Spying is not so different from making a movie. "Twenty-four lies per second" is how director Michael Haneke describes filmmaking. Alfred Hitchcock knew that well, which is why he kept returning to the subject of professional liars again and again. He could relate. The Master of Suspense invented the modern spy movie with North by Northwest, which is basically one long sleight of hand.

We've come a long way from Cary Grant running from a Soviet in a crop-dusting plane. In Atomic Blonde (out today), Charlize Theron offs Communists in 1980s Berlin, but wearing high heels and brute force that would make even James Bond sweat (just watch what she does with a corkscrew). The latest from one of the stuntmen-turned-directors behind John Wick makes you dizzy with its wall-to-wall neon style, "gun fu" choreography, and '80s pop-music cues, until, in a classic Hitchcock move, it pulls out the rug from under you. Lying never looked so good.

Here are the best spy movies* of all time ranked.

*As in, movies about actual spies, not spy-like conspiracies, wars, or cops.

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