With season five of Slow Horses set to begin streaming on Apple TV+ from 24 September 2025, we realised that over the last few years there’s been a deluge of espionage on television and across the streaming services. For anyone who’s been bitten by the spy bug, we’ve put together our top seven espionage shows available to stream now in the UK. Some are free to watch, and others are on paid for services. If you’re in the US or Canada, there’s a good chance you can find most of these through operators in your regions.
(Apologies for the Bond gag in the header. There’s no 007 here but we couldn’t resist. We can offer plenty of wildlife, though, including jackals, rabbits, butterflies and doves.)
7 – The Ipcress File
Still available on the ITVX and BritBox is the resent remake The Ipcress File – one of the finest examples in the genre in print, celluloid and now on the small screen. Major Dalby runs a small covert intelligence unit reporting directly to the Minister. He springs black marketeer Corporal Harry Palmer (Joe Cole) from military prison to join his small unit in the hunt for a missing British nuclear scientist. Palmer’s Berlin smuggler pal brokers a deal for the scientist’s return. This is the springboard for a complex, sometimes messy, plot that involves global nuclear armageddon. The story moves away from that of the 1965 film with Michael Caine, but retains Palmer as the cheeky, cockney working-class troublemaker, brilliant and perma-resistant to authority. Ashley Thomas as the Black CIA agent and Lucy Bointon as Jean Courtney expand the backstory to include racism and misogyny. It is a modern take on the 1960s. There are plenty of references to the film and the book in the intelligent humour of the script. Disappointingly, this was cancelled after one season as ITV lacked the conviction to support its release properly.
Watch on ITVX
6 – The Assassin
New to Amazon Prime is The Assassin, a comedic spy thrill ride best experienced as a binge watch. Absent mother and ex-spy Julie (Kelley Hawes) is confronted by her son Edward (Freddie Highmore) in her Greek hideaway. He’s about to get married and wants to understand some of the gaps in his past and why she was a bad parent. At that moment their shared past comes crashing back into their lives. A hit team arrives and they take out an entire village in an attempt to assassinate Julie. Julie, Edward and his fiancée Kayla are on the run across Europe. What does this have to do with Kayla’s businessman father and dodgy accountant, Jasper, currently languishing in an African prison. The answer is ‘Chastaines’ but what does that mean? Explosive action and dark humour, including jokes about a menopausal hit woman, combine to good effect. Low on logic but off then charts on explosions, twists and fun.
Watch on Amazon Prime
5 – Butterfly
Butterfly is an Amazon US/Korean coproduction that cashes in on multi market appeal and full-tilt action. David Jung (Daniel Dae Kim) set up a private intelligence firm called CADDIS. Then, nine years ago, he was betrayed by his partner, Juno (Piper Parebo) and was forced to disappear. In the present, Juno is in the process of selling US intelligence to the Russians. When David realises that the daughter he left behind, Rebecca, is an assassin for Juno and part of the treachery he comes looking for her. The pair are soon on the run together – but are they together? There’s a lot of mistrust on Rebecca’s part. Against the blistering backdrop of high octane action, the hunt is complicated by the FBI. As befits a show based on a comic book series, this is flashy and fast. The most interesting thing is the relationship of Rebecca to David and his new family is intriguing. This is fast and fun without taxing the gray matter too much.
Watch on Amazon Prime
4 – The Day of the Jackal
Another classic remade, The Day of the Jackal has proved the hit of the year so far for Sky, and was recommissioned immediately. The much loved Frederick Forsyth novel is merely a jumping off point for a pacy assassination thriller. The target is a rogue tech entrepreneur about to spill all the dirty financial secrets of the world onto the net. The Jackal’s fee, a cool $100m. The biggest obstacle for top assassin, the Jackal, is dogged MI6 agent, Bianca Pullman (Lashana Lynch). She is a woman totally ruthless in her pursuit of the hitman following the murder of a German politician early on. Eddie Redmayne gives a nuanced performance as the killer with a family to protect and PTSD from his past complicating his world. The script by Ronan Bennett (Top Boy) et al has plenty of twists and turns. Ten episodes is a lot of time for a cat and mouse show, but it always remains gripping if not entirely on point. Glossy, exciting and shocking; leaves a lot unresolved for season 2.
Watch on Sky Atlantic
3 – Black Doves
Humour and action seem to dominate the current spate of spy shows with the simple goal of entertainment. Black Doves on Netflix has a story that starts in the run up to Christmas, cueing plenty of jingly tunes as the backdrop to shootouts and bullets flying. Keira Knightley plays Helen Webb, the wife of the defence secretary. She’s having an affair with a minor civil servant who is then murdered with two colleagues on a night out. But Helen has another secret. She has been spying on her husband for more than a decade. Mrs Reed (Sarah Lancashire) runs the Black Doves, a private intelligence agency. She is Helen’s boss and is worried that her carefully planned operation may be compromised. So, Reed sends hitman Sam (Ben Whishaw) to watch over his old colleague Helen. The trouble is, the latter won’t let matters rest as she really was in love. As things spiral out of control it gets increasingly unrealistic but is great fun nonetheless.
Watch on Netflix
2– Rabbit Hole
Paramount show Rabbit Hole is available in the UK on ITVX. The world of spying is ripe for satire and this show starring Keifer Sutherland pokes light fun at his role as Jack Bauer in 24 while challenging the current state of play in the US. Sutherland is the boss of a private intelligence agency happy to employ dark methods to get the job done for their clients. He is framed when a job goes wrong and accused of murdering his own staff when their office blows up. A determined FBI officer is already on his case for the dirty way he does business. Can he figure out the stitch up and clear his name? Witty and clever, the script revels in double and triple crosses, paranoia and the blackest of black operations.
Watch on ITVX
1 – Le Bureau des Légendes
Made by Canal+, Le Bureau des Légends is available with subtitles on Paramount+ and has everything you could want from an intelligent spy thriller with the depth of a novel and the gritty feel of reality. Back at DGSE, the French foreign intelligence service, after six years undercover Paul (Mathieu Kassovitz), codename Malotru, is received as a hero. The chance reunion with the lover he met undercover puts him under suspicion and leaves Nadia (Zineb Triki) at the mercy of the Syrian Mahabharat. To rescue Nadia, Paul betrays the service. He gets away with it for a time because he has bewitched everyone but every decision little and large comes back to haunt him. Many different stories in the zeitgeist all the way to the denouement, which is painful and shocking and yet inevitable. This has humour, field action, double crosses, love, sacrifice, betrayal, guilt, redemption, grief, horror, moral dilemma, the greater good, delusion, revenge, courage and psychosis and all in an exquisite, well acted package. Intellectually and emotionally draining, Le Bureau des Légendes is still so satisfying. The Agency on Amazon is closely modelled on this series and wisely has followed it faithfully, with a mesmerising performance by Michael Fassbender. But why have a copy if you can have the original?
Watch on Paramount+
And there are plenty more shows in the pipeline including Secret Service based on the novels of Tom Bradby, Rogue Male from the Geoffrey Household novel, The Night Manager season 2, and Betrayal featuring young Morse actor Shaun Evans.
