A British agent fights her way through Berlin in November 1989, in one seven-minute stairwell take.
A CIA operative in Jordan invents a terrorist group to flush out a real one.
Eight films of Ethan Hunt, De Palma to the sunken submarine.
Cruise on the outside of the Burj Khalifa, and the sandstorm chase.
A motorbike off a Norwegian cliff and a train falling into a ravine, carriage by carriage.
The Entity story ends with a dive into a sunken submarine and a fight between two biplanes.
Hanging off an Airbus at take-off, and an assassination staged at the Vienna opera.
John Woo takes over: free climbing above Utah, a stolen virus and a motorbike duel outside Sydney.
De Palma's heist: the wire drop into Langley and a train through the Chunnel.
Philip Seymour Hoffman as an arms dealer, an ambush on the Chesapeake Bay Bridge and a swing between Shanghai rooftops.
An East German soldier planted in the West German army; the Cold War as pop.
A CIA analyst convinced a returned POW is a terrorist; Claire Danes and the first two seasons.
Gary Oldman as the flatulent head of MI5's rejects; le Carre with jokes.
How the Rebellion was built, without a Jedi in sight; the Star Wars series for adults.
Two KGB sleeper agents as a Virginia couple in the Reagan years; the best spy series.
Jack Bauer in real time, one season per day; the split screen and the clock.
Michael Fassbender and Cate Blanchett as married spies suspecting each other; Soderbergh's chamber thriller.
Tom Cruise's HALO jump, a helicopter chase in Kashmir and a broken ankle on camera.
Jeremy Renner as another programme agent while Bourne is elsewhere; Manila motorbike chase.
Damon and Greengrass return; Athens riots and a Las Vegas car chase.
A 1970s paranoid thriller inside a superhero film; the elevator fight.
Gary Oldman as George Smiley hunts a mole in 1970s MI6; le Carre at his best on film.
An amnesiac assassin pulled from the sea; the spy film that made Bond change.
Greengrass takes over with shaky cam and a Moscow car chase.
Waterloo station, a Tangier rooftop chase and the end of Treadstone.
Cary Grant chased by a crop duster and up Mount Rushmore in the template for the spy thriller.
A brainwashed war hero, a Queen of Diamonds and a political assassination; paranoia in 1962.
Ingrid Bergman spies on Nazis in Rio for Cary Grant; the key, the wine cellar and the longest kiss.
Dogtown, Idris Elba and the spy thriller that redeemed Cyberpunk.
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