Best Spy Movies
The best spy movies ever made, ranked by audience score. Inception takes it at 8.4, and the 20 films below prove how much range the premise has — Hoppers, Casablanca and North by Northwest pull it in completely different directions.
20 titles · average score 7.7 ·
The top 5 picks
- 1
Inception (2010)
★ 8.4 · 39,914 ratingsCobb, a skilled thief who commits corporate espionage by infiltrating the subconscious of his targets is offered a chance to regain his old life as payment for a task considered to be impossible: "inception", the…
- 2
Hoppers (2026)
★ 8.2 · 2,195 ratingsScientists have discovered how to 'hop' human consciousness into lifelike robotic animals, allowing people to communicate with animals as animals. Animal lover Mabel seizes an opportunity to use the technology,…
- 3
Casablanca (1943)
★ 8.1 · 6,156 ratingsIn Casablanca, Morocco in December 1941, a cynical American expatriate meets a former lover, with unforeseen complications.
- 4
North by Northwest (1959)
★ 8.0 · 4,589 ratingsAdvertising man Roger Thornhill is mistaken for a spy, triggering a deadly cross-country chase.
- 5
The General (1926)
★ 7.9 · 1,441 ratingsDuring America’s Civil War, Union spies steal engineer Johnny Gray's beloved locomotive, 'The General'—with Johnnie's lady love aboard an attached boxcar—and he single-handedly must do all in his power to both get The…
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How this list is ranked
Nothing on this page is hand-picked to hit a word count. We pull films matching this list's criteria from TMDB, require a real audience behind each score, and rank by that score — 20 titles averaging 7.7. The page rebuilds daily, so new releases appear here as soon as enough people have rated them.
Frequently asked questions
What is the best spy movie?
Inception (2010) at 8.4, ahead of Hoppers and Casablanca. All 20 films on this page average 7.7.
How do you find spy movies?
Through TMDB's keyword tagging, which is maintained by its community and goes far deeper than genre labels — it catches films that share a premise even when they belong to completely different genres.
Is this list updated?
Yes — it rebuilds every day from TMDB, so newly released movies appear as soon as enough people have rated them. You do not need an account to browse it, and there is no paywall on anything at MovieAI.