Best spy movies of all time
Since the silent era of cinema, spy films have offered a certain kind of escapism for movie-going audiences. The first true piece of spy literature was William Le Queux's serial "The Great War in 1897," the success of which inspired other authors, such as Rudyard Kipling, to venture into this new written territory. In turn, spy films began as simple reenactments of real-life events in war, and increasing international tensions in the early 20th century laid the groundwork for the spy genre to become particularly successful—peaking with World War I, then reaching a lull.
Of course, spy films eventually saw a revival with the Nazi scourge in the 1940s. These Nazi espionage films led to the classic James Bond movies, paving the way for modern blockbuster features like the "Mission: Impossible" and "Bourne" series many know and love today (although the "Mission: Impossible" film franchise was actually born out of a 1960s television series of the same name). And nowadays, the mystery, action, and thrills of spy movies can cross more genres; from comedies to fantasy films to biopics and superhero flicks, the excitement of espionage on the silver screen is not limited to solely the spy genre itself.
Stacker compiled data, as of July 2023, on all spy movies to develop a Stacker score—a weighted index split evenly between IMDb and Metacritic scores—and showcased every film with a 75 or higher. To qualify, the film had to have a Metascore and at least 2,500 votes. Ties were broken by Metascore, and further ties were broken by IMDb user rating. Every film on the list has been considered according to the cinematic history and development of spy movies.
There has never been a more perfect time to be a spy film fanatic. The genre has taken a somewhat lighthearted turn in 2024—releases like "Argylle" and "The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare" have amused audiences with their all-star casts and comedic spins on the classic spy movie genre. If you're more of a Bond fan though, it's as easy as ever to binge the oeuvre of Sean Connery, Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton, and Daniel Craig—nearly all are available on Apple TV or Amazon Prime Video as of September 2024.
Those looking for something completely different, look no further than this list as a guide for branching out into the rest of the escapist genre of spy films. Starting at number 58, here are the best spy movies ever.
#58. The Falcon and the Snowman (1985)
- Director: John Schlesinger
- Stacker score: 75.14
- Metascore: 68
- IMDb user rating: 6.8
- IMDb user votes: 12,159
- Runtime: 2 hours and 11 minutes
A recent hire for the CIA becomes disillusioned after seeing a less admirable side of the American government, and he decides to sell the documents he finds to the Russians in a half-baked scheme. The film is an adaptation of Robert Lindsey's "The Falcon and the Snowman: A True Story of Friendship and Espionage," a book based on a true story.
#57. Lust, Caution (2007)
- Director: Ang Lee
- Stacker score: 75.14
- Metascore: 61
- IMDb user rating: 7.5
- IMDb user votes: 43,873
- Runtime: 2 hours and 37 minutes
An erotic thriller from Ang Lee, the film follows a World War II secret agent sent on a mission to seduce and kill a Japanese government official for Shanghai's puppet government—that is, until she finds herself falling in love with the man she was sent to murder. Lee won his second Golden Lion Award at the Venice Film Festival for this film, the first being for 2005's "Brokeback Mountain."
#56. Official Secrets (2019)
- Director: Gavin Hood
- Stacker score: 75.14
- Metascore: 63
- IMDb user rating: 7.3
- IMDb user votes: 51,249
- Runtime: 1 hour and 52 minutes
This docudrama tells the real-life story of whistleblower Katharine Gun, a British intelligence specialist who, in 2003, comes into possession of a memo detailing a plan between the U.S. and the U.K. to gather information on U.N. Security Council members for blackmail. Critic Andrea Gronvall praised Keira Knightley's lead performance in her review: "Knightley shines brightest, in a performance that balances conviction and soul baring, and is all the more genuine for its lack of showiness."
#55. The East (2013)
- Director: Zal Batmanglij
- Stacker score: 75.14
- Metascore: 68
- IMDb user rating: 6.8
- IMDb user votes: 51,492
- Runtime: 1 hour and 56 minutes
An undercover agent must infiltrate a group of ecoterrorists, but her association with the group causes her to start sympathizing with the enemy—and falling for one of its members. Produced by directors Ridley Scott and Tony Scott, critic Myles Aronowitz called the film "a slick, grungy espionage thriller so in tune with the times it's almost uncanny."
#54. Sneakers (1992)
- Director: Phil Alden Robinson
- Stacker score: 75.14
- Metascore: 65
- IMDb user rating: 7.1
- IMDb user votes: 60,749
- Runtime: 2 hours and 6 minutes
Two National Security Agency agents blackmail a computer hacker and his ragtag team of security specialists into stealing a newly invented code-breaking device. The device's highly effective capacities lead them to discover that the intelligence agents who approached them aren't all they seem, and the team must save both the world and themselves. The film features an ensemble cast including Robert Redford, Dan Aykroyd, Sidney Poitier, River Phoenix, and Ben Kingsley.
#53. True Lies (1994)
- Director: James Cameron
- Stacker score: 75.14
- Metascore: 63
- IMDb user rating: 7.3
- IMDb user votes: 271,198
- Runtime: 2 hours and 21 minutes
Unbeknownst to his family, salesman Harry Tasker (Arnold Schwarzenegger) is an undercover operative for the U.S. government forced to fix his strained marriage while saving his wife and himself from an Islamic jihadist. Starring Schwarzenegger and Jamie Lee Curtis, "True Lies" won multiple awards. Curtis took home Best Actress - Motion Picture - Musical/Comedy at the Golden Globes and Best Actress at the Saturn Awards, where director James Cameron also won Best Director.
#52. Fair Game (2010)
- Director: Doug Liman
- Stacker score: 75.69
- Metascore: 69
- IMDb user rating: 6.8
- IMDb user votes: 50,237
- Runtime: 1 hour and 48 minutes
When a wife and mother leading a double life as a CIA operative has her identity leaked, her family and others become endangered, and her life begins to undo itself. Starring Naomi Watts and Sean Penn in leading roles, the film was based on two memoirs—Valerie Plame's "Fair Game" and Joseph C. Wilson's "The Politics of Truth."
#51. Three Days of the Condor (1975)
- Director: Sydney Pollack
- Stacker score: 75.69
- Metascore: 63
- IMDb user rating: 7.4
- IMDb user votes: 59,237
- Runtime: 1 hour and 57 minutes
When quiet CIA codebreaker Joe Turner (Robert Redford) arrives to work one day to find all his coworkers slaughtered, he discovers the higher-ups he goes to for help are in on it. With a ruthless hitman tailing him, he must figure out why the agency is out to get him. The success of the Redford-fronted film eventually spawned a TV series remake in 2018.
#50. The Courier (2020)
- Director: Dominic Cooke
- Stacker score: 75.69
- Metascore: 65
- IMDb user rating: 7.2
- IMDb user votes: 65,000
- Runtime: 1 hour and 52 minutes
Based on a true story, Benedict Cumberbatch plays British businessman Greville Wynne who, in the 1960s, was chosen for his ordinariness to act as a courier between the M16 and Russian source Oleg Penkovsky (Merab Ninidze). Wynne agrees to the job when he learns his spy work could help prevent nuclear disaster and aid Americans during the Cuban missile crisis. Jessie Buckley and Rachel Brosnahan round out the cast.
#49. Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (2002)
- Director: George Clooney
- Stacker score: 75.69
- Metascore: 67
- IMDb user rating: 7.0
- IMDb user votes: 90,355
- Runtime: 1 hour and 53 minutes
A successful television game show producer leads a double life as a CIA assassin with a purported body count of 33—or at least, that's what he claims is true. The movie is based on the real-life allegations and confessions by game show host Chuck Barris, and though the CIA has denied ever having recruited him, some still believe his wild stories could be true.
#48. GoldenEye (1995)
- Director: Martin Campbell
- Stacker score: 75.69
- Metascore: 65
- IMDb user rating: 7.2
- IMDb user votes: 263,718
- Runtime: 2 hours and 10 minutes
In Pierce Brosnan's first turn as the famous Agent 007, he must retrieve a powerful satellite system that could destroy the world, which has fallen into the possession of Agent 006 (Sean Bean)—his former ally, gone rogue. The film was the first in the James Bond series to use CGI.
#47. Kingsman: The Secret Service (2014)
- Director: Matthew Vaughn
- Stacker score: 75.69
- Metascore: 60
- IMDb user rating: 7.7
- IMDb user votes: 690,768
- Runtime: 2 hours and 9 minutes
Lowlife British teen Gary "Eggsy" Unwin (Taron Egerton) never knew his father, but when he's suddenly recruited by the underground spy organization that employed his dad in London, his unrealized potential is put to the test by an international threat. The movie features an infamous church scene in which a mass of people are absurdly and comically slaughtered by Colin Firth's Harry Hart, set to Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Free Bird" and shot to look like one long, nearly continuous take.
#46. Walk on Water (2004)
- Director: Eytan Fox
- Stacker score: 76.24
- Metascore: 65
- IMDb user rating: 7.3
- IMDb user votes: 6,963
- Runtime: 1 hour and 43 minutes
In this Israeli drama film, a Mossad agent is tasked with tracking down and killing an elderly ex-Nazi officer who might still be alive and befriends the man's grandson under the guise of a tourist. As they set out on a tour of Israel, the agent's values are challenged by his new friend. In her New York Times review, critic Dana Stevens wrote, "This movie's quiet intelligence sneaks up on you, marking the director as a talent to watch."
#45. The Ipcress File (1965)
- Director: Sidney J. Furie
- Stacker score: 76.24
- Metascore: 66
- IMDb user rating: 7.2
- IMDb user votes: 16,848
- Runtime: 1 hour and 49 minutes
In this British spy film, Sir Michael Caine plays Harry Palmer, an Army sergeant with a criminal past who begins to investigate a string of disappearances among top scientists. Throughout his investigation, Palmer is met with pushback from his employers at the Ministry of Defence, only to realize the department head might know more than he's letting on. There have been five subsequent films starring Caine as Harry Palmer, and "The Ipcress File" was adapted as a miniseries for ITV in 2022.
#44. Furious 7 (2015)
- Director: James Wan
- Stacker score: 76.24
- Metascore: 67
- IMDb user rating: 7.1
- IMDb user votes: 403,614
- Runtime: 2 hours and 17 minutes
In the seventh film in the "Fast & Furious" franchise, Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel), Brian O'Conner (Paul Walker), and the rest of the team attempt to live normal lives when Deckard Shaw (Jason Statham) wreaks havoc while seeking vengeance for his brother, who they put into a coma. Vanity Fair, Roger Ebert, and Rolling Stone all agreed this film is one of the best in the franchise.
#43. No Time to Die (2021)
- Director: Cary Joji Fukunaga
- Stacker score: 77.90
- Metascore: 68
- IMDb user rating: 7.3
- IMDb user votes: 422,789
- Runtime: 2 hours and 43 minutes
Daniel Craig plays James Bond for his fifth and final portrayal in this Bond film, which sees the British spy recruited by the CIA to locate and extract Dr. Valdo Obruchev (David Dencik). Léa Seydoux, Lashana Lynch, Jeffrey Wright, Christoph Waltz, and Rami Malek round out the star-studded cast of the film, which won Best Original Song at the Oscars for its titular theme song, performed by Billie Eilish.
#42. The Spy Gone North (2018)
- Director: Yoon Jong-bin
- Stacker score: 78.45
- Metascore: 69
- IMDb user rating: 7.3
- IMDb user votes: 5,726
- Runtime: 2 hours and 17 minutes
A South Korean NSA agent must pose as a businessperson to infiltrate a nuclear facility in North Korea to obtain information about its nuclear program. The movie is based loosely on the real-life story of double agent Park Chae-seo, who met then-North Korean leader Kim Jong-il.
#41. Tenet (2020)
- Director: Christopher Nolan
- Stacker score: 78.45
- Metascore: 69
- IMDb user rating: 7.3
- IMDb user votes: 536,449
- Runtime: 2 hours and 30 minutes
With science fiction elements, this spy thriller follows John David Washington as a CIA agent who develops the ability to alter the flow of time. Upon release, the film received overall positive reviews from critics and fans, despite its trippy and intentionally mind-bending narrative.
#40. Clear and Present Danger (1994)
- Director: Phillip Noyce
- Stacker score: 79.01
- Metascore: 74
- IMDb user rating: 6.9
- IMDb user votes: 104,219
- Runtime: 2 hours and 21 minutes
The sequel to "Patriot Games," this installment in the Jack Ryan" saga sees the famous CIA agent become acting deputy director after his admiral is diagnosed with cancer. Jack becomes wrapped up in the case of a businessman murdered on a yacht with links to drug dealers. It was the last Jack Ryan film to feature Harrison Ford in the role of Ryan.
#39. Breach (2007)
- Director: Billy Ray
- Stacker score: 79.56
- Metascore: 74
- IMDb user rating: 7.0
- IMDb user votes: 60,894
- Runtime: 1 hour and 50 minutes
When low-level FBI surveillance expert Eric O'Neil is promoted to work with the renowned senior agent Robert Hanssen, he believes it's an investigation into Hanssen's sexual habits. But really, he's being tasked with finding proof that Hanssen is a traitor and double agent for Russia. The film is based on the real-life story of Hanssen, who was convicted of spying on the United States for the Soviet Union and Russia for over 20 years.
#38. Flame & Citron (2008)
- Director: Ole Christian Madsen
- Stacker score: 80.66
- Metascore: 74
- IMDb user rating: 7.2
- IMDb user votes: 19,415
- Runtime: 2 hours and 10 minutes
After the Nazi invasion of Denmark, partners Flame and Citron work for the Dutch resistance assassinating Nazi collaborators but are eventually ordered to start killing Nazis. They question their morality further as doubt settles in over the legitimacy of their assignments. The film is mostly fiction but based on actual events, including real Danish resistance movement fighters nicknamed "Flammen" and "Citronen."
#37. Eye in the Sky (2015)
- Director: Gavin Hood
- Stacker score: 80.66
- Metascore: 73
- IMDb user rating: 7.3
- IMDb user votes: 89,006
- Runtime: 1 hour and 42 minutes
When a colonel and a lieutenant general order a drone strike on suicide bombers in Kenya, a young girl winds up in the kill zone, prompting an international dispute over the moral and ethical implications of drone warfare. The film was the final live-action appearance of actor Alan Rickman, who died in January 2016.
#36. Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011)
- Director: Brad Bird
- Stacker score: 81.22
- Metascore: 73
- IMDb user rating: 7.4
- IMDb user votes: 506,121
- Runtime: 2 hours and 12 minutes
In the fourth "Mission Impossible" installment, Ethan Hunt is implicated in a terrorist attack on the Kremlin, leading to the entire Impossible Mission Force agency being disavowed by the United States government. Ethan is forced to regain the government's good graces and prevent a second attack, aided by a suspect group of IMF fugitives. Critic David Edelstein praised the film as "nonsensical" and "wonderful."
#35. The Bourne Identity (2002)
- Director: Doug Liman
- Stacker score: 81.22
- Metascore: 68
- IMDb user rating: 7.9
- IMDb user votes: 560,978
- Runtime: 1 hour and 59 minutes
In the first film of the Bourne series, a man named Jason Bourne (Matt Damon) recovers after being stranded in the middle of the ocean. He suffers from amnesia, but his apparent grasp of very dangerous skills leads him to believe his past is less than savory. Yet his quest to uncover his identity is marred by assassins on his tail. The film is adapted from Robert Ludlum's novel of the same name.
#34. No Way Out (1987)
- Director: Roger Donaldson
- Stacker score: 81.77
- Metascore: 77
- IMDb user rating: 7.1
- IMDb user votes: 43,256
- Runtime: 1 hour and 54 minutes
A Navy lieutenant discovers the woman he shared a passionate fling with is romantically entangled with his superior. When she turns up dead, he's put in charge of her case, only to become his own suspect. Starring Kevin Costner, Gene Hackman, Will Patton, and Sean Young, the movie is the second film adaptation of Kenneth Fearing's book "The Big Clock." John Farrow directed the first 1948 film.
#33. Black Book (2006)
- Director: Paul Verhoeven
- Stacker score: 81.77
- Metascore: 71
- IMDb user rating: 7.7
- IMDb user votes: 78,685
- Runtime: 2 hours and 25 minutes
In 1944, a young Jewish woman escapes near death and becomes a part of the resistance during World War II as an undercover spy. But when she's tasked with seducing a Gestapo officer, she begins to fall for him. At the time, the movie was the most expensive Dutch film ever made.
#32. The Age of Shadows (2016)
- Director: Jee-woon Kim
- Stacker score: 82.32
- Metascore: 78
- IMDb user rating: 7.1
- IMDb user votes: 10,576
- Runtime: 2 hours and 20 minutes
The film, set during the Korean independence movement in the 1920s, shows Korean resistance fighters attempting to smuggle explosives from Shanghai to destroy important Japanese-controlled facilities in Seoul. All the while, agents of Japan try to stop them.
Though it was submitted as the South Korean entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 89th Academy Awards, it did not secure a nomination. However, it won the Action Features category Best Picture award at the 2016 Fantastic Fest.
#31. Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation (2015)
- Director: Christopher McQuarrie
- Stacker score: 82.32
- Metascore: 75
- IMDb user rating: 7.4
- IMDb user votes: 388,517
- Runtime: 2 hours and 11 minutes
The fifth "Mission Impossible" installment sees Ethan Hunt and his now-disbanded IMF team on a mission to eradicate a dangerous criminal organization, The Syndicate, enacting terrorist attacks to create a new world order. The film features a now-famous plane scene in which Tom Cruise performs his own stunt, dangling on the side of an actual, moving plane as it ascends into the air.
#30. The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956)
- Director: Alfred Hitchcock
- Stacker score: 82.87
- Metascore: 76
- IMDb user rating: 7.4
- IMDb user votes: 66,991
- Runtime: 2 hours and
In this Alfred Hitchcock suspense thriller, a vacationing family accidentally witnesses a murder and becomes privy to information about an assassination plot planned for America. When their son is captured as collateral to keep them quiet, they must find a way to get him back. The film stars Doris Day and Jimmy Stewart and is a remake of Hitchcock's own 1934 film of the same name.
#29. Lady Vengeance (2005)
- Director: Park Chan-wook
- Stacker score: 82.87
- Metascore: 75
- IMDb user rating: 7.5
- IMDb user votes: 83,004
- Runtime: 1 hour and 55 minutes
A woman imprisoned for a murder she didn't commit emerges over a decade later with revenge solely on her mind. With a group of friends, she goes on the hunt for the real killer as she searches for the daughter she left behind. The film is the third in a trilogy from director Park Chan-wook, dubbed "The Vengeance Trilogy," preceded by "Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance" and "Oldboy."
#28. Dr. No (1962)
- Director: Terence Young
- Stacker score: 82.87
- Metascore: 78
- IMDb user rating: 7.2
- IMDb user votes: 173,555
- Runtime: 1 hour and 50 minutes
In the first film that launched the James Bond franchise, dashing MI6 agent 007 must battle a mysterious scientist named Dr. No, traveling to his lair in Jamaica to stop him from his plans to destroy the United States space program. Among the litany of influences the film has had on spy films and pop culture to this day, it spawned Global James Bond Day 50 years after its release.
#27. The Bourne Supremacy (2004)
- Director: Paul Greengrass
- Stacker score: 82.87
- Metascore: 73
- IMDb user rating: 7.7
- IMDb user votes: 475,175
- Runtime: 1 hour and 48 minutes
While living in India, a Russian agent frames Jason Bourne for stealing millions from the CIA. The agent begins his pursuit of Bourne with the intent to kill him, murdering his girlfriend by accident in the process. Bourne must now prove his innocence and get revenge. In its review, Time Out praised the sequel to "The Bourne Identity" as "a relentlessly paced, non-stop chase movie that culminates in a breathless foot and car pursuit across a frozen Moscow."
#26. The Imitation Game (2014)
- Director: Morten Tyldum
- Stacker score: 83.43
- Metascore: 71
- IMDb user rating: 8.0
- IMDb user votes: 792,933
- Runtime: 1 hour and 54 minutes
It's 1939, and the British intelligence agency MI6 has just been formed. One of the first recruits, a Cambridge mathematician named Alan Turing (Benedict Cumberbatch), is enlisted to crack an unbreakable Nazi code called Enigma in a race against time.
The historical drama is based on the real life of Alan Turing, whose breakthroughs were responsible for the invention of computers but who was maligned by the British government for his sexuality. The film is an adaptation of Andrew Hodges' biography "Alan Turing: The Enigma."
#25. The Quiet American (2002)
- Director: Phillip Noyce
- Stacker score: 85.08
- Metascore: 84
- IMDb user rating: 7.0
- IMDb user votes: 29,136
- Runtime: 1 hour and 41 minutes
During the First Indochina War, a love triangle forms between an American, an English journalist, and a Vietnamese woman, the latter of whom is the journalist's mistress. Betrayal and uncertainty abound as the three fall down a dangerous rabbit hole. The film—starring Brendan Fraser, Michael Caine, and Đỗ Thị Hải Yến—is adapted from the bestselling novel of the same name by Graham Greene.
#24. Out of Sight (1998)
- Director: Steven Soderbergh
- Stacker score: 85.64
- Metascore: 85
- IMDb user rating: 7.0
- IMDb user votes: 96,237
- Runtime: 2 hours and 3 minutes
George Clooney plays notorious bank robber Jack Foley caught escaping prison by U.S. Marshall Karen Sisco (Jennifer Lopez). Romantic sparks fly between the two, even as Foley ends up kidnapping Sisco. With a comedic bite, the film's screenplay, written by Scott Frank, was nominated for an Academy Award.
#23. Infernal Affairs (2002)
- Directors: Andrew Lau, Alan Mak
- Stacker score: 85.64
- Metascore: 75
- IMDb user rating: 8.0
- IMDb user votes: 128,059
- Runtime: 1 hour and 41 minutes
This hit Hong Kong thriller spawned two sequels and an equally successful American remake in "The Departed." The movie follows two moles—one, a cop infiltrating the mob, and the other, a mobster infiltrating the police—as they struggle to keep their identities under wraps and stay alive. The Atlantic praised it for its "mind-teasing ingenuity" and "emotional richness," as well as its "top-flight cast."
#22. Ghost in the Shell (1995)
- Director: Mamoru Oshii
- Stacker score: 85.64
- Metascore: 76
- IMDb user rating: 7.9
- IMDb user votes: 149,446
- Runtime: 1 hour and 23 minutes
In the year 2029, a cyborg federal agent in Japan must hunt down a man known as "The Puppet Master," who illegally hacks into the minds of cyborg humans. But the agent finds herself questioning her own half-human identity in the process. It is considered by some to be the greatest anime film of all time.
#21. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011)
- Director: Tomas Alfredson
- Stacker score: 85.64
- Metascore: 85
- IMDb user rating: 7.0
- IMDb user votes: 207,242
- Runtime: 2 hours and 7 minutes
In 1970s England, a Soviet Union mole is suspected within MI6, but a mission to uncover the mole's identity goes awry, and the whistleblower is killed. An espionage veteran is called out of retirement to weed out the spy. The film won Best British Film at the 2012 BAFTAs and received three Academy Award nominations.
#20. From Russia with Love (1963)
- Director: Terence Young
- Stacker score: 86.19
- Metascore: 83
- IMDb user rating: 7.3
- IMDb user votes: 140,131
- Runtime: 1 hour and 55 minutes
James Bond is back and battling criminal organization SPECTRE in the franchise's second film, in which Russians are out to steal a decoding device. They attempt to seduce Bond into helping them aid a beautiful woman Bond meets in Istanbul. Actor Desmond Llewelyn debuted as Q in this film, and he'd reprise the part in 17 films over 36 years.
#19. The Constant Gardener (2005)
- Director: Fernando Meirelles
- Stacker score: 86.19
- Metascore: 82
- IMDb user rating: 7.4
- IMDb user votes: 145,798
- Runtime: 2 hours and 9 minutes
A quiet British diplomat is relocated to Kenya with his activist wife, but when she turns up murdered in the wilderness, the grief-stricken diplomat sets out to find out who killed her—and inserts himself into a dangerous conspiracy. The screenplay was based on the novel of the same name by John le Carré, and the film was nominated for four Academy Awards, with Rachel Weisz winning for Best Supporting Actress.
#18. Bridge of Spies (2015)
- Director: Steven Spielberg
- Stacker score: 86.74
- Metascore: 81
- IMDb user rating: 7.6
- IMDb user votes: 319,763
- Runtime: 2 hours and 22 minutes
A U.S. pilot is captured by the Soviet Union during the Cold War and sentenced to a decade in prison. His only hope is a New York lawyer named James Donovan, recruited by the CIA, who plans to negotiate an exchange for a convicted Soviet spy whom Donovan once defended. The film is based on true events and won Mark Rylance the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor at the Academy Awards.
#17. Enter the Dragon (1973)
- Director: Robert Clouse
- Stacker score: 87.85
- Metascore: 83
- IMDb user rating: 7.6
- IMDb user votes: 108,464
- Runtime: 1 hour and 42 minutes
Bruce Lee stars as a martial arts expert who agrees to spy on the crime lord responsible for his sister's death and enters a kung-fu competition, hoping to win his way into the man's headquarters. Many consider it one of the greatest martial arts movies of all time, with some even considering it the best.
#16. Skyfall (2012)
- Director: Sam Mendes
- Stacker score: 87.85
- Metascore: 81
- IMDb user rating: 7.8
- IMDb user votes: 712,276
- Runtime: 2 hours and 23 minutes
The 23rd James Bond installment sees undercover agents exposed worldwide as MI6 is compromised after 007's latest assignment goes awry. With the agency now relocated, Bond (Daniel Craig) and Eve Moneypenny (Naomie Harris) follow the trail to a mysterious man named Silva (Javier Bardem), who has a score to settle with M. The film received widespread critical acclaim, with critic Tom Charity writing in his review that the film "reinvigorated" the franchise.
#15. Casino Royale (2006)
- Director: Martin Campbell
- Stacker score: 88.40
- Metascore: 80
- IMDb user rating: 8.0
- IMDb user votes: 673,698
- Runtime: 2 hours and 24 minutes
The first James Bond movie to star Daniel Craig as the famous spy, "Casino Royale" features Bond on his first mission as a 00 agent, heading to Madagascar to find information about a terrorist financier. When he learns that the man will be attempting to win the money in a high-stakes poker game, Bond is sent to play against him and win.
Writing for The Atlantic, Christopher Orr praised the film for "presenting a Bond both leaner and meaner than any that has come before," calling it "the best Bond flick in nearly four decades."
#14. Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One (2023)
- Director: Christopher McQuarrie
- Stacker score: 90.06
- Metascore: 81
- IMDb user rating: 8.2
- IMDb user votes: 19,322
- Runtime: 2 hours and 43 minutes
Tom Cruise's seventh portrayal of IMF agent Ethan Hunt has the spy leading his team to combat an evil AI entity. The New York Times praised Cruise's ability to "[crank] the super spy dial up to 11." Hayley Atwell, Rebecca Ferguson, Vanessa Kirby, Esai Morales, and Pom Klementieff star in the action-packed follow-up to 2018's "Mission: Impossible – Fallout."
#13. Foreign Correspondent (1940)
- Director: Alfred Hitchcock
- Stacker score: 90.06
- Metascore: 89
- IMDb user rating: 7.4
- IMDb user votes: 22,453
- Runtime: 2 hours and
John Jones (Joel McCrea) is an American reporter attempting to expose enemy spies in London as World War II breaks out. An early Hitchcock thriller, the film was nominated for six Academy Awards, including Best Picture, and has since been treasured by film historians and critics, appearing as part of the esteemed Criterion Collection.
#12. Mission: Impossible - Fallout (2018)
- Director: Christopher McQuarrie
- Stacker score: 90.06
- Metascore: 86
- IMDb user rating: 7.7
- IMDb user votes: 349,902
- Runtime: 2 hours and 27 minutes
Joining forces with a CIA assassin, Ethan Hunt and his IMF team must stop a terrorist group from committing an attack on four cities with nuclear weapons. When the weapons go missing, Ethan and the team are caught in a race against the clock to retrieve them.
#11. Goldfinger (1964)
- Director: Guy Hamilton
- Stacker score: 90.61
- Metascore: 87
- IMDb user rating: 7.7
- IMDb user votes: 196,502
- Runtime: 1 hour and 50 minutes
When faced with one of the all-time most notorious villains, James Bond must prevent the tycoon's scheme to raid Fort Knox and topple the world economy. The franchise's third installment was the first Bond film to win an Academy Award for Best Sound Effects Editing.
#10. The Conversation (1974)
- Director: Francis Ford Coppola
- Stacker score: 91.16
- Metascore: 87
- IMDb user rating: 7.8
- IMDb user votes: 116,449
- Runtime: 1 hour and 53 minutes
This mystery thriller from Francis Ford Coppola stars Gene Hackman as a surveillance expert named Caul, hired by a mysterious client to track a young couple. When Caul records a cryptic conversation between them, he becomes obsessed with it, determined to figure out if the couple is in trouble, and tries to make up for the failed cases of his past. The film won the highest honor at the 74th Cannes Film Festival, the Grand Prix, and lost Best Picture at the Academy Awards to another of Coppola's films, "The Godfather Part II."
#9. The Bourne Ultimatum (2007)
- Director: Paul Greengrass
- Stacker score: 91.16
- Metascore: 85
- IMDb user rating: 8.0
- IMDb user votes: 645,909
- Runtime: 1 hour and 55 minutes
While Jason Bourne still tries to piece together his past, a reporter on his trail finds an opportunity to blow open a black-ops brigade called Blackbriar, risking exposing some very powerful and dangerous people who want Bourne dead. As they plot to destroy him, Bourne must evade the assassins sent to get rid of him for good. Considered by some critics as the best in the series, the film won all three technical award nominations at the 80th Academy Awards.
#8. Z (1969)
- Director: Costa-Gavras
- Stacker score: 92.82
- Metascore: 86
- IMDb user rating: 8.2
- IMDb user votes: 30,177
- Runtime: 2 hours and 7 minutes
Based on Vassilis Vassilikos' 1967 novel of the same name, "Z" follows a magistrate determined to expose his country's corrupt government for covering up a very public murder of a politician and a doctor. The film acts as a critique of 1960s Greek politics, when right-wing politics began to reshape the country. It won Best Foreign Language Film and Best Film Editing at the Academy Awards.
#7. The 39 Steps (1935)
- Director: Alfred Hitchcock
- Stacker score: 93.37
- Metascore: 93
- IMDb user rating: 7.6
- IMDb user votes: 59,419
- Runtime: 1 hour and 26 minutes
"Chinatown" screenwriter Robert Towne has said that "it's not much of an exaggeration to say that all contemporary escapist entertainment begins with 'The 39 Steps.'" The thriller follows Richard Hannay (Robert Donat), a London man who becomes entangled in espionage after an agent he tries to help is killed, leading him to face off against an entire spy ring.
#6. Zero Dark Thirty (2012)
- Director: Kathryn Bigelow
- Stacker score: 93.37
- Metascore: 95
- IMDb user rating: 7.4
- IMDb user votes: 310,453
- Runtime: 2 hours and 37 minutes
This war thriller chronicles the hunt for and capture of long-elusive terrorist Osama bin Laden by the United States government, depicting the woman operative who provided the key to finally tracking him. The film received five Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture, but only won Best Sound Editing. Still, it received 130 award nominations in total, winning 60.
#5. The Departed (2006)
- Director: Martin Scorsese
- Stacker score: 93.92
- Metascore: 85
- IMDb user rating: 8.5
- IMDb user votes: 1,364,309
- Runtime: 2 hours and 31 minutes
A Boston cop goes undercover to infiltrate Boston's Irish Mafia—meanwhile, one of the mobsters is working his way up through police ranks. But both organizations eventually realize there's a rat among them, and they must figure out who the other is to save their lives. The film won Best Picture at the 79th Academy Awards and is a remake of "Infernal Affairs."
#4. The Lives of Others (2006)
- Director: Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck
- Stacker score: 95.58
- Metascore: 89
- IMDb user rating: 8.4
- IMDb user votes: 398,168
- Runtime: 2 hours and 17 minutes
Set in East Berlin in 1983, this German drama film follows a Stasi officer who gets approval to spy on a famous playwright and his girlfriend, suspecting them of disloyalty to the Communist party. As the officer begins sympathizing with the couple, his task becomes further complicated—especially once his superior orders him to get rid of the playwright. This film marked director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck's debut feature.
#3. The Lady Vanishes (1938)
- Director: Alfred Hitchcock
- Stacker score: 96.69
- Metascore: 98
- IMDb user rating: 7.7
- IMDb user votes: 55,016
- Runtime: 1 hour and 36 minutes
While traveling by train through Europe, young socialite Iris Matilda Henderson (Margaret Lockwood) notices the mysterious disappearance of an older woman. The film was adapted and remade into a 1979 film starring Cybill Shepherd and a BBC TV film in 2013.
#2. Notorious (1946)
- Director: Alfred Hitchcock
- Stacker score: 98.90
- Metascore: 100
- IMDb user rating: 7.9
- IMDb user votes: 104,083
- Runtime: 1 hour and 42 minutes
When a U.S. government agent recruits a German war criminal's daughter to help track down Nazis, the two fall for each other. At the same time, she becomes romantically entangled by a Nazi during her time undercover. Roger Ebert included "Notorious" on his list of the 10 greatest films ever.
#1. North by Northwest (1959)
- Director: Alfred Hitchcock
- Stacker score: 100
- Metascore: 98
- IMDb user rating: 8.3
- IMDb user votes: 336,114
- Runtime: 2 hours and 16 minutes
This classic Hitchcock suspense thriller follows a New York ad executive mistaken for a government agent on the run from a ruthless spy and his agents of chaos. Along his journey, he becomes involved with a mysterious and beautiful woman. Some consider the film, adapted into a 2015 stage play, one of the greatest ever.
Data reporting by Lucas Hicks. Story editing by Cynthia Rebolledo. Copy editing by Paris Close.
