For decades, thanks to the popularity of the James Bond franchise, spy movies were characterized by mindless storytelling, over-the-top action, and ridiculous gadgets. Then, The Bourne Identity came along and upended the whole genre with a gritty, uncompromising sensibility that was so effective in its subversion of spy movie tropes, it forced the 007 producers to drastically change their creative direction.
Now that the Bourne franchise and its countless imitators have set the standard for spy movies, satires like Kingsman are harking back to the goofy old spy films of a forgotten era. Apparently, genre trends are cyclical, just like fashion.
The Bourne Identity (2002)
While Paul Greengrass would go on to refine the Bourne style with the shaky camerawork and breakneck-paced cross-cutting of Supremacy and Ultimatum, Doug Liman gave American cinema its own badass secret agent in the mold of James Bond in adapting Robert Ludlum’s The Bourne Identity for the screen.
In the role of an amnesiac spy punching and shooting his way to his true identity, Matt Damon successfully shed his Good Will Hunting image and showed off his physical chops.
Atomic Blonde (2017)
After making his uncredited directorial debut as the co-director of the original John Wick movie, David Leitch branched out into solo directing with a slickly designed adaptation of the Cold War-era graphic novel The Coldest City.
Set on the eve of the collapse of the Berlin Wall, Atomic Blonde stars Charlize Theron as a tough-as-nails spy seeking a list of names and getting into a ton of brutal scrapes along the way.
Argo (2012)
Based on the true story of the 1979 Tehran hostage crisis, Argo stars Ben Affleck (who also directs) as a CIA agent who sneaks into Iran to liberate the hostages under the guise of scouting locations for a sci-fi movie with two Hollywood executives played hilariously by John Goodman and Alan Arkin.
The movie builds to a nail-biting finale as the hostages desperately flee to the airport and Iranian authorities catch onto the scheme and chase them down there.
Ronin (1998)
Robert De Niro stars in Ronin, a gritty action thriller about an ex-U.S. intelligence officer who brings in a group of Japanese mercenaries to help him locate a sensitive suitcase that the Russians are about to get a hold of.
Heavily influenced by the work of Jean-Pierre Melville, John Frankenheimer directed Ronin with a naturalistic look that brings out the startling reality of every dangerous situation.
Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol (2011)
By the time J.J. Abrams made Mission: Impossible III as an agreeable big-budget action movie, the Mission Impossible franchise had gotten stale, so Brad Bird switched from animation to live-action in order to shake it up. Opening with a chaotic prison riot, Ghost Protocol only gets crazier from there.
Tom Cruise started his trend of doing increasingly dangerous stunts in these movies when he clung to the facade of the Burj Khalifa in Ghost Protocol.
Munich (2005)
At the 1972 Summer Olympics, eight members of the Palestinian terrorist group Black September killed two members of the Israeli team and took nine others hostage. They later killed them, along with a West German police officer.
One of Steven Spielberg’s darkest and most underrated movies, Munich tells the story of Operation Wrath of God, the Israeli government’s covert retaliation for the massacre.
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011)
Adapted from the novel of the same name by the late, great John le Carré, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy sees retired spy George Smiley being brought in by the government to figure out the identity of the undercover Soviet agent in their midst.
The star-studded cast includes Gary Oldman, John Hurt, Colin Firth, Benedict Cumberbatch, and Tom Hardy, while Bridget O’Connor and Peter Straughan’s screenplay brilliantly condenses le Carré’s complex plot into a digestible movie.
Army Of Shadows (1969)
Jean-Pierre Melville’s Army of Shadows suffered from really bad timing. With a staggering documentary-like realism, Melville told the story of the French Resistance fighters in World War II. It paints Charles de Gaulle in a positive light due to its historical context, but de Gaulle torpedoed his political career in 1968 and Melville’s film hit theaters in 1969.
French critics hated the movie for its glorification of de Gaulle, and as a result, it didn’t get a U.S. release for four decades. It’s since been reappraised as one of Melville’s finest films. And considering the controversy, it actually has a decidedly unflattering view of the French Resistance.
Zero Dark Thirty (2012)
The CIA had to look into how Mark Boal obtained all the information in his screenplay for Zero Dark Thirty, a controversial film that chronicles the U.S. government’s hunt for Osama bin Laden following the 9/11 attacks.
Just as she’d previously done with The Hurt Locker, also penned by Boal, Kathryn Bigelow brought a startling realism to the shocking true events depicted in Zero Dark Thirty.
Casino Royale (2006)
Between the Brosnan era and the Craig era, the James Bond franchise faced the unfortunate double whammy of the Austin Powers movies lampooning its tropes and the Bourne movies offering a much grittier, more violent alternative.
Craig’s first Bond movie, Casino Royale, gives 007 an origin story and it’s a surprisingly dark take on the character. Its action scenes are uncompromising and its romantic subplot takes some depressing turns.