The 10 Best Spy Movies That Aren’t Bond

007 isn’t the only game in town as we look back at some of the best spy movies!

On November 6, Daniel Craig’s fourth James Bond film, SPECTRE, will hit theaters and pit 007 against the organization that gave Bond so much trouble in the pre-reboot films. SPECTRE is also likely to be one of the biggest box office hits of the year. Like the new Bond theme says, “The Writing’s on the Wall.”

For many movie fans, the Bond films are the epitome of spy stories. 007 movies can almost always be counted on for beautiful and deadly women, exotic locations, memorable villains, over-the-top action, and a much needed escape from reality. In a way, the Bond films serve as spy fantasies, since they have little in common with the reality of spycraft.

But spy movies have been around since the earliest days of cinema, and while there are a lot of variations on the theme, they primarily traffic in suspense, betrayal, and even murder. There’s also a popular recurring theme in which ordinary people are swept up into the world of espionage against their will, which can be very unforgiving for the characters who aren’t equipped for that life.

Before SPECTRE takes over the world, ComingSoon.net is taking a look back at ten of the best spy movies that don’t feature James Bond. Almost every decade of film is represented on this list, but it is by no means comprehensive. Everyone has their personal favorite spy movies, and we invite you to share yours in the comments section below!

Best Spy Movies: The 39 Steps (1935)

The 39 Steps is not the first spy movie, but it is one of the earliest in the genre. Directed by Alfred Hitchcock, The 39 Steps loosely adapts John Buchan’s novel as Richard Hannay (Robert Donat) finds himself thrust into conflict with a deadly spy ring and accused of murder.

The ordinary man going up against hardened spies was a theme that Hitchcock used multiple times, but The 39 Steps is one of the best. It’s been remade three times, but none of the remakes have surpassed the original.

Best Spy Movies: Notorious (1946)

Hitchcock strikes again in Notorious, a spy film that centers on Alicia Huberman (Ingrid Bergman), a woman who is recruited to infiltrate the Nazi organization that has fled to Brazil by seducing one of their own, Alex Sebastian (Claude Rains). Complicating matters is the fact that Alicia’s handler, T. R. Devlin (Cary Grant) has already fallen for her when she marries Sebastian as part of her mission.

There’s no big action climax in this movie, but Hitchcock lives up to his “Master of Suspense” nickname when Alicia’s husband comes to doubt her loyalty.

Best Spy Movies: North By Northwest (1959)

North By Northwest is another Hitchcock film on the list, and yes, he really was that good. Unlike his character in Notorious, Cary Grant’s Roger O. Thornhill is simply in the wrong place at the wrong time when he is mistaken for a spy and subsequently framed for murder.

This film also features a classic sequence in which Thornhill is attacked by a crop duster in a cornfield with nowhere to hide. The final showdown at the top of Mount Rushmore is equally iconic.

Best Spy Movies: The Manchurian Candidate (1962)

Contemporary movie fans may have trouble picturing music legend Frank Sinatra in a serious spy drama. But in The Manchurian Candidate, Sinatra more than proved that he had acting talent to go along with that golden voice. At the height of the Cold War, Sinatra played Major Bennett Marco, a man convinced that his fellow Korean War POW, Raymond Shaw (Laurence Harvey), has been brainwashed into becoming the ultimate communist secret weapon.

The Manchurian Candidate is a great paranoid thriller, and Angela Lansbury makes for a particularly good villainess as Mrs. Iselin, Shaw’s manipulative mother and his handler.

Best Spy Movies: The Day of the Jackal (1973)

There’s no mystery about the identity of the villain in The Day of the Jackal. The Jackal (Edward Fox) is revealed to the audience very early in the film as he accepts an assignment to assassinate French President Charles de Gaulle. The Jackal is also an unusually competent villain who only gets more ruthless as he gets closer to his objective.

And for all of the heroics by Claude Lebel (Michael Lonsdale), The Jackal still gets his shot off. He’s simply one of the best screen villains of all time, and his legend has endured.

Best Spy Movies: Three Days Of The Condor (1975)

Robert Redford really had ‘70s spy thrillers down to a science. But Redford’s best one was Three Days of the Condor, in which he played CIA analyst Joe Turner a.k.a. Condor, a man who discovers that his entire team has been murdered with himself as the next target!

Turner proves to have a ruthless streak of his own, when he kidnaps a random woman named Kathy Hale (Faye Dunaway) just to protect himself. But with the entire CIA seemingly turned against him, Turner has no one left to trust. More impressively, Three Days Of The Condor ends on an even more paranoid note than the one it started with!

Best Spy Movies: The Fourth Protocol (1987)

Eight years before he finally became James Bond, Pierce Brosnan was KGB officer Valeri Petrofsky in The Fourth Protocol. Petrofsky was assigned the deadly task of assembling an atomic device inside Britain in order to stage a nuclear accident and strain the country’s relationship with the United States.

Opposing Petrofsky was Michael Caine’s MI5 officer John Preston. Caine was certainly no stranger to spy films at this point, as he had previously starred in The Ipcress File as Harry Palmer, a very anti-Bond British secret agent. The cat-and-mouse chase between Caine and Brosnan’s characters was more than enough to carry The Fourth Protocol. The Bond and Palmer connections are just an added layer of enjoyment.

Best Spy Movies: La Femme Nikita (1990)

Luc Besson’s La Femme Nikita may not have been widely seen in the United States, but it spawned an American remake (Point of No Return) and two television series, including The CW’s “Nikita.”

Anne Parillaud starred in the original movie as a teenage junkie named Nikita who finds herself forced to become an assassin. And although Nikita turns out to be a very talented killer, she’s still human enough to want out of her new life…especially after she kills the wrong person.

Best Spy Movies: The Bourne Identity (2002)

Director Doug Liman’s The Bourne Identity was not the first adaptation of Robert Ludlum’s Jason Bourne character, but it was by far the most influential. Matt Damon starred as Jason Bourne, a CIA operative suffering from severe memory loss as he finds himself targeted by his own agency after a botched hit.

This movie spawned the Bourne film franchise, and Damon returned for the next two Bourne movies before Jeremy Renner took the leading role in The Bourne Legacy. But Damon will be back as Jason Bourne next year in a currently-untitled Bourne film.

Best Spy Movies: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011)

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is not the typical Hollywood spy movie. It doesn’t have Bourne or Bond style action, nor does it glamorize the espionage. Instead, it dramatizes the sometimes mundane existence of Cold War counterintelligence operatives during the ‘70s.

Gary Oldman stars in the movie as George Smiley, an ex-spy who is forced into retirement and then forced out of retirement to hunt down a mole inside of British intelligence. This is a spy movie that requires attention and patience from the audience, but both are rewarded in the end.