CIA

2012 · Ben Affleck · 120 min · Thriller / Drama

Argo turns one of the strangest true stories in espionage history, the CIA rescuing six Americans from revolutionary Tehran by disguising them as a fake sci-fi film crew, into a thriller of ruthless efficiency. Ben Affleck directs and stars with 1970s texture soaked into every frame, while Alan Arkin and John Goodman supply the Hollywood satire that makes the movie sing between clenched-teeth sequences. It won Best Picture, and it invented most of its climax, shrinking Canada's role and adding an airport chase history never provided. As drama, near-flawless. As history, printed legend, and it knows it.

2018 · 4 Seasons · Amazon Prime Video · Action / Thriller / Espionage

Jack Ryan delivers polished, globe-trotting espionage thrills elevated by John Krasinski's grounded performance, even when the plotting occasionally falls back on familiar thriller conventions.

2011 · 8 Seasons · Showtime · Espionage Thriller / Political Drama

Homeland delivered one of television's great opening seasons, a taut espionage thriller built on Claire Danes's extraordinary performance as a bipolar CIA officer hunting a turned prisoner of war. The first two seasons crackle with paranoia and moral ambiguity, and Mandy Patinkin's Saul Berenson remains one of TV's best mentor figures from start to finish. After that peak, the show struggled to reinvent itself across six more seasons, producing stretches of brilliance mixed with increasingly far-fetched plotting that tested even devoted viewers. It found its footing again for a strong final season, but the journey getting there was uneven enough that many fans dropped off along the way.

2008 · Ridley Scott · 128 min · Spy Thriller

A competent spy thriller buoyed by DiCaprio and Crowe's dynamic but weighed down by familiar War on Terror beats and a plot that never quite distinguishes itself from its contemporaries.