Uncovering 10 Great British Spy Films

The name’s Bond, James Bond… But honestly, he’s been hogging too much of the spotlight. When you think of fictional spies, 007 is the first one who comes to mind, and the globally understood glamor and coolness of how he pulls off world-saving missions points to the inherent contradiction at the heart of Ian Fleming’s beloved character: Espionage is definitely more tedious and less rewarding than what we see in Bond novels and films. 

After Britain’s military might was eclipsed on a global stage by America in the Second World War, Bond emerged as an attempt to convince readers that, actually, England was still top of its class in international matters – besides, covert ops and sophisticated skills were all you needed to look good in a post-empire Britain. Bond isn’t everything, though – so many novelists, screenwriters, and filmmakers have directly or indirectly responded to Fleming’s exciting but inauthentic portrayal of spy work. Throughout the Cold War, the “end of history” in the ‘90s, and into the War of Terror, there have been so many entertaining films depicting British spies acting nobly and disgracefully. 

So, if you’re tired of watching British espionage in episodic chunks (like in Slow Horses, The Agency, Black Doves, Treason, The Night Manager, London Spy…), here are ten British spy films that deliver the goods, no questions asked.

We thought we’d start off with a pre-Bond (and, by extension, pre-WWII) option: the 1935 adaptation of The 39 Steps. A spy film from the interwar period has a rich sense of adventure. Before his move to Hollywood, Alfred Hitchcock brought the thrills of Scottish author John Buchan’s novel to life – Secret organizations! An innocent man on the run! The Scottish Highlands! – for a romp that’s been regarded as a classic for nearly a century. There’s little of the political grit or malaise that you’d find in later 20th-century spy films, but it can’t be beaten for old-fashioned escapism.

The 39 Steps is streaming on Max.

John le Carré’s famous George Smiley novel, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, was adapted into a BBC miniseries in 1979, and it was the high standard against which the 2011 film would be judged. Swedish director Tomas Alfredson tackled the inertia and bitterness of post-empire British espionage with a severe style and fragile performances, whisking through the dense plot of the novel to land at the frayed reflections of misguided loyalty and betrayal central to the story. It ain’t a le Carré if the noble spies aren’t also fairly pathetic.

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy is available on Apple TV as a streaming rental.

Official Secrets drama is more concerned with the real-life politics of British spies than anything else on this list. Directed by Gavin Hood (who previously showed us the messy world of espionage in Rendition and Eye in the Sky), Official Secrets tells the story of whistleblower Katharine Gun, who in 2003 leaked information that the NSA was trying to spy on members of the United Nations Security Council who could prove beneficial in getting UN approval to invade Iraq. A sobering reminder of the oppressive reality of British and American spy work and how regimes use it to protect their own interests above their citizens.

Official Secrets is streaming on AMC+.

Picking up where Austin Powers left off, the Rowan Atkinson-starring parody of James Bond, Johnny English, was actually penned by the screenwriters of two Pierce Brosnan Bond films, Neal Purvis and Robert Wade. (They would go on to be credited writers for every Daniel Craig film as well.) English is MI-7’s worst agent, but when all the better ones are assassinated, he is tasked with stopping a French industrialist (John Malkovich) from ascending to the British throne. The Johnny English series is one of diminishing returns. Still, between this first installment and the sequels Johnny English Reborn and Johnny English Strikes Again, there are plenty of winning, goofy hijinks that play to Atkinson’s strengths.

Johnny English is available as a streaming rental at Fandango at Home.

Or, two hours of how Richard Burton’s life sucks! John le Carré’s third novel, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, was his first major best seller and the utter antithesis to Ian Fleming’s Bond books – even if they’re both reactions to the myth of the British Empire crumbling post-WW2. Across cramped, cold, dim rooms, a Cold War spy degrades himself to attract the attention of East German agents who convince him to be a defector – but it’s all an MI6 ploy to feed wrong information to the forces behind the Iron Curtain. A subdued black-and-white spy film bristling with anxieties about the country’s future.

The Spy Who Came in from the Cold is streaming on MGM+.

You may think we’re being purposefully unserious by picking, of all the classic Bond movies, the one starring the least successful Bond actor, On Her Majesty's Secret Service. But this film has a sophistication and maturity that you’d be hard-pressed to find in any of the Sean Connery or Roger Moore films. George Lazenby may be an Aussie, but for this snowy fortress Bond mission, we are blessed with the company of Diana Rigg as our Bond girl. This is the Bond movie you may have rejected as a kid (What do you mean he falls in love? Where’s Sean Connery?!), but you grew to appreciate it over time.

On Her Majesty's Secret Service is available as a streaming rental via Amazon Prime.

An early counterpoint to the glamor of EON Productions’ Bond films, the adaptation of Len Deighton’s spy novel, The Ipcress File, channels bleak Nuclear Age espionage. With Michael Caine in the lead role, there's an East London swagger that perfectly fits the imperfect and unorthodox agent Harry Palmer. The film was a big hit (and pairs nicely with another alternative adaptation released the same year), playing in competition at Cannes and scooping up several BAFTAs – proof that even at the time, the 007 fantasy could only satisfy a portion of spy fans.

The Ipcress File is available streaming on YouTube.

Christopher Nolan is the British director on the planet right now, and his British-American co-production Tenet, is the tonic for anyone still asking why he doesn’t direct a Bond film: because it would be as formally inventive, narratively convoluted, and uninterested in brand legacy as this. “The Protagonist” (John David Washington) enters the high-stakes world of “inversion” (reversing the flow of time) and teams up with Robert Pattinson, Elizabeth Debicki, and Aaron Taylor-Johnson to do physics-breaking espionage to stop mad Russian supervillain Kenneth Branagh from obliterating our reality.

Tenet is available on Fandango Now as a streaming rental.

After Pierce Brosnan’s lackluster finale, Die Another Day, Bond needed a revamp. There was a lot of pressure on Casino Royale to prove they deserved to stick around after the gritty Jason Bourne and farcical Austin Powers movies. Enter the best Bond film – a slick, sexed-up, battle-scarred new era for the thuggish, chauvinist superspy. Daniel Craig debuted with a trip around the world trying to stop illicit money from being funneled into dicey illegal wars, and they took a fair beating while doing it.

Casino Royale is available as a streaming rental on Amazon Prime.

Only a couple of Steven Soderbergh films have used the U.K. before now – Magic Mike’s Last Dance reused Ken Loach footage from The Limey, and Soderbergh's upcoming drama The Christophers with Ian McKellen will be set there. But his old-school molehunt thriller with a hyper-modern sheen is fascinated with the tension between clinical wealth and power and how comfortably romanticized London has become in fiction. Avid truthteller George (Michael Fassbender) loves his wife Kathryn (Cate Blanchett) so much that he’s willing to commit treason to protect her – oh, did we forget to mention? They’re both superspies for British intelligence. It’s been years since a British spy film has felt this sizzling and dastardly. 

Black Bag is currently in theaters and expected to debut on Peacock in mid-2025.