20 Spy Movies You Must See Before You Die

The strangest thing about Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy is that it's a wholly engaging and enjoyable watch despite being largely impenetrable. The plot is incredibly complex and difficult to follow, to the point that it makes you feel stupid. But the film is so beautifully made, so assured in its aesthetics, and so packed with brilliant performances, that it feels like a huge success anyway.

Based on John le Carré's classic novel, the movie hones in on MI6 leader George Smiley as he hunts for a mole within the agency, played here with typical luminosity by Gary Oldman, who earned himself an Oscar nomination. What follows is two hours of double-crossing, scheming, and disillusionment at the height of the Cold War.

This isn't an action film by any means, but a paranoid thriller unafraid to invoke most of its tension and drama through inter-department squabbling and bureaucracy.

Director Tomas Alfredson offers up a thing of beauty and atmosphere; the film is delivered with an uncompromising greyness, which lends it a perpetual melancholy that perfectly suits the themes of the original book. What's more, Toby Jones, Colin Firth, Tom Hardy and Mark Strong all deliver memorable, complex performances as the potential moles.