Best tv shows like A Perfect Spy
Last updated March 2024
Looking for tv shows related to A Perfect Spy? Offer your familiarity to direct others to movies and tv series you've already seen that might appeal to them as well. Support expanding the community of people introducing videos to one another. We encourage your participation!
Plot Summary:
This is the story of Magnus Pym, from his childhood to the end of his career in middle age. As a young man, there is little doubt that his father Rick was the most influential character in his life. Rick was a raconteur, con man, thief, black marketer and all in all, simply larger than life. From a young age, Rick included Magnus in his schemes and the young man learned that you would do anything for the ones you love. When a university student in Switzerland, Pym meets the other person who will have the greatest influence in his life, Axel, a Czech refugee. As Pym enters his career in the British Secret Service, his relationship with Axel and the values he developed in childhood lead him down his own path of betrayal and loyalty.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 982
Genere: Thriller
Country: UK
Duration: 374 min
Plot tags: political, psychological, serious, captivating, realistic, suspenseful
Best tv shows and movies like A Perfect Spy (1987):
Similar in 82%
Thunder Point (1998)
Plot Summary:
Former IRA agent Sean Dillon comes to the rescue when a woman discovers a briefcase containing plans that could destroy all of Europe. Dillon's assignment is to protect her until the plans can be properly destroyed.
IMDB Rating: 5.2
IMDB Votes: 273
Genere: Thriller
Country: UK, Canada
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: exciting, rough, serious, realistic, suspenseful
Similar in 88%
Murder in the Central Committee (1982)
Plot Summary:
The plot follows a private detective, an ex communist and former CIA agent, who travels from Barcelona to Madrid to discover the identity of the assassin of the leader of the Spanish Communist party who was stabbed during a blackout while presiding over a meeting of the party's central committee. The film is a thriller with ironic political overtones.
IMDB Rating: 5.0
IMDB Votes: 120
Genere: Thriller
Country: Spain
Duration: 110 min
Plot tags: serious, realistic, suspenseful, biting, suspense
Similar in 75%
The Same Sky (2017)
Plot Summary:
Lars is a "Romeo agent" from East Germany in the 1970s. His task is to go West, first to seduce and then to spy on Western women who worked in government or defense institutions.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama, Thriller
Country: Germany
Duration: 120 min
Plot tags: tense, serious, captivating, suspenseful, political
Similar in 80%
Harry's Game (1982)
Plot Summary:
Harry is an undercover agent for the British army sent to Northern Ireland to infiltrate the IRA and find (and terminate) the assassin of a British Cabinet Minister. Harry is alone, the army hasn't been told he is being put in place, his wife is fed up with him and his job, and his one new friend, an Irish woman who falls for him will be consumed by his relentless search for the assassin.
IMDB Rating: 8.0
IMDB Votes: 452
Genere: Thriller
Country: UK
Duration: 180 min
Plot tags: tense, serious, realistic, suspenseful, detective
Similar in 82%
Rocket Attack U.S.A. (1960)
Plot Summary:
It's the height of the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union with the Communists launching a spy satellite that has the Free World leaders in a panic. Fears about the nature of the satellite force the United States to send an agent undercover behind the Iron Curtain to discover what the Soviets have learned. What he finds is the Communists have used the information acquired from their spy satellite to help them perfect a new and even more deadly nuclear weapon.
IMDB Rating: 1.7
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Thriller
Country: USA
Duration: 68 min
Plot tags: grindhouse, serious, realistic, suspenseful, psychotronic, independent film
Similar in 82%
Extremely Dangerous (1999)
Plot Summary:
Extremely Dangerous is a 1999 four part series for ITV starring Sean Bean as an ex-National Criminal Intelligence Service undercover agent convicted of the brutal murder of his wife and child who goes on the run to try and clear his name. He sets out to follow up a strange clue sent to him in prison. The boss of a local crime syndicate, a former associate, hears of his escape and sends out the word to bring him in. On the run from the police and disowned by his NCIS colleagues, he is faced with the fact that he may be guilty.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 432
Genere: Thriller
Country: UK
Duration: 50 min
Plot tags: tense, serious, realistic, suspenseful
Similar in 86%
The Sleepers (2019)
Plot Summary:
In this spy thriller, Marie and her husband Victor return from exile to Czechoslovakia on the cusp of the Velvet Revolution — but when the couple gets in a car accident, Marie wakes up from a coma to find her husband mysteriously gone.
IMDB Rating: 7.6
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama, Thriller
Country: Czech Republic
Duration: 60 min
Plot tags: neo noir, psychological, tense, captivating, disturbing
Similar in 85%
The Reckoning (2011)
Plot Summary:
Sally Wilson's daughter Amanda is stricken with a brain tumour and each day, her condition appears to be worsening. Sally is at her wits end as to how to help her daughter and knows a life saving operation in America that she can't afford would be the answer. When the harassed single Mum is called to the office of a swish city lawyer, she never expects a life or death proposition. She’s been bequeathed £5 million! But in order to qualify for this amazing transfer of funds, Sally must first kill a man who deserves to die.
IMDB Rating: 6.1
IMDB Votes: 263
Genere: Thriller
Country: UK
Duration: 60 min
Plot tags: tense, captivating, suspenseful, psychological, serious, realistic
Similar in 79%
The Last Weekend (2012)
Plot Summary:
Ian (Shaun Evans) and Em (Claire Keelan) receive a surprise invitation from an old friend. Ollie (Rupert Penry-Jones) invites the couple to spend a weekend in the Suffolk countryside with him and Daisy (Genevieve O'Reilly). The couples expect an idyllic holiday, but the competitive edge to the men's relationship soon rises to the surface, with irreversible consequences.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 507
Genere: Thriller
Country: UK
Duration: 180 min
Plot tags: psychological, tense, serious, realistic, suspenseful, dark, thrilling, psychological thriller
Similar in 89%
Brotherhood of the Rose (1989)
Plot Summary:
Romulus and Remus are two CIA agents, their direct instructor is John Elliott. They both were picked up at an orphanage by Elliott at the age of about eight, raised together as brothers and specially trained to supersede every other agent in the service. This is what they know. What do not know.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 911
Genere: Thriller
Country: USA, New Zealand
Duration: 240 min
Plot tags: serious, realistic, suspenseful
Similar in 78%
The MacKintosh Man (1973)
Plot Summary:
A member of British Intelligence assumes a fictitious criminal identity and allows himself to be caught, imprisoned, and freed in order to infiltrate a spy organization and expose a traitor.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 5000
Genere: Thriller
Country: UK, USA
Duration: 98 min
Plot tags: exciting, serious, suspenseful, tense, neo noir, political thriller, rough, realistic, stylized, fast
Similar in 87%
Midnight in Saint Petersburg (1996)
Plot Summary:
Harry Palmer heads a private investigation business based in Moscow. His associates are Nikolai "Nick" Petrov (Jason Connery), ex-CIA agent Craig (Michael Sarrazin), and ex-KGB Colonel Gradsky (Lev Prygunov). They take on the job of finding 1000 grams of weapons-grade plutonium stolen from the Russian government, though they do not know the identity of their client.
IMDB Rating: 4.9
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Thriller
Country: UK, Russia, Canada
Duration: 89 min
Plot tags: serious, realistic, suspenseful, independent film, eurospy
Similar in 81%
American Roulette (1988)
Plot Summary:
Carlos Quintas, the democratically-elected president of an unnamed South American country, has been deposed by a military coup. He is in London, the head of a government in exile, rallying international support. He is also a poet of talent and reputation, in love with Kate, his assistant, who has a secret of her own and keeps Carlos at a distance. The generals have a team of professionals in London bent on kidnap and assassination. Hovering around Carlos are two Russians, who may be KGB, an American book publisher, who may be CIA, an elusive Brit, probably from her majesty's secret service, and his own few supporters. Is Carlos doomed? Whom can he trust?.
IMDB Rating: 4.3
IMDB Votes: 223
Genere: Thriller
Country: UK
Duration: 102 min
Plot tags: exciting, rough, serious, realistic, suspenseful, independent film
Similar in 79%
The Agency (2001)
Plot Summary:
The Agency is a CBS television drama that followed the inner-workings of the CIA. The series was created by Michael Frost Beckner and was executive produced by Michael Frost Beckner, Shaun Cassidy Productions and Radiant Productions in association with Universal Network Television and CBS Productions. It aired from September 27, 2001 until May 17, 2003, lasting two seasons. It featured unprecedented filming from the actual CIA headquarters. The show was controversial regarding its exploration of current international affairs and its treatment of the ethical conflicts inherent in intelligence work. Beckner's pilot script, written in March 2001, posited a re-invented CIA tasked with a "War on Terror" after Osama Bin Laden's Al Qaeda terrorist organization plots a lethal attack on the west. The pilot was to premiere at CIA Headquarters on September 18, 2001 and set to air on CBS September 21, 2001, however, the actual 9/11 attacks convinced the network to hold the pilot and instead air a later episode. That first episode was aired later as the third episode of the first season. The September 11, 2001 terrorist events changed the way Americans viewed topical entertainment and "The Agency", at the time, was one of the most topical offering on network television. The producers of the series quickly responded to this new American perspective on world affairs, but CBS chose to cancel the show shortly after the second season's final episode.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama, Thriller
Country: Canada, USA
Duration: 60 min
Plot tags: rough, realistic, suspenseful, cerebral, exciting, serious
Similar in 79%
The Whistle Blower (1986)
Plot Summary:
A war veteran tries to investigate the murder of his son who was working as a Russian translator for the British intelligence service during the Cold War. He meets a web of deception and paranoia that seems impenetrable.
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Thriller
Country: UK
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: political thriller, political, tense, rough, clever, bleak, serious, realistic, suspenseful, disturbing
Similar in 79%
Deutschland 83 (2015)
Plot Summary:
A gripping coming-of-age story set against the real culture wars and political events of Germany in the 1980s. The drama follows Martin Rauch as the 24 year-old East Germany native is pulled from the world as he knows it and sent to the West as an undercover spy for the Stasi foreign service. Hiding in plain sight in the West German army, he must gather the secrets of NATO military strategy. Everything is new, nothing is quite what it seems and everyone he encounters is harboring secrets, both political and personal.
IMDB Rating: 8.1
IMDB Votes: 15000
Genere: Drama, Romance, Thriller
Country: Germany
Duration: 42 min
Plot tags: tense, serious, realistic, suspenseful, suspense, exciting, captivating, epic, political, action adventure
Similar in 84%
Legends (2014)
Plot Summary:
Working for the FBI's Deep Cover Operations division, Martin Odum can transform himself into a different person -- whether it's an assignment as a Serbian extremist, a corrupt Chicago police officer, a British special forces colonel, or a legendary computer hacker. But when he learns that his life, itself, may be a lie, he faces the demands of his job and a desire to solve the mystery of his identity. And given the choice between the two, Odum doesn't always make the right decision. From the producers of "Homeland," "Legends" is based on Robert Littell's award-winning book.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 13000
Genere: Action, Crime, Drama, Thriller
Country: USA
Duration: 60 min
Plot tags: exciting, serious, suspenseful, realistic, detective, action adventure, gloomy
Similar in 90%
Funeral in Berlin (1966)
Plot Summary:
Colonel Stok, a Soviet intelligence officer responsible for security at the Berlin Wall, appears to want to defect but the evidence is contradictory. Stok wants the British to handle his defection and asks for one of their agents, Harry Palmer, to smuggle him out of East Germany.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 8000
Genere: Thriller
Country: UK
Duration: 102 min
Plot tags: political thriller, suspenseful, visually stunning, serious, realistic, psychotronic, psychological, exciting, tense, parody
Similar in 83%
The Jigsaw Man (1983)
Plot Summary:
Philip Kimberly, the former head of the British Secret Service who defected to Russia, is given plastic surgery and sent back to Britain by the KGB to retrieve some vital documents. With the documents in hand, he instead plays off MI6 and the KGB against each other.
IMDB Rating: 5.1
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Thriller
Country: UK
Duration: 94 min
Plot tags: political thriller, serious, realistic, suspenseful, independent film
Similar in 84%
The Gordin Cell (2012)
Plot Summary:
A married pair of former spies is forced to face their past when asked to surrender their son to Russian Intelligence to become a spy himself. Will he choose to betray his parents or his native country?.
IMDB Rating: 8.2
IMDB Votes: 185
Genere: Drama, Thriller
Country: Israel
Duration: 45 min
Plot tags: tense, atmospheric, captivating, suspenseful, clever, serious, realistic
Similar in 83%
The Fourth Protocol (1987)
Plot Summary:
Plan Aurora, led by Kim Philby is a plan that breaches the top-secret Fourth Protocol and turns the fears that shaped it into a living nightmare. A crack Soviet agent, placed under cover in a quiet English country town, begins to assemble a nuclear bomb, whilst MI5 agent John Preston attempts to prevent it's detonation.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 11000
Genere: Thriller
Country: UK
Duration: 119 min
Plot tags: suspense, exciting, suspenseful, intense, serious, political, philosophical, political thriller, cult classic, realistic
Similar in 77%
The Secret Agent (1996)
Plot Summary:
London of the late 19th century is a haven for political exiles of all sorts - refugees, partisans, anarchists. Verloc has made his living spying for the Russian goverment, an agent provacateur of sorts, while simultaneously providing information to the London police, specifically Chief Inspector Heat. When the new Russian ambassador demands he prove his worth or lose his salary, Verloc sets off a tragic chain of events that involves his pretty young wife Winnie, her retarded brother Stevie, and a figure called the Professor, whose fascination with explosives and destruction makes him the person to call on when Verloc needs a bomb.
IMDB Rating: 5.6
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama, Thriller
Country: UK
Duration: 95 min
Plot tags: psychological, harsh, realistic, suspenseful, tense, serious, political thriller, bleak, light, romantic
Similar in 81%
Legacy (2013)
Plot Summary:
Set in the 1970s London during the height of the Cold War when a young spy discovers the disturbing truth about his father's complex past. Based on Alan Judd's 2001 novel Legacy, the second in the Thoroughgood series after 1981's A Breed Of Heroes (adapted by the BBC in 1994). As the three day week, petrol rationing and industrial strife plunge Britain into a state of emergency, MI6 trainee spy Charles Thoroughgood is asked to reconnect with an old university friend, Russian diplomat Viktor Koslov, with a view to 'turning' him. Viktor has his own agenda, though, and reveals a shocking truth about Charles's own family that threatens to derail him, both personally and professionally. He is catapulted into a dangerous personal odyssey to uncover the truth but finds himself drawn into a lethal KGB plot to mount an attack within the UK. His life is further complicated by a relationship with the wife of another agent, which forces him to realise that betrayal can take many forms.
IMDB Rating: 5.7
IMDB Votes: 461
Genere: Drama, Mystery, Thriller
Country: UK
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: serious, captivating, tense, realistic, suspenseful
Similar in 75%
Jack Strong (2014)
Plot Summary:
A spy thriller telling a historically based story of a man who alone dares to challenge Soviets being in the middle of the communistic system himself. Planning the maneuvers of Warsaw Pact forces he discovers that the American plans of nuclear counterattack against Soviet forces is planned to be executed on Polish territory. Thanks to his determination he starts a long, lonely and psychologically exhausting cooperation with CIA. From that moment the life of his and his family is in danger as one careless move can lead to tragedy.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 5000
Genere: Thriller
Country: Poland
Duration: 128 min
Plot tags: captivating, realistic, serious, suspenseful, exciting, political, factual
Similar in 85%
Farewell (2009)
Plot Summary:
Engaging, emotional and riveting, FAREWELL is an intricate and highly intelligent thriller pulled from the pages of history— about an ordinary man thrust into the biggest theft of Soviet information of the Cold War. Ronald Reagan called this piece of history - largely unknown until now - “one of the most important espionage cases of the 20th century.” FAREWELL begins in 1981, after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. A French businessman based in Moscow, Pierre Froment, (Guillaume Canet) makes an unlikely connection with Grigoriev (Emir Kusturica), a senior KGB officer disenchanted with what the Communist ideal has become under Brezhnev. Grigoriev begins passing Froment highly sensitive information about the Soviet spy network in the US.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 7000
Genere: Drama, Romance, Thriller
Country: France
Duration: 113 min
Plot tags: tense, serious, realistic, suspenseful, political, sincere
Similar in 77%
The Assets (2014)
Plot Summary:
1985 serves as the backdrop to the final showdown of the Cold War when Sandy and her partner Jeanne Vertefeuille vowed to find the mole that would turn out to be the most notorious traitor in US History, Aldrich Ames. Sandy is in a race against time to save the Soviet intelligence officers from being caught and killed. Living her own double life at home, this beautiful wife and mother vowed to stop at nothing until she uncovered the truth.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Thriller
Country: USA
Duration: 60 min
Plot tags: serious, suspenseful, tense, realistic, political
Similar in 87%
Enigma (1982)
Plot Summary:
Five highly-trained KGB agents are sent to the west to assassinate several Soviet dissidents. In order to stop the diabolical plot, an American agent must infiltrate Soviet intelligence and obtain information from a Russian computer.
IMDB Rating: 5.9
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama, Thriller
Country: UK, France
Duration: 122 min
Plot tags: suspenseful, intense, serious, realistic, political, political thriller, independent film, exciting, romantic, atmospheric
Similar in 86%
The Game (2014)
Plot Summary:
London 1972. When a defecting KGB officer, Arkady Malinov, reveals Operation Glass, a devastating Soviet plot that could change the course of the Cold War, Daddy, the head of MI5, assembles a secret team to investigate. As the Soviets awaken a list of sleeper agents all over Britain, Daddy's team must move swiftly to gain information about the plot.
IMDB Rating: 7.7
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama, Mystery, Thriller
Country: UK
Duration: 59 min
Plot tags: atmospheric, suspenseful, tense, clever, serious, captivating, realistic, stylized, period drama
Similar in 75%
The Executioner (1970)
Plot Summary:
A British intelligence agent must track down a fellow spy suspected of being a double agent.
IMDB Rating: 6.0
IMDB Votes: 450
Genere: Drama, Thriller
Country: UK
Duration: 107 min
Plot tags: exciting, rough, serious, realistic, suspenseful, talky, suspense, eurospy
Similar in 77%
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (1979)
Plot Summary:
In the bleak days of the Cold War, espionage veteran George Smiley is forced from semi-retirement to uncover a Soviet agent within MI6's echelons.
IMDB Rating: 8.5
IMDB Votes: 9000
Genere: Drama, Mystery, Thriller
Country: UK
Duration: 290 min
Plot tags: clever, talky, serious, political thriller, realistic, suspenseful, contemplative, tense, atmospheric, thought provoking