Thrillers...
I bet this is a genre which is probably liked by more or less 90% of the movie goers. We are ordinary people, with ordinary jobs, ordinary vacation, and ordinary friends around us. On the silver screen, we tend to shun that "ordinariness" and crave for a different experience. On that screen, everyone of us like a bit of espionage, a slice of international crime syndicate, a gray album snapshot of cold war, a looming threat of a terrible terrorist attack... the adrenaline, the double game, the hot pursuit, the strange heady mix of truth and lies - the intoxication is complete.
So, I create a list of my favorite thrillers of all time. Note that this include all sub-genres of thrillers i.e. psychological, espionage, noir, political, and action. At some point in future, I may break it up in those sub-genres. Also note that this is not based on any ranking whatsoever. I just added the names as they came to mind...
Hope you'll like it and add your comments. I may even modify the list based on your input. It would be good to know about a good thriller from you that I have not seen yet...
Silence of the Lambs (Jodie Foster, Anthony Hopkins, Scott Glenn, Anthony Heald, Ted Levine)
A young F.B.I. cadet must confide in an incarcerated and manipulative
killer to receive his help on catching another serial killer who skins
his victims. Taut with suspense and thrill, this movie managed to mix the darkest human emotion and vulnerabilities in an almost ethereal, surreal manner. You won't easily find a thriller which squeezes out your adrenaline just by playing a faded song tune in the background...
Three days of the Condor (Robert Redford, Faye Dunaway, Cliff Robertson, Max von Sydow)
Trust? What is that? A bookish CIA researcher goes to lunch and comes back to office to find all his co-workers dead. He has to run for his life and must outwit those responsible until he figures out who he can really trust. The ultimate paranoia movie from the 70's stable. Strangely, it mixes up the elements of drama, mystery, and bit a romance too. A classic.
The Conversation (Gene Hackman, John Cazale, Allen Garfield)
A paranoid and personally-secretive surveillance expert has a crisis of
conscience when he suspects that a couple he is spying on will be
murdered. A noir/paranoia/suspense drama gem from Francis Ford Coppola. One of a kind of thriller where the main protagonist is not your FBI sleuth or CIA killing machine but a stocky, middle-aged, slightly bald 'peeping tom' private detective :)
The Usual Suspects (Stephen Baldwin, Gabriel Byrne, Kevin Spacey, Chazz Palminteri, Benicio Del Toro)
A masterpiece of a story of deceit and 'conmanship' about a boat that has been destroyed, leaving criminals dead, and where the
key to this mystery lies with the only survivor and his twisted,
convoluted story beginning with five career crooks in a seemingly random
police lineup. In this movie, lies are not told, but truths are fabricated, and sharp minds of criminal investigator was put to haze and suspicion by the ultimate story-teller. At the end, 'usual suspects' vanish and only the devil remains. But wait... "The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist".
Chinatown (Jack Nicholson, Faye Dunaway, John Huston)
As bruised and cynical as the decade that produced it, this neo-noir classic remains true to the words of one of its characters: "You may think you know what you're dealing with, but believe me, you don't". And that bit of unknown in the every turn of the movie creates a taut tension in your mind like you never knew before. A private detective hired to expose an adulterer finds himself caught up in a web of deceit, corruption and murder - a web weaved with such high degree of cinematic excellence that it etches a permanent entry for itself onto the US National Film Registry in a group of "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" movies.
The Bourne Identity (Matt Damon, Franka Potente, Chris Cooper, Clive Owen)
A lethal and ruthless assassin trained out of the stable of the deepest and blackest covert operation unit of CIA, an amnesia to go with his frighteningly fragile mental condition, fast car chases in the thoroughfares of glittery Paris and Geneva, sniper headshots, millions of black money in Swiss bank... but this is not your "My name is Bond, James Bond". This is (in my personal opinion) infinitely better in a gritty sense of suspense. Although far removed from the main storyline of Robert Ludlum's bestseller book, this movie pulls itself up to a high level of raw spy-action drama. And all the while creating a sensitivity towards the main protagonist who, among all the carnage unfolding around him, is searching for the core of his very identity. A must watch.
And while you are at it, catch this ultimate Moby masterpiece from the same movie
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