With The Recruit’s second season riding high in Netflix’s global top 10 this month, over 6 million viewers have had their appeтιтes whetted for more all-out espionage action. Following its season 1 missions in Geneva and Prague, the CIA-based spy thriller series starring Noah Centineo has now taken agency lawyer-turned-spy Owen Hendricks to Korea, and into direct conflict with the Korean National Intelligence Service. He wouldn’t be the first secret agent to face this kind of problem, though.
There are plenty of classic espionage movies about agency operatives going international, whether for the CIA or another similar organization. However, these don’t include the forgettable 2000s action movie from which The Recruit takes its name, starring Al Pacino and Colin Farrell. Not only is the movie version of The Recruit set entirely on the East Coast of the United States, but it lacks the verve, intrigue, and climactic action sequences of its streaming counterpart. However, there are several movies that do indeed work as companion pieces for the TV show.
10
Spy Game
2001
Action thriller specialist Tony Scott directed this twist-heavy blockbuster from the turn of the century. It stars Robert Redford as a CIA operative to try and retrieve a foreign-based “ᴀsset”, played by Brad Pitt, who’s been captured in China. What develops is a tale of mutual mistrust between the ᴀsset and the agent tailing him, much like the relationship between Hendricks and Alex in The Recruit’s first season.
Redford gives his best action performance for decades as veteran operative Nathan Muir, while the movie’s ending is sublimely executed. Spy Game might be more about intrigue than full-throttle action for most of its two-hour runtime, but it does an excellent job of building tension towards its spectacular final crescendo.
9
Salt
2010
Like season 2 of The Recruit, 2010 spy movie Salt begins in Korea, although on the other side of the North-South divide from where Hendricks ends up. However, Angelina Jolie’s CIA operative Evelyn Salt’s main concern is with Russia, as she’s suspected of being a KGB agent.
In The Recruit‘s second season, Owen Hendricks is ᴀssigned a new case in South Korea. In Salt, Evelyn Salt is imprisoned in North Korea for being a US spy.
In this way, Jolie’s character mirrors the ambiguous position of The Recruit’s Max Meladze. Like Max, Salt began her life in the Soviet Union, and knows her way around a gun. This movie is all about the action, and it’s more enjoyable once certain less believable aspects of its plot are left to one side. At its best, though, Salt gives The Recruit a run for its money in visual terms.
8
Body of Lies
2008
Ridley Scott’s counterterrorism thriller Body of Lies was one of several attempts he made at genre filmmaking during the noughties, with varying degrees of success. Luckily, in this case the legendary director executes his take on the spy genre, aided by a stellar central performance from Leonardo DiCaprio.
“Ridley Scott gives us an excellent sense of what a close-up view of the war on terrorism is like.” – Vic Holtreman – ScreenRant’s review of Body of Lies
DiCaprio’s CIA agent Roger Ferris spends most of the movie searching the Middle East searching for a known terror suspect. His mission is depicted with the gritty realism Scott applied to Black Hawk Down earlier in the decade, while no expense seems to have been spared on stunning location shoots. This forgotten thriller is well worth discovering.
7
The Good Shepherd
2006
Robert De Niro’s second and most recent effort as director sees Matt Damon as a senior CIA agent embroiled in Cold War counter-espionage against the Soviet Union. Although The Good Shepherd’s geopolitical pretensions are hammed up a little, the movie is still a riveting watch, which imbues its backroom conversation scenes with the sense of mistrust and paranoia we get from Hendricks’ CIA meetings in The Recruit.
It’s important not to read too much into the film’s historical background. The Good Shepherd has been widely criticized for its historical inaccuracies. But taken at face value, it’s a well-rendered spy movie recommended by real CIA agents, that will satisfy anyone who watches The Recruit for its quieter moments of intrigue.
6
The Man From U.N.C.L.E.
2015
The Man from U.N.C.L.E. is Guy Ritchie’s remake of another Cold War story, the 1960s TV show of the same name. Predictably, Ritchie’s direction sets the tone for a movie that makes the perfect match for The Recruit. Henry Cavill gives his best James Bond audition as the central hero, CIA agent Napoleon Solo, while Armie Hammer excels as would-be villain Illya Kuryakin.
Both of them are after a woman born on the eastern side of the Iron Curtain, a major plot focus that The Man from U.N.C.L.E. has in common with The Recruit. Otherwise, this is probably the movie that fans of the Netflix series will have the most fun with, as it delivers its substance with a near-identical swagger.
5
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
2011
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy might not center on the CIA, but it’s a modern masterpiece of spy cinema that pitches its complex web of espionage storytelling to strike all the right notes with fans of the genre. The movie isn’t as action-heavy as some of the others on this list, but it doesn’t need to be. The action appears at the perfect moments to break the tension, or even better, raise the suspense to a fever pitch.
Watching Gary Oldman, Tom Hardy, Colin Firth and co. untangle the web of subterfuge in this expert adaptation of John le Carré’s classic novel is, of course, a joy in itself. But the period details, understated glamor, and majestic musical score of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy help elevate it above its peers.
4
Three Days Of The Condor
1975
Like Owen Hendricks, Joe Turner was never supposed to be a field operative for the CIA. Robert Redford’s тιтular “Condor” in Three Days of the Condor is a codebreaker who’s meant to be consigned to his office in New York. His world is turned upside down by an unexpected infiltration of his agency, however, leading him down a rabbit hole of unexpected espionage.
If fans of The Recruit want to see a ’70s version of Noah Centineo’s character, they should watch these three days in the life of Redford’s Joe Turner.
This classic spy movie feels like a major source of inspiration for The Recruit. If fans want to see a ’70s version of Noah Centineo’s character in the Netflix show, they should watch these three days in the life of Redford’s Joe Turner, which offer a similar tale of a man getting more than he bargained for when he gets drawn into the world of espionage.
3
Bridge of Spies
2015
Bridge of Spies brings together a galaxy of talent, with Steven Spielberg directing a script co-written by the Coen Brothers and played out onscreen by Tom Hanks, Mark Rylance, Alan Alda and Amy Ryan. The result is understandably electrifying, offering an immersive look into the inner workings of Cold War espionage.
Bridge of Spies is based on the true story of James B. Donovan, the American lawyer who negotiated a prisoner exchange between the United States and the Soviet Union in 1962.
This movie is arguably the pinnacle of the spy genre in the 21st century, and a must-watch for anyone who’s gotten hooked on modern spy thrillers following The Recruit’s second season. What Bridge of Spies lacks in gunfights, it makes up for in the genuine peril faced by prisoners of war on both sides of the Berlin Wall.
2
Sicario
2015
Sicario is a razor-sharp action thriller movie, with each of its superbly executed fight scenes hinging on a plot twist that perfectly serves its story. This is the spy film for fans of The Recruit looking for a story with duplicitous characters and plotlines liable to turn into their opposite in a single, unexpected instant.
It helps that the entire cast of Sicario put in powerhouse performances, from Emily Blunt and Daniel Kaluuya’s surprisingly adept portrayals of action heroes, to Jon Bernthal’s scene-stealing supporting role. The movie is relentlessly thrilling for its entire two-hour runtime, scarcely pausing for breath before its heartstopping finale. It should be on the watchlist of any cinema fan who hasn’t seen it, regardless of its genre.
1
North By Northwest
1959
Alfred Hitchcock’s masterful thriller North by Northwest combines the mistaken idenтιтy subgenre with Cold War intrigue and the original supervillain’s lair atop Mount Rushmore, for what could be the director’s most entertaining movie. Like The Recruit’s Hendricks, the film’s protagonist Roger Thornhill, played by Cary Grant, was never meant to get involved in espionage. Yet when he’s mistaken for someone else, he’s pulled into a mysterious conspiracy against his will.
North by Northwest isn’t just a classic spy adventure. It’s a formative work in the spy movie genre, serving as a key inspiration for the James Bond film series. Now regarded as one of Hitchcock’s best works, it’s a must-see for anyone looking to place The Recruit in the wider context of spy thriller movies and TV shows.
