NN.“A Masterclass in Fear”: Gary Oldman’s New Spy Role Is Being Called the Most Dangerous Ever Filmed.

Brits waste hundreds of hours every year scrolling through streaming services looking for something to watch. Yahoo wants to save you a scroll by recommending one movie — under two hours long — that you should watch this week, every Friday

By the time you read this, we’ll have all seen the grand finale of Celebrity Traitors, which means you’ll already be anxiously awaiting your next fix of betrayal in a Scottish castle.

We can’t give you a castle, but we can give you plenty of betrayal with our recommendation to stream the dense British espionage thriller Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. If you’re in the UK, it’s available for free on BBC iPlayer. And there are enough manipulative masterminds here to give even Alan Carr a run for his money. Now there’s a sentence I didn’t think I’d be writing a month ago.

The film is Swedish director Tomas Alfredson’s take on the classic novel by spy specialist — and actual spy — John le Carré. This was before Alfredson went off to adapt another acclaimed crime novelist and ended up making The Snowman — one of the worst movies in recent memory. Thankfully, he was on much safer ground with Tinker Tailor, which earned three Oscar nominations and an impressive $81m (£62m) at the box office.

It’s a knotty thriller that balances betrayal on top of betrayal, rewarding audiences who are willing to pay attention. At the centre of it all is Gary Oldman as George Smiley — a senior British intelligence officer tasked with uncovering the identity of a Soviet mole within the service. He teams up with right-hand man Peter Guillam (Benedict Cumberbatch) to root around and work out what’s going on.

This is predominantly about suspicious-looking people in dark suits talking in circles around each other while surrounded by clouds of pipe smoke. It doesn’t scream visual dynamism, and there’s certainly none of the visual camp of Claudia Winkleman on the back of a horse in a faux funeral procession. However, in Alfredson’s hands — combined with a smart script by the late Bridget O’Connor and her husband Peter Straughan — this is a slick and engrossing thriller, as long as you can keep up with what’s going on.