6 Best Spy Movies James Bond Fans Need To Watch

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Among James Bond fans, there is a well-established genre known as the non-Bond Bond movie. You might think that 26 official 007 films would be enough to satiate fans of England's greatest spy, but cinema's most enduring franchise has now been running for 65 full years, and evidently a film releasing on an average of every 2.5 years just simply isn't enough for 007 adherents.

Now that Amazon owns the James Bond IP that will surely change, with Bond spin-off ideas likely coagulating in the minds of Amazon execs as I type. While we await the onslaught of 007 media, however, there are several well-established non-Bond Bond movies that can act as solid substitutes for official 007 features. These movies include films that starred former 007 actors in roles that are, in all but name, essentially James Bond and there's even an entry here that fans swear is a secret Bond movie. Elsewhere there are great spy movies that take their cues from Commander Bond's adventures, or films that actually influenced the legendary series itself. So, if the 26 features in the existing canon just aren't enough for you, try these features that every Bond fan needs to see, and decide for yourself if there is indeed an entire secret James Bond canon outside of the established saga.

1962's "Dr. No" kicked off the James Bond franchise, with director Terence Young proving invaluable to the development of the on-screen 007 by infusing the character with his sociable sophistication. But prior to Young coming onboard, Alfred Hitchcock was very much in the running to direct Bond's big screen debut, which isn't hard to believe considering just three years prior he'd overseen what many consider to be the prototypical Bond movie.

1959's "North By Northwest" featured Cary Grant as a protagonist who after being confused for a secret agent is perpetually surprised and perplexed by the events befalling him. That isn't exactly the kind of thing England's greatest spy is known for, but that's about the only thing that separates Hitchcock's thriller from the 007 films. In fact, it's easy to see how "North by Northwest" helped establish a blueprint that the Bond franchise followed, at least in part. Grant's ad executive Roger Thornhill is a dashing, urbane lead, referred to as "a well-tailored one" by Martin Landau's Leonard upon his their first meeting. This, combined with his wisecracking, meant Grant himself helped shaped the future of the Bond franchise. But the ensuing adventure, with its location hopping, iconic landmarks, femme fatale, mysterious villain in his imposing lair, and henchman all combine to make "North by Northwest" worthy of its reputation as a prototypical Bond outing. The helicopter chase scene in "From Russia with Love" is even an homage to the famous crop duster scene from "North By Northwest."

With all this in mind, no list of Bond movies that aren't actually Bond movies would be complete without Hitchcock's 1959 classic.

Sean Connery had a testy relationship with James Bond, a role which proved to be a double-edged sword for the Scottish star. He left the official EON 007 movies behind in the late '60s, only to return for 1971's "Diamonds are Forever." By that point, though, he was, by his own admission, only in it for the paycheck (which he used to fund a charitable organization), the promise of more creative control, and a two-picture deal with United Artists. After "Diamonds are Forever" he departed the franchise for good — sort of.

Though Connery starred in 1983's unofficial Bond film "Never Say Never Again," some fans will claim that his final on-screen Bond performance came with 1996's "The Rock." Michael Bay's actioner saw Connery play SAS Captain John Patrick Mason, who alongside Nicolas Cage's FBI chemical warfare expert character, Stanley Goodspeed, was tasked with taking on an entire squad of Marines holed up on Alcatraz Island. After the disgruntled soldiers threaten to launch chemical weapons at San Francisco, Mason and Goodspeed are sent in to put an end to the whole debacle.

What makes this a perfect movie for Bond aficionados is that Connery is essentially playing an older 007 in "The Rock." He's a former SAS operative turned British intelligence officer, much like Bond was a former Naval commander turned spy, who's been off the radar for some time after being captured by U.S. authorities. This, along with numerous other links between Mason and 007, has lead to an incredible fan theory which not only links this '90s actioner with the James Bond franchise, it posits that "The Rock" is an entire secret James Bond movie. Is the theory sound? You'll have to watch and decide for yourself — especially since this is one of Bay's best movies and a peak example of '90s action.

Just as Henry Cavill was a great Superman who never got a great Superman movie, Pierce Brosnan was a great James Bond who never got a great Bond movie. That is, unless you grew up with "GoldenEye," which for '90s kids remains the quintessential 007 outing. In general, though, Brosnan's run was an exercise in diminishing returns, and when "Die Another Day" — which remains the worst Bond movie on IMDb — almost killed the franchise altogether, the Irish star made a rather ignoble departure.

But if you can use a little imagination, Brosnan actually did get a fair few other chances to prove his worth as Bond. In fact, he might be the 007 star with the most non-Bond Bond movies, from "The November Man" to "The Tailor of Panama." However, his 1999 remake of the 1968 film "The Thomas Crown Affair" remains his best Bond-esque film outside of the official saga.

It might not be a spy movie in the traditional sense, but everything about this heist adventure feels like one. Brosnan plays billionaire Thomas Crown, who after stealing a painting from the Metropolitan Museum of Art finds himself hunted down by the museum's insurance investigator Catherine Banning (Rene Russo). The cat-and-mouse game quickly turns romantic, and with Brosnan exuding all the Bond charm for which he was known, who could have expected anything less? The chemistry between Brosnan and Russo is as palpable as you could ever hope for between Bond and a Bond "girl," and without the one-liners and uneven tone of some of the star's 007 entries, "The Thomas Crown Affair" offers a glimpse at what a more sophisticated Brosnan Bond movie could have been.

After "Dr. No" established James Bond in the public consciousness, the follow-up "From Russia With Love" quickly went into development, during which time writer Len Deighton was brought onboard to help with the screenplay. At the time, Deighton had become a popular thriller writer after the publication of his debut novel, The Ipcress File" which, as Matthew Field noted in his book "Some Kind of Hero: The Remarkable Story of the James Bond Films," was seen as a kind of "anti-Establishment retort to [Ian] Fleming's world."

Deighton was eventually let go from "From Russia with Love" but not before he sold the "Ipcress File" film rights to Bond co-producer Harry Saltzman. By 1965, a movie had materialized with Michael Caine in the lead role of intelligence officer Harry Palmer, who's charged with investigating why scientists are being taken captive and brainwashed. Like Bond, Palmer is insubordinate but in a much more direct way. What's more, unlike his more famous counterpart, Caine's spy has a criminal past. The movie itself also lacks the glamor of a Bond movie, and was even labelled "anti-Bond" by Variety, with the outlet summing up the film as "rather more true to the facts of intelligence life than the Bond world of fantasy."

It might not match the 007 films outright, then, but "The Ipcress File" is an intriguing take on the spy genre that clearly took its cues from England's greatest spy. What's more, aside from being produced by a legendary Bond producer, the film also features contributions from other 007 alums, including production designer Ken Adam and composer John Barry. As such, it's an interesting watch for any fan of 007.

For some time now, fans have wanted to see Christopher Nolan take on the James Bond franchise. Unfortunately, former producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson exercised such fastidious control over the property that it made it impossible for Nolan to retain all creative oversight — something which the director famously requires in order to make his movies. As such, this particular collaboration never came to pass, despite the fact that Nolan has always seemed up for directing a Bond movie. Whether anything will change in the future remains to be seen, but if we never get a Nolan 007 film, we at least have "Tenet." 

The film debuted during the global pandemic and wasn't exactly Nolan's most revered effort, with /Film's Chris Evangelista dubbing "Tenet" a frustrating, muddled movie. But whatever you think of the film, it's still fascinating to watch from the perspective of a 007 connoisseur. Nolan broke his own tradition by not showing his cast any Bond movies before filming began, with the director explaining his choice to TotalFilm thusly, "I think we all have the spy genre so in our bones and in our fingertips. I actually wanted to work from a memory and a feeling of that genre, rather than the specifics." Such an approach yielded what is the British filmmaker's most obviously Bond-esque movie, despite the fact that, by his own admission, he was attempting to take the spy movie in a much different direction.

It's true that "Tenet" isn't exactly interchangeable with any of 007's outings. For one, there's the heavy sci-fi element that makes John David Washington's Protagonist and his journey through time a little too fantastical for the Bond saga. But strip that element away and you have Nolan doing international espionage, which, just as "Interstellar" was Nolan doing "2001: A Space Odyssey," is about as close to Bond as the man has gotten yet. An esteemed British filmmaker, who's long been mooted as the perfect 007 director, taking on the spy genre is easily one of the most important entries on this list, and should form a part of every fans' crypto-Bond watchlist.

Henry Cavill's name has been bandied about in relation to the James Bond franchise for decades. The British star auditioned for the role back in the early 2000s, losing the part to Daniel Craig for 2006's "Casino Royale" (just watch Cavill's Bond audition and you'll see why he missed out). But the man has since become a much more accomplished actor and is still in the conversation for who should take over in the wake of Craig's departure. 

If anything speaks to his ability to do justice to the role, it's 2015's "The Man from U.N.C.L.E.," in which Cavill plays suave CIA agent Napoleon Solo. An adaptation of the 1960s spy series that starred Robert Vaughn and David McCallum, this Guy Ritchie film is well-known for essentially being Cavill's unofficial Bond audition, with the actor exuding charisma while sporting an array of finely-tailored suits that would have made Sean Connery's spy proud. But the film itself is notably Bond-esque in many other ways, pitching Cavill's western sleuth against a Soviet rival in a tale of old fashioned spy craft. The film also displays a Roger Moore-era lightheartedness, and when you consider that Ian Fleming worked on the original TV show, it's not surprising that this underseen spy effort feels so familiar.

Sadly, "The Man from U.N.C.L.E" bombed at the box office, and has been somewhat overlooked ever since. But it's actually a solid effort worthy of a watch even if you're not looking for something Bond-adjacent. If you are, however, this one is a must-watch.