The James Bond franchise focuses on the titular character, a fictional British Secret Service agent created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels and two short-story collections. Since Fleming's death in 1964, eight other authors have written authorised Bond novels or novelisations: Kingsley Amis, Christopher Wood, John Gardner, Raymond Benson, Sebastian Faulks, Jeffery Deaver, William Boyd, and Anthony Horowitz. The latest novel is With a Mind to Kill by Anthony Horowitz, published in May 2022. Additionally Charlie Higson wrote a series on a young James Bond, and Kate Westbrook wrote three novels based on the diaries of a recurring series character, Moneypenny.
Spy fiction is a genre of literature involving espionage as an important context or plot device. It emerged in the early twentieth century, inspired by rivalries and intrigues between the major powers, and the establishment of modern intelligence agencies. It was given new impetus by the development of fascism and communism in the lead-up to World War II, continued to develop during the Cold War, and received a fresh impetus from the emergence of rogue states, international criminal organizations, global terrorist networks, maritime piracy and technological sabotage and espionage as potent threats to Western societies. As a genre, spy fiction is thematically related to the novel of adventure, the thriller and the politico-military thriller.
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 spy film, also known as the spy thriller, is a genre of film that deals with the subject of fictional espionage, either in a realistic way or as a basis for fantasy. Many novels in the spy fiction genre have been adapted as films, including works by John Buchan, le Carré, Ian Fleming (Bond) and Len Deighton. It is a significant aspect of British cinema, with leading British directors such as Alfred Hitchcock and Carol Reed making notable contributions and many films set in the British Secret Service.
Q is a character in the James Bond films and novelisations. Q is the head of Q Branch, the fictional research and development division of the British Secret Service charged with oversight of top secret field technologies.
Spy Kids is an American media franchise centered on a series of spy action comedy films created by Robert Rodriguez. The plot follows various children, who discover that their respective parents are spies and become involved in an espionage organization when their parents go missing. The films include Hispanic themes, as Rodriguez is of Mexican descent.
Thriller is a genre of fiction with numerous, often overlapping, subgenres, including crime, horror, and detective fiction. Thrillers are characterized and defined by the moods they elicit, giving their audiences heightened feelings of suspense, excitement, surprise, anticipation and anxiety. This genre is well suited to film and television.
Joe 90 is a British science fiction television series created by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson and filmed by their production company, Century 21, for ITC Entertainment. It follows the exploits of nine-year-old schoolboy Joe McClaine, who becomes a spy after his adoptive father invents a device capable of recording expert knowledge and experience and transferring it to another human brain. Armed with the skills of the world's top academic and military minds, Joe is recruited by the World Intelligence Network (WIN) as its "Most Special Agent".
A licence to kill, or license to kill in American English, is a licence granted by a government or government agency to a particular operative or employee to initiate the use of lethal force in the delivery of their objectives. The initiation of lethal force is in contrast to the use of lethal force in self-defence or the protection of life. It is well known as a literary device used in espionage fiction.
A science fiction Western is a subgenre or cross-genre that uses traditional Western plots and settings, while incorporating science fiction elements such as futuristic technology or aliens. The post-apocalyptic Western and steampunk Western fall within this subgenre.
You Only Live Twice is a 1967 spy film and the fifth in the James Bond series produced by Eon Productions, starring Sean Connery as the fictional MI6 agent James Bond. It is the first Bond film to be directed by Lewis Gilbert, who later directed the 1977 film The Spy Who Loved Me and the 1979 film Moonraker, both starring Roger Moore. The screenplay of You Only Live Twice was written by Roald Dahl, and loosely based on Ian Fleming's 1964 novel of the same name. It is the first James Bond film to discard most of Fleming's plot, using only a few characters and locations from the book as the background for an entirely new story.
A shoe phone is a shoe that has a telephone within it. Though there is no specific evidence that spies or those involved in espionage actually used shoe phones, they were popularised by fictional spies in television shows, most notably the television series Get Smart. Modern mobile phone technology has allowed for the development and production of working shoe phones.
Eurospy film, or Spaghetti spy film, is a genre of spy films produced in Europe, especially in Italy, France, and Spain, that either sincerely imitated or else parodied the British James Bond spy series feature films. The first wave of Eurospy films was released in 1964, two years after the first James Bond film, Dr. No, and in the same year as the premiere of what many consider to be the apotheosis of the Bond series, Goldfinger. For the most part, the Eurospy craze lasted until around 1967 or 1968. In Italy, where most of these films were produced, this trend replaced the declining sword-and-sandal genre.
Codename: Kyril is a 4-part British miniseries, first broadcast in 1988 over two consecutive nights. It is a Cold War espionage drama, starring Ian Charleson, Edward Woodward, Denholm Elliott, Joss Ackland, and Richard E. Grant. The spy thriller was directed by Ian Sharp, and the screenplay was written by John Hopkins, from a 1981 novel by John Trenhaile. The fairly complex plot concerns a known Russian spy ("Kyril") sent to the UK under falsely reported pretenses in order to hopefully indirectly spark an unknown mole in the KGB to reveal himself; the endeavor eventually has repercussions which none of the initial players could have predicted.
Alex Rider is a British spy thriller television series based on the novel series of the same name by Anthony Horowitz. Adapted by Guy Burt, it stars Otto Farrant as the eponymous character, who is recruited by a subdivision of MI6 as a teenage spy to undertake espionage missions. The series is Amazon's first scripted British Amazon Original series. The show is jointly produced by Eleventh Hour Films and Sony Pictures Television, and is the second screen adaptation of the novels, following the 2006 feature film version of the first novel, Stormbreaker.
