The best British spy dramas to watch after Slow Horsees

The new season of Slow Horses is all wrapped up, and while you wait impatiently for season five to arrive some time next year, you’re probably itching to satisfy that British spy drama craving. Slow Horses itself is almost a perfect example of the genre, but with a twist. Starring Gary Oldman as the notoriously un-showered Jackson Lamb, head of the castoff MI5 unit known as Slough House, the show delivers classic spy drama thrills, but with a heaping dose of comedy to lighten up the tone throughout.

Slow Horsesfollows a long lineage of British spy stories, going all the way back to Ian Fleming’s James Bond series, and tracing its DNA even more specifically to the work of John le Carré, whose books have received numerous adaptations over the years. Those include classics like The Spy Who Came In from the Cold, The Constant Gardener, and Tinker, Tailor, Soldier Spy.

The world of secret agents is a popular one in British fiction, including on television. Now that Slow Horses is over for the season, here’s a list of some of the best British spy shows you can binge right now.

1 The Night Manager (2016)

A hit le Carré adaptation, with more on the way

Based on the 1993 novel of the same name, The Night Manager stars Tom Hiddleston as Jonathan Pine, a former soldier and manager at a luxury hotel in Cairo. He is recruited by an agent from the Foreign Office, played by Olivia Colman, to infiltrate an illegal arms trade happening at the hotel. That mission has him facing off in a game of wits, power, and subterfuge with arms dealer Richard Roper, played menacingly by Hugh Laurie. The first season also stars Tobias Menzies, Elizabeth Debicki, Tom Hollander, and more.

On top of being a suspenseful spy story, The Night Manager is also sexy and stylish, thanks in no small part to Hiddleston’s well-tailored suits. Audiences agreed, making it the most popular show in the UK in 2016, and earlier this year it was announced the show will be back for a second season, moving beyond le Carré’s original story. Hiddleston will be back for the new season, alongside Olivia Colman, Noah Jupe, Indira Varma, and others.

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2 The Bletchley Circle (2012-2014)

Women take center stage in this historical spy drama

Anna Maxwell Martin stars as Susan Gray, a housewife and mother of two who worked as a codebreaker for British intelligence at the famed Bletchley Park estate during World War II. Now, in 1952, several years after the war’s end, she and three of her fellow female codebreakers reunite to solve a series of murders in London using their skills for recognizing patterns and breaking codes.

More of a mystery series than a spy drama, strictly speaking, The Bletchley Circle nonetheless offers a window into the often unrecognized world of women spies during the war period. In the show, the members of the so-called Bletchley Circle are motivated by recapturing their feeling of usefulness after having served such an important function for the country during the war.

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3 Spooks, aka MI-5 (2002-2011)

The UK’s answer to 24 was a thrilling show about modern counter-terrorism

While Americans were caught up in the adventures of Jack Bauer every week on 24, across the pond, the big, hit spy series was Spooks, broadcast as MI-5 in North America. The show, which ran for ten seasons, plus a movie in 2015, followed agents in the British security intelligence service working to protect the public from terrorism and other national security threats out of their office, known as The Grid.

The series starred Peter Firth as Harry Pearce, who headed up the unit, along with Succession star Matthew Macfadyen, Keeley Hawes, Richard Armitage, David Oyelowo, and many other great British actors over the years it was on the air. With its fast-paced stories and politically complex subject matter, Spooks captured the attention of the British public and has become regarded as a true classic.

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4 A Spy Among Friends (2022)

The story of England’s most infamous double agent is brought to life

Sometimes the truth really is stranger and more compelling than fiction. A Spy Among Friends, adapted from Ben Macintyre’s bestselling non-fiction book, tells the real-life story of Kim Philby a top British Secret Intelligence Service agent who acted as a double agent for the Soviet KGB for almost thirty years.

Guy Pearce stars in the series as Philby, with Damian Lewis as Nicholas Elliott, a close friend and fellow intelligence agent whose life and career are placed in turmoil when Philby’s deception is at last uncovered. Through extensive flashbacks, the series traces the friendship between the two men, and the story of how Philby became the country’s most infamous double agent.

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5 The Little Drummer Girl (2018)

A master filmmaker takes on a John le Carré classic

John le Carré’s The Little Drummer Girl, about a British actress recruited by the Israeli intelligence service Mossad to infiltrate a Palestinian terrorist organization, was previously adapted for the big screen in 1984 with star Diane Keaton to mixed reviews. In 2018, legendary Korean director Park Chan-wook, known for thrillers like Oldboy and Lady Vengeance, helmed a new miniseries adaptation starring Florence Pugh, Michael Shannon, and Alexander Skarsgård.

Along with being both sexy and thrilling, as any great spy drama should be, The Little Drummer Girl is an expertly directed exploration of deeply thorny issues surrounding espionage, terrorism, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and more.

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6 The Prisoner (1967-1968)

One of the best, most influential shows in television history

When it comes to the history of TV, there are a number of shows that stand out for their quality and influence. The Twilight Zone, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Miami Vice, Twin Peaks, The Sopranos, just to name a few. Right up there with the best of them is The Prisoner, the 1967 series created by star Patrick McGoohan, his follow-up to the hit spy show Danger Man. In The Prisoner, Patrick McGoohan plays an intelligence agent who angrily resigns his post, only to have his apartment gassed, putting him to sleep. When he wakes up, everything seems normal, except when he looks out his window he discovers he’s been taken to a mysterious, isolated town known as The Village, where he is given the name Number 6.

Stuck in The Village, which is patrolled by giant killer balloons known as Rovers, Number 6 attempts to escape, all while being constantly controlled, influenced and surveilled by the powers that be, represented by Number 2. With its groovy ’60s style and often psychedelic surrealism, the show was a TV watershed, pushing boundaries of style while intelligently exploring the implications of living in a world defined by espionage and authoritarianism. Many TV writers, including the creators of Twin Peaks, Lost, and more have cited The Prisoner as an influence, and the show even got its own Simpsons parody in the season 12 episode “The Computer Wore Menace Shoes,” which featured McGoohan as a guest star.

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7 The Hour (2011-2012)

Journalism and espionage converge in this period drama

One of the best, most underrated shows of the 2010s, The Hour, created by The Iron Lady scribe Abi Morgan, starred Romola Garai and Ben Whishaw as journalists for a BBC current affairs show in the 1950s. While covering news of the day, like the Suez Crisis, the team at The Hour also begin investigating the murder of a college professor, which leads them down a path to uncovering a plot involving MI6 agents and communist spies.

The second season delved even further into the entangled worlds of journalism and espionage, with a story involving British fascism, NATO summits and more, all culminating in a cliffhanger ending that was sadly never resolved, due to the show’s cancelation. Morgan has suggested over the years that she is trying to revive the show, and long-suffering fans can only hope for its return one day.

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