COLD WAR SPY THRILLER
by zegerdesmedt | created - 25 Mar 2020 | updated - 7 months ago | Public➔ ice-cold espionage intrigue drama ranking
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1. The Manchurian Candidate (1962)
PG-13 | 126 min | Drama, Thriller
An American POW in the Korean War is brainwashed as an unwitting assassin for an international Communist conspiracy.
Director: John Frankenheimer | Stars: Frank Sinatra, Laurence Harvey, Janet Leigh, Angela Lansbury
Votes: 79,878
2. 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: 18,827
3. The Ipcress File (1965)
Passed | 109 min | Drama, Thriller
In London, a wisecracking spy investigates the kidnapping and brainwashing of British scientists while dealing with the constraints of his agency's bureaucracy.
Director: Sidney J. Furie | Stars: Michael Caine, Nigel Green, Guy Doleman, Sue Lloyd
Votes: 17,602
4. The Osterman Weekend (1983)
R | 103 min | Action, Drama, Thriller
During the Cold War, a controversial television journalist is asked by the C.I.A. to persuade certain acquaintances, who are Soviet Agents of the Omega network, to defect.
Director: Sam Peckinpah | Stars: Rutger Hauer, John Hurt, Craig T. Nelson, Dennis Hopper
Votes: 9,421 | Gross: $6.49M
5. The Americans (2013–2018)
TV-MA | 44 min | Crime, Drama, Mystery
At the height of the Cold War, two Russian agents pose as the average American couple, complete with family.
Stars: Keri Russell, Matthew Rhys, Keidrich Sellati, Holly Taylor
Votes: 111,424
6. The Lives of Others (2006)
R | 137 min | Drama, Mystery, Thriller
In 1984 East Berlin, an agent of the secret police conducting surveillance on a writer and his lover finds himself becoming increasingly absorbed by their lives.
Director: Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck | Stars: Ulrich Mühe, Martina Gedeck, Sebastian Koch, Ulrich Tukur
Votes: 410,752 | Gross: $11.29M
7. 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: 212,620 | Gross: $24.15M
8. 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: 62,638 | Gross: $41.51M
9. Funeral in Berlin (1966)
Not Rated | 102 min | Thriller
Sent to East Berlin to retrieve a Communist defector, British spy Harry Palmer suspects the situation is not what his superiors believe it to be.
Director: Guy Hamilton | Stars: Michael Caine, Oscar Homolka, Paul Hubschmid, Eva Renzi
Votes: 7,789
10. 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: 12,709 | Gross: $17.10M
11. The Serpent (1973)
PG | 113 min | Drama, Thriller
A Soviet diplomat hatches a complicated plan to enable him to defect to the West.
Director: Henri Verneuil | Stars: Yul Brynner, Henry Fonda, Dirk Bogarde, Philippe Noiret
Votes: 1,205
12. 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: 108,621 | Gross: $59.95M
13. Myortvyy sezon (1968)
138 min | Adventure, Drama
Soviet spy Ladeynikov learns that in one of the pharmaceutical centers in a small resort town works a former German war criminal, Dr. Hass, who is finishing the creation of a deadly ... See full summary »
Director: Savva Kulish | Stars: Donatas Banionis, Rolan Bykov, Sergei Kurilov, Gennadiy Yukhtin
Votes: 423
14. Fail Safe (1964)
Approved | 112 min | Drama, Thriller
A technical malfunction sends American planes to Moscow to deliver a nuclear attack. Can all-out war be averted?
Director: Sidney Lumet | Stars: Henry Fonda, Walter Matthau, Fritz Weaver, Dan O'Herlihy
Votes: 24,428
15. Red Sparrow (2018)
R | 140 min | Action, Drama, Thriller
Ballerina Dominika Egorova is recruited to 'Sparrow School,' a Russian intelligence service where she is forced to use her body as a weapon. Her first mission, targeting a C.I.A. agent, threatens to unravel the security of both nations.
Director: Francis Lawrence | Stars: Jennifer Lawrence, Joel Edgerton, Matthias Schoenaerts, Charlotte Rampling
Votes: 201,708 | Gross: $46.87M
16. The Russia House (1990)
R | 123 min | Drama, Romance, Thriller
A British publisher is sent a manuscript detailing Soviet Union nuclear missile capabilities. British Intelligence intercept it and recruit him to investigate the author's editor, a beautiful Russian woman he claims never to have met.
Director: Fred Schepisi | Stars: Sean Connery, Michelle Pfeiffer, Roy Scheider, James Fox
Votes: 17,553 | Gross: $23.00M
17. 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: 11,004 | Gross: $12.42M
18. Scorpio (1973)
PG | 114 min | Action, Drama, Thriller
During the Cold War, the CIA orders free-lance operative Scorpio to assassinate his former CIA mentor Cross and a deadly cat-and-mouse game ensues.
Director: Michael Winner | Stars: Burt Lancaster, Alain Delon, Paul Scofield, John Colicos
Votes: 5,210
19. The Executioner (1970)
GP | 107 min | Drama, Thriller
A British Intelligence Agent must track down a fellow spy suspected of being a double agent.
Director: Sam Wanamaker | Stars: George Peppard, Joan Collins, Judy Geeson, Oscar Homolka
Votes: 470
20. The Double Man (1967)
Not Rated | 105 min | Mystery, Thriller
In a complex piece of espionage the Russian secret service attempts to kidnap a high ranking officer in the CIA and replace him with a double of its own.
Director: Franklin J. Schaffner | Stars: Yul Brynner, Britt Ekland, Clive Revill, Anton Diffring
Votes: 1,206
21. Atomic Blonde (2017)
R | 115 min | Action, Thriller
An undercover MI6 agent is sent to Berlin during the Cold War to investigate the murder of a fellow agent and recover a missing list of double agents.
Director: David Leitch | Stars: Charlize Theron, James McAvoy, John Goodman, Eddie Marsan
Votes: 206,680 | Gross: $51.69M
22. Black Eagle (1988)
R | 93 min | Action, Drama
CIA agent must outrace KGB agent in searching of super weapon lost in Mediterranean.
Director: Eric Karson | Stars: Shô Kosugi, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Doran Clark, Bruce French
Votes: 8,210
23. The Deadly Affair (1967)
Not Rated | 107 min | Crime, Drama, Mystery
A British agent sets out to uncover the hidden facts behind a British government employee's suicide.
Director: Sidney Lumet | Stars: James Mason, Maximilian Schell, Simone Signoret, Harriet Andersson
Votes: 4,191
24. Enigma (1982)
PG | 101 min | Drama, Thriller
A C.I.A. Agent tries to infiltrate Soviet intelligence to stop a murderous diabolical plot.
Director: Jeannot Szwarc | Stars: Martin Sheen, Sam Neill, Brigitte Fossey, Derek Jacobi
Votes: 1,631
25. Foreign Intrigue (1956)
Approved | 100 min | Crime, Drama, Mystery
When a reclusive, enigmatic millionaire dies suddenly on the Riviera, his press agent begins to investigate his employer's shady past.
Director: Sheldon Reynolds | Stars: Robert Mitchum, Geneviève Page, Ingrid Thulin, Frédéric O'Brady
Votes: 1,452
26. The Defector (1966)
Not Rated | 106 min | Drama, Thriller
An American scientist is sent by the CIA to East Germany to retrieve a secret microfilm from a Soviet scientist interested in defecting to the West but the Stasi secret police's surveillance complicates matters.
Director: Raoul Lévy | Stars: Montgomery Clift, Hardy Krüger, Macha Méril, David Opatoshu
Votes: 813
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