The 8 best spy movies of all time

Filmmakers and audiences remain fascinated with glamorous, globe-trotting double agents and their efforts to steal, retrieve or secure information, people or weapons deemed vital to a country’s national security. Some of the best examples deploy some of Hollywood’s most luminous stars, from Robert Redford to Jessica Chastain, to make us contemplate the nature of spycraft and the sometimes morally compromised leaders and causes they serve.

‘The 39 Steps’ (1935)

Alfred Hitchcock, had...