Television series

Citadel

Other titles called Citadel: the 2012 film.

A globe-trotting spy thriller where amnesiac agents reassemble to stop a shadowy syndicate bent on world domination. Citadel is slick, propulsive, and designed to feel like a summer blockbuster compressed into episodic form. It's for people who want espionage spectacle without requiring their spies to brood or doubt themselves too much.

TVMaze rating3.2

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you like your espionage loud and glossy, with globe-trotting set pieces, a propulsive pace, and a cast that clearly relishes the chase more than brooding moral puzzles.

Skip it if you want quiet, character-led spycraft or a tidy self-contained story, since its tangled plotting and nonstop motion can feel busy rather than focused.

What it asks of you: Expect a lot of plot to keep up with across 13 episodes of roughly 43 minutes each, and a steady stream of action that rarely lets you settle.

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Mission: Impossible - Fallout2018

Tom Cruise and Christopher McQuarrie prove that spy action can be genuinely intelligent and visually coherent. Every stunt serves character and plot.

But Demands you've watched the previous entries. It's a capstone, not an entry point.

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Slow Horses2022

Gary Oldman leads a cast of misfits through a devilishly plotted British intelligence thriller. Sharp, witty, and stuffed with genuine surprises that respect the audience's attention.

But Deliberately unglamorous. If you want sunlit exotic locations and designer suits, you'll be disappointed.

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Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Citadel

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Mr. & Mrs. Smith2005

Both feature elite agents operating in a world of false identities and constant reinvention. Citadel is about recovering the self; Mr. & Mrs. Smith is about whether the self was ever real.

Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie as married assassins who don't know about each other, then find out mid-mission. It's a spy thriller constructed as a relationship drama, and it's far smarter about the contradictions than it has any right to be.

But The action is secondary to the domestic tension, which may frustrate viewers seeking propulsive spectacle. Also, it's visibly a product of 2005 in ways that haven't aged entirely well.

Mr. & Mrs. Smith poster
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Brad Pitt and Robert Redford in a slick, propulsive cut-and-paste of Pitt's career highlights. If you want a spy movie that's fun first and plausible nowhere, this is your Sunday afternoon.

But Thin plot that exists only to string together set pieces. No substance to speak of.

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Atomic Blonde2017

Charlize Theron as an MI6 agent in 1980s Berlin. The action is kinetic, the soundtrack is phenomenal, and it knows exactly how absurd it is.

But Plot is almost willfully skeletal. You're here for the fights and the vibe, not a mystery to solve.

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Casino Royale2006

Daniel Craig's debut stripped away the gadgetry and winking artifice, grounding Bond in character and consequence. It proved the franchise could grow up without losing its engine.

But Deliberately slower and more introspective than the cartoonish fun of earlier Bonds. Some find that exhausting rather than compelling.

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Alias2001

Jennifer Garner as a CIA operative leading a double life. It's serialised, it's fun, it has real stakes, and it moves like water downhill. Peak 2000s spy television.

But Spans five seasons with diminishing returns. The later seasons lose the plot and start chasing their own mythology.

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Knight and Day2010

Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz sprinting through a glossy, overheated action-comedy with more winks than a bingo hall. Pure popcorn, and knowingly so.

But Plot barely exists. It's an extended sequence of chases punctuated by banter. Some viewers find that exhausting.

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Bodyguard2018

A tight, six-episode British thriller about a war veteran assigned to protect a controversial politician. Tense, topical, and relentlessly gripping.

But The conclusion divides viewers sharply. Some feel betrayed by where it lands thematically.

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A Hologram for the King2016

Both hinge on the unreliability of memory and the question of whether an amnesiac character can trust what they're being told. Here, the disorientation is the point rather than the problem to solve.

Tom Hanks in a strange, meditative spy-adjacent thriller about a salesman meeting a mysterious woman in Saudi Arabia. It's quietly surreal and deeply unsettling in ways that linger.

But Almost perversely slow. It rejects spectacle entirely in favor of dread and confusion. Some will find it deliberately obtuse and infuriating.

A Hologram for the King poster

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