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Movies like The Operative

Key Features:
Espionage, Undercover operation, Mossad, International intrigue, Female protagonist, Moral ambiguity, Betrayal, Tehran, Spy thriller, Complex relationships, Identity crisis
Tone:
serious, suspense-driven
Target Audience:
Thriller enthusiasts, Espionage fans, International drama aficionados, Character-driven narratives
Emotional Arc:
Intrigue → Suspicion → Despair

The Operative

2019-07-24
The Operative Poster - Find Similar Movies

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.

Genres
Drama, Thriller
Cast
Diane Kruger, Martin Freeman, Cas Anvar, Werner Daehn, Liron Levo, Hadi Khanjanpour, Maria Gnecchi, Julia Schneider, Daniel Wandelt, Lana Ettinger
Crew
Yuval Adler, Yuval Adler
Rating
5.843(239 votes)
The OperativeThe Operative
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Spy
Spy(2015)
6.8

A desk-bound CIA analyst volunteers to go undercover to infiltrate the world of a deadly arms dealer, and prevent diabolical global disaster.



Atomic Blonde
6.4

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.



Spider in the Web
4.9

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



The Patriots
6.599

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.



The Serpent
6.3

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.



The Assignment
5.517

Ace assassin Frank Kitchen is double crossed by gangsters and falls into the hands of rogue surgeon known as The Doctor who turns him into a woman. The hitman, now a hitwoman, sets out for revenge, aided by a nurse named Johnnie who also has secrets.



The Assignment
6.3

Jack Shaw has experienced the terror first-hand. He's a top CIA agent who's tracked international killer-for-hire Carlos "The Jackal" Sanchez for over twenty years and barely survived Carlos' devastating bombing of a Parisian cafe. Now, he finally gets a break when he discovers Carlos' dead ringer: American naval officer and dedicated family man Annibal Ramirez.



All the Old Knives
6.005

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.



The Spy
The Spy(2019)
6.1

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.



Naam Shabana
5.764

Shabana Khan, a special agent, is entrusted with the task of assassinating a deadly arms dealer by the Indian Intelligence Agency.



Duplicity
Duplicity(2009)
5.9

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.



Spy(ies)
Spy(ies)(2009)
5.5

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.



The Recruit
6.4

A brilliant CIA trainee must prove his worth at the Farm, the agency's secret training grounds, where he learns to watch his back and trust no one.



Profile
Profile(2018)
6.9

Looking to investigate recruitment techniques of ISIS to lure women into Syria, a journalist creates a Facebook profile of a Muslim convert. When an ISIS recruiter contacts her online character, she experiences the process first hand.



The Contractor
5.6

Former CIA Operative James Dial is coaxed back into action to kill a terrorist in London, but it all goes wrong and he is forced into hiding, where he meets and befriends a 12 year old girl.



Kandahar
Kandahar(2023)
6.807

After his mission is exposed, an undercover CIA operative stuck deep in hostile territory in Afghanistan must fight his way out, alongside his Afghan translator, to an extraction point in Kandahar, all whilst avoiding elite enemy forces and foreign spies tasked with hunting them down.



The Engineer
6.077

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 Stranger
6.149

Two strangers strike up a conversation on a long journey. However, neither is who they appear to be, each carry secrets that threaten to ruin them — and in the background, one of the nation's largest police operations is closing in.



Scorpio
Scorpio(1973)
6.1

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.



The Debt
The Debt(2010)
6.6

Rachel Singer is a former Mossad agent who tried to capture a notorious Nazi war criminal – the Surgeon of Birkenau – in a secret Israeli mission that ended with his death on the streets of East Berlin. Now, 30 years later, a man claiming to be the doctor has surfaced, and Rachel must return to Eastern Europe to uncover the truth. Overwhelmed by haunting memories of her younger self and her two fellow agents, the still-celebrated heroine must relive the trauma of those events and confront the debt she has incurred.



Damascus Cover
5.574

A spy navigates the precarious terrain of love and survival during an undercover mission in Syria.



The Amateur
6.975

After his life is turned upside down when his wife is killed in a London terrorist attack, a brilliant but introverted CIA decoder takes matters into his own hands when his supervisors refuse to take action.



The Informant
6.185

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



Operation: Endgame
4.961

A battle ensues among two government spy teams in an underground facility after their boss is assassinated.



The Interpreter
6.3

After Silvia Broome, an interpreter at United Nations headquarters, overhears plans of an assassination, an American Secret Service agent is sent to investigate.



Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit

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



Heart of Stone
6.8

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



The Painter
6.079

An ex-CIA operative is thrown back into a dangerous world when a mysterious woman from his past resurfaces. Now exposed and targeted by a relentless killer and a rogue black ops program, he must rely on skills he thought he left behind in a high-stakes game of survival.



Undercover
4.87

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.



Shadow Man
4.3

An intelligence operative discovers that no one is what they seem in the shadowy world of espionage.



Black Widow
6.1

Federal agent Alexandra Barnes believes that Catherine Petersen is a serial killer who marries rich men and then murders them for their money. But since Catherine is seemingly a master of disguise and has multiple identities, Alexandra can't prove anything with conventional detective work. With no other option, she goes undercover, pursuing the same man as Catherine, and hoping that Catherine will slip up and reveal her true identity.



Jason Bourne
6.367

The most dangerous former operative of the CIA is drawn out of hiding to uncover hidden truths about his past.



The Lookout
5.552

When police is about to apprehend a famous gang of bank robbers, an elite sniper opens fire from a roof, thus facilitating the flee of his accomplices. However, one of them is seriously injured, which compromises the plans of the thieves.



Drug War
Drug War(2012)
6.879

A drug cartel boss is arrested in a raid and coerced into betraying his former accomplices as part of an undercover operation.



The Double
5.81

The mysterious murder of a US senator bearing the distinctive trademark of the legendary Soviet assassin 'Cassius', forces retired CIA operative, Paul Shepherson to team with rookie FBI agent, Ben Geary to solve the crime. Having spent his career chasing Cassius, Shepherdson is convinced his nemesis is long dead, but is pushed to take on the case by his former supervisor, Tom Highland. Geary, who wrote his Master's thesis on Shepherdson's pursuit of the Soviet killer, is certain that Cassius has resurfaced.



Torn Curtain
6.6

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.



Möbius
Möbius(2013)
5.725

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



Women of Mafia
5.1

A maligned police officer receives one last chance to save her career when she must break up a crime syndicate by masquerading as one of their own.



Argo
Argo(2012)
7.281

As the Iranian revolution reaches a boiling point, a CIA 'exfiltration' specialist concocts a risky plan to free six Americans who have found shelter at the home of the Canadian ambassador.



Snowden
Snowden(2016)
7.105

CIA employee Edward Snowden leaks thousands of classified documents to the press.



The 355
The 355(2022)
6.043

A group of top female agents from American, British, Chinese, Colombian, and German government agencies are drawn together to try and stop an organization from acquiring a deadly weapon to send the world into chaos.



The Contractor
6.357

After being involuntarily discharged from the U.S. Special Forces, James Harper decides to support his family by joining a private contracting organization alongside his best friend and under the command of a fellow veteran. Overseas on a covert mission, Harper must evade those trying to kill him while making his way back home.



The Losers
6.3

On a mission deep in the Bolivian jungle, a team of elite commandos finds itself on the receiving end of a lethal betrayal. Now presumed dead, the men join forces with a mysterious operative named Aisha to hunt down their enemy and even the score.



Inglourious Basterds

In Nazi-occupied France during World War II, a group of Jewish-American soldiers known as "The Basterds" are chosen specifically to spread fear throughout the Third Reich by scalping and brutally killing Nazis. The Basterds, lead by Lt. Aldo Raine soon cross paths with a French-Jewish teenage girl who runs a movie theater in Paris which is targeted by the soldiers.



Cleanskin
Cleanskin(2012)
5.629

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.



Operation Finale
6.7

In 1960, a team of Israeli secret agents is deployed to find Adolf Eichmann, the infamous Nazi architect of the Holocaust, supposedly hidden in Argentina, and get him to Israel to be judged.



Morgan
Morgan(2016)
5.808

A corporate risk-management consultant must determine whether or not to terminate an artificial being's life that was made in a laboratory environment.



Anna
Anna(2019)
6.7

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.



Black Bag
Black Bag(2025)
6.336

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.



Sacrifice
Sacrifice(2011)
4.445

A tough undercover cop inadvertently gets involved in a dangerous heroin ring when a young defector of the drug trade leaves his five year-old sister in his care.



Allied
Allied(2016)
6.801

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.



Salt
Salt(2010)
6.417

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?"



Cypher
Cypher(2002)
6.627

An unsuspecting, disenchanted man finds himself working as a spy in the dangerous, high-stakes world of corporate espionage. Quickly getting way over-his-head, he teams up with a mysterious femme fatale.



Scribe
Scribe(2016)
5.921

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.



The Double
6.5

An awkward office drone becomes increasingly unhinged after a charismatic and confident look-alike takes a job at his workplace and seduces the woman he desires.



Æon Flux
Æon Flux(2005)
5.639

400 years into the future, disease has wiped out the majority of the world's population, except one walled city, Bregna, ruled by a congress of scientists. When Æon Flux, the top operative in the underground 'Monican' rebellion, is sent on a mission to kill a government leader, she uncovers a world of secrets.



The Killer Elite
5.717

Mike Locken is one of the principal members of a group of freelance spies. A significant portion of their work is for the CIA, and while on a case for them one of his friends turns on him and shoots him in the elbow and knee. His assignment, to protect someone, goes down in flames. He is nearly crippled, but with braces is able to again become mobile. For revenge as much as anything else, Mike goes after his ex-friend.



Infiltration
7.5

Ivan sets off on a dangerous mission into Syria to save his ex-commander Grey after his capture by ISIS. With the help of U.S. military patrols, he succeeds in freeing Grey and attempts to escape the country while being hunted by terrorists.



Shining Through
6.5

Spirited New Yorker Linda Voss goes to work for international lawyer and secret Office of Strategic Services operative Ed Leland just before World War II. As they fall in love, the United States enters the fight against Hitler, and Linda volunteers to work for Ed spying undercover behind Nazi lines. Assigned to uncover information about a German bomb, Linda also has personal motives to fulfill: discovering the fate of her Jewish family members in Berlin.



Ava
Ava(2020)
5.829

A black ops assassin is forced to fight for her own survival after a job goes dangerously wrong.



The Bourne Legacy
6.2

New CIA operative Aaron Cross experiences life-or-death stakes that have been triggered by the previous actions of Jason Bourne.



The Killer
6.58

After a fateful miss, an assassin battles his employers, and himself, on an international manhunt he insists isn't personal.



Extraction
4.5

When a former CIA operative is kidnapped by a group of terrorists, his son learns there is no plan for his father to be saved—so he launches his own rescue operation.



Operation Portugal

Hakim, 35, a friendly neighborhood cop, must infiltrate the Portuguese community for the purpose of an investigation. But can one become Portuguese in three days? Especially when we know that Hakim is a walking disaster at undercover operations. His clumsiness and bad luck turn his many infiltrations into cataclysms. The case is clearly too big for him. Quickly trapped between his feelings and his mission, Hakim, who lives alone with his mother, will discover a community, but also a family.



Harriet the Spy
6

When the secret notebook of a young girl who fancies herself a spy is found by her friends, her speculations make her very unpopular! Can she win her friends back?



Mother Night
6.6

An American spy behind the lines during WWII serves as a Nazi propagandist, a role he cannot escape in his future life as he can never reveal his real role in the war.



Topaz
Topaz(1969)
6

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.



The Foreigner
3.884

This story is about a freelance agent who is the courier of a package from France to Germany. He soon finds that many people want to get their hands on it.



The Interview
6.752

A duel between a suspected murderer and a detective pressed by people who want results. But whose skin is really wanted?



Weekend in Taipei
6.341

A former DEA agent and a former undercover operative revisit their romance during a fateful weekend in Taipei, unaware of the dangerous consequences of their past.



The Numbers Station
5.525

When the moral values of a longtime wetwork black ops agent is tested during his last operation, he receives an unfavorable psych evaluation. Now he is given a break and a seemingly uncomplicated assignment of simply protecting the security of a young female code announcer, code resources and remote station they are assigned to. After an ambush and one phone call later, it becomes a complicated fight for their survival.



Asher
Asher(2018)
5.8

Asher is a former Mossad agent turned gun for hire, living an austere life in an ever-changing Brooklyn. Approaching the end of his career, he breaks the oath he took as a young man when he meets Sophie on a hit gone wrong. In order to have love in his life before it's too late, he must kill the man he was, for a chance at becoming the man he wants to be.



Mercenaries
5.112

A diplomatic official is captured and imprisoned while touring a war zone, so a team of elite female commandos is assembled to infiltrate a women's prison for a daring rescue.



She Walks in Darkness

A young agent leaves everything behind to pose as a member of ETA, risking her life to uncover the terrorists' hideouts in the south of France.



The Mole: Undercover in North Korea

A real-life undercover thriller about two ordinary men who embark on an outrageously dangerous ten-year mission to penetrate the world's most secretive and brutal dictatorship: North Korea.



Special Forces
6.712

Afghanistan. War correspondent Elsa Casanova is taken hostage by the Taliban. Faced with her imminent execution, a Special Forces unit is dispatched to free her. In some of the world’s most breathtaking yet hostile landscapes, a relentless pursuit begins between her kidnappers who have no intention of letting their prey escape them and a group of soldiers who risk their lives in pursuit of their single aim – to bring her home alive. This strong, independent woman and these men of duty are thrown together and forced to confront situations of great danger that inextricably bind them – emotionally, violently and intimately.



Rendition
Rendition(2007)
6.4

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.



The Infiltrator
6.686

A U.S Customs official uncovers a massive money laundering scheme involving Pablo Escobar.



The Courier
7.035

Cold War spy Greville Wynne and his Russian source try to put an end to the Cuban Missile Crisis.



The Net
The Net(2016)
7.3

A poor North Korean fisherman finds himself an accidental defector, and is groomed to be a spy by an ambitious South Korean military officer.



Hanna
Hanna(2011)
6.591

Raised by her father, an ex-CIA agent, in the wilds of Finland, Hanna's upbringing has been geared to making her the perfect assassin. Sent into the world by her father on a mission, Hanna journeys across Europe, eluding agents dispatched after her by a ruthless intelligence operative. As she nears her ultimate target, Hanna faces startling revelations about her existence.



Exterritorial
6.613

When her son vanishes inside a US consulate, ex-special forces soldier Sara does everything in her power to find him — and uncovers a dark conspiracy.



The Quiller Memorandum

After two British Secret Intelligence Service agents are murdered at the hands of a cryptic neo-Nazi group known as Phoenix, the suave agent Quiller is sent to Berlin to investigate.



The Man Between
7.1

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.



My Spy
My Spy(2020)
6.9

A hardened CIA operative finds himself at the mercy of a precocious 9-year-old girl, having been sent undercover to surveil her family.



The Spy Who Loved Me
6.826

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.



The Spy Gone North
7.364

South Korea, 1993. An agent of the National Intelligence Service is sent to Beijing to infiltrate a group of North Korean officials with the ultimate goal of obtaining information about their nuclear program.



Diamond 13
5.242

A cop goes up against his lifelong friend, who has become one of the city's biggest drug traffickers.



The American
5.968

Dispatched to a small Italian town to await further orders, assassin Jack embarks on a double life that may be more relaxing than is good for him.



Quantum of Solace
6.336

Betrayed by Vesper, the woman he loved, 007 fights the urge to make his latest mission personal. Pursuing his determination to uncover the truth, Bond and M interrogate Mr. White, who reveals that the organization that blackmailed Vesper is far more complex and dangerous than anyone had imagined.



The International
6.3

An interpol agent and an attorney are determined to bring one of the world's most powerful banks to justice. Uncovering money laundering, arms trading, and conspiracy to destabilize world governments, their investigation takes them from Berlin, Milan, New York and Istanbul. Finding themselves in a chase across the globe, their relentless tenacity puts their own lives at risk.



The Informer
6.5

In New York, former convict Pete Koslow, related to the Polish mafia, must deal with both Klimek the General, his ruthless boss, and the twisted ambitions of two federal agents, as he tries to survive and protect the lives of his loved ones.



Safe House
6.5

A dangerous CIA renegade resurfaces after a decade on the run. When the safe house he's remanded to is attacked by mercenaries, a rookie operative escapes with him. Now, the unlikely allies must stay alive long enough to uncover who wants them dead.



Police
Police(1985)
6

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?



The Attack
6.8

An Arab surgeon living in Tel Aviv discovers a dark secret about his wife in the aftermath of a suicide bombing.



Body of Lies
6.6

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.



Nathalie...
5.742

Paris doctor Catherine starts to think her husband, Bernard, is having an affair when she hears an unfamiliar woman's message on his voice mail. Hoping to learn more about his extramarital activities, Catherine heads to a strip club, where she hires call girl Nathalie to have a fling with Gerard. As the affair progresses, Nathalie gives Catherine regular status reports, and the relationship between the women evolves from business to personal.



The Salesman
7.251

Forced out of their apartment due to dangerous works on a neighboring building, Emad and Rana move into a new flat in the center of Tehran. An incident linked to the previous tenant will dramatically change the young couple’s life.



The Baader Meinhof Complex

When German police viciously quell a protest against the shah of Iran, popular journalist Ulrike Meinhof rebels against her dishonest marriage, walks away from her children and joins radical anarchist Andreas Baader. Together with Baader's girlfriend, Gudrun Ensslin, they form the violent Red Faction Army, and together perpetrate a slew of terrorist attacks as a way of disrupting the fabric of what they see as an increasingly fascist state.

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