Bridge of Spies (2015)
Where to Watch
- Steven Spielberg originally wanted a completely different ending for the film, but test audiences preferred the one we see today.
- Many of the practical effects used in the climax were achieved without any CGI.
- The incredible score for Bridge of Spies was composed in just a few weeks after the original composer dropped out.
Bridge of Spies is a 2015 American historical legal thriller directed by Steven Spielberg, with a screenplay co-written by the Coen Brothers. Tom Hanks stars as James Donovan, a Brooklyn insurance lawyer who is recruited to defend Rudolf Abel, a captured Soviet spy played by Mark Rylance, during the height of Cold War tensions in 1957. When Donovan provides Abel a vigorous defense β earning public hostility for defending an enemy agent β and subsequently negotiates a prisoner exchange at the Berlin Wall, trading Abel for downed American U-2 pilot Francis Gary Powers, Donovan finds himself navigating an impossible diplomatic situation that the CIA, the Soviet Union, and East Germany are all trying to manipulate.
Mark Rylance won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his quietly mesmerizing Abel, who responds to every escalation with the dry observation "Would it help?" β a performance of exquisite understatement. Tom Hanks's Donovan embodied American idealism at its finest β a man who insists on constitutional principles even when they are deeply unpopular. Bridge of Spies earned $165 million worldwide on a $40 million budget.
