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Movies that feel like The Spy Who Loved Me (1977)

If you loved The Spy Who Loved Me, the closest films we have are Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning (2025), Pathaan (2023) and Legend of the Fist: The Return of Chen Zhen (2010). All three share The Spy Who Loved Me's epic and kinetic feel, which is what we rank on before quality. 10 of the 12 picks below are included with a subscription right now on HBO Max, Amazon Prime Video and Paramount Plus Premium and others, checked against today's data.

Russian and British submarines with nuclear missiles on board both vanish from sight without a trace. England and Russia both blame each other as James Bond tries to solve the riddle of the disappearing ships. But the KGB also has an agent on the case.

πŸ… 82% Rotten Tomatoesβ˜… 7 IMDb β†—TMDB β†—dir. Lewis Gilbertepickinetictense
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If The Spy Who Loved Me hit the spot, these will too

Looking for the series itself? Also in this series: Dr. No (1962) Β· From Russia with Love (1963) Β· Goldfinger (1964) Β· Thunderball (1965) Β· You Only Live Twice (1967) Β· On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969)

Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning poster
Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning
2025 Β· dir. Christopher McQuarrie
πŸ… 80%β˜… 7.1action Β· thriller Β· adventure

Common ground in both: submarine and spy

The difference: Made in the 2020s, in a different era of the craft

Ethan Hunt and team continue their search for the terrifying AI known as the Entity β€” which has infiltrated intelligence networks all over the globe β€” with the world's governments and a mysterious ghost from Hunt's past on their trail. Joined by new allies and armed with the means to shut the Entity down for good, Hunt is in a race against time to prevent the world as we know it from changing forever.

Feels alike?
Pathaan poster
Pathaan
2023 Β· dir. Siddharth Anand
πŸ… 85%β˜… 5.8action Β· adventure Β· thriller

One thread runs through both: spy

A soldier caught by enemies and presumed dead comes back to complete his mission, accompanied by old companions and foes.

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Legend of the Fist: The Return of Chen Zhen poster
Legend of the Fist: The Return of Chen Zhen
2010 Β· dir. Andrew Lau Wai-Keung
πŸ… 47%β˜… 6.2drama Β· action Β· history

Common ground: assassination

The difference: Critics were much harder on this one

The Japanese forces occupy Shanghai and slowly start spreading terror in the city. Chen Zhen, who was presumed dead, returns to fight against the Japanese and put an end to their tyrannical rule.

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Runaway Train poster
Runaway Train
1985 Β· dir. Andrei Konchalovsky
πŸ… 84%β˜… 7.2action Β· thriller Β· drama

Epic and kinetic in the same breath

The difference: Leans harder into drama than The Spy Who Loved Me does

A hardened convict and a younger prisoner escape from a brutal prison in the middle of winter only to find themselves on an out-of-control train with a female railway worker while being pursued by the vengeful head of security.

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Sorcerer poster
Sorcerer
1977 Β· dir. William Friedkin
πŸ… 84%β˜… 7.7thriller Β· adventure

Both lean on tension more than on adventure

The difference: Not nearly as kinetic as The Spy Who Loved Me

Four men from different parts of the globe, all hiding from their pasts in the same remote South American town, agree to risk their lives transporting several cases of dynamite (which is so old that it is dripping unstable nitroglycerin) across dangerous jungle terrain.

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Mission: Impossible poster
Mission: Impossible
1996 Β· dir. Brian De Palma
πŸ… 66%β˜… 7.2adventure Β· action Β· thriller

Epic action in both cases

When Ethan Hunt, the leader of a crack espionage team whose perilous operation has gone awry with no explanation, discovers that a mole has penetrated the CIA, he's surprised to learn that he's the prime suspect. To clear his name, Hunt now must ferret out the real double agent and, in the process, even the score.

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The Rock poster
The Rock
1996 Β· dir. Michael Bay
πŸ… 76%β˜… 7.4action Β· adventure Β· thriller

Thriller built on momentum, twice over

When vengeful General Francis X. Hummel seizes control of Alcatraz Island and threatens to launch missiles loaded with deadly chemical weapons into San Francisco, only a young FBI chemical weapons expert and notorious Federal prisoner have the skills to penetrate the impregnable island fortress and take him down.

Feels alike?
Mission: Impossible II poster
Mission: Impossible II
2000 Β· dir. John Woo
β˜… 6.1adventure Β· action Β· thriller

Tense adventure, and it commits to that

With computer genius Luther Stickell at his side and a beautiful thief on his mind, agent Ethan Hunt races across Australia and Spain to stop a former IMF agent from unleashing a genetically engineered biological weapon called Chimera. This mission, should Hunt choose to accept it, plunges him into the center of an international crisis of terrifying magnitude.

Feels alike?
Mission: Impossible III poster
Mission: Impossible III
2006 Β· dir. J.J. Abrams
πŸ… 73%β˜… 6.9adventure Β· action Β· thriller

Action with a pulse of scale, in both cases

Retired from active duty, and training recruits for the Impossible Mission Force, agent Ethan Hunt faces the toughest foe of his career: Owen Davian, an international broker of arms and information, who's as cunning as he is ruthless. Davian emerges to threaten Hunt and all that he holds dear – including the woman Hunt loves.

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The 36th Chamber of Shaolin poster
The 36th Chamber of Shaolin
1978 Β· dir. Lau Kar-leung
πŸ… 83%β˜… 7.6action Β· adventure

Thriller with a pulse of momentum, in both cases

During the Qing Dynasty, a fishmonger is killed by the reigning Manchu government for supporting the anti-government movement; his son manages to escape to Shaolin Temple, where he plans to learn its secretive brand of martial arts to seek revenge.

Feels alike?
The Wolf's Call poster
The Wolf's Call
2019 Β· dir. Antonin Baudry
β˜… 6.9thriller Β· action Β· adventure

Adventure built on tension, twice over

Shown from the perspective of a young submariner with unusually sensitive hearing and uncannily precise sound recognition. The fate of many often depends on his ability, and one time, whilst highly stressed, he makes a incorrect call which put his entire crew in mortal danger. Trying to regain the confidence of his comrades, he conducts an unauthorised investigation of an apparent plot which, it turns out, risks escalating into a nuclear apocalypse. Suddenly working under pressure with the fleet admiral, they must do whatever is necessary, even the unthinkable, to prevent a nuclear war, since a confirmed nuclear strike order cannot be countermanded.

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The Hunt for Red October poster
The Hunt for Red October
1990 Β· dir. John McTiernan
πŸ… 88%β˜… 7.5action Β· thriller

Both keep coming back to the same thing: submarine

A new technologically-superior Soviet nuclear sub, the Red October, is heading for the U.S. coast under the command of Captain Marko Ramius. The American government thinks Ramius is planning to attack. Lone CIA analyst Jack Ryan has a different idea: he thinks Ramius is planning to defect, but he has only a few hours to find him and prove it - because the entire Russian naval and air commands are trying to find Ramius, too. The hunt is on!

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The best-reviewed films that share The Spy Who Loved Me’s defining feeling.