Spy Films

[KingVoyeur]

With the new Bond movie gearing up, as well as the success of the Bourne movies, I thought we should compile a list of the best spy/espionage/political intrigue films, see if we can figure what people's tastes are. Not in any particular order, here are some I think should go on the list. Please add more!!

From Russia with Love - Probably the most realistic and grounded of the Bond films.

Ronin - Great intrigue, twists and turns abound, one of the better car chases in recent years.

Manchurian Candidate - The original, but the remake wasn't bad.

Bourne - More grounded than Bond.

Notorious - Great Hitchcockian spy story, just one of many.

Mission: Impossible - Much better than the sequel cause it focused on a team of spies, rather than the vanity piece that M:I 2 was.

The Falcon and the Snowman

Casablanca - A lot of romance, but good intrigue as well.

I know there're tons more. What else can you come up with?

[neglet]

The original "The Day of Jackal." One of the few to focus on the villain's point of view, interwoven with the police's efforts to track him. Not much in the way of action or explosions, just good, old-fashioned spy trickery.

[Magell]

The Recruit was pretty cool in this respect as the twist is a good one and actually surprising. Plus there is good acting in the movie.

Basic is one that would go on the other end of the list. They fill the movie with some cool twists but once you get to the end of the movie and think about the way things turned out the story doesn't make much sense and there are surprise twists for the sake of having twists.

[neglet]

Twists and spy movies--that reminds me of "No Way Out," one of Kevin Costner's first movies. (Don't hold that against it.) It's got such a helluva twist that watching the movie a second time is a completely different experience.

[Deacon]

The Recruit was pretty cool in this respect as the twist is a good one and actually surprising. Plus there is good acting in the movie.

Basic is one that would go on the other end of the list. They fill the movie with some cool twists but once you get to the end of the movie and think about the way things turned out the story doesn't make much sense and there are surprise twists for the sake of having twists.
See, for me, it'd be the other way around. I thought "The Recruit" was well-made and well-acted, but I just found it kind of dull. Plus, well, I thought the twist was incredibly obvious. Admittedly, the trailer didn't help.

"Basic", on the other hand, was ridiculous, trashy, overheated... and I loved every minute of it. Not to mention that I was completely blindsided by the final twist (which, admittedly, is pretty silly, but I was having so much fun that I didn't care).

[Trazalca]

As juvenile as they may seem, the Spy Kids movies were pretty cool.

[neglet]

As juvenile as they may seem, the Spy Kids movies were pretty cool.
Just the first two, though. The third one was crap--gimmicky 3-D and a story that felt like watching a bad video game.