20 Spy Movies You Must See Before You Die

Remember old films like The Dirty Dozen, where a group of ragtag men with their own skills and abilities come together to defeat a common foe? Steven Spielberg's 2006 masterpiece, Munich, is like that - except it's rendered in more of an arthouse fashion, with serious subject matter. And yet the thrills are equal.

Based on the true story of the Munich massacre, which took place in 1972 and saw 11 members of the Israeli Olympic team brutally murdered by the Palestinian terrorist group Black September, Spielberg's spy thriller is mostly interested in the aftermath: what happened when Mossad, Israeli's answer to MI6, sent agents on a revenge mission to track down and kill those responsible for the atrocities.

Eric Bana plays Avner Kaufman, who leads a team - which includes a pre-Bond Daniel Craig - around the world in pursuit of the killers.

At 163 minutes, Munich is an unashamed epic, with moments of long brooding and unease punctuated with sudden bursts of violence. It's the film's characteristic slowness, however, that sets it apart from other movies in the genre. Every kill feels entirely earned because we've been made privy to the mistakes and the method and the carefully gathered intelligence that led us to that point.