Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is a motion picture.
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is a 2011 Cold War espionage film directed by Tomas Alfredson . The film , starring Gary Oldman as George Smiley , along with Colin Firth , Tom Hardy , John Hurt , Toby Jones , Mark Strong , Benedict Cumberbatch , and Ciarán Hinds , is set in London in the early 1970s and follows the hunt for a Soviet double agent at the top of the British secret service . It was a critical and commercial success , and was the highest-grossing film at the British box office for three consecutive weeks . It won the BAFTA Award for Best British Film . The film also received three Academy Awards nominations : Best Adapted Screenplay , Best Original Score , and for Oldman , Best Actor .