The Courier

2020
PG-13
1h 52m

IMDb RATING

7.2/10

77K

YOUR RATING

POPULARITY

3,083

Merab Ninidze, Benedict Cumberbatch, Jessie Buckley, and Rachel Brosnahan in The Courier (2020)

Cold War spy Greville Wynne and his Russian source try to put an end to the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Play trailer0:31

22 Videos

87 Photos

Spy Drama History Mystery Thriller

Businessman Greville Wynne is asked by a Russian source to try to help put an end to the Cuban Missile Crisis.Businessman Greville Wynne is asked by a Russian source to try to help put an end to the Cuban Missile Crisis.Businessman Greville Wynne is asked by a Russian source to try to help put an end to the Cuban Missile Crisis.

See production info at IMDbPro

IMDb RATING

7.2/10

77K

YOUR RATING

POPULARITY

3,083

See production info at IMDbPro

Awards
- 2 nominations

Trivia
Screenwriter Tom O'Connor found out as much as he could about Greville Wynne and Oleg Penkovsky. Their relationship is mentioned in several books but only in fragments. "There's enough to understand the basics," O'Connor stated. "A lot of the events were and remain classified, and so sometimes, finding out what exactly happened was a challenge because there is active misinformation being put out by both sides. People don't necessarily want everything on-the-record."

Goofs
In a panoramic shot of Moscow, Wynne walks along the embankment opposite the building of the Ministry of Defense. Although it was built in 1951, a late 2014 annex with two-headed eagles on the friezes is visible. In Soviet times, two-headed eagles were a symbol of czarism and under no circumstances could they appear on an official building in the center of Moscow.

Quotes
Oleg Penkovsky: Greville, we are only two people. But this is how things change.

Crazy credits
Vintage news footage of the real Greville Wynne is shown before the end credits.

Connections
Featured in WatchMojo: Top 10 Best Movies of 2021 (So Far) (2021)

Soundtracks
Cheers
Composed by Roger Webb
Published by de Wolfe Ltd
Courtesy of de Wolfe Ltd

User reviews380

Review

Featured review

9/10

Collector

Real life stories can be tricky. In the horror genre they can fail miserably ... in the War scenarios or spy and real people stories, it does look differently though. Like with this one. And while I reckon one could argue that side characters feel shallow or one dimensional (the wives for example), I'd argue there is not enough time to get and have everyone have their moment.

Still the British wife we have here, does have some zingers and you can really feel her pain and understand her anxiety over all that is happening. Even if she has the wrong idea of what is going on. Having said all that, the actors are fantastic and the tension is really holding up throughout ... you may know where this is going (and what happened with Cuba and the missilie crisis), but it won't take anything away from what we see on screen.