← All Movies

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

In November 1973, " Control ", head of British intelligence ("The Circus"), sends field agent Jim Prideaux to Budapest to meet a Hungarian general and potential defector, who has offered to identify a mole installed by Soviet spymaster Karla amongst the Circus' senior leadership. Prideaux realises the meeting is a trap, attempts to leave and is shot in the back. Control and his deputy, George Smiley, are forced to retire, and Control dies shortly after. Sir Percy Alleline becomes the new Chief, with Bill Haydon, Roy Bland and Toby Esterhase as his inner circle. Despite Control's and Smiley's suspicions, the four had begun handling a high-level Soviet source ("Operation Witchcraft"), which Alleline believes will give the Circus access to American intelligence.

Alleline and Bland meet with Permanent Undersecretary Oliver Lacon, the senior civil servant responsible for the Circus, to discuss the ongoing cost of a secret safe house to meet the Witchcraft source. After the meeting, field agent Ricki Tarr, currently in hiding due to being connected to several deaths in Istanbul, telephones Lacon to inform him of a mole within the Circus. Aware that Control had a similar theory, Lacon asks Smiley to investigate. Smiley recruits Tarr's handler Peter Guillam and retired Special Branch Inspector Mendel to assist him.

After setting up a base in the Hotel Islay, Smiley has Guillam steal personnel records and copies of the Circus' slush fund accounts. He discovers several Control loyalists were ousted after Prideaux's shooting, as well as a record of payment made to "Mr. Ellis", one of Prideaux's identities, after the shooting. In Oxford, Smiley interviews former analyst Connie Sachs. Sachs had discovered evidence that Soviet cultural attaché Alexei Polyakov was actually an undercover military officer, and suspected his true role was to run a mole in London; Alleline had scoffed at her findings and sacked her.

Back in London, Smiley discovers Tarr in his house. Tarr tells how he was assigned to trail Boris, a Soviet trade delegate in Istanbul who was offering to defect, but who he quickly guessed was actually KGB. After Tarr witnessed Boris assault his wife and fellow agent Irina, he and Irina began an affair. Irina offered to reveal the identity of a top-level mole in exchange for asylum in the West. Hours after Tarr cabled London about the existence of a double agent, the local station chief was murdered and Irina abducted. Smiley sends Guillam to the Circus archive to steal the duty officer's logbook for the month Tarr contacted London. Guillam is warned by Alleline that Tarr is suspected of treachery, but Smiley vouches for him by noting that the log entry for Tarr's cable is missing.

That night, Smiley recounts his only meeting with Karla to Guillam. While working under the name "Gerstmann" in 1955, Karla was captured and traded to the Soviet Union by the Americans. Believing he would likely be executed upon his return, Smiley travelled to Delhi to recruit him. However, his constant urging for Karla to think of his wife only revealed Smiley's weakness: his love for his wife, Ann. A chainsmoker, Karla listened silently, stole a lighter given to George by Ann, and returned to the Soviet Union.

Smiley contacts another sacked loyalist, former duty officer Jerry Westerby, who tells him of how Prideaux's shooting sent Control into shock. Hoping to find George, Westerby had telephoned Ann; Haydon then arrived and took charge. Guillam wonders how Haydon could have learned of the emergency, to which Smiley informs him that Haydon was having an affair with Ann. Smiley interviews Prideaux, now working at a rural prep school. Prideaux explains that his Budapest mission was to identify the mole and relay one of five code-names to Control drawn from the English children's rhyme " Tinker, Tailor ". Alleline was "Tinker", Haydon "Tailor", Bland "Soldier", Esterhase "Poorman", and Smiley "Beggarman". However, he was captured and tortured by the KGB, during which he witnessed Irina's execution. During his interrogation, Karla personally visited and asked how close Control was to identifying the mole before trading Prideaux back to the Circus.

Smiley realises that Witchcraft is actually a KGB ruse. Alleline and his allies believe that Polyakov is giving them invaluable intel from a "high-placed source": Karla. In fact, the intel is largely fake or exaggerated, with just enough to make it appear genuine. Smiley informs Lacon and the Minister that the true object of Witchcraft is to form a partnership between the Circus and the CIA, enabling the mole to leak both British and American intel.

To draw out the mole, Smiley instructs Tarr to hold the Paris Station at gunpoint and force them to send a fake cable to the Circus. To ensure his compliance, Smiley agrees to Tarr's request to trade the mole for Irina, despite knowing she is dead. Smiley and Guillam surprise Esterhase as he leaves the Circus and drive him to an airstrip and waiting plane; Esterhase gives them the address to the safe house rather than be deported. Smiley and Guillam wait at the safe house for the mole to alert Polyakov that Tarr is about to blow their cover. The mole is revealed to be Haydon, and Smiley arrests him at gunpoint.

The Circus holds Haydon at its training and debriefing facility, Sarratt. Smiley informs him he will be traded for British operatives held in the Soviet Union, and agrees to settle several of Haydon's sexual relationships with both women and men. Haydon informs him that Karla ordered him to seduce Ann to cloud Smiley's judgment. He also confirms that Prideaux, a long-time friend (and, it is hinted, lover), suspected Haydon was the mole and tipped him off before his Hungary mission. Haydon was able to inform Karla and prevent Prideaux from being killed by the KGB.

Blaming Haydon for allowing his torture, Prideaux infiltrates Sarratt with a hunting rifle and kills Haydon from a distance, shooting him in the cheek and watching as he collapses. Ann returns home, Alleline is dismissed from the Circus in disgrace and retires, and Smiley is reinstated and takes up his new post as chief.