20 Spy Movies You Must See Before You Die

Steven Spielberg re-teams with Tom Hanks for Bridge of Spies, a brilliantly assured and beautifully crafted spy film that feels like the work of an assured master. In short, it's Spielberg at the top of his game, with Hanks giving one of the best performances as lawyer James B. Donovan, the true life hero tasked with negotiating the release of an American pilot who has crashed in the Soviet Union.

Partly scripted by the Coen brothers, Bridge of Spies is as much a legal thriller as it is a spy flick, but its atmosphere - one built on paranoia and surveillance, at a time when that's all anybody could think about it - ensures it fits into the latter genre.

The film, split into two distinct halves, take place in both New York City and later East Germany, and Spielberg relishes the opportunity to contrast the differences between these two locations as the 1960s ushers in a new decade of fear (a point that is enhanced by Janusz Kamiński's relentlessly gorgeous cinematography).

Bridge of Spies' greatest asset, however, is Mark Rylance, who plays Rudolf Abel, an American accused as a Soviet spy who comes to rely on Hanks' character to give him a fair trial. The two actors share great, believable chemistry, whilst Rylance somehow manages to make us sympathetic towards a man working for the other side. No wonder he took home an Academy Award in 2016.