Are you craving some spy action? If you’ve exhausted the Bond franchise, completed the Mission: Impossible collection, and revisited the Bourne movies more times than is medically advisable, perhaps it’s time to look to television.
A lot of different shows come under the heading of a “spy thriller”. You’ll find action, family drama, comedy, politics and even the odd alien invasion all represented in this list. But there are a few things that they all have in common. They all feature twists and turns and characters keeping deep, dark secrets. They all have a tendency towards ruthlessness – don’t get too attached to any one person! The possibility that any character in the show might be killed off at any moment, up to and including the protagonist, is one of the things that keeps viewers on the edge of their seats. And they are all compelling, unmissable TV.
A lot of different shows come under the heading of a “spy thriller”. You’ll find action, family drama, comedy, politics and even the odd alien invasion all represented in this list. But there are a few things that they all have in common. They all feature twists and turns and characters keeping deep, dark secrets. They all have a tendency towards ruthlessness – don’t get too attached to any one person! The possibility that any character in the show might be killed off at any moment, up to and including the protagonist, is one of the things that keeps viewers on the edge of their seats. And they are all compelling, unmissable TV.
- 7/24/2023
- by Louisa Mellor
- Den of Geek
Q. Detective Inspector Nicki Jennings, school headteacher Sita Anwar, nuclear physicist Ulanya Khomyuk, and MI5 spycatcher Lily Thomas… what do they have in common?
A. They’re all intelligent, high-achieving, mostly working class, female characters from period-set true story TV dramas, but unlike their castmates with real-world counterparts, none of them really existed.
At the end of a true-story drama, when the moment comes for viewers to see the real people the actors have been playing, the above lot have no accompanying photograph or news footage. Their roles are patchworks, either several real-world figures rolled into one, or wish-fulfilment created to open up storytelling perspectives. Wherever history hasn’t traditionally allowed women in, or wherever history books have failed to commemorate women’s work as (cough) rigorously as that of men, some screenwriters have opted to put their thumb on the scales.
MI5 intelligence officer Lily Thomas, played by Anna Maxwell Martin...
A. They’re all intelligent, high-achieving, mostly working class, female characters from period-set true story TV dramas, but unlike their castmates with real-world counterparts, none of them really existed.
At the end of a true-story drama, when the moment comes for viewers to see the real people the actors have been playing, the above lot have no accompanying photograph or news footage. Their roles are patchworks, either several real-world figures rolled into one, or wish-fulfilment created to open up storytelling perspectives. Wherever history hasn’t traditionally allowed women in, or wherever history books have failed to commemorate women’s work as (cough) rigorously as that of men, some screenwriters have opted to put their thumb on the scales.
MI5 intelligence officer Lily Thomas, played by Anna Maxwell Martin...
- 7/11/2023
- by Louisa Mellor
- Den of Geek
The story of Kim Philby, the high-ranking British intelligence official who turned out to be one of the biggest double agents in U.K. history, is well known at this point. Dozens of books, fiction and nonfiction, have been written about how Philby took in the great and the good of MI6 and the CIA for decades before he finally had to flee across the Iron Curtain in 1963.
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This version of Philby, played with the kind of rumpled fatalism only Guy Pierce can muster, spends a lot of time keeping those friends close at the cost of his own soul, particularly Nicholas Elliott (Damian Lewis). But MGM Television’s “A Spy Among Friends,” which traces Philby and...
Related Stories How Jason Momoa’s Outrageous ‘Fast X’ Character Became Equal Parts Python and Peacock AI Becomes Him: How De-Aging Progressed from ‘Benjamin Button’ to ‘Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny’
This version of Philby, played with the kind of rumpled fatalism only Guy Pierce can muster, spends a lot of time keeping those friends close at the cost of his own soul, particularly Nicholas Elliott (Damian Lewis). But MGM Television’s “A Spy Among Friends,” which traces Philby and...
- 5/22/2023
- by Sarah Shachat
- Indiewire
Adapted from the New York Times best-selling book, ‘A Spy Among Friends’ is a show that narrates the true story of two British spies and lifelong friends, Nicholas Elliott and Kim Philby. The plot is rich in anecdotes and gives you a deep insight into the historical happenings of the 60s.
The show is based on actual events involving Russian spies infiltrating British security forces from the time of the emergence of Nazi Germany. It further takes the viewers all the way until the early 1960s, when the spies’ cover was blown and they fled the country.
A Spy Among Friends is bound to blow your mind. Let’s have a look at why you should not miss this show!
Unexpected Revelations
Nicholas Elliott is in grave shock when he learns the truth about his best friend Kim Philby. Kim’s interaction with the Kgb and his recent defection to...
The show is based on actual events involving Russian spies infiltrating British security forces from the time of the emergence of Nazi Germany. It further takes the viewers all the way until the early 1960s, when the spies’ cover was blown and they fled the country.
A Spy Among Friends is bound to blow your mind. Let’s have a look at why you should not miss this show!
Unexpected Revelations
Nicholas Elliott is in grave shock when he learns the truth about his best friend Kim Philby. Kim’s interaction with the Kgb and his recent defection to...
- 4/19/2023
- by Editorial Desk
- GlamSham
Plot: Based on the New York Times best-selling book written by Ben Macintyre, this six-episode limited series dramatizes the true story of two British spies and lifelong friends, Nicholas Elliott and Kim Philby. The latter became the most notorious British defector and Soviet double agent in history. Philby’s deeply personal betrayal, uncovered at the height of the Cold War, resulted in the gutting of British and American intelligence.
Review: The story of Kim Philby, one of the most notorious spies discovered during the Cold War, has been told many times over in both books and documentaries. While speculative stories and alternate histories abound, Philby’s tale has inspired John Le Carre’s Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and the Matt Damon film The Good Shepherd. While these stories and adaptations have been interesting, the true story is fascinating in its own right. The new limited series A Spy Among Friends...
Review: The story of Kim Philby, one of the most notorious spies discovered during the Cold War, has been told many times over in both books and documentaries. While speculative stories and alternate histories abound, Philby’s tale has inspired John Le Carre’s Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and the Matt Damon film The Good Shepherd. While these stories and adaptations have been interesting, the true story is fascinating in its own right. The new limited series A Spy Among Friends...
- 3/9/2023
- by Alex Maidy
- JoBlo.com
If you learned your closest friend was a spy, would you help him evade justice? That’s the looming question in A Spy Among Friends, a slow-burn adaptation of Ben Macintyre’s nonfiction bestseller about an infamous U.K. traitor. The limited series opens in 1963 with reserved British intelligence man Nicholas Elliott (Damian Lewis) being questioned by no-nonsense Lily Thomas (Anna Maxwell Martin) of the U.K.’s domestic intelligence agency MI5. The topic: Elliott’s role in the defection of his chum since the ’40s, charming Kim Philby (Guy Pearce), who has been outed as a double agent. Recruited by the Soviets as a university student at Cambridge in 1933, Philby rose to become head of counterespionage for MI6, the foreign intelligence unit that also encompasses the U.K. Which meant he was in charge of rooting out traitors like himself! (Credit: MGM+) There’s a good reason suspicion has...
- 2/24/2023
- TV Insider
Just a couple of weeks from now, families will be gathered round Christmas trees, sharing mince pieces, singing yuletide songs, and unwrapping presents. And all over the country, dads – who’ve spent a lifetime receiving socks and ties – will be squeezing their rectangular packages. What could it be? A DVD of Saving Private Ryan? A box of Ferrero Rochers? Or the latest book by popular historian Ben Macintyre, whose accounts of modern British history are adored by men of a certain age?
Macintyre’s works include Rogue Heroes (adapted for a BBC TV series) and Operation Mincemeat (a hit in cinemas earlier this year), and the author is now making his debut on Itvx – a bold new streaming era for Britain’s third channel – with a big-budget adaptation of A Spy Among Friends, the inside story of the capture of Soviet double agent Kim Philby. Philby here is played by...
Macintyre’s works include Rogue Heroes (adapted for a BBC TV series) and Operation Mincemeat (a hit in cinemas earlier this year), and the author is now making his debut on Itvx – a bold new streaming era for Britain’s third channel – with a big-budget adaptation of A Spy Among Friends, the inside story of the capture of Soviet double agent Kim Philby. Philby here is played by...
- 12/8/2022
- by Nick Hilton
- The Independent - TV
On 9 November 1955, the world’s media crowded into a fourth-floor flat in South Kensington in London, their cameras trained on a self-assured man in his forties, speaking with the clipped accent and unshakeable confidence that is drilled into a certain class of British male through years of expensive schooling. He answers the questions posed by his American interviewer with few words, sometimes accompanied by the flicker of a smile, a slight air of ennui, as if he is bored with the whole charade.
His name is Harold Adrian Russell Philby, known to his friends, and now the world, as Kim. The interviewer asks whether Philby is satisfied with his newly clean reputation, now that he has been ruled out as “the so-called third man” – the mole thought to have tipped off British agents-turned-Soviet spies Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean, allowing the pair to defect to the Ussr in 1951. After Philby gives a brief assent,...
His name is Harold Adrian Russell Philby, known to his friends, and now the world, as Kim. The interviewer asks whether Philby is satisfied with his newly clean reputation, now that he has been ruled out as “the so-called third man” – the mole thought to have tipped off British agents-turned-Soviet spies Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean, allowing the pair to defect to the Ussr in 1951. After Philby gives a brief assent,...
- 12/8/2022
- by Katie Rosseinsky
- The Independent - TV
On 9 November 1955, the world’s media crowded into a fourth-floor flat in South Kensington in London, their cameras trained on a self-assured man in his forties, speaking with the clipped accent and unshakeable confidence that is drilled into a certain class of British male through years of expensive schooling. He answers the questions posed by his American interviewer with few words, sometimes accompanied by the flicker of a smile, a slight air of ennui, as if he is bored with the whole charade.
His name is Harold Adrian Russell Philby, known to his friends, and now the world, as Kim. The interviewer asks whether Philby is satisfied with his newly clean reputation, now that he has been ruled out as “the so-called third man” – the mole thought to have tipped off British agents-turned-Soviet spies Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean, allowing the pair to defect to the Ussr in 1951. After Philby gives a brief assent,...
His name is Harold Adrian Russell Philby, known to his friends, and now the world, as Kim. The interviewer asks whether Philby is satisfied with his newly clean reputation, now that he has been ruled out as “the so-called third man” – the mole thought to have tipped off British agents-turned-Soviet spies Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean, allowing the pair to defect to the Ussr in 1951. After Philby gives a brief assent,...
- 12/8/2022
- by Katie Rosseinsky
- The Independent - TV
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