Stepping into the shoes of Alec Guinness, Gary Oldman, in a performance of restrained inscrutability, captures perfectly the character of John le Carré’s seasoned spy George Smiley...

| Jan 10, 2024

Le Carré enthusiasts will be left wanting another hour or so of filmic flesh on this skin-and-bones telling.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Mar 1, 2023

While it’s deliberate and sometimes dry, O’Connor and Straughan’s script is tight, structured, and clearly intends to make the audience work right alongside of Smiley.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 26, 2022

One of the greatest spy thrillers of the century.

| Original Score: 4.5/5 | Jul 14, 2022

What the film does so well is allow the audience to experience the lonely and isolated world these men (and women) were forced to exist in. It also establishes that great sense of paranoia that pervaded the time.

| Original Score: B- | Apr 19, 2022

The material concerning the identity of the spy proves to be the least compelling part of the picture. What makes the movie cling to our senses are the soulful transgressions of other key characters.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Apr 9, 2022

Tinker Tailor is probably the best film of 2011. If only we had seen it at the time.

| Original Score: A | Dec 26, 2021

Sublime.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Dec 3, 2021

The cast is astounding, amassing a record assortment of popular British actors.

| Original Score: 6/10 | Nov 30, 2020

A fine directorial achievement indeed.

| Original Score: 3.5/4.0 | Sep 26, 2020

A slow burn, fraught with intrigue, tension, and personal and professional betrayal.

| Original Score: B- | Jul 11, 2020

Undeniably, given its narrative construction, it is an absorbing espionage thriller. [Full review in Spanish]

| Original Score: 8/10 | Jun 24, 2020

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy tells a challenging tale. Emotionally distant, winding in on itself over and over again. I find it to be brilliant if cold.

| Apr 1, 2020

Inherently a tale of intrigue, Alfredson may have created one of the most introverted spy thrillers ever filmed.

| Original Score: 3.2/5 | Nov 8, 2019

Those with a refined palate for challenging, intelligent and charismatic storytelling should unashamedly gorge themselves on the feast presented here.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 16, 2019

A strikingly crafted homage to a bygone era of filmmaking that also feels thrillingly contemporary.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Jun 8, 2019

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is everything that one feels it should be. It is complex, intelligent, quiet, intense and keeps its cool throughout.

| Original Score: A- | Feb 8, 2019

[Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy] is a welcome throwback to old-time espionage stories.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jan 4, 2019

There are many good reasons why movies cannot run on for six hours, so when cinematic necessity compels squeezing a fine six-hour show like Tinker, Tailor into one third the time, audience and story are likely to be shortchanged, as happens here.

| Nov 6, 2018

So beautifully executed and so visually absorbing and so atmospherically hypnotic that I wonder this: would it have been awfully greedy to have hoped to have wholly understood it, too?

| Aug 31, 2018