The Spy Who Shunned Me

I was glancing at a not-so-recent Stacker.com ‘Best 100 Spy Movies of All Time’, thinking it was right up the dark alley of our spymaster, David Edgerley Gates. If you did something extremely stupid, he could make you disappear.

And then I noticed something stupid.

Where was Ipcress File? And Day of the Jackal? Manchurian Candidate? Riddle of the Sands? Casablanca? And where the hell was 39 Steps? And why the Hail Freedonia was Duck Soup in the list? Hey, I love the Marx Brothers but it bears as much resemblance to a spy movie as Margaret Dumont does to John le Carré.

I had to stop because so many possibilities flooded my mind. The article should be retitled ‘100 Pretty Good kinda-Spy Movies of Small Time, Give or Take.’ I bet David could name many more.

So here is the core of Stacker’s list followed by a few unranked suggestions of my own.

100	Body of Lies	2008	Ridley Scott		50	Clear and Present Danger	1994	Phillip Noyce
99	Salt	2010	Phillip Noyce		49	Rogue One: A Star Wars Story	2016	Gareth Edwards
98	Moonraker	1979	Lewis Gilbert		48	Breach	2007	Billy Ray
97	Never Say Never Again	1983	Irvin Kershner		47	Spy	2015	Paul Feig
96	Shadow Dancer	2012	James Marsh		46	Eye in the Sky	2015	Gavin Hood
95	Octopussy	1983	John Glen		45	Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol	2011	Brad Bird
94	The Man from U.N.C.L.E.	2015	Guy Ritchie		44	The Bourne Identity	2002	Doug Liman
93	The Informant!	2009	Steven Soderbergh		43	Red Cliff	2008	John Woo
92	The Eagle Has Landed	1976	John Sturges		42	Emperor and the Assassin	1998	Kaige Chen
91	Atomic Blonde	2017	David Leitch		41	Flame & Citron	2008	Ole Christian Madsen
90	Until the End of the World	1991	Wim Wenders		40	Inherent Vice	2014	Paul Thomas Anderson
89	You Only Live Twice	1967	Lewis Gilbert		39	No Way Out	1987	Roger Donaldson
88	Cloak & Dagger	1984	Richard Franklin		38	Black Book	2006	Paul Verhoeven
87	The Fourth Protocol	1987	John Mackenzie		37	The Age of Shadows	2016	Kim Jee-woon
86	RED	2010	Robert Schwentke		36	Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation	2015	Christopher McQuarrie
85	Mission: Impossible	1996	Brian De Palma		35	The Bourne Supremacy	2004	Paul Greengrass
84	Snowden	2016	Oliver Stone		34	Europa Europa	1990	Agnieszka Holland
83	Allied	2016	Robert Zemeckis		33	Lady Vengeance	2005	Park Chan-wook
82	The Matador	2005	Richard Shepard		32	Dr No	1962	Terence Young
81	Michael Collins	1996	Neil Jordan		31	Inglourious Basterds	2009	Quentin Tarantino
80	Eye of the Needle	1981	Richard Marquand		30	The Imitation Game	2014	Morten Tyldum
79	Horror Express	1972	Eugenio Martín		29	The Man Who Knew Too Much	1956	Alfred Hitchcock
78	Patriot Games	1992	Phillip Noyce		28	The Quiet American	2002	Phillip Noyce
77	OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies	2006	Michel Hazanavicius		27	A Beautiful Mind	2001	Ron Howard
76	The Front Line	2011	Jang Hoon		26	Infernal Affairs	2002	Andrew Lau, Alan Mak
75	Thunderball	1965	Terence Young		25	Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy	2011	Tomas Alfredson
74	The Hunt for Red October	1990	John McTiernan		24	Ghost in the Shell	1995	Mamoru Oshii
73	Spy Game	2001	Tony Scott		23	The Constant Gardener	2005	Fernando Meirelles
72	Mission: Impossible III	2006	J.J.		22	Bridge of Spies	2015	Steven Spielberg
71	Despicable Me 2	2013	Pierre Coffin, Chris Renaud		21	Skyfall	2012	Sam Mendes
70	True Lies	1994	James Cameron		20	From Russia with Love	1963	Terence Young
69	Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid	1982	Carl Reiner		19	Casino Royale	2006	Martin Campbell
68	The Falcon and the Snowman	1985	John Schlesinger		18	Enter the Dragon	1973	Robert Clouse
67	The East	2013	Zal Batmanglij		17	The English Patient	1996	Anthony Minghella
66	Official Secrets	2019	Gavin Hood		16	Mission: Impossible: Fallout	2018	Christopher McQuarrie
65	Lust, Caution	2007	Ang Lee		15	The Conversation	1974	Francis Ford Coppola
64	Sneakers	1992	Phil Alden Robinson		14	House of Flying Daggers	2004	Yimou Zhang
63	Fair Game	2010	Doug Liman		13	Stalag 17	1953	Billy Wilder
62	Confessions of a Dangerous Mind	2002	George Clooney		12	Goldfinger	1964	Guy Hamilton
61	Charlie Wilson's War	2007	Mike Nichols		11	The Bourne Ultimatum	2007	Paul Greengrass
60	Kingsman: The Secret Service	2014	Matthew Vaughn		10	Letters from Iwo Jima	2006	Clint Eastwood
59	Three Days of the Condor	1975	Sydney Pollack		9	Zero Dark Thirty	2012	Kathryn Bigelow
58	GoldenEye	1995	Martin Campbell		8	Le Petit Soldat	1963	Jean-Luc Godard
57	Walk on Water	2004	Eytan Fox		7	Barry Lyndon	1975	Stanley Kubrick
56	Marcel Proust's Time Regained	1999	Raoul Ruiz		6	The Departed	2006	Martin Scorsese
55	Where Eagles Dare	1968	Brian G.		5	Duck Soup	1933	Leo McCarey
54	Top Secret!	1984	Jim Abrahams, Zucker Bros.		4	The Lives of Others	2006	Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck
53	A Most Wanted Man	2014	Anton Corbijn		3	Notorious	1946	Alfred Hitchcock
52	The Spy Gone North	2018	Yoon Jong-bin		2	Pan's Labyrinth	2006	Guillermo del Toro
51	X-Men: First Class	2011	Matthew Vaughn		1	North by Northwest	1959	Alfred Hitchcock
	The 39 Steps	1935	Alfred Hitchcock			Topaz	1969	Alfred Hitchcock
	Day of the Jackal	1973	Fred Zinnemann			Riddle of the Sands	1979	ony Maylam
	The Ipcress File	1965	Sidney J Furie			Casablanca	1842	Michael Curtiz
	The Manchurian Candidate	1962	John Frankenheimer			Dark of the Sun	1968	Jack Cardiff

For worst movie, I seem to recall Our Man Flint (1966), directed by Daniel Mann, was embarrassingly awful.

What is your take? Enquiring spies want to know.

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Check out Prohibition Peepers, a Michael Bracken anthology.