The Ipcress File

Furie’s stylish espionage thriller has its roots in British ‘kitchen sink’ cinema. The Toronto-born director had cut his teeth on unromantic London-set movies (The Young Ones, The Boys, The Leather Boys), so was well-placed to capture on screen Len Deighton’s Harry Palmer, the working-class anti-hero of the British establishment’s spy fraternity. Barry’s stunning score turned an obscure Hungarian instrument, the cimbalom, into the default sound of the Cold War.