Afterword - Old-Fashioned Thrillers
by JohnFarrowKarrtorp | created - 01 May 2020 | updated - 03 May 2020 | Public- Instant Watch Options
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1. Man on Fire (2004)
R | 146 min | Action, Crime, Drama
In Mexico City, a former CIA operative swears vengeance on those who committed an unspeakable act against the family he was hired to protect.
Director: Tony Scott | Stars: Denzel Washington, Christopher Walken, Dakota Fanning, Radha Mitchell
Votes: 389,788 | Gross: $77.91M
2. The Odessa File (1974)
PG | 130 min | Drama, Thriller
Following the suicide of an elderly Jewish man, a journalist in possession of the man's diary investigates the alleged sighting of a former S.S. Captain, who commanded a concentration camp during World War II.
Director: Ronald Neame | Stars: Jon Voight, Maximilian Schell, Maria Schell, Mary Tamm
Votes: 12,079 | Gross: $1.11M
3. The Devil Rides Out (1968)
G | 95 min | Horror
Devil worshipers plan to convert two new victims.
Director: Terence Fisher | Stars: Christopher Lee, Charles Gray, Nike Arrighi, Leon Greene
Votes: 10,272
4. Gorky Park (1983)
R | 128 min | Crime, Drama, Mystery
A Moscow police officer investigates a vicious triple homicide and stumbles upon a high-level international political conspiracy.
Director: Michael Apted | Stars: William Hurt, Lee Marvin, Brian Dennehy, Ian Bannen
Votes: 15,856 | Gross: $15.90M
5. Ice Station Zebra (1968)
G | 148 min | Adventure, Thriller
USN nuclear sub USS Tigerfish must rush to the North Pole to rescue the staff of Drift Ice Station Zebra weather station.
Director: John Sturges | Stars: Rock Hudson, Ernest Borgnine, Patrick McGoohan, Jim Brown
Votes: 11,883
6. The Riddle of the Sands (1979)
PG | 102 min | Adventure, Drama, Thriller
In 1901, two British yachtsmen visiting Germany's Frisian Islands accidentally discover a German plot to invade England.
Director: Tony Maylam | Stars: Michael York, Jenny Agutter, Simon MacCorkindale, Alan Badel
Votes: 1,382
7. The 39 Steps (1935)
Approved | 86 min | Crime, Mystery, Thriller
A man in London tries to help a counter-espionage agent, but when the agent is killed and the man stands accused, he must go on the run to save himself and stop a spy ring that is trying to steal top-secret information.
Director: Alfred Hitchcock | Stars: Robert Donat, Madeleine Carroll, Lucie Mannheim, Godfrey Tearle
Votes: 61,567
8. 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: 17,597
9. Billion Dollar Brain (1967)
Not Rated | 111 min | Crime, Drama, Thriller
British spy-turned-detective Harry Palmer stumbles upon an oil tycoon's plot to overthrow Communism using a supercomputer.
Director: Ken Russell | Stars: Michael Caine, Karl Malden, Ed Begley, Oscar Homolka
Votes: 6,016
10. Moon Zero Two (1969)
G | 100 min | Crime, Sci-Fi
A space salvage expert and his partner become involved with a group of criminals intent on hijacking a small asteroid made of sapphire and crashing it into the moon.
Director: Roy Ward Baker | Stars: James Olson, Catherine Schell, Warren Mitchell, Adrienne Corri
Votes: 1,836
11. The Secret Servant (1984)
60 min | Drama, Thriller
Major Maxim of the SAS is assigned as a bodyguard for a nuclear strategist going to a conference.
Stars: Charles Dance, Dan O'Herlihy, Jill Meager, Julian Curry
Votes: 18
12. Agent 8 3/4 (1964)
98 min | Comedy
Czech-speaking, out-of-work Briton Nicholas Whistler (Dirk Bogarde) is unwittingly sent on a secret mission to Prague by British Intelligence.
Director: Ralph Thomas | Stars: Dirk Bogarde, Sylva Koscina, Robert Morley, Leo McKern
Votes: 935
13.
Armchair Thriller (1978–1981)
Episode:
The Chelsea Murders
(1981)
120 min | Crime, Drama, Horror
A mysterious and terrifyingly-masked serial murderer attacks a series of seemingly random victims in Chelsea. What could be the connection between this and a group local students making a film - and to investigative reporter Mary?
Director: Derek Bennett | Stars: Darien Angadi, Anthony Barnett, Miranda Bell, Christopher Bramwell
Votes: 42
14. The Cruel Sea (1953)
Approved | 126 min | Drama, War
The World War II adventures of a British convoy escort ship and its officers.
Director: Charles Frend | Stars: Jack Hawkins, Donald Sinden, John Stratton, Denholm Elliott
Votes: 5,412
15. The Mask of Dimitrios (1944)
Passed | 95 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
Mystery writer Cornelius Leyden becomes intrigued after the murdered body of a vicious career criminal washes up in the Bosphorus.
Director: Jean Negulesco | Stars: Peter Lorre, Sydney Greenstreet, Zachary Scott, Faye Emerson
Votes: 3,963
16. Topkapi (1964)
Unrated | 120 min | Adventure, Comedy, Crime
A conman gets mixed up with a group of thieves who plan to rob an Istanbul museum to steal a jewelled dagger.
Director: Jules Dassin | Stars: Melina Mercouri, Peter Ustinov, Maximilian Schell, Robert Morley
Votes: 10,734
17. A Night to Remember (1958)
Not Rated | 123 min | Drama, History
On her maiden voyage in April 1912, the supposedly unsinkable RMS Titanic strikes an iceberg in the Atlantic Ocean.
Director: Roy Ward Baker | Stars: Kenneth More, Ronald Allen, Robert Ayres, Honor Blackman
Votes: 17,168
18. The Purple Plain (1954)
100 min | Adventure, Drama, War
In World War II Burma, a Canadian bomber pilot becomes reckless after losing his bride in a Luftwaffe air-raid.
Director: Robert Parrish | Stars: Gregory Peck, Bernard Lee, Win Min Than, Brenda de Banzie
Votes: 2,449
19. Highly Dangerous (1950)
Not Rated | 90 min | Action, Thriller
A British lady entomologist travels to a Balkan country to look into germ warfare trials using various bugs as carriers.
Director: Roy Ward Baker | Stars: Margaret Lockwood, Dane Clark, Marius Goring, Naunton Wayne
Votes: 619
20. The Vivero Letter (1999)
R | 95 min | Action, Adventure, Thriller
A man in Central America finds his brother's murdered body. It turns out that his brother has been murdered because he knows the whereabouts of a lost city in the jungle. The man teams up ... See full summary »
Director: H. Gordon Boos | Stars: Robert Patrick, Chiara Caselli, Fred Ward, John Verea
Votes: 299
21. Landslide (1992)
PG-13 | 95 min | Drama, Thriller
Amnesiac geologist Robert (Bob) Boyd is working on a project that he had been retained to do. He has no memory of the past, but during the project, his memory begins to return, and the memories are not happy ones.
Director: Jean-Claude Lord | Stars: Anthony Edwards, Tom Burlinson, Melody Anderson, Ronald Lacey
Votes: 116
22. The MacKintosh Man (1973)
PG | 98 min | Thriller
A member of British Intelligence assumes a fictitious criminal identity and allows himself to be caught, imprisoned, and freed in order to infiltrate a spy organization and expose a traitor.
Director: John Huston | Stars: Paul Newman, Dominique Sanda, James Mason, Harry Andrews
Votes: 5,222 | Gross: $3.30M
23. The Enemy (2001)
R | 94 min | Action, Crime, Thriller
A C.I.A. Agent and a geneticist battle to keep a deadly biological weapon from falling into the wrong hands, when the weapon's inventor is kidnapped.
Director: Tom Kinninmont | Stars: Luke Perry, Olivia d'Abo, Roger Moore, Horst Buchholz
Votes: 546
24. Only When I Larf (1968)
G | 104 min | Adventure, Comedy, Crime
A master conman leads a pair of British accomplices on an international adventure of highly profitable dirty tricks.
Director: Basil Dearden | Stars: Richard Attenborough, David Hemmings, Alexandra Stewart, Nicholas Pennell
Votes: 313
25. 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: 7,788
26. Hell Below Zero (1954)
Approved | 90 min | Action, Adventure, Drama
The captain of an Antarctic whaling ship falls overboard in mysterious circumstances and his daughter, aided by a sympathetic American, decides to investigate the accident.
Director: Mark Robson | Stars: Alan Ladd, Joan Tetzel, Basil Sydney, Stanley Baker
Votes: 548
27. She (1935)
Passed | 101 min | Adventure, Fantasy, Romance
A group of explorers search of the legendary "flame of life," a mysterious force that bestows immortality.
Directors: Lansing C. Holden, Irving Pichel | Stars: Helen Gahagan, Randolph Scott, Helen Mack, Nigel Bruce
Votes: 1,908
28. She (I) (1965)
Unrated | 106 min | Adventure, Fantasy
An Edwardian archaeologist and two companions stumble upon a lost city in East Africa, run by a beautiful queen whose love holds the promise of immortality.
Director: Robert Day | Stars: Ursula Andress, Peter Cushing, Bernard Cribbins, John Richardson
Votes: 3,627
29. Biggles: Adventures in Time (1986)
PG | 108 min | Adventure, Family, Sci-Fi
Daring British WWI fighter pilot James "Biggles" Bigglesworth and 1980s low-level business executive Jim Ferguson discover that they can time travel to each other's eras. They try to stop the Germans from changing the outcome of WWI.
Director: John Hough | Stars: Neil Dickson, Alex Hyde-White, Fiona Hutchison, Peter Cushing
Votes: 3,365 | Gross: $0.11M
30. Biggles (1960– )
30 min | Adventure
Stars: Neville Whiting, David Drummond, John Leyton, Carl Duering
Votes: 14
31. The Vengeance of She (1968)
G | 101 min | Adventure, Fantasy
Carol, a beautiful young girl is possessed by Ayesha's spirit who was once the queen of Kuma. Ayesha's spirit gains control over Carol to achieve her malevolent goals.
Director: Cliff Owen | Stars: John Richardson, Olga Schoberová, Edward Judd, Colin Blakely
Votes: 1,044
32. Rogue Male (1976 TV Movie)
Not Rated | 103 min | Drama, Thriller
In 1939 when an English hunter takes aim at Adolf Hitler with a rifle, he is captured, tortured and left for dead. He escapes but his captors pursue him to England.
Director: Clive Donner | Stars: Peter O'Toole, John Standing, Alastair Sim, Harold Pinter
Votes: 1,029
33. Man Hunt (1941)
Passed | 105 min | Crime, Drama, Romance
British hunter Thorndike vacationing in Bavaria has Hitler in his gun sight. He is captured, beaten, left for dead, and escapes back to London where he is hounded by German agents and aided by a young woman.
Director: Fritz Lang | Stars: Walter Pidgeon, Joan Bennett, George Sanders, John Carradine
Votes: 6,439
34. Shoot First (1953)
Approved | 88 min | Adventure, Thriller
A retired U.S. Army Colonel living in England stumbles upon a spy ring when he shoots buckshot at a poacher during a hunt.
Director: Robert Parrish | Stars: Joel McCrea, Laurence Naismith, Denis Lehrer, Marius Goring
Votes: 357
35. Brandy for the Parson (1952)
Approved | 75 min | Comedy, Crime, Romance
A young couple get involved with a smuggler.
Director: John Eldridge | Stars: James Donald, Kenneth More, Jean Lodge, Frederick Piper
Votes: 207
36. Dance of the Dwarfs (1983)
PG | 93 min | Adventure, Horror
An anthropologist hires a down-on-his-luck helicopter pilot to fly her into the jungle, where she is searching for a scientist who is investigating reports of a tribe of reptile-men.
Director: Gus Trikonis | Stars: Deborah Raffin, Peter Fonda, John Amos, Carlos Palomino
Votes: 325
37. The Eagle Has Landed (1976)
PG | 123 min | Adventure, Drama, Thriller
A German plot to kidnap Sir Winston Churchill unfolds at the height of World War II.
Director: John Sturges | Stars: Michael Caine, Donald Sutherland, Robert Duvall, Jenny Agutter
Votes: 24,522
38. A Prayer for the Dying (1987)
R | 107 min | Action, Crime, Drama
Martin, an I.R.A. hitman, is seen by a Catholic priest while carrying out a hit. He grows a bond with the priest and his niece. But his past and his former employers put all their lives in danger.
Director: Mike Hodges | Stars: Mickey Rourke, Bob Hoskins, Alan Bates, Sammi Davis
Votes: 5,717 | Gross: $1.43M
39. The Wrath of God (1972)
PG | 111 min | Adventure, Drama, Western
Set in the 1920s, several foreigners held by a South American military group are offered possible freedom if they accept to topple a local crazed military leader.
Director: Ralph Nelson | Stars: Robert Mitchum, Frank Langella, Rita Hayworth, John Colicos
Votes: 1,331
40. Tiger in the Smoke (1956)
94 min | Crime, Drama, Thriller
In wartime France, a young officer is killed during a raid to kill a German general at the house that used to belong to his grandmother. Before he dies, he talks about a treasure that was ... See full summary »
Director: Roy Ward Baker | Stars: Donald Sinden, Muriel Pavlow, Tony Wright, Bernard Miles
Votes: 288
41. The Fighting Pimpernel (1949)
88 min | Adventure, Drama, Romance
A British aristocrat goes in disguise to France to rescue people from The Terror of the guillotine.
Directors: Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger | Stars: David Niven, Margaret Leighton, Cyril Cusack, Jack Hawkins
Votes: 612
42. The Scarlet Pimpernel (1982 TV Movie)
Not Rated | 142 min | Action, Drama, Romance
Paris, 1792: After France becomes a republic, aristocrats are guillotined. The English Sir Percy tries to save as many as he can as The Scarlet Pimpernel in disguises.
Director: Clive Donner | Stars: Anthony Andrews, Jane Seymour, Ian McKellen, James Villiers
Votes: 5,159
43. Two Lovers (1928)
98 min | Action, Drama, History
Two Lovers (1928) is a silent feature film directed by Fred Niblo, and produced by Samuel Goldwyn.
Director: Fred Niblo | Stars: Ronald Colman, Vilma Bánky, Noah Beery, Nigel De Brulier
Votes: 39
44. The Emperor's Candlesticks (1937)
Approved | 89 min | Drama, History, Romance
A male Polish secret agent and a female Russian secret-police spy smuggle messages to St. Petersburg in candlesticks. While chasing after stolen candlesticks they discover each other's identity and fall in love.
Director: George Fitzmaurice | Stars: William Powell, Luise Rainer, Robert Young, Maureen O'Sullivan
Votes: 831
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