‘Atomic Blonde’ on HBO: The Spy Movie With the Hottest Soundtrack in Years

Last summer’s Atomic Blonde was pretty much a perfect summer movie. Sexy, stylish, a bit of that eastern European chill on a hot summer’s day. And most strikingly, Charlize Theron at her movie-star best, carrying a story about double-agents in the Cold War 1980s. Theron plays Lorraine, a top-level British spy with MI6 who must traverse the wilds of communist East Berlin in order to retrieve a list of assets before it falls into the wrong hands. A pretty standard spy plot, actually, but it’s style that Atomic Blonde has to spare. From Lorraine’s hair and costumes to the viscerally filmed car chases and especially the killer ’80s soundtrack, Atomic Blonde makes damn sure you’re getting a lot of bang for your buck.

Last year, Edgar Wright’s Baby Driver made a lot of noise for a similar stylish attention to its own soundtrack. There, the likes of Beck, Blur, Sam & Dave, and Martha and the Vandellas mingled like they were at the world’s coolest mixer. “Cool” was really the watchword when it came to Baby Driver, which got it a lot of attention, though as with anything cool, it’s perpetuated on the idea that some people “get it” and some don’t. What’s great about the Atomic Blonde soundtrack in particular is that, in the midst of a foreboding atmosphere in Berlin where nobody knows who to trust, there are these familiar tracks we can kind of sink into while (usually) action scenes lay out before us.

Of particular note in the film:

“Major Tom (Coming Home)” – Peter Schilling

Atomic Blonde wastes no time in getting to the action. Lorraine is barely out of the airport and into a car when her would-be handlers turn into enemies and she has to improvise an escape. Set to the German version of the Bowie-referencing “Major Tom.”

“Father Figure” – George Michael

Sexy-but-wrong is kind of the vibe that “Father Figure” tends to bring to the table, so it’s not hard to make this breathy, sexy song fit perpendicular to another scene were Lorraine shows off her talent for swift, brutal violence.

“I Ran” – A Flock of Seagulls

Going a long way to capture this lowkey brilliant song from the “what weird haicuts’ bin of kitschy ’80s history, another bust of ’80s action set to a peppy pop hit.

“Voices Carry” – ‘Til Tuesday

One of the most haunting and resonant ’80s hits, the ability of “Voices Carry” to acclimate to a film like Atomic Blonde only further proves its greatness. Also, it further crowns Aimee Mann as the queen of singing on film.

“Under Pressure” – David Bowie and Queen

What a unexpected but fun way to wind down and process what we’ve learned. “Under Pressure” so often feels like a racheting up of emotions, but those mellow first few minutes actually play great going into closing credits.

Where to stream Atomic Blonde