The Pigeon Tunnel

Academy Award–winning documentarian Errol Morris pulls back the curtain on the storied life and career of David Cornwell, the former spy known to the literary world as John le Carré. Through extended conversations, archival footage, and Morris’s signature, incisive interviewing, the film traces how Cornwell’s experiences in espionage shaped his novels, characters, and moral outlook. Le Carré appears on camera reflecting on betrayals, loyalties, and the human cost of spycraft, while anecdotes from his literary career illuminate the origins of his most memorable works.

Blending intimacy with investigative curiosity, The Pigeon Tunnel captures both the wit and melancholy that define le Carré’s voice, offering readers and newcomers alike a compact, revealing portrait of a writer whose life blurred the line between fiction and reality. The result is a moving, thoughtful meditation on truth, deception, and the cost of telling uncomfortable stories—a film as shrewd and humane as its subject.