Le Carré on screen: 8 adaptations that rival the novels

With the sad news of John le Carré’s (1931-2020) passing this weekend, a retrospective of some of the finest screen adaptations in the writer’s canon.

For many aficionados of the genre, le Carré was the unrivalled king of the spy novel, who maintained a remarkably consistent output – his final novel (the satire Agent Running in the Field) was only published just over a year ago.

We’ll be looking primarily at movie adaptations, but I’ll also briefly take in the storied history of Le Carré on the small screen.

This of course includes the magnificent 1979 adaptation of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (more on this later) as well as the two recent BBC1 big budget series, the sumptuous Night Manager (2016) and the rather more demanding Little Drummer Girl (2018).

A Perfect Spy (1987) and A Murder of Quality (1991) are minor works, but still well worth checking out.

Some (unfairly) have accused le Carré of lacking humour; if this ever needs refuting, I refer readers to the scene in Smiley’s People (1982) where Alec Guinness (incongruously dressed in a long leather trench coat) spends