If you ate up Dylan O’Brien & Michael Keaton running and shooting their way around the world, here are five more movies of the same ilk to seek out that may tickle your trigger happy fancy…
ATOMIC BLONDE (2017)
Released only a month ago, while Charlize Theron going all John Wick on us may be most remembered for its balletic, Krav Maga theatrics and cool lighting, let’s not forget the setting: 1989, right at the end of the Cold War, in snowy Berlin fighting not just sinister Ruskies but also some very dubious Brits and Americans. American Assassin may not be a period piece like Atomic Blonde but they’re most certainly both playing in the same spy thriller wheelhouse, even if they’re thirty years apart and not quite stylistically equal.
THE BOURNE SERIES (2002-present)
Arguably now the yardstick by which modern action thrillers go by, The Bourne Identity kickstarted a new age of pulse pounding, stripped back espionage stylistics, and when Paul Greengrass took over for sequels Supremacy & Ultimatum, the series found its niche; Matt Damon saying few words while taking down insiders within American government black ops, all while jerky, in your face camerawork threw you deep into the murk. More may yet come, despite the lukewarm response to last year’s Jason Bourne. They’re essential, anyway. Except Legacy. Give that a swerve.
RONIN (1998)
One of the final films from the great John Frankenheimer, Ronin is by far and away one of the best espionage thrillers of the 90’s, known primarily for its stunning car chases across Paris and Nice which line up with the best of them, from The French Connection to Bullitt. It lacks the head-smacking, poised brutality of the aforementioned thrillers to come, but David Mamet’s script crackles with tension between Robert de Niro and a top-drawer cast of international thespians as layer upon layer is peeled away from a dark and sinister world of post-Cold War mercenaries. Clever & thrilling.
CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER (1994)
Strangely only the second, and final, Jack Ryan picture starring Harrison Ford as Tom Clancy’s all-American hero from a legion of novels, tracking Ryan from his days as a lowly intelligent analyst all the way to President of the United States. Clear and Present Danger, a follow-up to Patriot Games in 1992 from Philip Noyce, sees Harrison in full, noble Ford mode as a middle-aged Ryan battling a Colombian drug cartel and, as ever in modern espionage, some shady government actions which go all the way to the White House. Though glossy and politically of its time, it’s very well constructed from start to finish. Just a shame Harrison didn’t play Ryan much more.
THE DAY OF THE JACKAL (1973)
A seminal piece of 70’s cinema, Fred Zimmerman’s adaptation of Fredrick Forsyth’s 1971 novel introduced the world to one of its most iconic assassins: the Jackal. Edward Fox is graceful and chilling as the mysterious international killer looking to take out Charles de Gaulle in 1963, and the film sets the tone for many of the pictures mentioned above by forensically constructing the Jackal’s mission and the police hunt on his tail, with no easy answers by the end. A half-hearted stab at a remake happened in 1998’s The Jackal but this remains the touchstone, and one of those cold 70’s thrillers that marked its decade.
What are your favourite action thrillers from the espionage genre? Which films did we miss on our list? Let us know.