Spy movies?
 

Recently I watched The Bourne Ultimatum. All 3 in the series were pretty good entertainers. They beat the shit out of the Mission Impossible trio, overall superior with better characterisation and direction.

That brings me to this thread. How many of you love these spy movies? Right from early Hitchcockian The Man Who Knew Too Much, The Lady Vanishes, The 39 Steps etc., to Philip Marlowe, the James Bond legacy, Matt Helm, The Man from U.N.C.L.E...

Alias maybe? What about Bogart in The Maltese Falcon and Jack Nicholson in Chinatown?

What's your say, guys?

Always liked the espionage stuff.....started as a child watching The Wild Wild West, Man From Uncle, Get Smart,James Bond movies...ect. When I was a kid I had an "attache case" [plastic of course] with a secret compartment for my spy camera and on the bottom there was a little slot that stored a knife [again, plastic] .





I loved that attache case:(

Anything with Bogart is golden...I'm talking The Big Sleep, The Maltese Falcon, etc. Excelllent noir.
What about North by Northwest!? Hella good.

I like most of them.

I prefer James Bond though. Still deciding about Casino Royale, good and all, a more human Bond and it does I suppose give you a better idea of how and why he thinks the way he does. We'll see how the next one turns out.

Im sure I read somewhere that Daniel Craig will have a bigger role in this one, perhaps in the production side as well as the acting.

To me. Maltese Falcon & Chinatown are more correctly categorized as detective films, and are not really spy movies.


Three Days of the Condor is an excellent espionage drama starring Robert Redford. Highly recommended. The Spy Who Came In From the Cold is another great one with Richard Burton.

I loved those Matt Helm movies when I was a kid. So cheesey!

And let's not forget the Flint movies with James Coburn!

The Manchurian Candidate
The Package
Ronin
Three Days of the Condor
True Lies
Le Femme Nikita
The Ipcress File
The Spy Who Came In From The Cold
The Paralax View

Which brings me to another point...are spy movies technically better than detective movies? Most detective movies are whodunnits with a dash of plots and sub-plots thrown in...while some are related to intelligence-gathering during wars (like the Alistair MacLean ones). But largely SOME detective movies have spy sequences thrown in for extra suspense.

Also, a spy movie involves espionage of the highest class. Even fantasy spy series such as James Bond has become ultra-popular because of its portrayal of spy sequences (remember Sean Connery moving about to prepare himself for a showdown in Dr No, or when he comes in to check his room for intruders in Thunderball)..

I mean, where do we draw the line between those two? Some detective movies are glaringly close to being a spy thriller, and vice versa.

I think spy movies usually involve some kind of international intrique, with the protagonist working for (or against) some govt. organisation.

Detective are usually hireed by an individual to to solve some kind of crime or situation.

Ever seen any of Lorre's Mr. Moto movies? The plots are stupid- but he's great!

Love spy films as well...

Bond films
Original Casino Royale
The Eiger Sanction
The Bourne films
Spy Game

I know I'm forgetting some more as well..

Yep Lorre was great as Moto.

More often than not spy movies involve international espionage, hence maybe the scale of a spy movie always tends to be bigger than a detective one.

We do love our dose of James Bond dont we?:D