Secrets of StateMovies like Secrets of State
- Key Features:
- Terrorism, British Intelligence, Counter-terrorism, Political intrigue, Moral ambiguity, Espionage, Secret agents, Manipulation, Human cost, France, Warfare, Ideological conflict, Secrecy, Ruthlessness, Betrayal, Power dynamics
- Tone:
- serious, gritty, suspense-driven
- Target Audience:
- Political thriller enthusiasts, Espionage fans, Cerebral viewers, Fans of morally complex narratives
- Emotional Arc:
- Intrigue → Tension → Bleakness
Secrets of State

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.
Secrets of State
Using the interrogation of a US counterinsurgency agent as a backdrop, the film explores the consequences of the struggle between Uruguay's government and the leftist Tupamaro guerrillas.

Ariel, a young French Jew, decides to leave his family to go to Israel and secretly become an agent of Mossad, the Israeli secret service. After years of training, his first mission is in Paris to steal secrets from Remy Prieur, a French atomic scientist.

Sam, a freelance journalist, decides to investigate the growing phenomenon of disaffected youth joining extremist groups. He infiltrates a group of four young people who have been tasked with the creation of a jihadist cell and whose mission is to destabilise the city centre of Paris.

A French diplomat is surveilled by a secret service to find a weakness for political control, his private life becoming 'File No. 51'.

Someone is killing Parisians of Arab ethnicity. When an Algerian diplomat is murdered by the same assailant, two Algerian detectives are sent to help the French with the investigation and they have their own ways of doing things.

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.

During a patrol, Julie and Simon, two police constables, injure a wealthy man who pointlessly killed their partner. This wealthy man in question turns out to be the son of a politician. This is why the two police constables are accused of brutality by the brass. Abandoned by their superiors, the two leading characters will lead an investigation on the drug that caused the politician's son to be out of his mind.

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.

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 being imprisoned by the Assad regime in Syria, Hamid now works undercover as part of a secret group pursuing their leaders, including the guard he suspects was responsible for his torture.

A journalist gets caught up in a terrorist plot in Moscow while investigating the Russian secret service.

In November 2015, a series of unprecedented and deadly attacks hits Paris. The anti-terrorist police led by Heloise and her chief commander Fred face an unprecedented level of pressure. In a race against the clock, they must find the perpetrators of the attacks as quickly as possible before they can strike again, travelling across Europe and beyond in one of the biggest manhunts in history.

October 2015. French customs seize seven tonnes of cannabis in the heart of the capital. The same day, Hubert Antoine, a former mole with a shady past, contacts Stéphane Vilner, a journalist at Libération. He claims to be able to demonstrate the existence of State drug trafficking led by Jacques Billard, prominent media figure and high-ranking French police officer. Suspicious at first, the young journalist finally dives into an investigation that will lead him to the darkest corners of the Republic.

The CIA’s hunt is on for the mastermind of a wave of terrorist attacks. Roger Ferris is the agency’s man on the ground, moving from place to place, scrambling to stay ahead of ever-shifting events. An eye in the sky – a satellite link – watches Ferris. At the other end of that real-time link is the CIA’s Ed Hoffman, strategizing events from thousands of miles away. And as Ferris nears the target, he discovers trust can be just as dangerous as it is necessary for survival.

Two years after a burn-out, Duval is still unemployed. Contacted by an enigmatic businessman, he is offered a simple and well-paid job: transcribing telephone tapping. Duval accepts financially without questioning the purpose of the organization that employs him. Precipitated at the heart of a political plot, he must face the brutal mechanics of the underground world of the secret services.

A recent college graduate flees to Paris after a break-up, where his involvement with a prostitute begins to reveal a potentially dark recent past.

Driss and Manuel both grew up on the same council estate. An estate where the sense of belonging to your patch is much stronger than the sense of belonging to a country, a nation or a culture... Manuel has assimilated this belonging, and he has even benefited from it and built his life on it. Driss, meanwhile, has shunned it. They will both have to face up to the consequences of their decisions – because they will each have a price to pay…

Sebastien Grenier, a former French spy, is working as a financial analyst in Zurich. However, his peaceful existence starts to disintegrate when he is recruited by a top French intelligence operative to discover how one of their own secret agents was found out and executed in broad daylight.

Bloch, an Israeli secret agent, seeks refuge in the French embassy in Libya to escape being killed. Augier, his French opposite number, has to get him to safety in a diplomatic suitcase.

A steely special ops agent finds his morality put to the test when he infiltrates a crime syndicate and unexpectedly bonds with the boss' young son.

A young journalist uncovers an assassination disguised as a suicide, linked to an American multinational seeking to dominate French industries. Determined to expose the truth, he races against time to gather evidence before more lives—and his own—are at stake.

A beautiful felon, sentenced to life in prison for the murder of a policeman, is given a second chance – as a secret political assassin controlled by the government.

A cop investigates whether the man convicted of murdering his daughter is really guilty.

After failing to apprehend the terrorist behind a Paris attack that claimed dozens of lives, CIA agent Alice Racine is forced to live in London as a caseworker. Her mentor unexpectedly calls her back into action when the CIA discovers that another attack is imminent. Alice soon learns that the classified information she's uncovered has been compromised...

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

When an Egyptian terrorism suspect "disappears" on a flight from Africa to Washington DC, his American wife and a CIA analyst find themselves caught up in a struggle to secure his release from a secret detention facility somewhere outside the US.

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.

A prominent politician is murdered during a demonstration. The government and army are trying to suppress the truth. But, a tenacious magistrate is determined to not to let them get away with it.

A man meets up with two "good guys" to recover what is unlawfully his, taking them on his whirlwind ride, doing things they never would have imagined, just to survive.

Frank Valken, high-flying robber, has just made a final masterful break. At least that’s what he believes… Ideal suspects, Valken and his gang find themselves involved in a criminal case of thirty years. It seems that the crazy killers are back.

As Israel is rocked by a series of terrorist bombings, a US senator's daughter is killed in one bloody explosion. Now, ex-Mossad agent Etan must lead an elite, covert team of agents and mercenaries to find the man responsible—the elusive “Engineer.” Can they find and destroy the madman before more innocent lives are lost?

The head of a giant European investment bank desperately clings to power when an American hedge fund company tries to buy them out.

After learning that the death of his wife was not an accident, a former CIA Station Chief is forced back into the espionage underworld, teaming up with an adversary to unravel a conspiracy that challenges everything he thought he knew.

An intelligence operative for a shadowy global peacekeeping agency races to stop a hacker from stealing its most valuable — and dangerous — weapon.

From his offices in Switzerland, Russian Igor Lipovsky is engaged in a vast and profitable gunrunning operation with Africa. The French government wants to hinder the activities of the arms dealer and sends a team to sink one of his ships heading for Angola with a load of illegal weaponry. Lisa, Brisseau, Loïc, Tony and Raymond are professionals: they carefully set up their cover, plan all their moves meticulously, and carry out orders without asking questions. Perhaps they should. The code-name of the mission is "Janus"; and just like with the ancient deity, there are two opposite faces for every aspect of the operation: the objective of the French government, the role of each team member, the presumed friend and the assumed foe...

Forced out of his elite unit, a troubled cop launches his own rogue investigation when mysterious killings claim the lives of his former colleagues.

When CIA Analyst Jack Ryan interferes with an IRA assassination, a renegade faction targets Jack and his family as revenge.

A counter-terrorism expert takes a job protecting a young heiress. After an attempted kidnapping puts both of their lives in danger, they must flee.

Paris, spring 2015. Faustine travels to Syria with her little son to join ISIS; but, once in Raqqa, she soon realizes the hell she is gotten herself into. Her husband Sylvain quickly understands that the French government is powerless to help him, so he plans with some friends a high-risk extraction operation to get his family back.

A Parisian criminal gang fall apart after challenges to the gang's leader lessen his influence.

When political thugs murder an opponent's volunteer and also kill a cop, chief inspector Verjeat believes the politician who hired them is as guilty as the murderous goon. Verjeat's pursuit of the councilman, Lardatte, gets him a warning from his superiors. When he embarrasses Lardatte while disarming a hostage (the dead volunteer's father), Verjeat is told he's being transferred within a week. He speeds up his hunt for the goon and, with Lefévre, one of his young detectives, he engineers a complicated scheme to buy more time before the transfer. How should Verjeat play out his values of honor and duty?

A story centered on a man who works as an informant for the French border patrol.

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.

Carré is the boss of the BRB (Brigade for the Repression of Banditry). 3 years earlier, he arrested a big mobster, Kancel. Today, thanks to an extraction, Kancel kidnaps the cop. He has 96 hours to elicit a single information: know who gave him.

After going to extremes to cover up an accident, a corrupt cop's life spirals out of control when he starts receiving threats from a mysterious witness.

Journalist Denis Robert sparked a storm in the world of European finance by denouncing the murky operations of banking firm Clearstream. His quest to reveal the truth behind a secret world of shadowy multinational banking puts him in contact with an ever-expanding anti-corruption investigation carried out by Judge Renaud Van Ruymbeke. Their paths will lead them to the heart of a political/financial intrigue, which will rock the foundations of Europe and the French government itself.

A Secret Service Agent is held captive in the trunk of a car and endures high-speed mental and physical torture as terrorists attempt to extract needed information for their sinister plot.

Marco returns to Paris after his brother-in-law's suicide, where he targets the man his sister believes caused the tragedy – though he is ill-prepared for her secrets as they quickly muddy the waters.

Vincent, a police officer, and his partner Manuel steal a large amount of cocaine from José Marciano, a ruthless crime lord who is quick to seek revenge, endangering Vincent's life, career and family.

Simon, a Jewish police inspector, arrests Karim, a Muslim, in the bust of a drug smuggling cargo ship, only to realize that Karim is an undercover agent from the military intelligence, whose mission he was not aware of. The two men pursue the narc investigation, which will lead them to confront middle eastern terrorists together.

When he and his pregnant wife are attacked in their home, a former elite agent becomes trapped in a deadly manhunt tied to his own painful past.

Two young women find themselves struggling to survive in Paris, street-wise Nathalie, a stripper, and naïve Sandrine, a barmaid. Together, they discover that sex can be used to their advantage, and pleasure.

Three officers are tasked with escorting an illegal immigrant to Charles de Gaulle airport, where he will be forced onto a plane and sent back to his homeland. But when they find out about the truth, they have to make a difficult choice.

When a shadowy CIA agent uncovers damning agency secrets, he's hunted across the globe by a sociopathic rogue operative who's put a bounty on his head.

An FSB officer falls in love with his agent, an American woman who works as a trader in a Russian bank.

When two girls go missing, Paul Chartier, an impulsive young police recruit, is assigned to “Maldoror”. This secret unit has been set up to monitor a dangerous sex offender. When the operation fails, fed up with the limits of the legal system, Chartier embarks on a solitary hunt to bring down the culprits.

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.

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.

Harris, a CIA interrogator at an Agency black site, finds himself the target of a rendition operation after being scapegoated for an interrogation gone horribly wrong. As the team tasked to bring Harris in begins to question their orders -- and each other --Olsen, a senior intelligence officer, and his subordinate, Visser, raise the stakes. Now, it's up to Harris and some newfound allies to uncover the truth and turn the tables.

Mangin, a police inspector in Paris, leans hard on informants to get evidence on three Tunisian brothers who traffic in drugs. He arrests one, Simon, and his girl-friend Noria. Simon's brothers go to their lawyer. He springs Noria, who promptly steals 2 million francs that belong to the Tunisians. They suspect her of the theft; her life as well as the lawyer's is in danger. Meanwhile, Noria is playing with both the lawyer and Mangin's affections. Mangin is mercurial anyway: intimidating and bloodying suspects, falling for a police commission trainee before flipping for Noria, wearing his emotions on his sleeve. Can he save the lawyer and Noria, and can he convince her to love?

Beneath Anna Poliatova's striking beauty lies a secret that will unleash her indelible strength and skill to become one of the world's most feared government assassins.

Paris, December. A conductor of a choir is found mysteriously murdered, with burst eardrums. Lionel Kasdan, a police inspertor the verge of retirement, and Frank Salek, an official of Interpol, embark together on a hunt for the killer, and also to a secret organization specializing in kidnapping children.

In the sterile setting of a powerful multinational, a ruthless corporate executive and her ambitious protégée bare their claws in a vicious battle for supremacy.

The true story of British intelligence whistleblower Katharine Gun who—prior to the 2003 Iraq invasion—leaked a top-secret NSA memo exposing a joint US-UK illegal spying operation against members of the UN Security Council. The memo proposed blackmailing member states into voting for war.

Two seemingly happily married French couples are forced to contend with a number of issues.

A rich industrialist is brutally kidnapped. While he physically and mentally degenerates in imprisonment, the kidnappers, police and the board of the company of which he is director negotiate about the ransom of 50 million euro.

In the near future, Paris is divided into three zones that separate social classes, and no one can escape ALMA, a predictive AI that has revolutionized law enforcement. When ALMA’s creator is assassinated, Salia, a top agent, and Zem, a jaded cop, are forced to work together to solve a murder that may expose the dark secrets of the system they serve.

Jack Ryan, as a young covert CIA analyst, uncovers a Russian plot to crash the U.S. economy with a terrorist attack.

An international assassin known as ‘The Jackal’ is employed by disgruntled French generals to kill President Charles de Gaulle, with a dedicated gendarme on the assassin’s trail.

The war on terror exploded, literally, the day Sarajevo was destroyed by a homemade nuclear device. The leading democracies transformed into total surveillance states, and the developing world has drowned under a wave of genocides. The mysterious American John Paul seems to be behind the collapse of the world system, and it's up to intelligence agent Clavis Shepherd to track John Paul across the wreckage of civilizations and to find the true heart of darkness—a genocidal organ.

Franck and Simon are both good cops. They work as partners. But their lives take a tailspin when Simon, driving drunk, causes a tragic car wreck. A few years later, out of the police, he is forced to take matters into his own hands when his family is in danger.

Elyas, a former Special Forces soldier who has become paranoid since a mission in Afghanistan, is recruited to ensure the safety of Amina and her daughter Nour, 13 years old, both of whom came from the Middle East for the holidays. As he takes office, Elyas senses something is up.

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

A cryptic message from Bond’s past sends him on a trail to uncover a sinister organization. While M battles political forces to keep the secret service alive, Bond peels back the layers of deceit to reveal the terrible truth behind SPECTRE.

One of the members of a gang of thieves commits a serious mistake that force them to work for a ruthless gang of drug dealers, endangering the future of the team, their lives and those of their families.

An international intrigue with terrorists threatening to blow up the presidents of the most powerful countries.

While being transferred to another prison, two convicts - Stéphane Carella and Paul Brandon - effect a miraculous escape. They are pursued across the Verdon Gorge before arriving at an isolated farmhouse whose owner, Laura, offers them sanctuary. Since the death of her husband, Laura has longed to get her own back on the police and she agrees to help Carella and Brandon in their scheme to rob a casino in Nice. After a shoot out with the casino’s owners, Carella realises that not everything is what it seems. Brandon is not what he appears...

Based on a true story. In the 70s, during the last stages of Franco's dictatorship, Txema, a basque construction worker, is arrested because of his connection to some terrorists who have just committed a murder. The secret service see in him an ideal candidate to infiltrate the terrorist band ETA and become a mole, so they try to offer him a deal if he will do so.

An ex-MI6 agent is thrown back into the world of espionage and high stakes to uncover the shocking truth about operations conducted by unknown secret services.

Transferred home after a traumatizing combat mission, a highly trained French soldier uses her lethal skills to hunt down the man who hurt her sister.

An experienced commercial pilot is forced to collaborate with his country's intelligence services to avoid being punished for a serious fault he committed on the job. He is quickly plunged into an underworld of intrigue and extortion that will put his life at risk and he will pay a very high price to escape from it.

A man receives a mysterious email appearing to be from his wife, who was murdered years earlier. As he frantically tries to find out whether she's alive, he finds himself being implicated in her death.

Set in 1899 Paris, a young police sergeant is chosen to infiltrate a group of anarchists, an opportunity he sees to rise through the ranks. However, he soon finds himself becoming attached to the group.

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.

When straight arrow FBI agent Roy Clayton heads up the investigation into a dangerous international conspiracy, all clues seem to lead back to former U.S. Special Operations officer Samir Horn.

A group of counter-terrorism agents are brought in to track down a man who was once the head of their squad, and is believed to have gone rogue.

Cross is an old hand at the CIA who often teams up with Frenchman Jean “Scorpio” Laurier, a gifted freelance operative. After their last mission together, the CIA orders Scorpio to eliminate Cross, leaving him no choice but to obey.

Top special agent Lucinda Kavsky works for a secret part of the CIA. She's given a special assignment but then set up by her own agency.

When an explosion at an oil well threatens hundreds of lives, a crack team is called upon to make a deadly desert crossing with nitroglycerine in tow.

Cairo, 2011. A police officer investigates the murder of a woman in a luxurious hotel in the days leading up to the Egyptian revolution.

Danton and Robespierre were close friends and fought together in the French Revolution, but by 1793 Robespierre was France's ruler, determined to wipe out opposition with a series of mass executions that became known as the Reign of Terror. Danton, well known as a spokesman of the people, had been living in relative solitude in the French countryside, but he returned to Paris to challenge Robespierre's violent rule and call for the people to demand their rights. Robespierre, however, could not accept such a challenge, even from a friend and colleague, and he blocked out a plan for the capture and execution of Danton and his allies.

Captain Sara Bellaiche, from Toulouse Judiciary Police branch, is investigating a go-fast linked to the murder of two teenagers, an investigation led by Richard Cross, from the Paris Criminal Brigade. Forced to collaborate in order to find the murderer and stop the bloody go-fast, Sara and Richard are both thrown in a breathless race against the clock on the roads of Spain and France.

In a Parisian parking lot Sonia finds herself trapped in her car with her son and the daughter of her boyfriend Fred, who has been left outside, powerless to deal with the situation: an anti-tank mine has been set under the car. Sonia is a bomb-disposal expert, who works for a NGO with Fred. She just got back from a mission in Ukraine and, while she's used to face dangerous situations, with the children's lives on the line the stakes have never been higher. Along with colleagues Igor and Camille, who came to the rescue, Sonia and Fred have 30 minutes to defuse the bomb and work out who could be the mastermind behind this. Will they stand united until the end or will the family implode under pressure?

While working undercover as a bodyguard to arms dealer Harry, former-soldier-turned-secret-service-agent Ewan survives a bloody shootout with a member of an Islamic terrorist cell who steals Harry's briefcase full of Semtex explosives and escapes. Ewan's spymasters task Ewan with hunting down the cell members and retrieving the briefcase.

Michael Mason is an American pickpocket living in Paris who finds himself hunted by the CIA when he steals a bag that contains more than just a wallet. Sean Briar, the field agent on the case, soon realises that Michael is just a pawn in a much bigger game and is also his best asset to uncover a large-scale conspiracy.

In November 2009, French security van driver Toni Musulin makes off with nearly 12 million euros, then turns himself over to the authorities a week later.

When the young detective Paul Nerteaux finds the third slashed female corpse of illegal Turkish immigrants, he decides to ask for support to the experienced dark retired detective Jean-Louis Schiffer to chase the serial killer. Together, they infiltrate in the Turkish mafia trying to find the answer to the crimes. Meanwhile, the worker Anna Heymes is being submitted to a brain treatment and has severe headaches and glimpses of memories and visions. When these two parallel events collide, disclose that the Turkish organization "The Wolves" is behind them.


