The past is a place you cannot escape. Joy Division tells the sweeping story of Thomas, ex-member of the Hitler Youth and ex-Soviet spy, living life anonymously in Central America and haunted by memories of his troubled past - his lost love, his instinct for survival and his relentless quest for individual freedom.

His story begins in Silesia, Germany in the summer of 1944, when as an artistic 14 year old Thomas (Tom Schilling, Napola / Der Baader Meinhof Komplex) spends his days romancing Melanie (Bernadette Heerwagen, Grüße Aus Kaschmir) a beautiful neighbourhood girl and the object of his innocent obsession. Together they are inspired by the Strength Through Joy movement and the future it promises them. Suddenly their world is torn apart as the Eastern Front collapses and the Soviet Invasion of Germany's eastern provinces begins.

Thomas and his Hitler Youth school friends are swiftly drafted into the Volkssturm and whisked off to defend the borders of the Reich where they face annihilation at the hands of Soviet Shock Troops. Thomas, the sole survivor of his unit, meets Astrid, an escaping Nurse and together they join the mass exodus of refugees fleeing Westwards from the Soviet war machine. In the chaos Thomas and Astrid become separated, and he is seconded into a last ditch offensive with a motley division of Paratroopers, Volkssturm and Foreign Fascists led by fanatical Brit Sgt Stone (Ricci Harnett, Rise of the Footsoldier) to recapture a town held by the Soviets. In the aftermath of the battle Thomas finds Melanie among the refugees pouring into the safe-haven. Now a shadow of her former self having been captured by enemy soldiers several times during her flight, the two young lovers brace themselves for the final attack barricaded inside the bombed town.

As VE Day dawns across Germany a cruel twist of fate sees Melanie make the ultimate sacrifice and so launches Thomas into a new phase of his life when he meets Tanya an enthusiastic Commissar. 17 years later, Thomas (Ed Stoppard, The Pianist) now a graduate of an elite Soviet Suvorov Academy for war orphans and an Officer in the Russian Army Intelligence Corps, is recruited by the KGB. Given a new identity Thomas is sent to London - now at the height of the Cold War - in order to join a British Communist-Spy ring which the KGB suspect of infiltration by the British Secret Service and an Ex-Nazi Gestapo Officer. After initial caution, Thomas eventually forms a bond with Dennis (Bernard Hill, Lord of the Rings trilogy), his war-weary, disillusioned contact and main organiser of the Spy-ring. Discovering that they both share a dream of ideals and more importantly of freedom-of-the-individual, Thomas is forced into a deadly dilemma when his handler at Control orders him to assassinate Dennis, who is no longer trusted by their Spy Masters.

Amidst the uncertainties and suspicions of his mission, whilst leading the double-life of a spy he meets Yvonne, a lively young London artist who re-lights his suppressed passion for life. As the two of them fall for one and other, Thomas slips into the world of early sixties London and develops a taste for freedom. But when the net tightens and the British Secret Police begin eliminating the spy-ring, Thomas' instinct for survival takes over as it had done when he was a youth on the battlefields of Germany...