Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy

Based on the novel by John le Carré, the story focuses on friendship and camaraderie, and the betrayal they enable | Rebecca Cusey

Working Title

Soldiers may enlist for ideological reasons, but, officers say, they actually fight to protect their brothers at their sides. The quiet but intense spy thriller Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy exports this phenomenon to the world of shadow soldiers, spies working in secret during the height of the Cold War.

Gary Oldman stars as Smiley, a senior spy in Britain's MI6 in the 1970s. With his boss Control (John Hurt), Smiley is forced into early retirement after a disastrous mission in Budapest leaves a compatriot dead. As he faces empty rooms in his house—his wayward wife has left him—another operative surfaces. He was believed to have turned sides, but his desperate tale of a mole at the highest levels of the MI6 leads Smiley to investigate his old friends and colleagues.