Best tv shows like Smiley's People
Last updated March 2024
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Plot Summary:
Called out of retirement to settle the affairs of a friend, Smiley finds his old organization, the Circus, so overwhelmed by political considerations that it doesn't want to know what happened. He begins to follow up the clues of his friends past days, discovering that the clues lead to a high person in the Russian Secret service, and a secret important enough to kill for. Smiley continues to put together the pieces a step ahead or a step behind the Russian killers.
IMDB Rating: 8.5
IMDB Votes: 5000
Genere: Drama, Mystery
Country: UK
Duration: 60 min
Plot tags: serious, realistic, suspenseful, psychological, tense, road movie, atmospheric, sexy, thought provoking, clever
Best tv shows and movies like Smiley's People (1982):
Similar in 76%
Partners in Crime (2015)
Plot Summary:
Set in a 1950s Britain rising from the ashes of the Blitz into the grip of a new Cold War, our beekeeping duo stumble into a world of murder, undercover agents and cold war conspiracy. Tuppence is a woman who sees adventure round every corner, throwing herself head first into every mystery with passion and fervour, determined to get to the truth no matter what it takes, much to the dismay of her more cautious husband Tommy.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Crime, Drama, Mystery
Country: UK
Duration: 55 min
Plot tags: atmospheric, humorous, semi serious, suspenseful, detective, costume drama, realistic, stylized, period piece, detective series
Similar in 75%
An Inconvenient Woman (1991)
Plot Summary:
Based on the novel by Dominick Dunne, this movie tells the story of an affair between a wealthy heir, Jules and the mistress he has kept for 18 years, Vicki. Jules' wife Betsy is aware of the affair as their marriage is one of convenience but when Jules is diagnosed with cancer, she demands an end to it. When Vicki is left broke and desperate, she threatens to expose all of Jules' sins and secrets which she has learned throughout the years. They had other plans for her.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 273
Genere: Drama, Mystery, Thriller
Country: USA
Duration: 182 min
Plot tags: serious, realistic
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Similar in 81%
XIII: The Series (2011)
Plot Summary:
After a plot to kill the president of the USA an agent with lost memories tries to recover his life and memories. Others use him to cover up some dirty business involving high ranking officials from the CIA and the White House.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Action, Crime, Drama, Mystery, Thriller
Country: Canada, France
Duration: 45 min
Plot tags: serious, exciting, suspenseful, realistic, tense, fast
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Similar in 87%
Death of an Expert Witness (1983)
Plot Summary:
When Dr. Edwin Lorrimer, a forensic scientist working at a private laboratory is found killed, Detective Superintendent Adam Dalgliesh is sent to investigate. Dalgliesh had been in the area a few months previously investigating the murder of a young woman found in an abandoned car. There are several suspects: Lorrimer's subordinate, Clifford Bradley, who despises him; the new head of the laboratory, Maxim Howarth, who is jealous of his sister's relationship with him; a colleague, Paul Middlemass, who had a fight with Lorrimer. There is also a gruff and likely unethical policeman who was on the grounds of the laboratory at the time of the killing and a local pathologist who is raising his two young children after his wife leaves him for another man. When one of the suspects is also murdered, Dalgliesh learns a key piece of information.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 374
Genere: Crime, Drama, Mystery
Country: UK
Duration: 50 min
Plot tags: detective, crime drama, atmospheric, serious, realistic, suspenseful
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Similar in 76%
A Murder of Quality (1991)
Plot Summary:
At the request of his old war time colleague Ailsa Brimley, George Smiley agrees to look into the murder of Stella Rode. Brimley had only just received a letter from her saying she feared for her life at her husband's hand. The husband, Stanley Rode teaches at Carne School, but Smiley is doubtful that he had anything to do with his wife's death. As Smiley investigates, he learns that Stella was a nosy busybody who loved to learn other's little secrets and then gossip about them - or possibly blackmail them. When a student is killed and Smiley unearths a secret, he has the evidence to name the killer.Based on John Le Carré's 1962 thriller (his first) in which George Smiley is brought out of spy retirement to solve a murder in a British public school. The setting is based on Le Carre"s own schooldays in Sherborne and his brief experience teaching at Eton.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 946
Genere: Mystery
Country: UK
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: political thriller, crime thriller, rough, mind bending, clever, serious, realistic, suspenseful
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Similar in 77%
The Hour (2011)
Plot Summary:
A behind-the-scenes drama and espionage thriller in Cold War-era England that centers on a journalist, a producer, and an anchorman for an investigative news programme.
IMDB Rating: 8.0
IMDB Votes: 11000
Genere: Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 60 min
Plot tags: atmospheric, serious, realistic, stylized, historical drama, tense, political thriller, period drama
Similar in 76%
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
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Similar in 78%
Family of Spies (1990)
Plot Summary:
Fact based story of John A. Walker, Jr., a Navy Chief Warrant Officer with access to top secret cryptographic communications. As a result of mounting debts, he sold secrets to the Soviets in 1967, a practice that he continued thereafter. He further sought to involve his four children into the espionage until his wife caught onto his activities.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 298
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 175 min
Plot tags: exciting, serious, realistic, suspenseful
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Similar in 75%
Reilly: Ace of Spies (1983)
Plot Summary:
A dramatization of the missions and adventures of the greatest spy in British history.
IMDB Rating: 8.2
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Crime, Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 720 min
Plot tags: political thriller, tense, serious, captivating, realistic, suspenseful, vintage, period drama
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Similar in 79%
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 87%
Cambridge Spies (2003)
Plot Summary:
In 1934, four brilliant Cambridge men are recruited to spy for Russia. Fueled by youthful idealism, a passion for social justice and a talent for lying, they take huge personal risks to pass Britain's biggest secrets to Moscow. Based on true events.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama, History
Country: UK
Duration: 235 min
Plot tags: serious, realistic, contemplative, tense, suspense, political, political thriller, period piece, period drama
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Similar in 78%
The Little Drummer Girl (1984)
Plot Summary:
An American Actress with a penchant for lying is forceably recruited by Mosad, the Israeli intelligence agency to trap a Palestinian bomber, by pretending to be the girlfriend of his dead brother.
IMDB Rating: 6.1
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 130 min
Plot tags: political thriller, realistic, suspenseful, tense, serious, political, eighties
Similar in 90%
The Bureau (2015)
Plot Summary:
Within the DGSE (General Directorate for External Security), a department called the Office Of Legends (BDL) forms and remote pilot the most important agents of the French intelligence services: Clandestine. Immersion in hostile country, their mission is to identify individuals who may be recruited as sources of information. Operating "under caption", that is to say in a fabricated identity from scratch, they live for many years in a permanent duplicity. Our hero just returned from a clandestine mission six years in Damascus. But contrary to what is required by safety rules, he does not abandon his legend and the identity under which he lived in Syria, thus putting in danger the whole system.
IMDB Rating: 8.7
IMDB Votes: 14000
Genere: Drama, Thriller
Country: France
Duration: 52 min
Plot tags: tense, realistic, political thriller, serious, suspenseful, intelligent, interesting, french noir, political drama
Similar in 75%
The Deadly Affair (1967)
Plot Summary:
Charles Dobbs is a British secret agent investigating the apparent suicide of Foreign Office official Samuel Fennan. Dobbs suspects that Fennan's wife, Elsa, a survivor of a Nazi Germany extermination camp, might have some clues, but other officials want Dobbs to drop the case. So Dobbs hires a retiring inspector, Mendel, to quietly make inquiries. Dobbs isn't at all sure as there are a number of anomalies that simply can't be explained away. Dobbs is also having trouble at home with his errant wife, whom he very much loves, having frequent affairs. He's also pleased to see an old friend, Dieter Frey, who he recruited after the war. With the assistance of a colleague and a retired policeman, Dobbs tries to piece together just who is the spy and who in fact assassinated Fennan.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 4000
Genere: Crime, Drama, Mystery, Romance, Thriller
Country: UK
Duration: 115 min
Plot tags: tense, serious, suspenseful, psychological, exciting, enigmatic, neo noir, political, dark, slasher
Similar in 89%
Pascali's Island (1988)
Plot Summary:
1908: Pascali, a spy for the Sultan, sends reports to Istanbul that nobody reads. His suspicions are roused when a British archaeologist appears, who may not be quite what he seems.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 104 min
Plot tags: tense, serious, realistic, independent film, period drama
Similar in 84%
The Quiller Memorandum (1966)
Plot Summary:
Two British agents are murdered by a mysterious Neonazi organization in West Berlin. The British Secret Service sends agent Quiller to investigate. Soon Quiller is confronted with Neonazi chief "Oktober" and involved in a dangerous game where each side tries to find out the enemy's headquarters at any price.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 4000
Genere: Crime, Drama, Mystery, Thriller
Country: UK
Duration: 104 min
Plot tags: neo noir, political thriller, independent film, exciting, serious, realistic, suspenseful, stylized, eurospy
Similar in 78%
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 77%
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 89%
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 84%
Secret State (2012)
Plot Summary:
A four-part conspiracy theory drama inspired by Chris Mullen's novel "A Very British Coup". When a devastating industrial accident results in deaths and raises safety questions about the US petrochemical company involved, PM Tom Dawkins becomes aware of an establishment cover up.
IMDB Rating: 7.5
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama, Mystery, Thriller
Country: UK
Duration: 42 min
Plot tags: serious, tense, clever, realistic, political, political thriller, political drama
Similar in 78%
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 76%
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 90%
The Night Manager (2016)
Plot Summary:
Former British soldier Jonathan Pine navigates the shadowy recesses of Whitehall and Washington where an unholy alliance operates between the intelligence community and the secret arms trade. To infiltrate the inner circle of lethal arms dealer Richard Onslow Roper, Pine must himself become a criminal.
IMDB Rating: 8.0
IMDB Votes: 100000
Genere: Crime, Drama, Mystery, Thriller
Country: UK, USA
Duration: 358 min
Plot tags: serious, suspense, tense, tricky, realistic, suspenseful, political, neo noir, atmospheric, intellectual
Similar in 83%
Page Eight (2011)
Plot Summary:
Page Eight is lovingly turned, with elegant writing, a flawless cast and a heartfelt message from writer/director David Hare about the danger zone where spies and politicians meet. The tension builds gently as we follow the fortunes of Johnny Worricker, a jazz-loving charmer who works high up at MI5 as an intelligence analyst. It’s a part made for Bill Nighy and he purrs out bon mots with a weary panache that women 20 years younger find irresistible. One such is his neighbour, Nancy Pierpan (Rachel Weisz), in a Battersea mansion block. The question for Johnny is whether her interest in him is genuine or hides something darker. As his boss (Michael Gambon) puts it: “Distrust is a terrible habit.” Questions of trust, honour and friendship rumble through the play. The characters exchange oblique repartee as a plot about a damning dossier unwinds. It’s not to be missed.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 19000
Genere: Drama, Mystery, Thriller
Country: UK
Duration: 99 min
Plot tags: political thriller, tense, serious, realistic, political, captivating, psychological, exciting, sincere, suspense
Similar in 87%
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
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Similar in 82%
The Company (2007)
Plot Summary:
Real-life figures from the Cold War era mix with a fictional story based on a group of CIA operatives and their counterparts in the KGB, MI6, and the Mossad.
IMDB Rating: 7.7
IMDB Votes: 5000
Genere: Drama, History, Romance, Thriller
Country: USA
Duration: 286 min
Plot tags: tense, bleak, epic, captivating, suspenseful, serious, realistic
Similar in 89%
The Ipcress File (1965)
Plot Summary:
This espionage thriller represents a landmark in spy movies introducing the sly, dry intelligence agent Harry Palmer. The story, centers on Palmer's investigation into British Intelligence security. He's soon enmeshed in a world of double-dealing, kidnap and murder and finds a traitor is operating at the heart of the secret service. Will the mysterious 'Ipcress File' reveal who the traitor is?.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 17000
Genere: Drama, Thriller
Country: UK
Duration: 109 min
Plot tags: atmospheric, suspenseful, suspense, exciting, tense, enigmatic, clever, realistic, cynical, retro
Similar in 90%
The Americans (2013)
Plot Summary:
Set during the Cold War period in the 1980s, The Americans is the story of Elizabeth and Philip Jennings, two Soviet KGB officers posing as an American married couple in the suburbs of Washington D.C. and their neighbor, Stan Beeman, an FBI Counterintelligence agent.
IMDB Rating: 8.4
IMDB Votes: 109000
Genere: Crime, Drama, Mystery, Thriller
Country: USA
Duration: 44 min
Plot tags: exciting, realistic, captivating, atmospheric, suspenseful, dramatic, sexy, neo noir, political, dark
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
Similar in 83%
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011)
Plot Summary:
In the bleak days of the Cold War, espionage veteran George Smiley is forced from semi-retirement to uncover a Soviet mole within his former colleagues at the heart of MI6.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 210000
Genere: Drama, Mystery, Thriller
Country: UK, France, Germany, USA
Duration: 127 min
Plot tags: suspense, clever, tense, confusing, bleak, non-linear, atmospheric, thought provoking, period piece, political