“Characters often make the mistake of having their finger on the trigger while clearing a room, or even just holding the weapon,” he says. “While no movie or show gets it all right, The Bureau captures the give-and-take between headquarters and the field, and both The Americans and The Spy give a good feel of street tradecraft and living under cover,” he says.įor Cortese, it’s particularly annoying when protagonists fail to handle firearms correctly – one of the most common complaints. Only a few shows get his stamp of approval. That’s the assessment of John Sipher, who retired in 2014 after a 28-year career in the CIA’s National Clandestine Service. Some shows may get it completely wrong, while others get it … well, less wrong. These aren’t blanket criticisms for the entire genre, especially given that new releases span everything from big-budget action romps (Netflix’s The Recruit) to ripped-from-the-headlines dramatisations of real-life events ( Litvinenko and A Spy Among Friends) that imply a greater degree of verisimilitude. Photograph: Rob Youngson/Sony Pictures Television Getting away from her desk … Anna Maxwell Martin and Colin Mace in ITVX’s A Spy Among Friends. I want to see the other 5-10% of the job that is exciting.” Realistic would be spending 90-95% of the show watching agency officials do paperwork.

I mean right and wrong in terms of it being authentic, not realistic. “I love it when they get it right, and I hate it when they get it wrong.

“My relationship with shows centred on law enforcement and intel agencies is a love/hate one,” says former FBI special agent Jeff Cortese. If these shows really let us all the way in, she and other insiders stress, they would also make sure viewers understand the unglamorous side of the work – how mind-numbingly pedestrian it can be. “I’m hard pressed,” laments the former CIA analyst Gail Helt, “to come up with a show that gets it even in the ballpark in terms of what CIA officers do.” Realistic would be spending 90-95% of the time watching agency officials do paperwork. All these roles are ones that US national security and intelligence veterans consistently find fault with.

Spy agent movies