British spy novelist John le Carré once called his most frequent protagonist – buttoned-down intelligence officer George Smiley – the anti-James Bond. Appearing in half a dozen of the author’s books, Smiley is everything 007 is not: private, methodical, so unassuming he makes no lasting impression on anyone he encounters.

In this adaptation of Le Carré’s Cold War classic, Smiley (played by a great Gary Oldman) is yanked out of retirement to expose a Soviet mole who’s infiltrated the upper echelon of the agency. Having captured the tacky decor of the early ’80s in Let the Right One In, director Tomas Alfredson here replicates the bureaucratic banality of his ’70s-London milieu. As densely plotted as it should be, Tinker, Tailor forgoes explosive action in favour of shadowy intrigue and the menace of the mundane. It’s the anti-James Bond spy picture.