Enjoy this complimentary article, previously available exclusively for Popverse members. If you like what you see, consider becoming a Popverse member.

It’s time, it seems, for the final mission for Tom Cruise’s Ethan Hunt. After 30 years of unthinkable stunts performed in the name of spectacle and pretending to save the world, Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning is rumored to be the end of the series, leaving fans of outrageous spy stories to look for new agents to obsess over. Thankfully, the history of cinema is filled with them — and we have three suggestions in particular to draw your For Your Eyes Only attention to. Fellow agents, your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to look at these three spy movies that we’re placing in front of you for your consideration.

This is For Your Consideration, in which we try to come to terms with the inescapable fact that, honestly, there’s too much out there to have time to watch, read, or hear everything — by making some suggestions about things that you might have overlooked but would enjoy, anyway. Think of it as recommendations from a well-meaning friend.

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is the very opposite of Mission: Impossible in all the right ways

What might be one of the greatest spy novels of all time — John le Carré’s ‘Karla Trilogy,’ which includes subsequent novels The Honorable Schoolboy and Smiley’s People, remains almost unmatched in the genre, if you ask me — was given the cinematic treatment it deserved in 2011, when Gary Oldman took on the role of George Smiley, an easily underestimated, rarely outmatched figure in British intelligence who defies the spy stereotype in all the best ways. Pretty much the anti-Mission: Impossible, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is cynical, gloomy, and filled with bad people doing bad things for bad reasons. It’s all the more irresistible for all that.

Available to stream on Prime Video

Skyfall is the deconstructionist spy story that knows, deep down, that everyone wants to hear the old hits

There’s no way to make a list of great spy movies without including at least one James Bond film, right…? Thankfully, the series — which has spanned more than six decades by this point — has no shortage of high points, and almost as many different flavors of Bond, from the arched eyebrow camp of Roger Moore’s era to the dated-yet-irresistible machismo of the Sean Connery movies, or even the modernist makeover of the Pierce Brosnan years. Let’s go for Daniel Craig’s last truly great entry into the series, though: the brutalist Bond that nodded towards the deconstruction of all the tropes and then ditched that in favor of giving the audience exactly what it wanted all along: Dame Judi Dench being just as badass as you always knew that she was, deep down.

Available to stream on Prime Video

Confessions of a Dangerous Mind is the spy movie that acts the most like a spy would

Here’s the thing: you can’t trust anything a spy says, because, you know, they’re a spy. Being untrustworthy is kind of their job. (This is why, if we’re honest, Ethan Hunt is kind of a terrible spy; Tom Cruise can’t pull off being sincerely insincere.) That’s what makes Confessions of a Dangerous Mind such a perfect spy movie; you’re never quite sure who’s telling the truth and who’s just a delusional kook in the whole thing, with Sam Rockwell turning in yet another shockingly great performance as Chuck Barris, the game show producer who just might also be a CIA agent (surely not) and perhaps also an assassin for hire (I mean, he can’t be, right?). It’s almost all nonsense, unless… well… what if it’s not…?

Available to stream on Paramount+

Want to know what's coming up next in pop culture? Check out Popverse's guides to:

• Upcoming movies
• Upcoming TV shows
• Upcoming comics
• Upcoming games
• Upcoming fiction books
• Upcoming comic conventions