10 Must-Stream Spy Movies From Tenet to Atomic Blonde

From Christopher Nolan’s Hollywood blockbuster Tenet to Stephen Spielberg’s spy-swap drama Bridge of Spies, these 10 films are SPYSCAPE’s pick of the most engaging espionage films to stream on a night indoors.
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Tenet (2020)

Christopher Nolan’s time-warping Tenet begins with an undercover operation at the Kyev opera house, an 'inverted' bullet, and a secret agent (John David Washington) on a dangerous mission involving an algorithm, a Russian oligarch (Kenneth Branagh), and a plot to start World War III.

EXPLORE THE CONUNDRUM
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Mission Impossible - Fallout (2018)

Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) and his team are assigned to buy three stolen plutonium cores from eastern European gangsters, but he must work with the CIA to save the world. August Walker (Henry Cavill) plays the CIA assassin monitoring Hunt and actress Vanessa Kirby is the White Widow. The film grossed $790m, the top earner of the franchise so far.

CRUISE ON STUNTS
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Atomic Blonde (2017)

MI6’s Lorraine Broughton (Charlize Theron) is on a mission to find a top-secret list of intelligence officers that is held on microfilm and concealed in a wristwatch. The KGB likely stole the microfilm during an operation that left an MI6 officer dead. Lorraine arrives in Germany in 1989, just days before the Berlin Wall falls, with orders to find the list and a KGB double agent named Satchel.

THERON'S DEBRIEF

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Bridge of Spies (2015)

Soviets shoot down a CIA U-2 spy plane during the Cold War and arrest American pilot Gary Powers. A Brooklyn attorney is then tapped to negotiate a prisoner exchange, offering KGB spy Rudolf Abel in a swap on Germany’s Glienicke Bridge - the so-called Bridge of Spies. Steven Spielberg’s historical thriller stars Tom Hanks. Mark Rylance won the Oscar for portraying Abel.

 SPYSCAPE’S REVIEW
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The Angel (2018)

An Egyptian codenamed Angel spies for Mossad in the midst of turmoil in the Middle East. Is Angel a man agitating for peace or a power-hungry double agent? The film stars Tunisian-Dutch actor Marwan Kenzari as Egyptian diplomat Ashraf Marwan, the president's son-in-law.

DISCOVER YOUR SPY SKILLS

‍Official Secrets (2019)

Katharine Gun (Keira Knightly) is a British intelligence specialist who wrestles with her conscience after reading a National Security Agency email to UK spies asking for help with dirty tricks, bribery and blackmail. Gun leaks the email hoping to stop the 2003 Iraq war as the clock ticks down to the conflict. 

GUN’S PODCAST

Eye in the Sky (2015)

This is a fast-paced film starring Helen Mirren as a British officer dealing with Al-Shabaab terrorists who may have killed an undercover agent in British-Kenya. The Colonel, in charge of a drone-based African operation, discovers suicide bombers are preparing an attack, but her strike plan is delayed.

SPYSCAPE’S REVIEW

BlacKkKlansman (2018)

Ron (John David Washington) is assigned to the intelligence division of the Colorado Springs police department where he infiltrates a Ku Klux Klan group via phone by pretending to be interested in joining. He teams up with a co-worker to keep up appearances.

HEAR WASHINGTON’s VIEW

Snowden (2016)

Edward Snowden’s co-worker nicknames him ‘Snow White’ when Snowden joins the NSA as a contractor. That’s because Snowden thinks the NSA only tracks enemies of the state rather than eavesdropping on every mobile phone in the US. Snowden is soon blowing the whistle. Nicolas Cage stars as a CIA instructor and Rhys Ifans (Berlin Station) as a CIA recruiter.

SPYSCAPE’S REVIEW

A Call to Spy (2019) 

British PM Winston Churchill orders his spy agency to hire women for sabotage and resistance-building during WWII. The female recruits at the Special Operations Executive (including screenwriter Sarah Megan Thomas who plays Virginia Hall and Radhika Apte who portrays undercover agent (Noor Inayat Khan), are part of an unlikely group determined to undermine the Nazis.

HEAR MORE ABOUT NOOR INAYAT KHAN