25 best spy movies ever

Eye of the Needle (1981)

Typical. Donald Sutherland's spent the first four years of WWII in England, tapping Morse Code messages back to Germany with his nasty Nazi fingers, and when he finally gets something juicy – the D-Day landing locations – he gets shipwrecked before he can Morse it all up.

And that's where this Ken Follett-penned suspense thriller gets thrilling and suspenseful – when the filthy spy washes up on a remote British island and becomes embroiled in a love triangle with Kate Nelligan and her crippled husband, while still trying to contact his Aryan brethren.

The real suspense, of course, in is finding out whether a Canadian playing a German pretending to be an Englishman can possibly keep his accent together until the big finale.