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The greatest TV spies aren’t all suave agents with gadgets: the best range from brilliant counterintelligence officers and undercover operatives to comic secret agents and animated heroes. This list ranks 25 individual characters—not spy series—by their influence, distinctive skills, complexity, range and staying power. The order is an editorial judgment, not an objective consensus.
How this ranking works
Influence and longevity count, but so do a character’s particular approach to espionage, the moral and personal conflicts their work creates, and the kind of story they make possible. That leaves room for comedy, animation, classic adventure and grounded intelligence drama alongside action-driven thrillers. The Guardian’s January 2026 ranking of 20 TV spies offers a useful comparison, not a definitive scorecard; the five additions here broaden the historical and stylistic range. The British Film Institute traces television espionage from early secret-agent adventure through gadget-led 1960s shows to spy-fi and more realistic dramas. The Guardian’s list and the BFI’s history of spy TV provide context.
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The 25 greatest TV spies
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George Smiley — Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (1979) and Smiley’s People (1982)
Smiley makes patient observation feel more gripping than a chase. This veteran of British intelligence investigates a Soviet mole through memory, relationships and careful inference, embodying counterintelligence as a contest of judgment rather than force.
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Elizabeth Jennings — The Americans (2013–2018)
A KGB officer living under an American identity, Elizabeth must keep her cover intact while navigating family life and loyalty to her mission. The double life is not just a disguise; it is the source of the character’s deepest conflicts.
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Jackson Lamb — Slow Horses (2022–present)
The abrasive MI5 boss looks like an unlikely master of the service, but repeatedly sees what more polished colleagues miss. His talent for reading people and institutions makes him a formidable spy-story lead without turning him into a conventional action hero.
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John Drake — Danger Man (1960–1968)
Drake helped establish the television secret agent as a resourceful professional who could work across borders and political crises. The BFI notes that the show’s preamble identified secret-service branches around the world before explaining that a “messy job” might call on Drake or someone like him. His place here recognizes the character’s importance to the genre’s early television history.
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Carrie Mathison — Homeland (2011–2020)
Carrie’s obsessive attention to possible threats is both her greatest professional asset and a source of turmoil. She gives the modern intelligence drama a protagonist whose instincts can be incisive, costly and difficult for colleagues to trust.
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Jack Bauer — 24 (2001–2014)
Bauer’s work unfolds inside a real-time crisis format, making every decision feel urgent. The counter-terrorism agent’s willingness to push limits gives the series its force and raises a lasting question about what emergency work does to the people carrying it out.
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Number Six — The Prisoner (1967–1968)
A former intelligence agent tries to resign and is instead trapped in a village that wants to know why. Number Six turns the spy genre inward: surveillance, identity and resistance become the central contest.
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Sydney Bristow — Alias (2001–2006)
Drawn into espionage as a student, Sydney becomes a double agent and an unusually adaptable field operative. Her disguises and missions deliver the kinetic pleasures of spy adventure, while divided loyalties keep the action personal.
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Harry Pearce — Spooks (2002–2011)
As the long-running MI5 section chief, Harry is defined by the burdens of leadership as much as by operational decisions. He anchors a series interested in the pressures intelligence work places on institutions and the people who serve them.
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Maxwell Smart and Agent 99 — Get Smart (1965–1970)
Smart’s bumbling secret-agent persona and Agent 99’s far sharper competence turned spy conventions into comedy. They belong on a list of television spies because the genre’s gadgets, codenames and elaborate schemes are as ripe for parody as they are for suspense.
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Jonathan Pine — The Night Manager (2016–present)
Pine is an intelligence operative embedded close to an arms dealer, where access depends on sustaining a convincing identity. The character’s appeal lies in the tension between his controlled cover and the danger of getting close to the people he is meant to expose.
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Jim Phelps — Mission: Impossible (1966–1973)
Phelps leads a team built around impersonation, planning and coordinated deception. His importance is less about solitary heroics than the pleasures of the operation itself: a carefully assembled team turning an apparently impossible assignment into a performance.
Rank #3
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Martin Rauch — Deutschland 83
An East German border guard is sent undercover to steal military secrets. Rauch gives the spy story a Cold War perspective grounded in the strain of passing within a society that is not his own.
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John Steed — The Avengers (1961–1969)
Steed’s polished style belongs to an espionage adventure that delights in eccentricity as much as intrigue. He represents a distinctly British strand of spy television in which charm and theatrical flair are part of the mission.
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Eve Polastri — Killing Eve (2018–2022)
MI5 analyst Eve becomes consumed by the pursuit of an assassin. Her transformation from observer to participant gives the series its psychological charge and blurs the distance between investigator and quarry.
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Guillaume Debailly — The Bureau (2015–2020)
After years undercover abroad, Debailly has to return to ordinary life without simply leaving his assumed identity behind. His story captures a less glamorous espionage problem: how to resume being oneself after prolonged deception.
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David Callan — Callan (1967–1972)
Callan is a haunted operative in a darker, harder-edged secret-service drama. His weariness distinguishes him from the glamorous agents of the same era and makes the human cost of the work central.
Rank #4
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Danger Mouse — Danger Mouse (1981–1992; revival 2015–2019)
This animated secret agent brings spy fiction to children through comic missions and broad adventure. His longevity across the original run and a later revival shows how easily the genre’s recognizable codes can be adapted for another generation.
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Napoleon Solo — The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (1964–1968)
Solo is a suave, gadget-using agent who works alongside Russian partner Illya Kuryakin. Their partnership makes international cooperation part of the show’s appeal, while its polished gadget-era style helped define 1960s spy television.
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Sidney Reilly — Reilly: Ace of Spies (1983)
Reilly brings the historical spy-adventure mode into the ranking. His inclusion widens the list beyond recurring fictional agents to a dramatized figure associated with an earlier period of espionage history.
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Simon Templar — The Saint (1962–1969)
A Robin Hood-like adventurer, Templar operates across the boundaries of the law. He is not a conventional intelligence officer, but his resourcefulness and international exploits make him a memorable ancestor to the television secret agent.
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Hanna — Hanna (2019–2021)
A young operative engineered for survival is pursued by the CIA. Hanna brings a coming-of-age perspective to the spy thriller, with the tension between extraordinary training and the possibility of an independent life at its center.
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Tamar Rabinyan — Tehran (2020–present)
Tamar is a Mossad hacker on her first field mission in Iran. Her combination of technical expertise and inexperience gives the character a distinctive place among television’s more seasoned agents.
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Steve Austin — The Six Million Dollar Man (1973–1978)
A bionic secret agent with superhuman abilities, Austin represents spy television at its most speculative. His presence reflects the genre’s capacity to merge intelligence work with science-fiction action.
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Illya Kuryakin — The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (1964–1968)
Solo’s Russian partner earns his own place for making the partnership more than a sidekick arrangement. Kuryakin’s role alongside an American agent gave the series a memorable team dynamic in a genre often built around lone operators.
Why television’s spy tradition is so broad
Television espionage has never belonged to one kind of hero. The genre’s history includes grounded counterintelligence, undercover identity dramas, stylish gadget adventures, comedy and animation. Smiley’s quiet deduction and Bauer’s crisis-driven action sit at opposite ends of that range; Danger Mouse and Steve Austin show how far the format can stretch. That variety is why a list of characters can look different from a ranking of spy series. Rotten Tomatoes’ guide, for example, ranks shows rather than individual spies, and its reported 96% Tomatometer score for The Americans is a series-level critics’ aggregate—not a measure of Elizabeth Jennings’ greatness. The score can change. Rotten Tomatoes’ spy TV guide is useful for series comparisons, not a character ranking.
Further reading
For a wider reference work on the subject, BearManor Media lists Wesley Britton’s The Encyclopedia of TV Spies as a paperback covering television espionage. See the publisher’s book listing for its current details.
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