We may earn a commission from links on this page.
It's begin to feel like successful streaming shows are increasingly the exception, rather than the rule, and Slow Horses is something else again: a successful show with a more-than-consistent schedule. With five seasons since 2022, rather than the increasingly common "every few years or when we get to it" scheduling of other streaming shows, it's rather lovely to actually be able to remember the events of the previous series when the new one starts.
If this all sounds like damning with faint praise, it's also a smart, brilliantly entertaining show, with Gary Oldman as the slovenly, flatulent, once-brilliant spy Jackson Lamb now in charge of Slough House, the MI5 office for agents who aren't good enough to trust with important tasks, but who haven't really done anything worth getting fired for. Their very expendability puts them in the line of fire early and often, with ambitious spymaster Diana Taverner (Kristin Scott Thomas) finding the team alternately useful and a liability. The show's been renewed for at least two further seasons—the novel series by Mick Herron on which it's based runs to nine books so far, and so there's potential for even more.
Down Cemetery Road (2025 – )
This is perhaps the most obvious streamalike here, if only because the shows are both Apple TV productions and are both based on Mick Herron novels. This one is more spy-adjacent, however, starring Emma Thompson as hard-living, hard-drinking private investigator Zoë Boehm. She's hired by Ruth Wilson's Sarah Trafford, a married art restorer who nobody takes very seriously (including and especially her husband), even when she becomes invested in the fate of a young girl whose family is killed in a gas explosion (allegedly) down the street. The girl, whose parents were killed, disappears into the system and no one really seems to care until Sarah hires Zoë and her husband to look into it. Turns out both women are in way over their heads, as the missing girl points to a much broader conspiracy. The shows villains are a bit cartoonishly distracting, but Thompson and Wilson are brilliantly paired, and their performances are more than worth the price of admission. Stream Down Cemetery Road on Apple TV+.
The Agency (2024 – )
Michael Fassbender as stars here as "Martian," codename of Brandon Colby, a former undercover CIA agent just returned to London after six years in Sudan. He left behind a lover, Dr. Samia Zahir (Jodie Turner-Smith)—a relationship he wasn't terribly forthcoming about with his handlers. When Sami turns up in London as part of a diplomatic delegation, Martian is forced to choose between his job and his personal life, which becomes more complicated when it appears that she's involved in a broader scheme involving the Sudanese government, MI6, and an undercover agent in Belarus. It's all very twisty-turny in the best tradition of spy shows. Jeffrey Wright plays Martian's boss and mentor, Richard Gere is the CIA London Station Chief, and Downton Abbey's Hugh Bonneville is a shifty senior MI6 operative. Stream The Agency on Paramount+.
The Bureau (2015 – 2020)
In addition to, or instead of, The Agency, you can also catch Le Bureau des Légends, the French original on which it's based (they're similarly addictive, though many will prefer the original on principle). Same general premise: Mathieu Kassovitz stars as Guillaume Debailly, a spy just recently returned from a six year undercover mission in Damascus, Syria. Trying to re-adjust to his life, everything is thrown into turmoil when Nadia (Zineb Triki), the woman with whom he'd had a relationship, turns up in Paris. Stream The Bureau on Paramount+.
The Day of the Jackal (2024 – )
Cinematic in scope, this new adaptation of the Frederick Forsyth novel is buoyed by rather brilliant casting: Eddie Redmayne plays the Jackal, a cold and steely international assassin pursued by MI6 operative Bianca Pullman—she's played by Lashana Lynch, putting her experience as the new 007 in No Time to Die to good use. I'm not sure there's anything here we haven't seen in countless other spy thrillers (including, of course, the 1973 and 1997 film adaptations), but the performances and production values are top-notch, with each episode playing out like a tense mini-movie. Stream The Day of the Jackal on Peacock.