A list of spy films that are based on books. If a book has been turned into both a film and a TV series (or TV film), then the TV series is included.
This section is empty. You can help by adding to it. (January 2024) |
More to add
# | Film | Date | Director | Country | Source work | Author | Date | Type | TV | Date | Country |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | The Spy | 1914 | Otis Turner | United States | The Spy: A Tale of the Neutral Ground | James Fenimore Cooper | 1821 | Novel | - | - | - |
More to add
# | Film | Date | Director | Country | Source work | Author | Date | Type | TV | Date | Country |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | The Great Impersonation | 1921 | George Melford | United States | The Great Impersonation | E. Phillips Oppenheim | 1920 | Novel | - | - | - |
2 | The 39 Steps | 1935 | Alfred Hitchcock | UK | The Thirty-Nine Steps | John Buchan | 1915 | Novel | - | - | - |
3 | The Great Impersonation | 1935 | Alan Crosland | United States | The Great Impersonation | E. Phillips Oppenheim | 1920 | Novel | - | - | - |
4 | Secret Agent | 1936 | Alfred Hitchcock | UK | Ashenden: Or the British Agent | W. Somerset Maugham | 1928 | Novel | Ashenden | 1991 | UK |
5 | The Great Impersonation | 1942 | John Rawlins | United States | The Great Impersonation | E. Phillips Oppenheim | 1920 | Novel | - | - | - |
6 | The 39 Steps | 1959 | Ralph Thomas | UK | The Thirty-Nine Steps | John Buchan | 1915 | Novel | - | - | - |
7 | The 39 Steps | 1978 | Don Sharp | UK | The Thirty-Nine Steps | John Buchan | 1915 | Novel | - | - | - |
* BBC mini-series
In March 2015, shooting wrapped on the film adaptation, Damascus Cover of Howard Kaplan's novel The Damascus Cover set in 1989 at the fall of the Berlin Wall, starring Jonathan Rhys Meyers, John Hurt, Jurgen Prochnow and Olivia Thirlby.
# | Film | Date | Director | Country | Source work | Author | Date | Type | TV | Date | Country |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Icon | 2005 | Charles Martin Smith | United States | Icon | Frederick Forsyth | 1996 | Novel | - | - | - |
2 | The Constant Gardener | 2005 | Fernando Meirelles | UK | The Constant Gardener | John le Carré | 2001 | Novel | - | - | - |
Doctor Who is a British science fiction television series broadcast by the BBC since 1963. The series, created by Sydney Newman, C. E. Webber and Donald Wilson, depicts the adventures of an extraterrestrial being called the Doctor, part of a humanoid species called Time Lords. The Doctor travels in the universe and in time using a time travelling spaceship called the TARDIS, which externally appears as a British police box. While travelling, the Doctor works to save lives and liberate oppressed peoples by combating foes. The Doctor often travels with companions.
I, Robot is a fixup collection made up of science fiction short stories by American writer Isaac Asimov. The stories originally appeared in the American magazines Super Science Stories and Astounding Science Fiction between 1940 and 1950 and were then collected into a 1950 publication Gnome Press in 1950, in an initial edition of 5,000 copies.
The Man from U.N.C.L.E. is an American spy fiction television series produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Television and first broadcast on NBC. The series follows secret agents Napoleon Solo, played by Robert Vaughn, and Illya Kuryakin, played by David McCallum, who work for a secret international counterespionage and law-enforcement agency called U.N.C.L.E.. The series premiered on September 22, 1964, and completed its run on January 15, 1968. The program was part of the spy-fiction craze on television, and by 1966 there were nearly a dozen imitators. Several episodes were successfully released to theaters as B movies or double features. There was also a spin-off series, The Girl from U.N.C.L.E., a series of novels and comic books, and merchandising.
The Prisoner is a 1967 British television series created by and starring Patrick McGoohan, with possible contributions from George Markstein. McGoohan portrays Number Six, an unnamed British intelligence agent who is abducted and imprisoned in a mysterious coastal village after resigning from his position. The allegorical plotlines of the series contain elements of science fiction, psychological drama, and spy fiction. It was produced by Everyman Films for distribution by Lew Grade's ITC Entertainment.
Stingray is a British children's science fiction television series created by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson and produced by AP Films (APF) for ITC Entertainment. Filmed in 1963 using a combination of electronic marionette puppetry and scale model special effects, it was APF's sixth puppet series and the third to be produced under the banner of "Supermarionation". It premiered in October 1964 and ran for 39 half-hour episodes.
Ulrich "Uli" Edel is a German film and television director, best known for his work on films such as Last Exit to Brooklyn, Body of Evidence and The Baader Meinhof Complex.
Doctor Who spin-offs refers to material created outside of, but related to, the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who.
Edward Thomas Hardy is an English actor, producer, and screenwriter. After studying acting at the Drama Centre London, he made his film debut in Ridley Scott's Black Hawk Down (2001). He had supporting roles in Star Trek: Nemesis (2002) and RocknRolla (2008), and went on to star in Bronson (2008), Warrior (2011), Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011), Lawless (2012), This Means War (2012), and Locke (2013). In 2015, he starred as "Mad" Max Rockatansky in Mad Max: Fury Road and both Kray twins in Legend, and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role in The Revenant. He has appeared in three Christopher Nolan films: Inception (2010), The Dark Knight Rises (2012) as Bane, and Dunkirk (2017). He has since starred as Eddie Brock/Venom in the film Venom and its 2021 sequel Venom: Let There Be Carnage.
"The Empty Child" is the ninth episode of the first series of the British science fiction television programme Doctor Who, which was first broadcast on BBC One on 21 May 2005. It was directed by James Hawes, and was the first official episode written by Steven Moffat, who previously wrote the Comic Relief mini-episode "The Curse of Fatal Death" in 1999. He would later become the showrunner and main writer of Doctor Who from the fifth to tenth series. "The Empty Child" is the first of a two-part story, which continued and concluded with "The Doctor Dances", on 28 May.
Torchwood is a British science fiction television programme created by Russell T Davies. A spin-off of the 2005 revival of Doctor Who, it aired from 2006 to 2011. The show shifted its broadcast channel each series to reflect its growing audience, moving from BBC Three to BBC Two to BBC One, and acquiring American financing in its fourth series when it became a co-production of BBC One and Starz. Torchwood is aimed at adults and older teenagers, in contrast to Doctor Who's target audience of both adults and children. As well as science fiction, the show explores a number of themes, including existentialism, LGBTQ+ sexuality, and human corruptibility.
Philip Haywood Glenister is an English actor. He is known for his role as DCI Gene Hunt in the BBC series Life on Mars (2006–2007) and its sequel Ashes to Ashes (2008–2010). He also played DCI William Bell in State of Play (2003) and Reverend Anderson in Outcast (2016–2018).
Jenna-Louise Coleman is an English actress. She began her career in television, making her acting debut as Jasmine Thomas in the soap opera Emmerdale in 2005, followed by a recurring role in the BBC school-based drama series Waterloo Road (2009). She made her film debut with a small role in the American superhero film Captain America: The First Avenger (2011), and made appearances on diverse British period miniseries, including Titanic (2012), and Death Comes to Pemberley (2013).
Joseph Hillström King, better known by the pen name Joe Hill, is an American writer. His work includes the novels Heart-Shaped Box (2007), Horns (2010), NOS4A2 (2013), and The Fireman (2016); the short story collections 20th Century Ghosts (2005) and Strange Weather (2017); and the comic book series Locke & Key (2008–2013). He has won awards including Bram Stoker Awards, British Fantasy Awards, and an Eisner Award.
Igal Naor is an Israeli actor, sometimes credited as Yigal Naor.
John Howlett was an English author and screenwriter who lived in Rye, East Sussex.
Children of Earth is the banner title of the third and penultimate series of the British television science fiction programme Torchwood, which broadcast for five episodes on BBC One from 6 to 10 July 2009. The series had new producer Peter Bennett and was directed by Euros Lyn, who had considerable experience on the revived Doctor Who, Torchwood's parent show. The eponymous series is about an organization known as Torchwood which defends the Earth against alien threats. The plot of Children of Earth deals with aliens demanding 10% of the Earth's children, and a related earlier conspiracy 40 years ago; as such, Torchwood is pitted against the British government when the government attempts to conceal its past actions and accede to the present-day aliens' demands. The first, third, and fifth episodes of the serial were written by executive producer Russell T Davies, who also conceived its overall storyline. The third episode was co-written by James Moran whilst the second and fourth were penned by newcomer John Fay.
Thunderbirds is a British science fiction television series created by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson, filmed by their production company AP Films (APF) and distributed by ITC Entertainment. It was made between 1964 and 1966 using a form of electronic marionette puppetry combined with scale model special effects sequences. Two series, totalling thirty-two 50-minute episodes, were filmed; production ended with the completion of the sixth episode of the second series after Lew Grade, the Andersons' financial backer, failed in his bid to sell the programme to American network television.
The Spy is an English-language French espionage streaming television miniseries, created and directed by Gideon Raff, based on the life of Israel's top Mossad spy Eli Cohen, who is portrayed by Sacha Baron Cohen. The series is a production by French company Légende Entreprises for Canal+ and Netflix. OCS is airing the show in France and Netflix is streaming the show internationally outside France. The six-episode miniseries, released on September 6, 2019, on Netflix, was inspired by real-life events. It is based on the book L'espion qui venait d'Israël, written by Uri Dan and Yeshayahu Ben Porat.