The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1965)

Featured Audience Ratings

• Reid V

  
  Stunning and rich visuals, but the storyline really drags in many parts of the film.

• Stefanie C

  
  decent thriller, full of espionage and counter-espionage. Richard Burton is the ingredient that makes this film work.

• Mister C

  
  Directed by Martin Ritt,"the Spy Who Came In From The Cold" is an adaption of John Le Carre's best selling novel about a reluctant British double agent,offers effectively restrained performance by Richard Burton in the title role;Claire Bloom,as an idealistic British… More
  Directed by Martin Ritt,"the Spy Who Came In From The Cold" is an adaption of John Le Carre's best selling novel about a reluctant British double agent,offers effectively restrained performance by Richard Burton in the title role;Claire Bloom,as an idealistic British communist who becomes the spy's lover during his undercover operation;and Oskar Werner as an East German interrogator. The drab cold war atmosphere is deftly evoked by Oswald Morris's elemental black-and-white photography and the cramped sets designed by Tambi Larsen and Hal Pereira. But Martin Ritt's film means less without its popular foil. Released in 1965,as the same year "The Ipcress File",and the 007 thriller "Thunderball",the fourth of the phenomenally successful James Bond films starring Sean Connery,"the Spy Who Came In The Cold" consistently positions itself as a rebuke to the glamourous,action movie ethos of the Bond films:no fancy gadgets or bikini-clad beauties here,only a pinched and dingy universe in which the moral compass spins without direction. If Ritt has a limtation as a director,it is his tendency to use drama to demonstrate,to turn his characters into masterpieces for the moral and political values he wants to compare and contrast. For a film about ambiguity-do the actions of Burton's character make him a hero or a dupe or a man who just froze up during his mission. Of one of the most interesting films of the mid-1960's,"The Man Who Came In From The Cold" ultimately seems pat and predictable but well done.

• Michael G

  
  A spy movie that's more along the lines of the dull Tom Clancy stories with little to no action. Okay, maybe not that bad but with the word Spy in the title don't expect a James Bond flick or a Bourne movie.

• Grifty G

  
  Probably made because Bond movies had made the spy genre big business, but this film is the opposite of Bond. Spy work is much more about information exchange than fistfights and car chases. Richard Burton is sent into the field to pose as a disgruntled, broke, alchoholic ex-CIA… More
  Probably made because Bond movies had made the spy genre big business, but this film is the opposite of Bond. Spy work is much more about information exchange than fistfights and car chases. Richard Burton is sent into the field to pose as a disgruntled, broke, alchoholic ex-CIA agent so that the Russians will court him as an informer and double agent, and he could misinform them about one of their own agents being a double agent himself. A film that benefits from learning the various character's names, as they are often spoken about behind closed doors. Personally, I was confused at times simply because I hadn't paid as close attention as I should have, but the story became more and more clear as the film went on. A solid cold-war spy thriller if you're looking for something more grounded in reality.

• Emily B

  
  A great cast (Richard Burton, Claire Bloom, Oskar Werner), but the story just didn't keep me interested. Nice cinematography though, very atmospheric.

• Barry L

  
  Absolute cracker. I really love the cold war spy films.

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