Gary Oldman and Tom Hardy’s Near-Perfect Spy Thriller Officially Returns to Streaming

Published Nov 12, 2026, 5:30 AM EST

Makuochi Echebiri is a News Writer for Collider.  He has been interested in creative writing from as far back as high school, and he would consume pretty much anything that’s film or TV. However, his truest love lies in the presence of historical epics and thrillers.

Lured by the brilliance of Middle Earth from an early age both in print and on screen, his palate has since expanded to other realms including Westeros, Kattegat among others. He also possesses a great appetite for the stories that emanate from the vastness of space. Even though he is no Avenger.

Obsessed with storytelling and having works of his own that have yet to make it to print, he is content to use that ability to communicate to as many as are reachable. In his spare time, he looks out for avenues where he can aid people aside from his plans to reign over this earthly realm. Yes…you heard that first here.

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Never really matters what your preference is. Spy stories often have a way of snagging and holding an audience's attention. Besides the well-written scripts that form the basis of these stories, performances matter, and Gary Oldman is exceptional at delivering a masterpiece. Oldman's greatest quality is arguably the enormous range he brings to his roles. From the chaos of playing Sid Vicious in Sid and Nancy to the more abiding character of Commissioner Jim Gordon in The Dark Knight, his ability is without question.

Oldman's skill in front of the camera remains relevant even in the present day, as evidenced in his relationship with Apple TV. Between the two entities lies the hit dark comedy spy-thriller television series, Slow Horses, which is based on the Slough House novel series by Mick Herron. Here, Oldman exhibits his range once more in a spy thriller that sees his brilliant, yet disheveled spymaster character, tasked with overseeing a team of intelligence agents whose career-ending mistakes have left them on the very precipice of Britain’s Secret Service. Oldman's role in Slow Horses has since delivered back-to-back seasons of incredible quality, which is undeniable. However, this isn't the first spy-themed masterpiece the JFK star has been tethered to.

In 2011, Oldman teamed up with Tom Hardy to deliver the award-winning British spy thriller Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. A grossly underappreciated spy thriller at the time, the film went on to gross over $80 million at the global box office despite only earning $300,000 in its opening weekend. Despite vanishing from streaming for some time, the thriller which was directed by Tomas Alfredson, is making a comeback. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is now available to stream on BBC iPlayer for the next month. The spy thriller is a modern adaptation of John le Carré's 1974 novel of the same name. Oldman plays intelligence officer George Smiley in the 2011 iteration, while Alec Guinness embodied the character in the 1979 BBC take.

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Comparative AssessmentEyes Only

Collider QuizWhich James Bond
Are You?8 Questions · 6 ActorsSix actors. Six completely different visions of the same man: dangerous, charming, complicated, and almost certainly wearing a very good suit. Only one of them shares your particular way of moving through the world. Eight questions will figure out which Bond you really are.The Six

Connery

Moore

Dalton

Brosnan

Lazenby

Craig

Find Your Bond

Page 01 / 080% Filed

Question 01PRESENCE

01How do you carry yourself when you walk into a room?Bond is always the most interesting person in the room. The question is how he makes you feel it.

AWith absolute authority. I don't announce myself. I simply make everyone aware that I've arrived.BWith a raised eyebrow and a ready quip. I'd rather disarm a room than dominate it.CWith focused intensity. I'm taking everything in, and people can tell.DWith polish and ease. I look like I belong everywhere, because I've decided I do.EWith quiet confidence. I'm still figuring out my place, but I carry myself as if I already know it.FWith guarded stillness. I notice everything and give nothing away until I choose to.

← BackPick one, then Next

Next Question

Page 02 / 0812% Filed

Question 02DANGER

02How do you handle a dangerous situation?Every Bond faces it differently. What does your version look like?

AWith dangerous calm. I've been here before, and the threat already knows it's made a mistake.BWith improvisation and a degree of theatrical flair. Tension should never be wasted.CHead-on and without hesitation. I don't need gadgets. I have training, and I use it.DWith the right tool for the job. I came prepared, and preparation is its own form of confidence.EInstinctively. I react faster than I think, and it usually works out.FWith controlled force. I don't enjoy it, but I don't flinch from what the moment requires.

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Next Question

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Question 03CHARM

03How do you charm someone you need on your side?Bond always gets what he needs. The method varies considerably.

AI make them feel like the most interesting person in the room, for exactly as long as I need them to be.BI make them laugh. A shared laugh is the fastest way to make someone trust you.CI'm direct and honest. I tell them what I need and why. Manipulation wastes time.DWith surface perfection: the right words, the right smile, deployed with enough precision to look effortless.EBy being present and genuine. I'm still developing my technique, but sincerity covers a lot of ground.FReluctantly and sparingly. I'd rather earn trust through actions than manufacture it through charm.

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Next Question

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Question 04EMOTION

04How do you handle your emotions on the job?Every Bond deals with this differently. Most of them not particularly well.

AI suppress them completely. Detachment is a professional requirement, not a personal failing.BI deflect with humor. A well-timed joke is the best defense against genuine feeling.CI let them show. I'm not ashamed of feeling things, and I think pretending not to is its own kind of weakness.DI compartmentalize with precision. Everything in its place, nothing bleeding into the mission.EWith difficulty. I haven't quite worked out the system yet, and sometimes it shows.FBy burying them, deeply and imperfectly, in ways that eventually cost me something important.

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Question 05STYLE

05How would your colleagues describe your working style?MI6 has opinions about all of its 00s. What are theirs about you?

AEffective and uncompromising. Results-focused to the point where the methods occasionally become a concern.BReliably brilliant in the field, occasionally exasperating in the briefing room.CPrincipled to a fault. They'd rather do it right than do it fast, and they'll tell you so.DPolished, capable, and slightly too good at making it look easy.ERaw potential. Still developing, but there's something there that's hard to teach.FA blunt instrument. Pointed at problems, usually effective, occasionally unpredictable.

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Question 06RULES

06How do you feel about operating within the rules?The 00 designation comes with terms and conditions. Not everyone reads them.

ARules are for people who haven't earned the judgment to know when to break them.BI follow them in spirit and bend them in practice. The important thing is the outcome.CI take them seriously. There are things I won't do regardless of what the mission requires.DI work within them effectively and creatively. The system has its uses if you know how to navigate it.EI'm still working out where my lines are. The job has a way of moving them on you.FI follow orders until I decide the order is wrong. Then I act on my own judgment and accept the consequences.

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Question 07LOVE

07What is your relationship with love?Every Bond has a different answer. None of them have found it easy.

AA liability I've learned to manage. I don't let it interfere with the work, and I try not to examine why.BA pleasure I take seriously in the moment, lightly in the long term, and honestly in between.CSomething I want sincerely, and struggle to reconcile with the life I've chosen.DPart of the performance. I'm charming, and I enjoy it, but I keep the door to anything deeper firmly closed.ESomething that surprised me. I found it when I wasn't looking and it changed everything, briefly.FA wound I carry. Something happened, and I haven't fully processed what it means for everything since.

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Question 08LEGACY

08When the mission is over, how do you want to be remembered?The name is Bond. The rest is entirely up to the man behind it.

AAs the original. The one who defined what this could be before anyone else knew what it was.BAs someone who made it enjoyable, who understood that entertainment is its own kind of excellence.CAs someone who took it seriously, who refused to coast and pushed harder than the role required.DAs the complete package, who had the looks, the timing, and the ability to make it all seem inevitable.EAs an underrated chapter, one that deserved more time and more credit than it received.FAs the one who made it human, who found the cost beneath the cool and didn't look away from it.

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Reveal My Bond

The Name Has Been DeterminedYour Bond Is

Six actors. One role. Your answers point to the Bond who shares your presence, your method, and your particular way of carrying the weight of being the most dangerous person in the room.

1962-1971Sean ConneryDr. No to Diamonds Are ForeverYou were always going to end up here.

You are the original, and you carry that fact without needing to announce it. There is an authority in the way you occupy a room that others spend careers trying to replicate.Why This Is You

• You don't explain yourself, justify yourself, or soften yourself for anyone's comfort. The confidence is structural, not performed.
• Connery's Bond established everything, the tone, the danger, the cool, because Connery himself had the innate presence to make something that had never existed feel inevitable.
• You share that quality: the sense that you were always going to end up exactly here, doing exactly this.
• The name is Bond. In your case, it always was.

The OriginalStructural CoolAuthority

1973-1985Roger MooreLive and Let Die to A View to a KillThe lightness is the technique.

You understand something that more serious people miss: that wit is its own form of intelligence, and that making people laugh is not a retreat from danger but a way of mastering it.Why This Is You

• Moore's Bond is underrated precisely because the effortlessness looks easy, and effortlessness is the hardest thing to manufacture.
• You have the same quality: a lightness that disarms people before they realize how sharp you really are.
• The raised eyebrow, the perfectly timed quip, the refusal to be rattled. These are not affectations. They are a philosophy about how to move through a world that would like to take itself too seriously.
• You have never let it.

The QuipUnrattledEffortless

1987-1989Timothy DaltonThe Living Daylights, Licence to KillYou took it seriously when nobody asked you to.

You took the role seriously when everyone wanted you to coast, and that refusal to take the easy version of anything is the most defining thing about you.Why This Is You

• Dalton's Bond has genuine moral weight: he feels the cost of what he does, he has lines he won't cross, and he is not interested in the version of himself that pretends otherwise.
• You share that intensity. You push harder than the situation technically requires, because you have a standard and you hold yourself to it.
• He was ahead of his time, the Bond the franchise wasn't quite ready for yet, arriving exactly when he was meant to.
• You know what that feels like.

Moral WeightNo CoastingAhead Of It

1995-2002Pierce BrosnanGoldenEye to Die Another DaySome people simply fit their moment.

You are the complete package, and you know it, which is part of what makes you so effective and occasionally so infuriating to the people around you.Why This Is You

• Brosnan arrived at the role looking exactly like Bond was supposed to look, and he delivered on that expectation with a professionalism that made it seem effortless.
• You have the same quality: a smooth competence, a charm that operates like a precision instrument, and the ability to make even difficult things look like they weren't.
• His four films revived the franchise after a six-year gap and made Bond a blockbuster property again. There is a reason for that.
• The reason is that some people simply fit their moment perfectly. You are one of those people.

The PackagePrecision CharmRevival

1969George LazenbyOn Her Majesty's Secret ServiceHistory tends to catch up with people like you.

You stepped into something enormous with less preparation than anyone around you thought was sufficient, and you delivered something genuine anyway, which is the more impressive achievement.Why This Is You

• Lazenby's single outing is, by many measures, one of the finest Bond films ever made, and he is not a small part of why.
• You share his quality of raw authenticity: less polished than the alternatives, more honest for it, capable of something real that technique alone can't produce.
• He was underestimated, and then he wasn't, and then history caught up with him.
• You are the kind of person history catches up with. Give it time.

One Film OnlyRawUnderrated

2006-2021Daniel CraigCasino Royale to No Time to DieUnderestimated, then undeniable.

You stripped everything back and found what was underneath, and what was underneath was harder, more honest, and more human than anyone expected.Why This Is You

• Craig's Bond is the franchise's most psychologically complete: a man doing a punishing job, carrying its costs imperfectly, capable of love and loss in ways that can't be dismissed.
• You share that depth. You don't hide behind the role or the charm or the suit. You let the work show what it really costs.
• He was controversial from the moment he was announced and definitive by the time he was finished. The skeptics became the believers.
• That arc, of being underestimated and then undeniable, is one you know intimately.

Stripped BackHuman CostDefinitive

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Is 'Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy' Worth Watching?

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, besides being a financial success having cost only $20 million to produce, is beloved by critics. The spy thriller holds an impressive 84% score from critics against a 65% score from audiences on the aggregator website, Rotten Tomatoes. The critics' consensus on the site reads, "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is a dense puzzle of anxiety, paranoia, and espionage that director Tomas Alfredson pieces together with utmost skill." That reception certainly aided the film in earning three BAFTA awards, including Outstanding British Film, and three Oscar nominations along the way. Bridget O’Connor and Peter Straughan wrote the script for a cast that also includes Stephen Graham as Jerry Westerby, Benedict Cumberbatch as Peter Guillam, Colin Firth as Bill Haydon, Ciarán Hinds as Roy Bland, Toby Jones as Percy Alleline, and Mark Strong as Jim Prideaux. Hardy played Ricki Tarr. The official synopsis for Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy reads as follows:

“In the 1970s England the head of MI6, Control (John Hurt), dispatches an agent (Mark Strong) to meet with a Hungarian general who knows the identity of a Soviet spy in the organization's ranks. However, the mission goes wrong, and the general dies before he can reveal the information. Undersecretary Oliver Lacon (Simon McBurney) calls veteran agent George Smiley (Gary Oldman) back from forced retirement to ferret out the mole and stop the flow of vital British secrets to the Russians.”

Stay tuned to Collider for more updates and coverage of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, as well as Gary Oldman's other projects.