30 great spy / detective movies
by vinsond21 | created - 02 Jan 2011 | updated - 04 Jun 2013 | Public- Instant Watch Options
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1. Spy Game (2001)
R | 126 min | Action, Crime, Thriller
Retiring CIA agent Nathan Muir recalls his training of Tom Bishop while working against agency politics to free him from his Chinese captors.
Director: Tony Scott | Stars: Robert Redford, Brad Pitt, Catherine McCormack, Stephen Dillane
Votes: 166,940 | Gross: $0.03M
2. The Secret Life of Ian Fleming (1990 TV Movie)
Not Rated | 100 min | Adventure, Biography, War
Ian Fleming's life (1908-64) as a journalist and a naval intelligence officer was a lot like the womanizing James Bond, about whom he would later write 12 spy novels.
Director: Ferdinand Fairfax | Stars: Jason Connery, Kristin Scott Thomas, Joss Ackland, Patricia Hodge
Votes: 649
3. The Recruit (2003)
PG-13 | 115 min | Action, Thriller
A brilliant young CIA trainee is asked by his mentor to help find a mole in the Agency.
Director: Roger Donaldson | Stars: Al Pacino, Colin Farrell, Bridget Moynahan, Gabriel Macht
Votes: 142,154 | Gross: $52.80M
4. The French Connection (1971)
R | 104 min | Action, Crime, Drama
A pair of NYPD detectives in the Narcotics Bureau stumble onto a heroin smuggling ring based in Marseilles, but stopping them and capturing their leaders proves an elusive goal.
Director: William Friedkin | Stars: Gene Hackman, Roy Scheider, Fernando Rey, Tony Lo Bianco
Votes: 135,494 | Gross: $15.63M
5. The Bourne Identity (2002)
PG-13 | 119 min | Action, Mystery, Thriller
A man is picked up by a fishing boat, bullet-riddled and suffering from amnesia, before racing to elude assassins and attempting to regain his memory.
Director: Doug Liman | Stars: Franka Potente, Matt Damon, Chris Cooper, Clive Owen
Votes: 575,777 | Gross: $121.66M
6. The International (I) (2009)
R | 118 min | Action, Crime, Drama
An Interpol agent attempts to expose a high-profile financial institution's role in an international arms dealing ring.
Director: Tom Tykwer | Stars: Clive Owen, Naomi Watts, Armin Mueller-Stahl, Ulrich Thomsen
Votes: 99,952 | Gross: $25.45M
7. Body of Lies (2008)
R | 128 min | Action, Drama, Thriller
A CIA agent on the ground in Jordan hunts down a powerful terrorist leader while being caught between the unclear intentions of his American supervisors and Jordan Intelligence.
Director: Ridley Scott | Stars: Leonardo DiCaprio, Russell Crowe, Mark Strong, Golshifteh Farahani
Votes: 239,269 | Gross: $39.39M
8. Breach (2007)
PG-13 | 110 min | Biography, Crime, Drama
FBI upstart Eric O'Neill enters into a power game with his boss, Robert Hanssen, an agent who was put on trial for selling secrets to the Soviet Union.
Director: Billy Ray | Stars: Chris Cooper, Ryan Phillippe, Dennis Haysbert, Laura Linney
Votes: 61,742 | Gross: $33.23M
9. The Good Shepherd (2006)
R | 167 min | Drama, History, Thriller
The tumultuous early history of the Central Intelligence Agency is viewed through the prism of one man's life.
Director: Robert De Niro | Stars: Matt Damon, Angelina Jolie, Robert De Niro, Alec Baldwin
Votes: 108,511 | Gross: $59.95M
10. Syriana (2005)
R | 128 min | Drama, Thriller
A politically charged epic about the state of the oil industry in the hands of those personally involved in and affected by it.
Director: Stephen Gaghan | Stars: George Clooney, Matt Damon, Amanda Peet, Kayvan Novak
Votes: 134,217 | Gross: $50.82M
11. The Fourth Protocol (1987)
R | 119 min | Thriller
John Preston is a British Agent with the task of preventing the Russians detonating a nuclear explosion next to an American base in the UK. The Russians are hoping this will shatter the "special relationship" between the two countries.
Director: John Mackenzie | Stars: Michael Caine, Pierce Brosnan, Ned Beatty, Joanna Cassidy
Votes: 10,972 | Gross: $12.42M
12. The Falcon and the Snowman (1985)
R | 131 min | Biography, Crime, Drama
The true story of a disillusioned military contractor employee and his drug pusher childhood friend who became walk-in spies for the Soviet Union.
Director: John Schlesinger | Stars: Timothy Hutton, Sean Penn, Pat Hingle, Joyce Van Patten
Votes: 12,657 | Gross: $17.10M
13. Three Days of the Condor (1975)
R | 117 min | Crime, Mystery, Thriller
A bookish CIA researcher in Manhattan finds all his co-workers dead, and must outwit those responsible until he figures out who he can really trust.
Director: Sydney Pollack | Stars: Robert Redford, Faye Dunaway, Cliff Robertson, Max von Sydow
Votes: 62,443 | Gross: $41.51M
14. The Prize (1963)
Approved | 134 min | Crime, Drama, Mystery
As the Nobel Prize winners come to Stockholm to receive their awards, their lives are overturned and perturbed in various ways.
Director: Mark Robson | Stars: Paul Newman, Edward G. Robinson, Elke Sommer, Diane Baker
Votes: 5,270 | Gross: $7.70M
15. The Conversation (1974)
PG | 113 min | Drama, Mystery, Thriller
A paranoid, secretive surveillance expert has a crisis of conscience when he suspects that the couple he is spying on will be murdered.
Director: Francis Ford Coppola | Stars: Gene Hackman, John Cazale, Allen Garfield, Frederic Forrest
Votes: 121,698 | Gross: $4.42M
16. Charade (1963)
Passed | 113 min | Comedy, Mystery, Romance
Romance and suspense ensue in Paris as a woman is pursued by several men who want a fortune her murdered husband had stolen. Whom can she trust?
Director: Stanley Donen | Stars: Cary Grant, Audrey Hepburn, Walter Matthau, James Coburn
Votes: 85,473 | Gross: $13.47M
17. North by Northwest (1959)
Approved | 136 min | Action, Adventure, Mystery
A New York City advertising executive goes on the run after being mistaken for a government agent by a group of foreign spies, and falls for a woman whose loyalties he begins to doubt.
Director: Alfred Hitchcock | Stars: Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint, James Mason, Jessie Royce Landis
Votes: 345,766 | Gross: $13.28M
18. Torn Curtain (1966)
PG | 128 min | Drama, Romance, Thriller
An American scientist publicly defects to East Germany as part of a cloak and dagger mission to find the solution for a formula resin before planning an escape back to the West.
Director: Alfred Hitchcock | Stars: Paul Newman, Julie Andrews, Lila Kedrova, Hansjörg Felmy
Votes: 29,223
19. Bullitt (1968)
M/PG | 114 min | Action, Crime, Thriller
A nonconformist San Francisco cop is determined to find the underworld kingpin who killed the witness under his protection.
Director: Peter Yates | Stars: Steve McQueen, Jacqueline Bisset, Robert Vaughn, Don Gordon
Votes: 75,764 | Gross: $42.30M
20. Chinatown (1974)
R | 130 min | Drama, Mystery, Thriller
A private detective hired to expose an adulterer in 1930s Los Angeles finds himself caught up in a web of deceit, corruption, and murder.
Director: Roman Polanski | Stars: Jack Nicholson, Faye Dunaway, John Huston, Perry Lopez
Votes: 349,474
21. L.A. Confidential (1997)
R | 138 min | Crime, Drama, Mystery
As corruption grows in 1950s Los Angeles, three policemen - one strait-laced, one brutal, and one sleazy - investigate a series of murders with their own brand of justice.
Director: Curtis Hanson | Stars: Kevin Spacey, Russell Crowe, Guy Pearce, Kim Basinger
Votes: 617,161 | Gross: $64.62M
22. The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1965)
Approved | 112 min | Drama, Thriller
Instead of coming in from the Cold War, British agent Alec Leamas chooses to face another mission.
Director: Martin Ritt | Stars: Richard Burton, Oskar Werner, Claire Bloom, Sam Wanamaker
Votes: 18,790
23. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011)
R | 127 min | Drama, Mystery, Thriller
In the bleak days of the Cold War, espionage veteran George Smiley is forced from semi-retirement to uncover a Soviet Agent within MI6.
Director: Tomas Alfredson | Stars: Gary Oldman, Colin Firth, Tom Hardy, Mark Strong
Votes: 212,335 | Gross: $24.15M
24. The Cold Light of Day (2012)
PG-13 | 93 min | Action, Thriller
After his family is kidnapped during their sailing trip in Spain, a young Wall Street trader is confronted by the people responsible: intelligence agents looking to recover a mysterious briefcase.
Director: Mabrouk El Mechri | Stars: Henry Cavill, Bruce Willis, Sigourney Weaver, Verónica Echegui
Votes: 39,342 | Gross: $3.75M
25. Sherlock Holmes (2009)
PG-13 | 128 min | Action, Adventure, Mystery
Detective Sherlock Holmes and his stalwart partner Watson engage in a battle of wits and brawn with a nemesis whose plot is a threat to all of England.
Director: Guy Ritchie | Stars: Robert Downey Jr., Jude Law, Rachel McAdams, Mark Strong
Votes: 670,407 | Gross: $209.03M
26. RED (2010)
PG-13 | 111 min | Action, Comedy, Crime
When his peaceful life is threatened by a high-tech assassin, former black-ops agent Frank Moses reassembles his old team in a last-ditch effort to survive and uncover his assailants.
Director: Robert Schwentke | Stars: Bruce Willis, Helen Mirren, Morgan Freeman, Mary-Louise Parker
Votes: 323,761 | Gross: $90.38M
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