Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

"How do you find an enemy who is hidden right before your eyes?"

2011 2h 7m EN

👍

6.6

SOLID

★6.6TMDB · 3,024

DramaThrillerMystery

Synopsis

Spoiler shield

George Smiley, the aging master spy of the Cold War and once heir apparent to Control, is brought back out of retirement to flush out a top level mole within the Circus. Smiley must travel back through his life and murky workings of the Circus to unravel the net spun by his nemesis Karla 'The Sandman' of the KGB and reveal the identity of the mole before he disappears.

“How do you find an enemy who is hidden right before your eyes?”

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Cast

Gary Oldman
George Smiley
Colin Firth
Bill Haydon
Tom Hardy
Ricki Tarr
John Hurt
Control
Toby Jones
Percy Alleline
Mark Strong
Jim Prideaux
Benedict Cumberbatch
Peter Guillam
Ciarán Hinds
Roy Bland

Credits

Behind the camera

Director: Tomas Alfredson
Writers: Peter Straughan, Bridget O'Connor
Languages: English, French, Hungarian, Russian, Turkish
Countries: Germany, United Kingdom, France

Want more? Switch to Cinephile mode in the header for DP, composer, budget, box office, production companies, keywords, and release history.

Did you know?

Fun facts 🍿

1 / 8

ERA

Did you know

Released 15 years ago.

MoodPlayr · trivia#01

2 / 8

WORLD

Did you know

Dialogue crosses 5 languages: English, French, Hungarian, Russian, Turkish.

MoodPlayr · trivia#02

3 / 8

WORLD

Did you know

International production across 3 countries: Germany, United Kingdom, France.

MoodPlayr · trivia#03

4 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Directed by Tomas Alfredson, shot by Hoyte van Hoytema. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.

MoodPlayr · trivia#04

5 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Original score by Alberto Iglesias. Worth a dedicated listen after — most great films lose half their impact without the score.

MoodPlayr · trivia#05

6 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Editor Dino Jonsäter shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.

MoodPlayr · trivia#06

7 / 8

ERA

Did you know

Gary Oldman and Colin Firth and Tom Hardy carry the top of the cast.

MoodPlayr · trivia#07

8 / 8

FACT

Did you know

Marketing tagline: "How do you find an enemy who is hidden right before your eyes?".

MoodPlayr · trivia#08

Cinephile deep dive

The take

Tomas Alfredson directs. Hoyte van Hoytema behind the camera. Alberto Iglesias scores. Dino Jonsäter cuts. Profitable at the box office. Produced in Germany, United Kingdom, France. Dialogue in English, French, Hungarian, Russian, Turkish.

Trivia

Things worth knowing

1Released 15 years ago.
2Dialogue crosses 5 languages: English, French, Hungarian, Russian, Turkish.
3International production across 3 countries: Germany, United Kingdom, France.
4Directed by Tomas Alfredson, shot by Hoyte van Hoytema. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.
5Original score by Alberto Iglesias. Worth a dedicated listen after — most great films lose half their impact without the score.
6Editor Dino Jonsäter shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.
7Gary Oldman and Colin Firth and Tom Hardy carry the top of the cast.
8Marketing tagline: "How do you find an enemy who is hidden right before your eyes?".
9IMDB entry: tt1340800 — still the authoritative cross-reference for credits and trivia.
10Classified under 14 themes, including "london, england", "budapest, hungary", "espionage", "spy".
11Released under 24 different titles around the world.

The technical file

Cinematography: Hoyte van Hoytema
Original score: Alberto Iglesias
Editing: Dino Jonsäter
Production design: Maria Djurkovic
Costume design: Jacqueline Durran
Makeup / hair: Lizzie Lawson
VFX supervisor: Sirio Quintavalle
Sound: Howard Bargroff
Runtime: 127 min · 2h 7m
Aspect ratio (typical): 1.37:1 (Academy)
Status: Released
Budget: $30,000,000
Box office: $81,515,369
Return: 272% of budget
Original language: EN
Certification (US): R
IMDB: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011)

Awards

European Film Award for Best Production Designer
European Film Award for Best Composer

Individual records documented via Wikidata; the summary above may count more.

Also by

Tomas Alfredson

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Trailers & featurettes

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Community reviews

What people are saying

Kenneth Axel Carlsson2014-12-25
★ 8/10
The russians have placed a mole within the Circus (who is the british intelligence service, by the way). George Smiley (Gary Oldman), having been fired from the Circus, has now been rehired (secretly) to find the mole. He assembles his small team and begins to look into the matters. The possibilities are plenty, Percy (Toby Jones), Esterhase (David Dencik), Roy Bland (Ciaran Hinds) and Bill Haydon (Colin Firth). His old friend, Control (John Hurt), even suspected George himself of being the mole. This movie is directed by a personal favorite of mine, Tomas Alfredson, who also created the vampire movie, Let the Right One In (Lad den rette komme ind), as well as the amazing, Four Shades of Brown (fire nuancer af brun). He is a master of creating a dark and mysterious atmosphere, and does exactly that in this movie. The pace is slow, the music is scarce and the colours are old and faded, perfect for a spy movie such as this. Watching this movie is like watching a puzzle being carefully put together in front of you. It takes time to get it just right, and you have to look carefully at all the pieces. Good things takes time, and this movie understands that. The viewer has to watch carefully, because it constantly goes from the present and into the past. People who have died, are resurrected in the memories of the past, to help us construct the final image. Last words... this movie will not appeal to everyone, it requires the viewer to be active, watch carefully, and to appreciate the slow narrative. I will gladly admit that I have tried watching this movie three times before I finally succeeded in watching all of it. I am not normally a fan of these sort of movies, but I can always appreciate spectacular acting, and the craftmanship of a truly great director, and so, this movie becomes so much more than just a spy movie. It becomes a movie about people living on the edge of a war, trying to survive, trying to find the one threat that might break down the wall and destroy the british empire.
r96sk2020-09-05
★ 8/10
Great cast, nice cinematography and a fascinating plot. <em>'Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy'</em> is very much a slow burn but it's worth it at the end, even if I wouldn't describe the premise as unpredictable - it isn't predictable per se, I just can't say I was majorly surprised at what occurs that's all. It's not as complicated as the film suggests I feel, that's not a criticism but I'm just saying if I wrote down what I thought was going to happen at the start and checked it at the end, I'd be mostly right - at least with an outline. That's not me being big headed, I just feel it throws a lot of false curve balls to go around the houses a tad. The only part, to be honest, I didn't fully get while watching was the Polyakov bits. All the cast give excellent performances, with Gary Oldman (Smiley) and Colin Firth (Haydon) standing out most. You've also got Tom Hardy (Tarr), Mark Strong (Prideaux), Benedict Cumberbatch (Guillam), Stephen Graham (Westerby) and Toby Jones (Alleline) all there too. You can't really go wrong with a list like that. The onscreen talent carry events, but this is still a film that keeps you watching and paying attention - just not to a deep, deep level. With everything said, I still enjoyed this. You should definitely give it a view.
Filipe Manuel Neto2022-06-18
★ 6/10
Despite a great cast and good script material, the film is tiring, stagnant, a bit gray and boring to watch. This film is a remake of an older film from 1973 (I haven't seen it yet, but I intend to), both of which are film adaptations of a spy novel that was written by John Le Carrée. Being the original story known for its quality and this film being an elaborate super production and with a cast full of established names, I was expecting a great film… but the truth is that I felt disappointed in that expectation. The movie is not as interesting and good as I would have liked. In fact, the film has a lot of well-known actors, with the strongest and most impactful performance given to us by an experienced Gary Oldman. The actor regained his native English accent and was able to masterfully adapt to the character, fully deserving the Oscar nomination for Best Actor he received that year. Besides him, Toby Jones and Colin Firth were also in great shape in this film, but Benedict Cumberbatch, John Hurt and Tom Hardy are not far behind them. The story is relatively simple: in the midst of Cold War intrigue, MI6 tried to help a Soviet officer defect in Budapest. This officer knew the identity of a double agent, undercover in the British services. However, the operation goes very badly and it becomes evident to the leaders of MI6 that there really are one or more traitors, very well placed within the secret service. To find out who they are, they call in George Smiley, a retired agent with a lot of experience. On a technical level, I can't help but appreciate the dark cinematography and the way it tries to recreate the dirty, foggy and somewhat paranoid atmosphere of Cold War London, in addition to the atmosphere of British houses of that time and all the effort of the set and costumes. The film is effective in its effort to transport us to the time and context, and manages to place itself in a pleasantly paranoid environment, where everyone is suspicious of everyone else. It's not an action movie and, therefore, the effects are few and discreet, functional. Despite strong performances from the cast and excellent source material and well-written script, the film has two main issues: atmosphere and pacing. Tomas Alfredson deliberately slowed the film, and that makes the film tiresome and boring, if you add the lack of movement, the endless dialogue, the way each action and movement takes as long as possible in front of the camera. Also, one has to be very attentive to the names of the various characters, and their role in the film, or we will never understand the plot while watching the film.