Espionage fans know we are in a golden era of spy novels, films and television shows right now, but it’s a genre that has never really gone out of fashion. Spies on Screen is my new book coming out on 20 October 2026 and it contains a survey of over 100 years of spy fiction in just about every screen format. Crime Fiction Lover asked me for a little taster of what’s inside, so I decided to bring you a list of the finest espionage TV shows and films of the 1960s.
Every decade has its exciting and thought-provoking titles, often mirroring geopolitical reality and the personal moral quandaries of the spy but the 1960s was a peak era for espionage, with the Cold War and revolutionary struggles in full swing around the world. Both the realist and spy action sub-genres fed off the existential threat of nuclear war. Here are 10 watching recommendations which represent the times. Let’s go chronologically…
Danger Man (1960-62)
The decade kicked off with British series Danger Man starring Patrick McGoohan as John Drake, a NATO spy who later joins the British intelligence agency, M9. The shows rely as much on clever verbal jousting as action. TV did not have the budget of cinema in those days. In Don’t Nail Him Yet, episode 11, John Fraser plays a civil servant passing information to the Russians. Rather than arrest him Drake befriends the young man to uncover the extent of his treachery. It is a sophisticated cat and mouse game. Drake is cold, intelligent, committed and resourceful and this is a gritty realistic drama.
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The Avengers (1961-69)
A year later The Avengers began a nine-year run setting a new surreal, tongue in cheek tone for espionage TV, influencing other modernist shows such as The Prisoner. Patrick Macnee played John Steed ably assisted by Honor Blackman as Cathy Gale, Diana Rigg as Emma Peel and Linda Thorson as Tara King. This drama confronted the issues of the day, such as brainwashing, the environment and errant computers and robots. Its villains were quirky and eccentric, occasionally mad scientists. The look was stylish and sexy and the chemistry between the leading talent was electric. It was entertainment for all the family, witty, clever and imaginative. In many ways ahead of its time.
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Dr No (1962)
Then came Bond. From the pages of Ian Fleming’s novel, Dr No introduced James Bond as played by Sean Connery to the big screen. Together, of course, with M, Q Branch and Miss Moneypenny. When the MI6 station chief in Jamaica is murdered, Bond is assigned to find out why and to assist the CIA in investigating the radio jamming of NASA rocket launches at Cape Canaveral. Bond comes up against Dr No, a Chinese-German scientist working for SPECTRE. He plans to scupper the US space mission Project Mercury. The deadly, suave super-agent begins an odyssey that is still going as Bond 26 is officially in development. Estimates suggest more than a third, possibly considerably more, of the world’s population has seen a Bond movie.
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The IPCRESS File (1965)
The IPCRESS File was a different beast. The film adaptation of Deighton’s groundbreaking novel featured Michael Caine as Harry Palmer. It chimed with the zeitgeist of the 1960s with a tale about a young, working class man who is irreverent and independent. Palmer is at odds with his British bosses as much as the Russians. He is very intelligent and disrespectful of authority but also comes to realise that he is expendable, suffering before saving the day, never quite a hero. He’s the kind of character seen in the kitchen sink dramas of the time, though less angry. Scientists are going missing, reflecting on the brain drain from British universities to better paying American colleges, although the disappearances here are far more sinister. This is moody, zeitgeisty and witty. It’s well-acted, with high production values, utilising odd angles, dark shots and silences to enhance the noir-ish mood. See our coverage of the 2023 ITV television adaptation.
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The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1965)
A few months later John le Carré’s game changer made its film appearance. The Spy Who Came in from the Cold stars Richard Burton as Alec Leamas, a washed-out British agent seeking revenge for the loss of his agents in the field. This is pitch-perfect Cold War drama – bleak, cynical and insightful of the dirty nature of the spy game. This defined the serious Cold War thriller for the next two decades. Leamas is kicked out of the service, descends into alcoholism and winds up in prison. When he gets out the East Germans approach him to defect. This becomes a double-agent operation; Leamas is to meant to spread disinformation to convince the Stasi that their officer, Mundt, is a traitor, or so he is told. The real mission is to trap Mundt’s clever deputy, Fiedler, who is a loyal communist and suspects his boss. Leamas’ amoral mission is complicated by hope as he falls for Nan Perry (Claire Bloom) and the possibility of love and redemption shines out against the grimy operation. Spy stories are often twisted love stories. From the first shot this movie exemplified the bleak, duplicitous, cynical and brutal Cold War. Love dies on the wall, and the bad guys win. This was a portrait of East/West that makes it clear there are no good guys, no heroes, only causes, victims and darkness.
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Mission: Impossible (1966-73)
The American television series Mission: Impossible was a family affair. Starring Steven Hill, Martin Landau, Barbara Bain and Greg Morris, it was fun. Every episode began with that line: “Your mission, should you choose to accept it…” The team of government agents combatted dictators and organised crime gangs. Each show, team members are chosen for missions based on their particular skill sets. Operations usually involved clever subterfuge and duping an enemy to achieve a goal, usually against the clock. This was playful stuff and, inspired by Mission: Impossible, shows like Man From UNCLE played to a younger audience.
Watch now on Amazon Prime
Callan (1967-72)
Not so Callan, which was all hard edges. Novelist James Mitchell was among the first to realise the potential of TV, contributing to The Avengers before Callan. The pilot, A Magnum for Schneider, saw Callan confront a Hampstead arms dealer. Edward Woodward played British spy David Callan, Russell Hunter his unfortunate street informant, Lonely, with whom he forms a touching friendship. Hunter, the boss of an SIS deep cover department called The Section, has Callan trapped in his job. Callan’s interiority is mesmerising. He is just about keeping it together; hates being used but is capable of unleashing deadly violence when required. Callan recycles the best themes of Deighton and le Carré, infusing them with new life: brainwashing, Russian hits, Nazi war crimes, defectors, a Russian nemesis and the working-class outsider within the service. The longevity and two films attest to the popularity of this show.
Assignment K (1968)
Less well known is the British film Assignment K starring Stephen Boyd as Philip Scott, a toy manufacturer and unofficial British agent runner, whose cover is blown. He meets a Swedish woman, Camilla Sparv (Toni Peters) in Kitzbuhel and falls in love. Then she is kidnapped by the Stasi to get him to expose his German agents. The tension builds as the trap tightens around him but there is more going on than meets the eye. Boyd lives the part of the brilliant, tormented Scott, a man used to being in control, whose power is taken from him. He is deeply conflicted, in love but unwilling to betray his network. Scott chooses to fight back as the situation becomes increasingly desperate. He wants a way out of the spy game but will need to bloody his hands and risk everything to do so. A crisp, cynical, layered thriller.
A Dandy in Aspic (1968)
This was also the decade of the spoofs and comedies such as Carry On Spying and Otley but surrealism, twisted humour and paranoia infused realist films too. A Dandy in Aspic, starring Laurence Harvey as Eberlin, Tom Courtenay as Gatiss and Mia Farrow as Caroline, is a clever, engaging example. Assassin, spy and double agent Eberlin becomes a pawn in game between the Soviets and Brits. He is tasked with hunting a traitor which means he winds up on his own tail. “His mission is murder, his victim, himself!” From the evocative dancing marionette of the opening sequence, this classic Cold War double-cross set-up is sophisticated and claustrophobic and wickedly entertaining. Eberlin’s fatalistic perspective is Harvey at his best.
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Z (1969)
Finally, by the end of the decade we are moving into the political assassination thriller era. Z, a French film, stars Jean-Louis Trintignant and Yves Montand. It is set in Greece under the 1967-74 dictatorship and is about the murder of a politician and doctor, which eventually leads to the uncovering of a massive government conspiracy. It’s actually fictionalised account of the real-life murder of Grigoris Lambrakis. Z captures the climate of Greek politics and a wider geopolitical disquiet, distrust of government. It is gritty, realist, provocative, tense and politically charged.
All this leads us to the 1970s, the world of George Smiley, The Day of the Jackal and the rise of the conspiracy thriller following Watergate… and so on.
Watch for Spies on Screen: From Silent to Streaming is published on 20 October 2026 in the UK by Oldcastle Books; 27 January 2027 in the United States.
