The Ipcress File (1965) BBC Two, 2.05pm ★★★★

This adaptation of Len Deighton’s novel is one of the best spy movies of the era, not just because of Michael Caine’s fine turn as counter-espionage agent Harry Palmer, but because it has more brains than any Bond managed to possess. Advertised, in fact, as “The Thinking Man’s Goldfinger”, it captures the moral ambivalence of espionage, asking whether information and national security can ever be worth a life.