James Bond is one of the most iconic movie characters of all time. The superspy has been a huge box office draw for well over 50 years and has left a huge impact on popular culture. As a result of this, Bond movies have also formed the basis for not only other serious adaptations of spy novels but parodies of the genre also. With so many other movies being directly inspired by the James Bond series, fans of the franchise who are searching to find stories in movies like James Bond‘s adventures discover that it’s not hard to find other great films that give off a similar vibe or even follow a similar formula.
The release of No Time to Die closed out the highly-acclaimed Daniel Craig era of Bond movies, leaving many longtime fans of the franchise pumped up for more spy movie thrills even though the role has yet to be recast and a new installment is still very far away on the horizon. Now more than ever is the time for 007 fans to be looking to the past for some of the great movies that have inspired the Bond franchise as well as the thrillers that have taken inspiration from it.
15 Tenet (2020)
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Available to stream on DIRECTV Stream and TruTV
With huge practical effects-driven set-pieces and extravagant locations, Tenet is a must-watch for fans of the Craig era of 007 films despite the far heavier science-fiction elements of its plot. Many film fans have called for Christopher Nolan to take on the Bond franchise in earnest as its influence on some of his action-thriller movies, especially his hugely popular Batman trilogy, is quite evident. Tenet is the closest that Nolan has come so far to producing an out-and-out take on a Bond film, with John David Washington’s secret agent embarking on a high-concept mission to prevent a world-ending plot involving time manipulation.
14 Salt (2010)
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Available to stream on Peacock and fuboTV
Angelina Jolie stepped into this role vacated by Tom Cruise to make the titular Evelyn Salt a superspy worth mentioning alongside both Bond and Cruise’s Ethan Hunt from the Mission: Impossible franchise. A CIA agent accused of being a traitor, Salt must go on the run to prevent a wider plot involving a hidden team of Russian sleeper agents who have secretly infiltrated the highest levels of the U.S. government. Fans of the early Bond movies are sure to love its take on Cold War thrills and fans of the more recent Bond movies won’t be left disappointed by Jolie’s confidence as an action star.
13 Our Kind Of Traitor (2016)
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Available to stream on Tubi, Vudu, and Prime Video
Adapted from the novel of the same name by John le Carré, Our Kind of Traitor follows a civilian couple who, through a chance encounter, become embroiled in a shadowy international plot involving illegal money and assassination. The no-nonsense approach to the spy world is certainly more old-school Bond than latter-day Bond but the intelligent conversations driving the plot forward keep the tension as high as elaborate action sequences do. Fans of Ian Fleming’s original James Bond novels should certainly seek it out for its rich characters and story details while movie fans won’t want to miss the subtle performances of its impressive ensemble.
12 Jack Reacher (2012)
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Available to stream on fuboTV
Tom Cruise brought author Lee Child’s heroic drifter character, Jack Reacher, to the big screen, and, while they might not have the same expensive tastes as Bond, the highly-trained sleuth shares his distinctly uncompromising attitude. With classy direction and a mysterious European villain courtesy of the legendary Werner Herzog, Jack Reacher is a gripping mystery with all the tension and quality of a Bond movie, even if the story never leaves Pittsburgh. Based on Childs’ novel One Shot the story sees Reacher take on an elusive criminal organization that hides its ruthless business tactics of intimidation and murder from the wider world.
11 Atomic Blonde (2017)
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Available to rent or purchase on Prime Video
In Atomic Blonde, Charlize Theron plays secret agent Lorraine Broughton, who’s sent to Berlin and finds herself thrown into the middle of the Cold War on a mission to find out who murdered her colleague and to recover an important list. The bare-knuckle brutality of the action scenes is the best testament to Theron’s commitment to the action-heavy role, which sees the superspy showing off their Bond-like skills as both a lover and a fighter. As it’s adapted from a graphic novel, the movie is a lot more visually stylized than the James Bond franchise ever is, but that creativity spills over into the action sequences and doesn’t just linger in the backdrops.
10 North By Northwest (1959)
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Available to stream on HBO Max
Alfred Hitchcock was a master filmmaker, managing to keep audiences hooked to the screen in spite of some of the nightmare-inducing narratives he became famous for. His 1956 masterpiece, North by Northwest, is only one of several Hitchcock movies that informed the spy genre before Dr. No came out and directly inspired the Bond franchise.
The film is a mystery thriller that follows a New York City ad executive, played by Cary Grant, as he finds himself on the run for his life after being confused with a government agent by very dangerous international spies. Though Grant’s performance in Hitchcock’s Notoriouswould leave much more of a clear blueprint for Bond as a character, the set-piece-driven adventure here was also hugely influential for the genre.
9 Three Days Of The Condor (1975)
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Available stream on Prime Video and Paramount+
Robert Redford and Faye Dunaway star in this icy thriller that’s a must-see take on the spy thriller formula, using a more subversive urban-set conspiracy story than what was going on with Roger Moore’s campier James Bond adventures in the mid-1970s. Redford takes on the role of a CIA researcher that finds all of his co-workers assassinated when he returns from lunch, forcing him to go on the run in New York City and stay one step ahead of those trying to kill him in spite of his minimal field training. Three Days of the Condor is an iconic spy movie that helped shape the genre as much as some of the classic James Bond movies did.
8 Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011)
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Available to stream on Prime Video
Adapted from the novel of the same name by John le Carré, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is a Cold War thriller set during the 1970s and follows George Smiley, played by Gary Oldman, a former British agent who is brought back into the spy game to find a mole. Fans of the more literary side of James Bond will love the impeccable cast of the film as each of the world-class actors amplify the stiffer-upper-lip side of Bond to its full dramatic extent and the film overall delves far deeper into the psychology of its characters than most movies in general do.
7 Kingsman: The Secret Service (2014)
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Available to stream on HBO Max
Kingsman: The Secret Service is a lot more raunchy than even the most risque Bond movies and more graphically violent than even 007’s darkest moments, but those elements are balanced by the film’s strong emphasis on comedy. The Kingsman franchise may be heavily inspired by James Bond, but it adds its own twist to the spy genre. Rather than having the titular Kingsman spy organization be an extension of a government, they’re an independent body, and they exist as much to satirize the tropes of the genre as they do to save the world. The first film follows a young man called Eggsy as he joins the group and works to stop a villain with an apocalyptic master plan.
6 The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015)
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Available to stream on HBO Max
Starring Henry Cavill, Armie Hammer, and Alicia Vikander, The Man from U.N.C.L.E. is an adaptation of the 1960s TV series of the same name from director Guy Ritchie and follows two spies, one from the USA and one from the Soviet Union, who must work with the daughter of a missing scientist to stop a dastardly plot involving a nuclear bomb. Ritchie brings out a sizzling back-and-forth dynamic between the main trio, evoking a classic Bond movie feel that has the ability to make anybody consider Cavill in the role of 007. The elegance of the movie’s period setting also evokes the relatively simplistic beauty of the early Bond movies from the 1960s.
5 The Bourne Identity (2002)
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Available to stream on Tubi
The Bourne Identity was a game-changer for the action and spy genres. Adapted from the best-selling novel of the same name by Robert Ludlum, the story follows Jason Bourne as he is pulled out of the ocean, barely clinging to life with four bullet holes in his back. Suffering from amnesia, Bourne must then uncover the truth about his own past. The film was a massive success both among critics and at the box office, offering a much more low-key take on the concept of a superspy that even the 007 franchise would come to emulate, especially in Daniel Craig’s 2008 Bond movie, Quantum of Solace.
4 Mission: Impossible – Fallout (2018)
Hailed by critics as one of the best in Tom Cruise’s ongoing spy thriller series, Mission: Impossible – Fallout is a stunning movie that follows the franchise’s heroic IMF team as they attempt to prevent a nuclear attack. The film contains several of the Mission: Impossible franchise’s most death-defying stunts, ones only in danger of being topped by Cruise himself in the next installment, Dead Reckoning Part One. Henry Cavill also joined the team for this adventure, furthering his credentials for the 007 role, and the dedication shown in the action sequences matches the Bond franchise’s emphasis on practicality with impressive gusto.
3 The Rock (1996)
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Available to stream on fuboTV
Filled with explosive shootouts and chases, this Michael Bay thriller sees Nicolas Cage play a timid FBI chemical weapons expert who’s forced to team up with a captured spy to break into Alcatraz and stop a group of rogue Special Forces soldiers that are threatening San Francisco with deadly nerve gas. There’s a veritable excess of the kind of action and adventure sequences that fuel the spy movies most similar to the James Bond franchise. Connery’s character clearly plays off of his past as James Bond and the sheer variety of action sequences on display all but guarantees a good time for 007 fans.
2 The Ipcress File (1965)
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Available to stream on BritBox
Adapted from Len Deighton’s novel of the same name, The Ipcress File was released during the height of the rising popularity of James Bond in 1965 and Michael Caine portrays the main character, a spy named Harry Palmer. Unlike Bond, however, Palmer has to struggle with bureaucracy and leads a far less exotic lifestyle that focuses on the reality of post-war life in Europe rather than the far-flung fantasizing of Bond movies. Caine would reprise the role several more times and, though they never achieved the popularity of Eon Productions’ Bond films, Caine’s Harry Palmer movies remain one of their most interesting counterpoints in British cinema.
1 Patriot Games (1992)
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Available to stream on Paramount+
Based on Tom Clancy’s novel of the same name, Patriot Games follows former CIA agent Jack Ryan as he prevents the assassination of a prominent British official. As a consequence, Ryan becomes the target of a terrorist played by Sean Bean. The film is gripping from start to finish and includes some stellar performances from the cast, most notably Harrison Ford as Ryan, and he would reprise the role in 1994’s Clear and Present Danger. Both films are an interesting take on the espionage hero and some of the best movies like James Bond, but the British connection makes Patriot Games one of Ryan’s most Bond-like movie outings to date.
