10 Most Romantic Spy Movies, Ranked

The 10 Most Romantic Spy Movies, Ranked Bond and Vesper, played by Daniel Craig and Eva Green, embrace in Casino Royale.Image via Sony Pictures Releasing By  Safwan Azeem Published 50 minutes ago

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Romance movies are among my favorites (and sometimes a guilty pleasure). Watching a good, emotional, and tear-jerking romantic film that makes your chest ache a little is what I love to do on weekends. But I’ve also always had a soft spot for spy thrillers. I love the tension, the secrets, and that edge-of-your-seat feeling of not knowing what will happen next. And when a film gives me both danger and love, it’s the perfect two or three hours I could spend.

Maybe it’s the suspense of never knowing if the next intimate moment will be followed by a gunshot or a confession, or the uncertainty of whether the leads will end up together or destroy each other. Romantic spy thrillers are the best genre out there, and below are some of the most romantic and unforgettable spy films ever put on screen in my opinion.

10 'Allied' (2016)

Brad Pitt and Marion Cotillard as Max and Marianne in AlliedImage via Paramount Pictures

A single phone call changes everything. One moment, Max believes he has a wife he can trust, and the next, he is told she might be a traitor. The question, “Can you love someone when their identity is the problem?”, is what drives the narrative of Allied. Max Vatan (Brad Pitt) meets Marianne Beauséjour (Marion Cotillard) during an undercover operation in Casablanca. They both pretend to be a married couple for a violent mission.

While all the drama, their romance grows in the small moments when they pretend to be someone else. And when the intelligence suggests that Marianne is a double agent, the movie quickly takes a turn from being an espionage thriller to being solely about suspicion, proof, and grief. The interrogation scenes and the trial-like investigation are all paced in such a way that every frame in the movie matters, and that’s the brilliance of the director, Robert Zemeckis.

9 'Mr. & Mrs. Smith' (2005)

Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt smiling on the movie 'Mr. and Mrs. Smith' Image via 20th Century Studios

There is something almost hilarious about watching a married couple fall back in love after trying to kill each other. That's the whole story of Mr. and Mrs. Smith. The movie is directed by Doug Liman, and it is based on marital tension with spy chaos, which makes it extremely thrilling. John Smith (Brad Pitt) and Jane Smith (Angelina Jolie) live in a perfect suburban home. What they both don’t know is that the other person is an elite assassin working for rival agencies.

The first half of the movie is full of polite dinners and fake smiles, like any married couple who stop really seeing each other. And then the truth comes out, and suddenly their fights turn into gun battles, and their arguments leave holes in the walls. The best part about the movie is Pitt and Jolie's electric chemistry, which makes every fight scene double as flirtation. It is sexy, funny, and emotionally honest, and somehow all three things are balanced without ever slowing down.

8 'Lust, Caution' (2007)

Image via Focus Features

Lust, Caution blurs the line between love and survival. It is directed by Ang Lee and set in a Japanese-occupied Shanghai during World War II. The film follows a young woman, Wong Chia Chi (Tang Wei), who is recruited by a resistance group to seduce and assassinate a powerful collaborator, Mr. Yee (Tony Leung Chiu-wai).

Soon, this patriotic mission turns into something complicated, a consuming and dangerous relationship that neither of them can fully control. Tang Wei's performance in the film is astonishingly layered. She captures a woman who is torn between duty and desire, between the person that she is pretending to be and the one that she is becoming. Their love scenes are infamous for their intensity, as they depict lust, power dynamics, manipulation, and confusion all at once.

7 'The Spy Who Loved Me' (1977)

Image via MGM

The Spy Who Loved Me is often remembered as the moment Roger Moore truly became James Bond. This time, Bond teams up with Soviet agent Anya Amasova (Barbara Bach), a woman every bit his equal. Their uneasy alliance begins with mutual distrust — very cliché, but the movie turns this cliché story into a thriller. Bond had killed her lover on a previous mission, yet somewhere between danger and diplomacy, something relevant to respect and affection begins to disturb him.

The chemistry between Moore and Bach gives it an emotional edge that was rare for the Bond era. The relationship is layered with guilt, rivalry, and reluctant admiration. The movie is directed by Lewis Gilbert, who also brings scale to the film, and the sets are designed by Ken Adam, which make some of the most stunning visuals in the series.

6 'Notorious' (1946)

Image via RKO Radio Pictures

Notorious is directed by Alfred Hitchcock, who understands the tension between love and danger. And the way that he has depicted it in the film is one of his finest examples. The film stars Ingrid Bergman as Alicia Huberman, the daughter of a convicted Nazi spy who’s recruited by U.S. intelligence to infiltrate a group of Nazis hiding in Brazil. Her handler, Devlin (Cary Grant), falls in love with her, but still sends her into a marriage with another man, played by Claude Rains, to get the job done.

The movie is a slow burn. Every moment in the film between Bergman and Grant feels like betrayal. Hitchcock has directed it like a psychological chess game where love is both weapon and weakness. The iconic kissing scene between the two was shot in one long and unbroken take, and it broke censorship rules of its time and remains one of the most intimate moments ever filmed.

5 'From Russia with Love' (1963)

James Bond (Sean Connery) and Tatiana Romanova (Daniela Bianchi) sit together on a train. Image via United Artists

Before James Bond became the larger-than-life icon of gadgets and quips, From Russia with Love showed a quieter side of him. Sean Connery plays Bond at his sharpest, a charming, dangerous, and emotional man, while Daniela Bianchi stars as Tatiana Romanova, a Soviet cipher clerk caught in a web of manipulation and deceit.

The film's lasting pull is the uneasy romance that develops between the main leads. Their chemistry is fragile, built on lies, but is touched by something real, the love the two share. The train sequence is one of the best in the franchise, which turns their relationship into a test of whether either of them can believe the other, when every word might be a part of a trap. The movie is directed by Terence Young and captures Cold War paranoia while giving Bond an emotional core that later entries rarely matched.

4 'North by Northwest' (1959)

Carey Grant and Eva Saint Marie in North by NorthwestImage by Gabriel Bell

There is a certain kind of charm that Hitchcock brings to his films, and North by Northwest is another finest example of it. It's a movie where danger and romance move together at the same pace. Cary Grant plays Roger Thornhill, a smooth-talking ad man who gets mistaken for a spy and is suddenly thrown into a lonely chase across the country. Along the way, he meets Eva Marie Saint as Eve Kendall, a woman who has a lot of secrets.

The tension, again, is extremely electric, and their chemistry is built on teasing exchanges and the quiet uncertainty of whether they both can trust each other or not. The film's famous Mount Rushmore finale is incredibly popular among fans as it shows two people who risk everything for each other in the middle of chaos.

3 'On Her Majesty’s Secret Service' (1969)

George Lazenby and Diana Rigg in On Her Majesty's Secret ServiceImage via Britannica

Bond movies are one of the best romantic spy thrillers ever put on screen. On Her Majesty's Secret Service is another Bond film that has its thrills and also a heart. George Lazenby steps into the role of James Bond with confidence, and opposite him is Diana Rigg as Tracy di Vicenzo, fierce, unpredictable, and unlike any Bond girl before or after.

Their relationship starts as a chase, where Bond rescues her, teases her, and tests her. But somewhere along the line, his feelings start becoming real here. For once, we see Bond not as an untouchable agent, but as a man who falls deeply in love. The wedding scene, tender and hopeful, is one of the most human moments in the entire franchise, and then, in the film's devastating final moments, that love is taken away in an instant. It was a rare story where the world's most composed spy let his guard down and then paid the price for it.

2 'Casino Royale' (2006)

Image via Sony Pictures Releasing

Casino Royale redefined what love could look like in a spy film. Daniel Craig’s first outing as James Bond stripped away the charm and quips to show a man still learning how to harden his heart. Then came Eva Green as Vesper Lynd, sharp, teasing, and the only person who could truly match him.

Vesper is not just another love interest of Bond. In fact, she challenges him, disarms him, and makes him believe that he can be more than just a weapon. The quiet, train conversation between them says more about Bond than decades of martinis and one-liners ever did. The Venice sequence, on the other hand, where everything comes out, is one of the most emotionally gutting moments in modern cinema. By the end, when love turns into betrayal and heartbreak, you can feel why this is the moment that shaped the Bond we know today.

1 'True Lies' (1994)

Harry and Helen, played by actors Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jamie Lee Curtis, embracing in James Cameron's True Lies (1994).Image via 20th Century Studios

Before there were gritty espionage dramas, there was True Lies, a film that somehow made marriage, deception, and international espionage all part of the same joke. Arnold Schwarzenegger plays Harry Tasker, a secret agent whose wife Helen (Jamie Lee Curtis) believes he’s just an ordinary computer salesman, until her curiosity pulls her right into the middle of his world of espionage.

When his double life collides with hers, the result is both hilarious and surprisingly heartfelt. The film beautifully captures the action and romance between the two with absurd perfection. Certain scenes are extremely popular still today, for instance, the one where Harry dangles for a fighter jet and the iconic strip scene of Helen, which is awkward, funny, and oddly sweet. All in all, the movie is really about a husband and wife who have forgotten how to connect.

Like True Lies R Comedy Thriller Action Release Date July 15, 1994 Runtime 141 minutes Director James Cameron Writers James Cameron

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• Tom Arnold
• Eliza Dushku

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• Notorious
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