Empire magazine has premiered the first clip from Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, director Tomas Alfredson's star-studded adaptation of the classic Cold War spy novel by John le Carré.

The all-too-brief teaser introduces us to John Hurt as Control, head of Britain's MI6 (referred to as "the Circus" because of its headquarters at London's Cambridge Circus), as he explains for Mark Strong's agent Jim Prideaux the code names assigned to the senior intelligence officers suspected of being a Soviet mole. We also get a peek at Gary Oldman as George Smiley, a retired agent who's drawn into the investigation.

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy also stars Colin Firth, Tom Hardy, Ciarán Hinds, Benedict Cumberbatch, David Dencik, Simon McBurney and Toby Jones. The film opens Sept. 16 in the United Kingdom and Dec. 9 in the United States.