Red Joan

Red Joan (2018) is a British historical thriller you can watch online on iFILM. In the year 2000, MI5 officers arrive at the home of quietly retired Joan Stanley (Judi Dench) with a warrant: she allegedly spent decades feeding classified nuclear data to the Soviets, starting in the 1940s.

The film moves between past and present. Sophie Cookson plays Joan as a young Cambridge student — sharp, in love, and convinced that giving Moscow the bomb was the only way to stop another world war. Tom Hughes is the man who draws her in, playing idealism and manipulation so close together that Joan — and the audience — can't always tell them apart. The script is based on Jennie Rooney's novel, itself inspired by the case of real-life British spy Melita Norwood. Director Trevor Nunn, better known for theatre, keeps the period details exact and the moral question deliberately unresolved.

Judi Dench has limited screen time but makes every second count. The film asks whether a traitor can be right — and leaves that genuinely open. Stream Red Joan (2018) online on iFILM.