The world’s leading spy film podcast launches a new screening series with Connery’s 1965 Bond classic at Riverside Studios.
It’s not every day a Bond film turns 60—and fewer still are celebrated like this. On Saturday 13th December 2025, Riverside Studios will host a special anniversary screening of Thunderball, presented by the SpyHards podcast as the launch of a new cinema series dedicated to spy films.
Spies on Screen is the first live programming venture from SpyHards, the weekly podcast hosted by Scott Hardy and Cam Smith. Over the past few years, they’ve built a loyal global audience with their deep-dive reviews of espionage films and TV—from Connery-era Bond to long-forgotten curios—combining genuine fandom with a forensic attention to the genre’s details.
For their first screening event, they’ve chosen a Bond film that still towers over the series. Released in 1965 at the height of Bondmania, Thunderball took the franchise underwater and global. Connery is at his sharpest here, going up against SPECTRE’s Emilio Largo in the Bahamas in a plot involving stolen nuclear weapons, spear-gun battles, sharks, jetpacks and Tom Jones in full voice.
Following the screening, the hosts will be joined on stage by Martine Beswick, who played MI6 agent Paula in the film and had earlier appeared in From Russia With Love. Beswick will also be signing autographs in the cinema foyer afterwards.
