Rent The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1965)

Cold War Classic. - The Spy Who Came in from the Cold review by Steve

Surely this is the best spy film ever made. Director Martin Ritt was an outsider, ostracised in Hollywood by McCarthyism. He was the perfect choice to direct this complex story of lies, subterfuge and betrayal. It's the chilly prototype for the spy-procedural genre, which annexed new wave realism to the glacial surfaces of John le Carre's classic novel.

And it introduces the motifs of the cold war thriller: the sedate bureaucracy of MI6; the locations like checkpoint charlie, and the Berlin wall; the laconic, elliptical dialogue; the grey, ultra realistic design. The superb support cast gives flesh to the layers of administration.

Richard Burton is profoundly credible as a spy who has been out in operation for too long, and is starting to think about the ethics. Control has an idea for how he can save their man in East Berlin. But it's not the clever, cynical double cross that he actually shares with his agent; he has a deeper, more devious scheme.

The astonishing narrative was allegedly taken from life. Most precious of all is the audaciousness of Le Carre's sleight of hand, which disorientates our moral perspective, and finds the burned out operative at the wall, with one last chance to subvert the dehumanising machinations of the Whitehall Circus.