Even when it is hard to imagine a spy-thriller franchise as successful as James Bond, several British films have made worthy contributions to the espionage genre that are more than worthy of anyone’s time. Some might say, there are several British spy films that elevate what James Bond could not with its over-glamourization of the secret agent’s life, almost to the point of caricaturing the career of an intelligence official.
Over the years, the portrayal of the spy has undergone several changes in representing masculinity and the evolution of the villain. What remains the same is the intrigue of the genre in the personality quirks of the detectives and how they balance personal and professional life. Here are 11 fantastic British spy films that take the audience on a nail-biting ride even though are not James Bond movies.
11 Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, directed by Tomas Alfredson, is a Cold War spy thriller film starring Gary Oldman as George Smiley, a retired intelligence officer who is summoned back to MI6 to help hunt a Soviet double agent at the top of the British Secret Service. The film is based on the novel of the same name written by John le Carré. The film also stars Colin Firth, Tom Hardy, John Hurt, Toby Jones, Mark Strong, Benedict Cumberbatch, Ciarán Hinds, David Dencik, and Kathy Burke in supporting roles. The film won the BAFTA Award for Best British Film and also received the Academy Award nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Original Score and Best Actor for Gary Oldman.
10 The Spy Who Came in from the Cold
The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, directedby John le Carré, is based on the novel of the same name. The film stars Richard Burton as Alec Leamas who is nearing his retirement and goes undercover for his last assignment to rescue his colleagues in capture. The film was a box-office success and won several awards including the BAFTA Awards for Best British Film, Best Actor, Best Cinematography, and Best Art Direction. Burton was applauded for his performance and was nominated for an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor. The film was also ranked as one the best films by the National Board of Review in the United States in 1966. The film was shot in black and white, and Oswald Morris was applauded for his cinematography.
9 The Quiller Memorandum
The Quiller Memorandum, directedby Michael Anderson, is a British neo-noir eurospy film adapted from the novel The Berlin Memorandum written by Elleston Trevor. The screenplay of the film was written by the Nobel Prize-winning dramatist Harold Pinter. The film starred George Segal as Quiller who plays the charming agent who investigates a neo-nazi organization in the 1960s. The film also starred Alec Guinness, Max von Sydow and Senta Berger.
The film was nominated for three BAFTA Award nominations in Art Direction, Film Editing and Screenplay. Pinter was also nominated for an Edgar Award in the Bets Motion Picture category. Unlike most thriller films, The Quiller Memorandum has a simple structure and is applauded for its orchestral, atmospheric soundtrack composed by John Barry.
8 The Tailor of Panama
The Tailor of Panama, directed by John Boorman, is a spy thriller film based on the novel of the same name written John le Carré who also co-write the screenplay of the film along with Andrew Davies. The film stars Geoffrey Rush as a former convict turned tailor who is forced into espionage by a corrupt MI6 agent played by Pierce Brosnan. The film was Daniel Radcliffe's debut film, released in 1966, and also starred Jamie Lee Curtis, Brendan Gleeson, Catherine McCormack, and Harold Pinter.
The film was inspired by Graham Greene’s novel Our Man in Havana, where intelligence agencies depend on Cuban informants, set in the 1990s. However, unlike the novel, the film was set after the American withdrawal from the Panama Canal Zone. The film was produced for $21 million and was a commercial success, earning $28 million.
7 Our Man in Havana
Our Man in Havana, directed by Carol Reed, is a British spy comedy film that is an adaptation from the novel of the same name written by Graham Greene. The film blends comedy and action and stars Alec Guinness and Jim Wormold, who runs a vacuum cleaner store in Cuba and becomes a British agent out of desperation and finds himself being a target. The film also starred Burl Ives, Maureen O’Hara, Ralph Richardson, Noël Coward and Ernie Kovacs. The film was of interest to Hollywood studios, including Alfred Hitchcock, who tried to get the film rights to the novel but found it too expensive for production. It was finally made by Carol Reed, who had previously adapted several of Greene’s books into commercially successful films. The film was his third collaboration with Green and was a commercial and critical success and was nominated for the Golden Globe for Best Picture.
6 Page Eight
Page Eight, writtenand directed by the British dramatist David Hare, is a political thriller starring Bill Nighy as Johnny who is an MI5 veteran who finds an intriguing case after his mentor, played by Michael Gambon, dies. The film also stars Rachel Weisz, Tom Hughes, Ralph Fiennes, and Judy Davis. The film is the first installment of the Worricker Trilogy, which is followed by Turks & Caicos and Salting the Battlefield. The dramatic performances of the actors were highly applauded, which complemented the engaging script. The film was nominated for Best Miniseries or Motion Picture Made for Television in the 2011 Satellite Awards, and Bill Nighy and Rachel Weisz were nominated for their performances as well. Nighy was also nominated for Best Actor in a Miniseries or Television Film at the Golden Globe Awards.
5 The Deadly Affair
The Deadly Affair, directed by Sidney Lumet, is a British spy film based on John le Carré’s novel, Call for the Dead. The central character of George Smiley was changed to Charles Dobbs, who was played by James Mason. Dobbs is a secret agent who is shaken by the alleged suicide committed by a government official and digs deeper to find the cause of his demise. The soundtrack of the film was composed by Quincy Jones and was a technical feat in colour composition.
The Director of Photography, Freddie Young, invented a mechanism to create a muted colour palette by pre-exposing the colour film negative to shallow controlled light, which was used for the first time in the film to create what Lumet called a colourless colour. The film received several BAFTA Award nominations, including Best British Film, Best British Screenplay, Best British Cinematography, Best Foreign Actress for Simone Signoret and Best British Actor for James Mason.
4 The Ipcress File
The Ipcress File, directed by Sidney J. Furie, stars Michael Caine as Harry Palmer, who is a British spy investigating kidnapping and mysterious reappearances of top scientists. The film was based on the book of the same name, written by Len Deighton. The film was made as a mellower counter to James Bond while sharing the crew of the James Bond franchise. The film was hugely successful and won the BAFTA award for Best British Film and was listed in the top 100 best British films of the 20th century in 1999.
The success of the film led to several sequels released between 1966 and 1996 which included Funeral in Berlin, Billion Dollar Brain, Bullet to Beijing, and Midnight in Saint Petersburg. Caine’s performance as Harry established his character as anti-Bond for his restrained portrayal of a secret agent as the films show the grim sides of espionage.
3 A Most Wanted Man
A Most Wanted Manis one of the last films starring Philip Seymour Hoffman that was released before his death. The film is directed by Anton Corbijn and follows Gunter Bachman, played by Hofman, as he lays down an elaborate ploy to arrest a Muslim scholar suspected to be a mastermind behind terror attacks. The film is another adaption of a novel of the same name written by John le Carré. The film includes Rachel McAdams, Willem Dafoe, Robin Wright, Dobrygin, Homayoun Ershadi, Daniel Brühl, and Nina Hoss. The film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2014 and earned $36.2 million against a budget of $15 million. The film is considered one of the best spy thrillers in recent years, and Hoffman was praised for his subtle performance.
2 The 39 Steps
The 39 Steps, directed by Alfred Hitchcock, is loosely based on the novel of the same name written by John Buchan. The film follows Richard Hannay, played by Robert Donat, who finds himself in loggerheads with am intelligence agency called The 39 Steps. Hannay gets falsely accused of murder and goes on a run to clear his name. The film is widely acknowledged as a classic and has also been referenced in The Catcher in the Rye and has inspired a comedy play of the same name. The film follows a similar theme of a wrong-man-on-a-run to prove his innocent known in Hitchcock’s films such as The Lodger, Saboteur, and North by Northwest.
1 The Courier
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The Courier, directed by Dominic Cooke, is a spy film based on the true story of a businessman, played by Benedict Cumberbatch, who was recruited by the Secret Intelligence Service to deal with a nuclear confrontation involving the Cuban Missile Crisis. The film also stars Rachel Brosnahan, Jessie Buckley, and Angus Wright. The film had its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival under the title Ironbark. The film was applauded for Cumberbatch’s performance and for incorporating old-school espionage thriller tropes in an engaging real-life story.
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