10 Amazing Movies That Are Total Nonsense
6. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
2011's adaptation of John le Carré's dense spy novel Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy offers few concessions to the audience; there's little in the way of tidy exposition to bring viewers up to speed, and even attentive, switched-on audiences who've had a good night's sleep and a few cups of coffee may struggle to keep up with what's going on.
The plot - revolving around the hunt for a Soviet spy in the British secret service - unfolds in utterly breathless fashion, with a dizzying number of characters introduced and namedropped with little care for the audience's ability to maintain pace.
As such, the kneejerk reaction may be to see Tomas Alfredson's film more as a cinematic migraine than a fun time, but the flawless recreation of 1970s aesthetics and S-tier ensemble cast - led by a rightly Oscar-nominated Gary Oldman - ensure it's a thoroughly entertaining, paranoia-infused slow-burn even if the plot doesn't easily add up.
It's weirdly fitting that a movie so thoroughly concerned with the murkiness of espionage is itself a tangled mess of characters and ideas.