Brits waste hundreds of hours every year scrolling through<\/strong> streaming services looking for something to watch. Yahoo wants to save you a scroll by recommending one movie <\/strong>\u2014 under two hours long <\/strong>\u2014 that you should watch this week, every Friday<\/strong><\/p>\n By the time you read this, we’ll have all seen the grand finale of Celebrity Traitors<\/a>, which means you’ll already be anxiously awaiting your next fix of betrayal in a Scottish castle.<\/p>\n We can’t give you a castle, but we can give you plenty of betrayal with our recommendation to stream the dense British espionage thriller Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. If you’re in the UK, it’s available for free on BBC iPlayer<\/a>. And there are enough manipulative masterminds here to give even Alan Carr a run for his money. Now there’s a sentence I didn’t think I’d be writing a month ago.<\/p>\n The film is Swedish director Tomas Alfredson’s take on the classic novel by spy specialist \u2014 and actual spy \u2014 John le Carr\u00e9. This was before Alfredson went off to adapt another acclaimed crime novelist and ended up making The Snowman \u2014 one of the worst movies in recent memory. Thankfully, he was on much safer ground with Tinker Tailor, which earned three Oscar nominations and an impressive $81m (\u00a362m) at the box office.<\/p>\n It’s a knotty thriller that balances betrayal on top of betrayal, rewarding audiences who are willing to pay attention. At the centre of it all is Gary Oldman<\/a> as George Smiley \u2014 a senior British intelligence officer tasked with uncovering the identity of a Soviet mole within the service. He teams up with right-hand man Peter Guillam (Benedict Cumberbatch<\/a>) to root around and work out what’s going on.<\/p>\n This is predominantly about suspicious-looking people in dark suits talking in circles around each other while surrounded by clouds of pipe smoke. It doesn’t scream visual dynamism, and there’s certainly none of the visual camp of Claudia Winkleman on the back of a horse in a faux funeral procession. However, in Alfredson’s hands \u2014 combined with a smart script by the late Bridget O’Connor and her husband Peter Straughan \u2014 this is a slick and engrossing thriller, as long as you can keep up with what’s going on.<\/p>\n \ud83d\udcfd\ufe0f Movie:<\/strong> Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011)<\/p>\n \u23f0 Runtime: <\/strong>118m<\/p>\n \ud83c\udfad Actors:<\/strong> Gary Oldman, Colin Firth, Mark Strong, Tom Hardy, Benedict Cumberbatch<\/p>\n \ud83c\udf7f Genre:<\/strong> Spy thriller<\/p>\n \ud83e\udd14 Similar to: <\/strong>Bridge of Spies, Darkest Hour, Body of Lies<\/p>\n \ud83d\udcfa Streaming service:<\/strong> BBC iPlayer<\/a>, Prime Video<\/p>\n \ud83c\udf45 Ratings:<\/strong> 84% on Rotten Tomatoes<\/a>, 3.7\/5 on Letterboxd<\/a>, 7\/10 on IMDb<\/a><\/p>\n The story was already very well-known to British audiences by the time the film came along. Le Carr\u00e9’s novel was a staple, and the BBC mounted an acclaimed TV series adaptation in 1979, with a Bafta-winning Sir Alec Guinness in the lead role as Smiley. Le Carr\u00e9 has called that version his favourite ever take on his work, though he notably makes a cameo appearance in the movie version \u2014 handing it something of a seal of approval.<\/p>\n The movie is a testament to the quality of its screenplay, not to mention the tremendous work of casting director Jina Jay in assembling arguably the most formidable British acting ensemble since the Harry Potter franchise.<\/p>\n Oldman was the one who got an Oscar nomination \u2014 losing out to Jean Dujardin’s crowd-pleasing Gene Kelly homage in The Artist \u2014 for a performance with far more nuance than the jowly-growly take on Churchill that would eventually earn him an Academy Award years later.<\/p>\n Gary Oldman and John Hurt in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. (StudioCanal\/Alamy)<\/p>\n However, despite Oldman hoovering up the acclaim, it was some of the supporting performances that really stood out. Cumberbatch, here in the midst of his Sherlock-induced elevation to superstar status, is tremendous as Smiley’s key ally, while Tom Hardy is brilliantly mercurial \u2014 utilising his unique charisma in a more subtle way than some of his louder later roles.<\/p>\n Elsewhere, reliable old hands abound, with the likes of Colin Firth, Ciar\u00e1n Hinds, Mark Strong, and the late John Hurt making the most of their minutes on screen. Thanks to just about everybody’s national treasure \u2014 or at least burgeoning national treasure \u2014 status, it’s impossible to predict the culprit of the central plot just by virtue of fame, as you often can in whodunnit ensembles.<\/p>\n Inevitably, given the film’s critical and commercial success, sequels were mooted. Producer Eric Fellner was keen and said a sequel involving both Straughan and Alfredson was in active development, but by the time Oldman was promoting Dawn of the Planet of the Apes in 2014, momentum had stalled, and the sequel film seemed unlikely. Two years later, however, Oldman said there was a script and production was imminent, but it never materialised.<\/p>\n Colin Firth as British spy Bill Haydon in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. (StudioCanal\/Alamy)<\/p>\n In the intervening years, the rights to Smiley reverted to Le Carr\u00e9’s estate. Oldman’s producing partner, Douglas Urbanski, told Radio Times<\/a> in 2024 that an “unexpected rights issue” scuppered an adaptation of Smiley’s People, led by the actor. “We’ve reached out, including again recently, to Le Carr\u00e9\u2019s sons and \u2014 the damnedest thing \u2014 they have no interest in Gary playing Smiley again. I don\u2019t know why,” said Urbanski.<\/p>\n
\nWhat is Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy about?<\/h2>\n
\nWhat you need to know<\/strong><\/h2>\n
\nWhy we love it<\/h2>\n
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Did it get a sequel?<\/h2>\n
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