An excellent spy thriller movie is now available to stream at home for free

The story of how the movie was made is almost as insane as the film itself.

Accessible through the service Rakuten TV, the found footage film is set in the 1960s and imagines that the 1969 Moon landing was faked.

Co-written and directed by Matt Johnson (BlackBerry, Nirvanna the Band the Show), he also stars in Operation Avalanche, playing the character of Matt Johnson, a young and ambitious CIA agent and cinephile.

When the CIA suspects that a Soviet mole is working within NASA, Matt and his colleague, Owen (Owen Williams), hatch a plan to infiltrate the organisation and root out the mole by posing as a documentary crew.

As Matt and Owen carry out this mission, they make a startling discovery. While NASA can send astronauts into space, it does not yet have the capabilities for them to land on the Moon, meaning that the US could lose the Space Race to the Soviet Union.

It's then that Matt comes up with the even more ambitious plan to stage the Moon landing for NASA. Part of this involves him sneaking onto the set of Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey to learn how the legendary director shoots space in such an authentic way.

Staging the biggest lie in maybe all of human history comes with obvious risks, however, and it isn't long before Matt, Owen, and their filmmaking team's lives spiral out of control.

Operation Avalanche is a one-of-a-kind movie. It's full of great period detail, while also blending genuine tension and moments of hilarity as Johnson's fun, nerdy protagonist gets way in over his head as his conspiracy plot plays out.

The film is also incredibly playful, doubling as both a spy thriller and a portrait of a group of friends coming together to make the ultimate sci-fi blockbuster.

Adding to the meta nature of the project is the fact that the real-life Matt Johnson gained permission to shoot Operation Avalanche's NASA-set scenes at the organisation's headquarters by pretending he was making a student documentary.

You can read more about this stunt, further blurring the line between fiction and reality, here.

While we wait for Johnson's beloved new comedy Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie to get a cinema release this side of the pond, Irish and UK audiences can check out Operation Avalanche now for free through the streaming service Rakuten TV.