There are some jobs that just beg for the cinematic treatment: detectives, immortal warrior mercenaries, plumbers. You can add spies to that list; over the 100 or so years that we’ve been running moving images through a projector, many more hundreds of films and television series have featured the world-saving antics of secret agents. From James Bond and Jason Bourne to Jack Bauer and plenty of other operatives with different initials, spycraft has become a defining feature of Hollywood.

All that history means you’ve got quite a few different titles to choose from if you’re in the mood for a Spy Show Saturday (or Sunday, or really any of the other non-alliterative days of the week). Whether you’re in the mood for a hard-hitting action movie or a high-flying heist series, you’ve come to the right place. From spies who fight with their fists to those who use their wits to outsmart the enemy, we’ve got an option for everyone. Read on for a top-secret briefing on eight spies you can chase down on Netflix. The countdown to hitting play starts… now. 

Heart of Stone

At first glance, Rachel Stone (Gal Gadot) doesn’t seem like the type of figure to appear on this list: she’s an amateur tech who’s just joined a high-stakes MI6 team. But, as you’ll see when Heart of Stone arrives Aug. 11, there’s more to her than meets the eye — look a little closer and you’ll find a highly trained operative for the Charter, a mysterious group with their own world-saving motives. Using a high-tech algorithm called the Heart to predict and stop global crime, the Charter lurks under the surface of the world’s security network. All of that changes when the Heart comes under attack. Soon, Stone is forced to begin a globe-trotting adventure that will decide whether the algorithm’s power is used for good — or evil.  

Heart of Stone

2023

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The Night Agent

No one wants a mole in their garden — or their government organization. In The Night Agent, a new series from the creator of The Shield, FBI agent Peter Sutherland (Gabriel Basso) answers a distress call that points him in the direction of a double agent. Soon Sutherland is hurled into a deadly conspiracy, and he has to use all his skills to protect Rose Larkin (Luciane Buchanan) from a deadly group of traitors. Also starring Oscar nominee Hong Chau, The Night Agent is a pulse-pounding thrill ride through the dark heart of American power.

The Night Agent

2023

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Treason

Daredevil star Charlie Cox plays an MI6 agent under fire in this 2022 British mini-series. As Adam Lawrence, second-in-command of the British secret service, Cox is hurled into a world of secrets and lies when his boss is poisoned and he’s planted in the driver’s seat of one of the world’s foremost intelligence agencies. Soon, Lawrence will have to choose a side in a growing international conflict — even as the truth of his past begins to loom in the rearview mirror. He deals with all that, along with the pressure of foiling government moles, negotiating tense abductions — and navigating a class full of grade-schoolers who want to know what being a spy is really like. Also starring Oona Chaplin, Olga Kurylenko and Ciarán Hinds, Treason is a five-episode thrill ride created by Matt Charman, the Oscar-nominated co-screenwriter of Steven Spielberg’s own terrific spy flick Bridge of Spies.

Treason

2022

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Red Notice

In his post-wrestling years, Dwayne Johnson has made a career of playing lumbering agents of the law, including 21st-century cowboys like the Fast & Furious saga’s Luke Hobbs or Central Intelligence’s Bob Stone. In Red Notice, Johnson plays FBI agent John Hartley, an expert profiler who meets his match in a pair of notorious art thieves, played by a cunning Gal Gadot and a typically fast-talking Ryan Reynolds. To say any more would reveal too many of Red Notice’s twists and turns, but suffice to say a trio of bejeweled eggs are involved, and quite a few death-defying stunts ensue. 

Red Notice

2021

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The Spy

You probably know Sacha Baron Cohen best as Borat, the bumbling Kazakh journalist who made “my wife” your uncle’s all-time favorite phrase. But Cohen isn’t just a prankster: He’s also acted in films and shows from Martin Scorsese’s Hugo to this 2019 French thriller series. Playing Eli Cohen, a spy for Israel’s Mossad, Cohen (no relation) infiltrates Syrian high society, becoming a close confidant of those in power. As the years stretch on, Cohen risks his life sending intelligence back to Israel, ultimately changing the course of the Six-Day War between the two countries. Based on a true story, The Spy is less explosive than some of the titles on this list; it’s far more focused on backroom dealings and the complex political goals of nation-states on the world stage. Cohen in particular received praise for his work on the series, channeling his chameleonic skills into a more dramatic role. 

The Spy

2019

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The Recruit

It seems like just yesterday that Noah Centineo graduated from high school in To All the Boys: Always and Forever, but in The Recruit he’s already moved on to more adult concerns, like saving the world. Centineo plays CIA lawyer Owen Hendricks, who’s soon dragged from behind his desk and into the deadly realm of international espionage. Before he knows it, he’s escaping from professional assassins and figuring out how to break into a Swiss bank, alongside an escaped CIA asset played by Laura Haddock. That’s not even mentioning all of the intelligence jargon he has to tackle. You know, new job things. Centineo even took a CIA aptitude test for Tudum to see how he’d do in the field; you can take the same test right here. 

The Recruit

2022

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The Gray Man

In The Gray Man, Ryan Gosling plays CIA agent Courtland “Court” Gentry (otherwise known as Sierra Six), a shadowy operative whose cover is blown when he discovers information he shouldn’t have. Soon, the deadly spy is on the run from his own government — and from a sadistic mercenary played by Chris Evans. Featuring an all-star cast that includes Billy Bob Thornton, Ana de Armas, Alfre Woodard, Jessica Henwick, Regé-Jean Page and Dhanush, The Gray Man trashes a plane, a bus and multiple European cities before it finally reaches its one-on-one finale. The Russo brothers, who previously directed the latter two Captain America and Avengers films, brought their chaotic action filmmaking back down to earth for this film: It’s more Winter Soldier than it is Infinity War. 

The Gray Man

2022

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Operation Mincemeat

Based on the true story of the British military operation that helped the Allies take Italy during World War II, Operation Mincemeat is both a spy story and a story about acting itself. In order to fool the Axis powers into believing that the Allies were planning an attack on Greece, British intelligence created falsified documents and planted them on a corpse that they carefully delivered into enemy hands. It’s a spy story that focuses on the unreality of the profession — a secret world that, in Operation Mincemeat, also puts on a show of its own. In the film, Colin Firth, Matthew Macfadyen and Kelly Macdonald play the most prominent operatives. But keep an eye out for musician and actor Johnny Flynn, who pops up as James Bond creator Ian Fleming; before he became a published author, the budding writer played a part in the real-life Operation Mincemeat.

Operation Mincemeat

2022

Remind Me

Action-Packed Movies To Stream Now From The Harder They Fall to Enola Holmes, here are some films to get your heart racing.