Spies

Spies (Spione, 1928) is Fritz Lang's silent espionage thriller, free to watch online on iFILM. Secret agent No. 326 is handed an impossible job: take apart the most sophisticated spy ring in Europe.

That ring answers to Haghi, a respectable banker by day and a ruthless puppet-master underneath, running blackmail, theft and a web of planted informants. He sends Russian émigrée Sonya to seduce 326 — and the scheme cracks when both of them fall for real. Forged papers, a manhunt and a staged train wreck follow.

Lang made this a year before M, and it more or less wrote the spy-movie playbook: double agents, miniature gadgets, a criminal mastermind pulling strings from a single room. Rudolf Klein-Rogge gives Haghi the same icy stare he brought to Metropolis. Silent, long, and cut faster than you'd expect. Stream Spies (1928) online on iFILM.