Filmsane

Charlize Theron is back this month with another great project. The spy thriller Atomic Blonde opens worldwide this month and in it she’s Lorraine Broughton. An undercover MI6 agent sent to Berlin during the Cold War to investigate the murder of a fellow agent and recover a missing list of double agents.

Also starring James McAvoy, John Goodman, Sofia Boutella and Til Schweiger, the David Leitch directed thriller is actually film adaptation of The Coldest City, the book written by Antony Johnston and Sam Hart.
But right now I want to present some great and very similar movies from the past that you can watch while you’re waiting Atomic Blonde to come out in theaters. You know… The oldies who are still oh sooo good.

They are awesome (and way older) and most of them don’t have a female lead (like Atomic Blonde for instance). But you should check them out anyway.

The Spy Who Came in from the Cold- 1965

Directed by: Martin Ritt
Starring : Richard Burton, Claire Bloom, Oskar Werner
Based on the 1963 John le Carré novel of the same name, the film depicts a British agent being sent to East Germany as a faux defector to sow disinformation about a powerful East German intelligence officer. With the aid of his unwitting English girlfriend, an idealistic communist, he allows himself to be recruited by the East Germans, but soon his charade unravels and he admits to still being a British agent—a revelation that achieves the ultimate objective of the mission.

The Ipcress File- 1965

Directed by: Sidney J. Furie
Starring : Michael Caine, Nigel Green, Guy Doleman, Sue Lloyd…
In London, a counter espionage agent deals with his own bureaucracy while investigating the kidnapping and brainwashing of British scientists. The screenplay by Bill Canaway and James Doran was based on Len Deighton’s novel, The IPCRESS File (1962). It has won critical acclaim and a BAFTA award for best British film. In 1999 it was included at number 59 on the BFI list of the 100 best British films of the 20th century.

The Defector- 1966

Directed by: Raoul Lévy
Starring: Montgomery Clift, Hardy Krüger, Macha Méril…
Montgomery Cliff (in his last role) plays James Bower, an American physicist visiting West Germany who’s recruited by a shady CIA agent, named Adam, to help them with the defection of a Russian scientist. But an East German secret agent, named Peter Heinzeman, learns of Bower’s meeting with Adam and threatens Bower to mind his own business, while Bower learns of a back story to all this involving stolen microfilm that each side wants.

Funeral in Berlin- 1966

Directed by: Guy Hamilton
Starring: Michael Caine, Paul Hubschmid. Oscar Homolka…
Funeral in Berlin is a 1966 British spy film directed by Guy Hamilton and based on the novel of the same name by Len Deighton. It is the second of three 1960s films starring Michael Caine as the character Harry Palmer that followed the characters from the initial film, The Ipcress File (1965). The third film was Billion Dollar Brain (1967).
Caine would reprise the role of Harry Palmer in Bullet to Beijing (1995) and Midnight in Saint Petersburg (1996).

Three Days of the Condor- 1975

Directed by: Sydney Pollack
Starring : Robert Redford, Faye Dunaway, Cliff Robertson, Max von Sydow
Set mainly in New York City and Washington, D.C., the film is about a bookish CIA researcher who comes back from lunch, discovers all his co-workers murdered, and tries to outwit those responsible until he figures out whom he can really trust. The screenplay by Lorenzo Semple Jr. and David Rayfiel was adapted from the 1974 novel Six Days of the Condor by James Grady.

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy- 2011

Directed by: Tomas Alfredson
Starring : Gary Oldman, Colin Firth, Tom Hardy, John Hurt…
In the early 1970s during the Cold War, the head of British Intelligence, Control, resigns after an operation in Budapest, Hungary goes badly wrong. It transpires that Control believed one of four senior figures in the service was in fact a Russian agent – a mole – and the Hungary operation was an attempt to identify which of them it was. Smiley had been forced into retirement by the departure of Control, but is asked by a senior government figure to investigate a story told to him by a rogue agent, Ricky Tarr, that there was a mole. Smiley considers that the failure of the Hungary operation and the continuing success of Operation Witchcraft (an apparent source of significant Soviet intelligence) confirms this, and takes up the task of finding him