Red JoanMovies like Red Joan
- Key Features:
- Spy, Historical drama, Cold War, Moral ambiguity, Secret identity, Betrayal, British Intelligence, Communism, Based on a true story, Political intrigue, Flashback narrative
- Tone:
- serious, suspense-driven, dramatic
- Target Audience:
- History buffs, Espionage thriller fans, Political drama enthusiasts
- Emotional Arc:
- Intrigue → Suspicion → Reflection
Red Joan

London, England, May 2000. The peaceful life of elderly Joan Stanley is suddenly disrupted when she is arrested by the British Intelligence Service and accused of providing information to communist Russia during the forties.
Red Joan
Cold War spy Greville Wynne and his Russian source try to put an end to the Cuban Missile Crisis.

The vice-minister of Foreign Affairs of Czechoslovakia, knowing he's being watched and followed, is one day arrested and put into solitary confinement.

Prima ballerina Dominika Egorova faces a bleak and uncertain future after she suffers an injury that ends her career. She soon turns to Sparrow School, a secret intelligence service that trains exceptional young people to use their minds and bodies as weapons. Dominika emerges as the most dangerous Sparrow after completing the sadistic training process. As she comes to terms with her new abilities, she meets a CIA agent who tries to convince her that he is the only person she can trust.

When intelligence agent Kathryn Woodhouse is suspected of betraying the nation, her husband – also a legendary agent – faces the ultimate test of whether to be loyal to his marriage, or his country.

Sonja Wigert, Scandinavia's most acclaimed female movie star, enlists as a spy for Swedish intelligence but ends up becoming entangled with the German Reichskommissar Terboven.

Sly and dry intelligence agent Harry Palmer is tasked with investigating British Intelligence security, and is soon enmeshed in a world of double-dealing, kidnap and murder when he finds a traitor operating at the heart of the secret service.

In the bleak days of the Cold War, espionage veteran George Smiley is forced from semi-retirement to uncover a Soviet mole within his former colleagues at the heart of MI6.

Barley Scott Blair, a Lisbon-based editor of Russian literature who unexpectedly begins working for British intelligence, is commissioned to investigate the purposes of Dante, a dissident scientist trapped in the decaying Soviet Union that is crumbling under the new open-minded policies.

A mysterious tale set around a traditional British family on the eve of World War Two. Oblivious to the looming shadow of World War II, the wealthy Keyes maintain a confident façade in the British countryside until daughter Anne becomes an unexpected pawn. Her accidental discovery of secret recordings creates a rift in the family.

When the CIA discovers one of its agents leaked information that cost more than 100 people their lives, veteran operative Henry Pelham is assigned to root out the mole with his former lover and colleague Celia Harrison.

A young Oxford academic and his attorney girlfriend holiday in Morocco. They bump into a Russian millionaire who owns a peninsula and a diamond watch. He wants a game of tennis. What else he wants propels the lovers on a tortuous journey to the City of London and its unholy alliance with Britain's intelligence establishment, to Paris and the Alps.

Retired C.I.A. agent Frank Moses reunites his unlikely team of elite operatives for a global quest to track down a missing portable nuclear device.

After surviving an assault from a squad of hit men, retired CIA black ops agent Frank Moses reassembles his old team for an all-out war. Frank reunites with old Joe, crazy Marvin and wily Victoria to uncover a massive conspiracy that threatens their lives. Only their expert training will allow them to survive a near-impossible mission -- breaking into CIA headquarters.

Poland, 1970. Firmly determined to fight against Soviet tyranny and prevent the destruction of the world, the high-ranking officer of the Polish army Ryszard Kukliński makes a serious decision that will put his life, his family and the fate of an entire nation at risk.

British agent Alec Leamas refuses to come in from the Cold War during the 1960s, choosing to face another mission, which may prove to be his final one.

Jackie is a CCTV operator. One day, a man shows his face on her monitor, a man she hoped never to see again. Now she has no choice and is compelled to confront him.

During the Cold War, an American scientist appears to defect to East Germany as part of a cloak and dagger mission to find the formula for a resin solution—but the plan goes awry when his fiancee, unaware of his motivation, follows him across the border.

Led by Kim Philby, Plan Aurora is a plan that breaches the top-secret Fourth Protocol and turns the fears that shaped it into a living nightmare. A crack Soviet agent, placed under cover in a quiet English country town, begins to assemble a nuclear bomb, whilst an MI5 agent attempts to prevent its detonation.

Natasha Romanoff, also known as Black Widow, confronts the darker parts of her ledger when a dangerous conspiracy with ties to her past arises. Pursued by a force that will stop at nothing to bring her down, Natasha must deal with her history as a spy and the broken relationships left in her wake long before she became an Avenger.

In 1990s Belfast, a woman is forced to betray all she believes in for the sake of her son.

During the Cold War, the Soviet Union captures U.S. pilot Francis Gary Powers after shooting down his U-2 spy plane. Sentenced to 10 years in prison, Powers' only hope is New York lawyer James Donovan, recruited by a CIA operative to negotiate his release. Donovan boards a plane to Berlin, hoping to win the young man's freedom through a prisoner exchange. If all goes well, the Russians would get Rudolf Abel, the convicted spy who Donovan defended in court.

It’s 1940, and the population of Japan is divided over its entry into World War II. Satoko, the wife of a fabric merchant, is devoted to her husband but is beginning to suspect he’s up to something. Soon she allows herself to be drawn into a game in which she enigmatically conceals her intentions.

The film is set in France in the 1990s, the French were defeated by the Germans early in World War II, an armistice was signed in 1940 which effectively split France into a German occupied part in the North and a semi-independent part in the south which became known as Vichy France. In reality the Vichy government was a puppet regime controlled by the Germans. Part of the agreement was that the Vichy Government would assist with the 'cleansing' of Jews from France. The Vichy government formed a police force called the Milice, who worked with the Germans...

England, December 1926. Although her personal life is in tatters, the famous writer Agatha Christie decides to leave everything behind to help unravel an unsolved murder committed on a train six years ago, unable to imagine the disproportionate consequences that such a selfless act will cause.

Copenhagen, Denmark, 1962. When a high-ranking Soviet official decides to change sides, a French intelligence agent is caught up in a cold, silent and bloody spy war in which his own family will play a decisive role.

Delphine is the author of an autobiographical novel that has become a bestseller. Exhausted by the promotional tour, just when she feels out of place, paralyzed by the idea of having to start writing again, she meets Elle, a young, attractive, intelligent, intuitive woman who seems to understand her better than anyone.

Police Inspector Renko tries to solve the case of three bodies found in Moscow's Gorky Park but finds his attempts to solve the crime impeded by his superiors. Working on his own, Renko seeks out more information and stumbles across a conspiracy involving the highest levels of the government.

A look at the life of Margaret Thatcher, the former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, with a focus on the price she paid for power.

Hildegart is conceived and educated by her mother Aurora to be the woman of the future, to become one of the most brilliant minds of Spain in the 1930s and one of the European references on female sexuality.

On the day of his retirement, a veteran CIA agent learns that his former protégé has been arrested in China, is sentenced to die the next morning in Beijing, and that the CIA is considering letting that happen to avoid an international scandal.

In Stalinist Poland, cabaret singer Tonia decides to spend the evening drinking with a group of friends. The next morning, she awakes to find that, for reasons unknown to her, she has been jailed as a political prisoner. As prison officials interrogate, torture and humiliate her, she fights for survival and to maintain her innocence by refusing to sign a false confession. As her years of imprisonment pass, her relationship with her captors grows more complicated.

Owing to his alleged involvement with communist parties, film director David Merrill is forbidden from working in Hollywood. He decides to fight for his rights and faces numerous challenges.

An undercover MI6 agent is sent to Berlin during the Cold War to investigate the murder of a fellow agent and recover a missing list of double agents.

Red is an aging scam-artist who's just been released from prison together with Ronnie, a young and not-so-bright hoodlum who is easily manipulated. Their new business is to organize fake-money sales and then kill the buyer to take his money; but when Ronnie kills an undercover secret service agent, his partner Jimmy Mercer vows revenge and is given one week to catch the killers before being transferred.

An ambitious young journalist uncovers the horrific slaughter of 22,000 Polish officers during World War II, a secret kept hidden for far too many years.

June 1946: Stalin invites Russian emigres to return to the motherland. It's a trap: when a ship-load from France arrives in Odessa, only a physician and his family are spared execution or prison. He and his French wife (her passport ripped up) are sent to Kiev. She wants to return to France immediately; he knows that they are captives and must watch every step.

When John Halder's latest novel is enlisted by powerful political figures in the Nazi party to push their agenda, his career and social standing instantly advance. But after learning of the Reich's horrific plans for the future and the devastating effects they will have on people close to him, John must decide whether or not to take a stand and risk losing everything.

CIA Agent Bill Pope is on a mission to track down a shadowy hacker named 'The Dutchman'. When he gets mysteriously killed, an experimental procedure transfers his memories into a dangerous ex-convict. When he wakes up Pope's memories, his mission is to eliminate The Dutchman before the hacker launches ICBMs and starts World War III.

An idealistic young employee at the U.N. investigates the grisly murder of his predecessor – and uncovers a vast global conspiracy that may involve his own boss.

Russian and British submarines with nuclear missiles on board both vanish from sight without a trace. England and Russia both blame each other as James Bond tries to solve the riddle of the disappearing ships. But the KGB also has an agent on the case.

A young operative is sent on a mission to follow an older agent who's behavior has come into question.

An English bon-vivant osteopath is enchanted with a young exotic dancer and invites her to live with him. He serves as friend and mentor, and through his contacts and parties she and her friend meet and date members of the Conservative Party. Eventually a scandal occurs when her affair with the Minister of War goes public, threatening their lifestyles and their freedom.

After a defecting Russian general reveals a plot to assassinate foreign spies, James Bond is assigned a secret mission to dispatch the new head of the KGB to prevent an escalation of tensions between the Soviet Union and the West.

A woman searches for her adult son, who was taken away from her decades ago when she was forced to live in a convent.

During a handover to the head of counter-terrorism of MI5, Harry Pearce, a terrorist escapes custody. When Harry disappears soon after, his protégé is tasked with finding out what happened as an impending attack on London looms, and eventually uncovers a deadly conspiracy.

As a CIA officer, Evelyn Salt swore an oath to duty, honor and country. Her loyalty will be tested when a Russian defector accuses her of being a Russian sleeper spy. She goes on the run, using all her skills and years of experience as a covert operative to elude capture, protect her husband, and stay one step ahead of her colleagues at the CIA. Her efforts to prove her innocence only serve to cast doubt on her motives, as the hunt to uncover the truth behind her identity continues and the question remains: "Who is Salt?"

Kit Preston begins to unravel when she receives threatening telephone calls informing her she's soon to be murdered.

Based on true events about the foot soldiers of the early feminist movement, women who were forced underground to pursue a dangerous game of cat and mouse with an increasingly brutal State.

In 1942, an intelligence officer in North Africa encounters a female French Resistance fighter on a deadly mission behind enemy lines. When they reunite in London, their relationship is tested by the pressures of war.

James Bond is sent to investigate after a fellow “00” agent is found dead with a priceless Indian Fabergé egg. Bond follows the mystery and uncovers a smuggling scandal and a Russian General who wants to provoke a new World War.

An intricate thriller about an ordinary man thrust into the biggest theft of Soviet information of the Cold War. Right after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. A French businessman based in Moscow, Pierre Froment, makes an unlikely connection with Grigoriev, a senior KGB officer disenchanted with what the Communist ideal has become under Brezhnev. Grigoriev begins passing Froment highly sensitive information about the Soviet spy network in the US.

Sir Robert Chiltern is a successful government minister, well-off and with a loving wife. All this is threatened when Mrs Cheveley appears in London with damning evidence of a past misdeed. Sir Robert turns for help to his friend Lord Goring, an apparently idle philanderer and the despair of his father. Goring knows the lady of old, and, for him, takes the whole thing pretty seriously.

In this edge-of-your-seat thriller inspired by real events, a British police officer and a Jewish woman fall in love amidst the political turmoil of 1930s Tel Aviv. With British control over Palestine precarious and conflict inevitable, everyone is forced to choose a side.

On the eve of World War II, zany heiress Amanda Kelly travels by train to Switzerland. While passing through Germany, she meets a sweet elderly lady, who suddenly vanishes. Distraught, she questions her fellow passengers who claim that the woman was never there. Unsure if it's all in her mind or if there's a more sinister plot afoot, Amanda teams up with photographer Robert Condon to discover the truth.

An American doctor and his wife, a former singing star, witness a murder while vacationing in Morocco, and are drawn into a twisting plot of international intrigue when their young son is kidnapped.

England, 1926. An American journalist looks for mystery writer Agatha Christie when she suddenly disappears without explanation, leaving no trace.

Rouen, Normandy, 1431, during the Hundred Years' War. After being captured by French soldiers from an opposing faction, Joan of Arc, the Maid of Orléans, is unjustly tried by an ecclesiastical court overseen by her English enemies.

In the dead of night, Rebecca wakes in a decrepit precinct, accused of a hit-and-run. But a deadly scuffle reveals a sinister plot. With nowhere to turn, she must uncover the truth before it consumes her. But Rebecca harbors secrets darker than they know.

In 1943, two British intelligence officers concoct Operation Mincemeat, wherein their plan to drop a corpse with false papers off the coast of Spain would fool Nazi spies into believing the Allied forces were planning to attack by way of Greece rather than Sicily.

A British woman on a visit to post-war Berlin is caught up in an espionage ring smuggling secrets into and out of the Eastern Bloc.

Working-class British housewife Myra Savage reinvents herself as a medium, holding seances in the sitting room of her home with the hidden assistance of her under-employed, asthmatic husband, Billy. In an attempt to enhance her credibility as a psychic, Myra hatches an elaborate, ill-conceived plot to kidnap a wealthy couple's young daughter so that she can then help the police "find" the missing girl.

In London, an airport baggage handler is forced by French and British intelligence agents to seduce the wife of a businessman with ties to Syrian terrorists.

In Moscow in 1983, an American journalist interviews Guy Bennett, who recalls his last year at public school, fifty years before, and how it contributed to him becoming a spy.

Set during the fading glory of the Austro-Hungarian empire, the film tells of the rise and fall of Alfred Redl, an ambitious young officer who proceeds up the ladder to become head of the Secret Police only to become ensnared in political deception.

The true story of a disillusioned military contractor employee and his drug pusher childhood friend who became walk-in spies for the Soviet Union.

When CIA operative Miles Kendig deliberately lets KGB agent Yaskov get away, his boss threatens to retire him. Kendig beats him to it, however, destroying his own records and traveling to Austria where he begins work on a memoir that will expose all his former agency's covert practices. The CIA catches wind of the book and sends other agents after him, initiating a frenetic game of cat and mouse that spans the globe.

Based on the real life story of legendary cryptanalyst Alan Turing, the film portrays the nail-biting race against time by Turing and his brilliant team of code-breakers at Britain's top-secret Government Code and Cypher School at Bletchley Park, during the darkest days of World War II.

A reporter, fired after refusing to give names to a 1951 House Un-American Activities Committee, takes a part-time job as companion to an old lady. While working she overhears a noisy argument in the neighboring house, being conducted largely in German and involving her HUAC prosecutor. She begins to investigate, enlisting the help of the FBI Agent initially detailed to surveil her.

The ambitious scientist Franz Walter doesn't hesitate when he is promised a professorship at the university. He immediately accepts, pledges absolute loyalty to the system and agrees to work for the GDR's foreign intelligence service until he can take up his new position. Together with his colleague Dirk, he is sent on foreign assignments to West Germany. Franz soon has to use blackmail to get innocent people to talk. But his superiors go even further: GDR refugees and their relatives are targeted to be psychologically destroyed, forged letters, medical diagnoses, surveillance and wiretapping are on the agenda. However, this is more than Franz can bear: he feels powerless and increasingly isolates himself. When he then decides to steal secret documents for a later defection to the West, this results in an unfortunate chain reaction leading to his arrest and ultimately to his execution...

A look at the lives of two teenage girls - inseparable friends Ginger and Rosa -- growing up in 1960s London as the Cuban Missile Crisis looms, and the pivotal event the comes to redefine their relationship.

A middle-aged man recalls his childhood growing up in and around London during World War II.

During World War II, a secret agent must seduce and assassinate an official who works for the Japanese puppet government in Shanghai.

Karen McCoy is released from prison with nothing but the clothes on her back. Before being incarcerated, Karen was the bank robber of her time, but now she wishes for nothing more than to settle down and start a new life. Unfortunately, between a dirty parole officer, old business partners, and an idiot ex, she will have to do the unthinkable in order to save her son.

After a series of assassinations in Nanking, a Japanese spy master gathers a group of suspects in a mansion, then a tense cat-and-mouse game erupts as the Chinese agent tries to keep his or her identity a secret.

In 1933, Welsh journalist Gareth Jones travels to Ukraine, where he experiences the horrors of a famine. Everywhere he goes he meets henchmen of the Soviet secret service who are determined to prevent news about the catastrophe from getting out. Stalin’s forced collectivisation of agriculture has resulted in misery and ruin—the policy is tantamount to mass murder.

Mathieu, a member of the French institute in Irkutsk, is arrested overnight by the Russian authorities. Imprisoned and accused of sexual abuse on his own daughter, he realises he is a victim of a Kompromat. With the help of the FSB, someone has built up a case to frame him. Isolated, he has no one to turn to. Proving his innocence is impossible: the only solution is to escape.

After Regina Lampert falls for the dashing Peter Joshua on a skiing holiday in the French Alps, she discovers upon her return to Paris that her husband has been murdered. Soon, she and Peter are giving chase to three of her late husband's World War II cronies, Tex, Scobie and Gideon, who are after a quarter of a million dollars the quartet stole while behind enemy lines.

In 1930s fascist Italy, adolescent Luca just lost his mother. His father, a callous businessman, sends him to be taken care of by British expatriate Mary Wallace. Mary and her cultured friends - including artist Arabella, young widow Elsa, and archaeologist Georgie - keep a watchful eye over the boy. But the women's cultivated lives take a dramatic turn when Allied forces declare war on Mussolini.

When Russia's first nuclear submarine malfunctions on its maiden voyage, the crew must race to save the ship and prevent a nuclear disaster.

British Ministry agent John Steed, under direction from "Mother", investigates a diabolical plot by arch-villain Sir August de Wynter to rule the world with his weather control machine. Steed investigates the beautiful Doctor Mrs. Emma Peel, the only suspect, but simultaneously falls for her and joins forces with her to combat Sir August.

The chilling true story of a newly married FBI poster boy assigned to an Appalachian mountain town in Kentucky. There he is drawn into an illicit affair with an impoverished local woman who becomes his star informant. She sees in him her means of escape; instead, it's a ticket to disaster for both of them.

A woman recalls her childhood growing up in the North of Spain, focusing on her relationship with her father.

London, England, April 2015. Brian Reader, a retired thief, gathers an unlikely gang of burglars to perpetrate the biggest and boldest heist in British history. The thieves assault the Hatton Garden Safe Deposit Company and escape with millions in goods and money. But soon the cracks between the gang members begin to appear when they discuss how to share the loot.

Based on the true story of a Russian serial killer who, over many years, claimed victim to over 50 people. His victims were mostly under the age of 17. In what was then a communists state, the police investigations were hampered by bureaucracy, incompetence and those in power. The story is told from the viewpoint of the detective in charge of the case.

In the 1930s, three friends—a doctor, a nurse, and an attorney—witness a murder, become suspects themselves and uncover one of the most outrageous plots in American history.

Two thieves, who travel in elegant circles, try to outsmart each other and, in the process, end up falling in love.

A modern-day lawyer is sucked into an international conspiracy after being accused of a murder she didn't commit. Her only chance of freedom lies in uncovering the secret of an old German WWII aeroplane, long buried deep beneath the ice, before the CIA.

Clarissa Dalloway looks back on her youth as she readies for a gathering at her house. The wife of a legislator and a doyenne of London's upper-crust party scene, Clarissa finds that the plight of ailing war veteran Septimus Warren Smith reminds her of a past romance with Peter Walsh. In flashbacks, young Clarissa explores her possibilities with Peter.

In France, terrorist groups and intelligence agencies battle in a merciless war everyday, in the name of radically opposed ideologies. Yet, terrorist and secret agents lead almost the same lives. Condemned to secrecy, these masters of manipulation follow the same methods. Alex and Al Barad are two of them. The former is the head of the D.G.S.E.'s (Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure, the French equivalent of the CIA or the MI6) counter-terrorism unit while the latter reigns over a terrorist network, and both fight using the most ruthless of weapons: human beings.

A Russian teenager living in London dies during childbirth but leaves clues in her diary that could tie her child to a rape involving a violent Russian mob family.

Based on the real-life experiences of Ed Horman. A conservative American businessman travels to Chile to investigate the sudden disappearance of his son after a military takeover. Accompanied by his son's wife he uncovers a trail of cover-ups that implicate the US State department which supports the dictatorship.

After his family is kidnapped during their sailing trip in Spain, a young Wall Street trader is confronted by the people responsible: intelligence agents looking to recover a mysterious briefcase.

A young Western woman is recruited by the Mossad to go undercover in Tehran where she becomes entangled in a complex triangle with her handler and her subject.

Two romantically involved corporate spies team up to manipulate a race to corner the market on a medical innovation that will reap huge profits and allow them to lead an extravagant lifestyle together.

When in 1941 Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union, their troops quickly besieged Leningrad. Foreign journalists are evacuated but one of them, Kate Davies, is presumed dead and misses the plane. Alone in the city she is helped by Nina Tsvetnova a young and idealist police officer and together they will fight for their own survival and the survival of the people in the besieged Leningrad.

Conman Robert Freegard poses as an undercover MI5 agent and kidnaps countless victims amidst a high-stakes manhunt, until the woman who fell for him brings him to justice.

In 1894, French Captain Alfred Dreyfus is wrongfully convicted of treason and sentenced to life imprisonment at the Devil’s Island penal colony.

Summer 1939. Influential families in Nazi Germany have sent their daughters to a finishing school in an English seaside town to learn the language and be ambassadors for a future looking National Socialist. A teacher there sees what is coming and is trying to raise the alarm. But the authorities believe he is the problem.

