Espionage Movies

I'm looking for any decent spy movies. Perhaps, something modern and obscure. Anything CIA/KGB/Cold War works, though.

Not sure how obscure this list will be, but I'll give it a shot.

Bourne movies - I loved these.

Notorious - One of my favorite Hitchcock films.

Spy Game - Often overlooked, excellent.

The Tailor of Panama - Might not be what you're looking for, but still a solid movie.

North By Northwest, while not a CIA/KGB movie is still one of the best espionage flicks out there.

True Lies

The Recruit - not great, but entertaining.

Bond - Just about any James Bond movie.

La Femme Nikita - Spawned several 'remakes' that aren't nearly as good.

Ronin - Great car chase... might take more than one viewing to truly understand and appreciate what is going on.

Sum of All Fears - Great book, disappointing movie.

The Saint - Not as bad as its reputation would have you believe, but not great.

Mission Impossible series - First was great, 2nd was iffy.

xXx - Spy movie for the hip hop generation.

What's up Tiger Lilly - satire of the genre.

Art of War - Kind of dumb.

Cats & Dogs - One for the kiddies.

Swordfish - Okay film that focuses more on action and hot chicks.

Hunt for Red October - A solid adaptation of a great book.

Manchurian Candidate - Still haven't watched the new one, but the original is classic.

Long Kiss Goodnight - Another one most people hate that I happened to enjoy.

Sneakers - Yet another film I find people have overlooked.

U-571 - Very good film... especially with surround sound.

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My Top 100 favorite movies.

Thanks for the list! I've seen about half of those, so this should keep me busy!

If you haven't seen some of the older films (Notorious, North by Northwest, Manchurian, Candidate) I suggest you start there... Can't go wrong with the classics!

spies like us....loved that one

Three Days of the Condor (1975 - Pollack), Telefon (1977 - Don Siegel), Last Embrace (1979 - Jonathan Demme), Eye of the Needle (1981 - Marquand), The Osterman Weekend (1983 - Peckinpah), The Falcon & the Snowman (1985 - Schlesinger), No Way Out (1987 - Roger Donaldson), The Russia House (1990 - Fred Schepisi), Mother Night (1996 - Keith Gordon) and Enigma (2001 - Apted) are some worth seeing from the past thirty years or so. The two recent Ludlum flicks with Matt Damon are OK, The Bourne Identity (2002 - Doug Liman) and The Bourney Supremecy (2004 - Paul Greengrass), but nothing terribly special - though certainly better than all the Bond entries of late or those awful Mission: Impossible flicks with Tommy Cruise.

The Quiller Memorandum (1966 - Michael Anderson), The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1965- Martion Ritt), The Ipcress File (1965 - Sidney J. Furie), Funeral in Berlin (1966 - Guy Hamilton) and Billion Dollar Brain (1967 - Ken Russell) are some '60s classics.

Hopscotch (1980 - Ronald Neame), The In-Laws (1979 - Arthur Hiller), The Man Who Knew Too Little (1997 - Jon Amiel), Charade (1963 - Stanley Donen) and Arabesque (1966 - Stanley Donen) are delightfully comic yet still smart takes on the spy genre.

Top Secret! (1984 - Abrahams, Zucker & Zucker), Spies Like Us (1985 - John Landis), The Silencers (1966 - Phil Karlson), Murderer's Row (1966 - Henry Levin), The Ambushers (1967 - Henry Levin), The Wrecking Crew (1969 - Phil Carlson), Our Man Flint (1966 - Daniel Mann), In Like Flint (1967 - Gordon Douglas), Modesty Blaise (1966 - Joe Losey) and the Austin Powers flicks are all decent to good spoofs.

Of course Hitchcock has a bunch that are all good to great, including The 39 Steps (1935), The Lady Vanishes (1938), Saboteur (1942), Secret Agent (1936), Foreign Correspondent (1940), Notorious (1946), Torn Curtain (1966) and North by Northwest (1959). And Contraband (1940 - Michael Powell) is a good one from the Hitchcockian mold.

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"Film is a disease. When it infects your bloodstream it takes over as the number one hormone. It bosses the enzymes, directs the pineal gland, plays Iago to your psyche. As with heroin, the antidote to Film is more Film." - Frank Capra

You can't forget Danger: Diabolik[1968], a true classic.

EDIT: and by 'classic' i mean 'sh*tbomb', but dont let that discourage you.

In regards to Bond as espionage, From Russia With Love is what i consider to be the quintessential Bond film, the most real and 'spy' film in the series IMO

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I just rewatched 'From Russia With Love' last week and was surprisingly disappointed, though I can't place the blame on this particular film. Instead I look at the older Bond films, (most older films really) as being too generic nowadays. They may have been groundbreaking in their day, but we've seen the same formulas for so long that we've become anestetized (sp?). It's probably more of a condemnation of modern audiences than classic film, but it's the way I feel.

compared to the other bonds, i'd say From Russia With Love was least generic out of the series, hence why i like it

Well, you really can't go wrong with a cat fight in a gypsy camp, now can you?

Two of the funniest movies ever.