TV, Google Play, Prime Video)

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Die Another Day (2002)‍

007 didn't know what to make of sassy NSA agent Giacinta ‘Jinx’ Johnson. Jinx was every bit James Bond's equal in Die Another Day, Pierce Brosnan's last outing as 007. A Jinx spin-off franchise was rumored but never materialized. We're betting Halle Berry would have sizzled. (YouTube, Google Play, Prime Video)

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Red Sparrow (2018)‍

Jennifer Lawrence smolders in Red Sparrow (2018 as injured prima ballerina Dominika Egorova. The dancer soon turns to Sparrow School, a secret intelligence service that trains spies to use their wits and bodies as weapons. A CIA agent tries to convince Dominika that he is the only person she can trust, forcing her to rely on her gut instinct as well as her training. Disney+, Hulu, Prime Video, Google Play, YouTube) ‍‍