Film

Our Man Flint

Name: Our Man Flint
Genre: Action, Comedy, Adventure, Science Fiction
Released: 1966
Cast: James Coburn, Lee J. Cobb, Gila Golan, Edward Mulhare, Benson Fong

Spy action
Light-hearted

A 1966 spy-comedy where suave secret agent Derek Flint faces off against weather-controlling eco-terrorists. James Coburn glides through absurd set-pieces with deadpan cool, riffing on Bond while poking fun at spy conventions. It's campy, colorful, and unapologetically silly—for anyone who loves genre pastiche played with a straight face.

TMDb rating

3.3

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you enjoy spy spoofs that wink at Bond-era gadgetry and swagger, where the joke is the hero's effortless cool rather than the plot's logic.

Skip it if you tire easily of gadget-heavy set pieces and the leering sixties sexism that colours the romance, which can sour the fun.

What it asks of you: Roughly two hours of cheerful, lightly paced escapism that asks you to accept its wink-at-the-camera tone and to let the gadgets pile up without much concern for logic.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

The Man from U.N.C.L.E.1964

If you loved Flint's impossible-mission glamour, this spy series offers the same high-style action and wit, with Robert Vaughn delivering cool professionalism alongside absurd Cold War scenarios. Shorter episodes, same era energy.

But It's earnest in ways Flint isn't—less camp, more actual intrigue. The tone wanders between adventure and seriousness depending on the episode.

Barbarella1968

Pure visual excess and campy sci-fi with Jane Fonda in a universe as colorful and ridiculous as Flint's. It shares the same love of retro-futurism, silly plots, and winking at its own absurdity while looking fabulous.

But The plot is genuinely thin and the pacing sags. If you want coherent storytelling, this will frustrate you. It's decoration, and it knows it.

In Like Flint1967

The direct sequel, made immediately after. More of everything: wilder plots, campier villainy, Coburn even more assured. It doubles down on what worked without overthinking it.

But It's basically a repeat of the first film's formula with better effects and no restraint. If you found the first one slight, this won't deepen it.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Our Man Flint

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Timecrimes2007

Both use sci-fi gadgetry and impossible logic as plot engines, but where Flint treats the machine as excuse for glamorous chaos, Timecrimes treats it as a trap that tightens with each turn.

A Spanish sci-fi thriller where time loops and paradoxes create an escalating nightmare. Like Flint, it takes an absurd premise seriously and executes it with clockwork precision, but here the stakes are existential dread instead of laughs.

But It's bleak, convoluted, and requires active attention. Watching it feels like solving a puzzle while being hunted. The mood is suffocating compared to Flint's breezy tone.

Get Smart1965

A TV spy-spoof running parallel to Flint's era, equally committed to comic espionage. Don Adams plays it perfectly straight while surrounded by elaborate gadgets and idiotic plots. Smart, stupid, and genuinely funny.

But It's more joke-machine than character study. Some episodes rely too heavily on slapstick; it wears differently depending on your tolerance for that particular brand of comedy.

The Italian Job1969

Heist caper with the same sixties glamour, ensemble charm, and playful tone. Michael Caine leads a stylish team through an impossible plan executed with panache and minimal self-seriousness.

But It's tighter and more traditional than Flint, less interested in sci-fi weirdness. You're getting a heist film that happens to be fun, not a parody.

Modesty Blaise1966

Released the same year as Flint, an equally lurid, colorful spy romp with Monica Vitti. Same DNA: pulp plotting, camp visuals, and actors who seem to know the whole thing is ridiculous and are having a blast.

But The plot is borderline incoherent and the dialogue occasionally cringe. It swings wildly between styles and doesn't always land the tone.

The Spy Who Came In from the Cold1965

The opposite of Flint—a serious le Carré adaptation showing what espionage actually looked like in grim reality. Watching Coburn's cartoon heroics after this makes the contrast even funnier in retrospect.

But It's gray, cold, and genuinely depressing. If you watch it first, you might resent the tonal whiplash back to Flint. They're in dialogue, not harmony.

The Spy Who Came In from the Cold poster

The Liquidator1965

Rod Taylor as a bumbling spy thrown into impossible situations, surviving through luck and charm. Lighter than serious espionage but less outlandish than Flint, it splits the difference with real wit.

But The plot meanders and the pacing is uneven. It's comfortable being minor, which some viewers read as forgettable.

Kiss the Girls and Make Them Die1966

Another 1966 spy film with Mike Connors and the same trashy-fun aesthetic. A plot involving a mad scientist and world domination played entirely straight, which is exactly the point.

But It's cheap-looking even for its era, and genuinely bad in ways that test your commitment to camp. The line between fun-bad and just-bad is thin here.

Brazil1985

Both live in worlds where elaborate systems and machines drive the plot, but Flint's systems work (or are funny when they don't), while Brazil's systems are inherently insane and crushing.

Terry Gilliam's dystopian fever dream where bureaucracy and technology create a world of insane visual invention. It's Flint's spy-gadget world filtered through nightmare logic—baroque, excessive, and genuinely anarchic.

But It's exhausting, deliberately incoherent, and profoundly pessimistic. Watching it feels like being trapped in a migraine. If you want comfort, you will not find it.

The Prisoner1967

Both are sixties spy entertainments that play with the genre's expectations, but where Flint winks at the audience, The Prisoner locks them in a room with the mechanisms and asks what they mean.

Patrick McGoohan as a spy trapped in an idyllic seaside village where reality itself becomes the enemy. It uses the spy-story framework to ask impossible questions about identity and free will—high concept, hallucinatory, completely original.

But It's dense, intentionally obscure, and refuses to explain itself. Some episodes are brilliant; others seem designed to frustrate. It demands intellectual patience that genre entertainment rarely asks for.