The Spy

The Spy is an English-language French espionage thriller web television miniseries written and directed by Israeli director Gideon Raff and Max Perry based on the life of Israel's top Mossad spy Eli Cohen, who was executed in Damascus in Syria, in 1965. Eli Cohen is portrayed by Sacha Baron Cohen. The series is a production delivered by French company Légende Entreprises for Canal+ and Netflix, with OCS airing the show in France and Netflix streaming the show internationally outside France. The six-episode miniseries, released on September 6, 2019, on Netflix, was said to have been inspired by real-life events. It is based on the book L'espion qui venait d'Israël (English: The Spy Who Came From Israel), written by Uri Dan and Yeshayahu Ben Porat. On Metacritic, it has "generally favorable reviews". The series has been criticized for perhaps not being historically accurate. His wife was not a maid, and there is no independent verification about who in the Syrian elite Cohen met while working undercover in Buenos Aires or Damascus.