GOVERNMENT MEN: The FBI on film

Rising from the ashes of the former Bureau of Investigation in 1935, it didn’t take long for the FBI (nicknamed the G-Men) to make it on to our screens. J. Edgar (9.45pm, Sky Premiere) is the story of its infamous first director, John Edgar Hoover, but here are a few more incarnations...

Junior G-Men (1940s)

One of the first portrayals of the FBI was in Universal’s popular film serials. The ‘juniors’ are a gang of street kids (played by a group of boys called the Dead End Kids) who help the real FBI.

The FBI Story (1959)

Jimmy Stewart is the agent regaling students with stories of his glory days with the Bureau – under the leadership of Hoover himself – in this propagandist history lesson.

FEDS (1988)

There’s a Private Benjamin feel to this feel-good FBI comedy, starring Rebecca De Mornay and Mary Gross as Feds in training – and taking no nonsense from their male colleagues.

Point Break (1991)

Kathryn Bigelow shows a different side to the job with this cult actioner. Keanu Reeves is the undercover rookie assimilating himself a little too well into the laid-back surfing community.

Public Enemies (2009)

Michael Mann goes the biographical route for his depiction of the Feds. Christian Bale is the G-Man thwarted at every turn in his pursuit of notorious criminal John Dillinger.