10 Best Spy Movies with Little to No Action, Ranked

When it comes to spy movies, the industry standard is that they will feature romance, cool gadgets, and perhaps, most importantly, lots of action. Take such films as Skyfall or most other entries into the Bond franchise, which have lots of gunplay, sweeping romance, impressive vistas, and pretty much everything that people look for in a spy movie. It’s a simple formula that never gets old, but that hasn’t stopped some movies from trying to break the mold a bit.

Alas, being a real spy is seldom as exciting as the movies make it out to be. In fact, real spies spend much of their time filing paperwork and staring at computer screens, observing potential national threats. They don’t really go into the field themselves, usually sending others to do the dirty work. That said, it’s a world that few get to see, and plenty of spy movies have tried this avenue of approach to varying amounts of success. These are the best spy movies that favor narrative over action, ranked by how well they execute that balance and how different yet still thrilling they are.

10 ‘Munich’ (2005)

Directed by Steven Spielberg

Munich is one of Steven Spielberg‘s most underrated flicks and is about a Mossad agent who is set to track down the people responsible for the 1972 Munich massacre. Its main character is Avner Kaufman (Eric Bana), based on real-life Mossad agent Yuval Aviv. The film follows Kaufman as he participates in Operation Bayonet, in which Mossad tracked down and assassinated the extremists who carried out the killings of 11 athletes at the Munich Olympics.

Though it is highly dramatized, Munich is very loosely based on a true story and, as such, does not feature any glamorous stunts, sci-fi gadgets, or thrilling gunfights. It is a political thriller through and through, and though it may have bitten off a bit more than it could chew, Munich is still a pretty good film about a very real tragedy and one of Spielberg’s best late efforts.

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9 ‘Breach’ (2007)

Directed by Billy Ray

Breach is another highly dramatized retelling of real events, this time taking place in the Cold War. In this film, Oscar-winner Chris Cooper plays Robert Hanssen, an FBI operative who was unearthed as being a double agent for the Soviet Union by a young rookie agent named Eric O’Neill (Ryan Phillippe). As O’Neill is brought into the agency, he immediately finds himself at odds with his superior and is forced to risk his career to bring down his boss.

Even though the movie itself is far from historically accurate, it does display the extent of Hanssen’s treachery, with his career spanning multiple decades, from 1979 all the way up until 2001. Breach is an interesting spy movie; its focus on O’Neill is puzzling and ultimately misguided, despite Phillippe’s efforts, but Cooper’s performance makes up for any flaws. Reviews were very good, with particular attention paid to how it’s still exciting despite its talky and relatively straightforward premise.

8 ‘A Most Wanted Man’ (2014)

Directed by Anton Corbijn

A Most Wanted Man is based on a 2008 novel by John la Carré and follows a Chechen refugee who illegally flees to Hamburg, Germany, seeking asylum. There, he is discovered by secret agent Günther Bachmann (Philip Seymour Hoffman), who scoops up the refugee, suspecting him of having ties to Chechen militant groups.

This thoughtful effort is one of the most underrated Philip Seymour Hoffman movies and received rave reviews on account of how engaging it is. It sucks audiences in right from the get-go and refuses to release them with its subtlety and intelligent narrative. With its political tension and dramatic aspects, A Most Wanted Man doesn’t even dip a toe into the action department, preferring to let the narrative speak for itself. “Subtle” isn’t a word often used to describe the spy genre, but A Most Wanted Man is a masterclass of slow-build tension, further elevated by a brilliant turn from the late Hoffman.

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7 ‘Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy’ (2011)

Directed by Tomas Alfredson

Based on a 1974 John le Carré novel of the same name, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy follows Gary Oldman as George Smiley, a Cold War-era spy who is ousted from retirement to dig up a Soviet mole prowling around MI6. Aside from being a spy movie, it also comes as a fun mystery flick as Smiley learns not to trust anyone: any of his colleagues could secretly be the enemy in disguise.

One of the finest spy movies of the 2010s, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy perfectly embodies the constant state of paranoia that persisted in the Cold War, both in the public and in intelligence agencies. The entire movie feels like a giant jigsaw puzzle, with the pieces gradually falling into place as the film progresses. Of course, given the nature of it being about an aging spy, the action is non-existent and is more about political thrills than in-your-face, explosive fun.

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6 ‘Three Days of the Condor’ (1975)

Directed by Sydney Pollack

Robert Redford stars as Joe Turner in Three Days of the Condor, an introverted CIA analyst who returns from his lunch break one fateful day to find that all of his colleagues have been murdered. Now, he has to find out who is responsible and why while trying to clear his name after the agency blames him for the killings.

Here, nobody can be trusted because even apparent allies might pull a gun on Joe in a split-second, and there’s no telling who or why they’ll do so. With an overarching conspiracy that goes all the way to the top, the plot is intriguing and leaves room for multiple twists and turns, but above all, it features very little action. Three Days of the Condor received an Oscar nomination for its editing and was commended by critics for its constant excitement despite having no action.

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5 ‘Bridge of Spies’ (2015)

Directed by Steven Spielberg

Bridge of Spies is another film set in the Cold War and is a collaboration between two big and well-respected names: Steven Spielberg and The Coen Brothers. The former directs while the latter co-wrote the film, resulting in a cinematic masterpiece that clearly shows the experience and finesse of the parties involved. In this film, Tom Hanks stars as a lawyer tasked with defending a Soviet spy in court and is then assigned to negotiate an exchange between the Soviet and a captured American spy plane pilot.

Once again, Bridge of Spies shows the sense of paranoia that hung like a cloud over the world’s superpowers and their allies during the Cold War, with the political tensions being brought to a boil. Sure, there is a tiny bit of action in this one, but for the most part, it’s all about the drama. Though it’s a fictionalized take on a real-life story, it comes as a perfect representation of the many close calls that occurred during the Cold War.

4 ‘The Ipcress File’ (1965)

Directed by Sidney J. Furie

The Ipcress File is the first (and best) spy movie starring Michael Caine as Harry Palmer, a wise-cracking British spy who, in this installment, is sent to investigate a string of disappearances in the British science community. This movie spawned four sequels, two more in the ’60s and an additional two in the ’90s, also starring Caine. But, of course, the original just can’t be beat.

Winning a BAFTA Award for Best British Film, critics were rather pleased with the movie, as in 1965, four James Bond films had been released and were ramping up the action with each installment. The Ipcress File was praised for being the antithesis to Bond, as it depicted how benign and ordinary actual espionage is, giving fans of the genre a much-needed reality check after the spy with license to kill suspended belief in audiences. As such, there is almost no action in the entire movie, but The Ipcress Files is no less riveting or masterful.

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3 ‘Zero Dark Thirty’ (2012)

Directed by Kathryn Bigelow

Unlike most spy movies, Zero Dark Thirty is actually a true story. It centers on CIA analyst Maya (Jessica Chastain), whose real name was later revealed to be Alfreda Frances Bikowsky, who spearheaded the decade-long manhunt to find the United States’ most wanted terrorist leader: Osama bin Laden. This is a movie about real spies, so it involves a lot of paperwork, bureaucracy, and behind-the-scenes observation, yet it does a remarkable job of portraying the plight of the CIA to find bin Laden.

There are a few brief action sequences, with the most notable one being the raid at the end of the movie that actually killed bin Laden, but for the most part, it is a lot of office politics and meetings. However, Kathryn Bigelow deserves praise for making such a verbal and fact-based movie so visceral and thrilling. Endlessly commended by critics, Zero Dark Thirty is one of the most non-conventional spy movies and is brilliantly executed in every way, made even better by Chastain’s A-plus performance.

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2 ‘Mission: Impossible’ (1996)

Directed by Brian de Palma

The first Mission: Impossible movie came as a sequel/reboot to the 60s television series and featured some of the original cast members, too. It also brought in a brand-new cast of characters, most famously Tom Cruise as Ethan Hunt and Ving Rhames as Luther Stickell, who would come to be beloved figures in the franchise.

Nearly 30 years after its inception, the Mission: Impossible franchise remains as strong as ever, featuring cinema’s biggest and most jaw-dropping action sequences and some lovable characters. But it wasn’t always the most action-packed series around–the original had some action, sure, but it comes nowhere close to the level of spectacle as the others. Indeed, Brian De Palma‘s movie is mostly a thriller, and most of the action scenes are more about tension rather than gunfire and explosions, but this works surprisingly well. Mission: Impossible definitely ranks lower on the action scale, but it is still one of the better movies in the series.

1 ‘Dr. No’ (1962)

Directed by Terence Young

The very first 007 movie, Dr. No takes the British superspy, played by Sir Sean Connery, to the Caribbean nation of Jamaica to investigate the disappearance of another spy, who was sent to find the origins of a disturbance in the American space program. What he finds is the shadowy organization Spectre, which would later come to be the overarching antagonist of the entire series.

Over 60 years after the movie’s release, it’s hardly aged a day. It also remains a standout entry in the franchise because the action is kept to the barest minimum, in sharp contrast to some of the series’ later entries. Even so, Dr. No still holds today, coming with exceptional dialogue and spawning many of the conventions and tropes that made the rest of the 25-film franchise what it is today. Its legacy and cultural impact make it the best spy movie with little action, and it’s not even close.

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NEXT: 10 Worst Spy Movies, Ranked