68 replies to this topic

[Leiter]

What are your top five favorite spy films outside of Bond?

[J.C.D'Arc]

Russia House
No Way Out
Three Days of the Condor
Telefon
Clear and Present Danger

[Loomis]

THE BOURNE IDENTITY

THE BOURNE SUPREMACY

CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER

Erm....

That's about it. Don't think I can cite even five spy flicks (non-Bond) I really like.

ETA: Oh, yes, NO WAY OUT is ace. Good call, J.C.D'Arc.

[dunmall]

Ipcress File
In Like Flint
Spy Kids 2 (lol it's the kids film i always wanted to see growing up lol!)
Hunt for red october
the president's analyst

[ComplimentsOfSharky]

In no particular order

Bourne Identity & Supremacy

Spy Game

Clear and Present Danger

[spynovelfan]

In no order, and just my personal faves at this particular moment in time:

SPARTAN
NO WAY OUT
THE BOURNE SUPREMACY
FUNERAL IN BERLIN
THE DAY OF THE JACKAL

Not sure if the last one counts, but I'll count it anyway.

[Yellow Pinky]

Gee, I don't think I can narrow it to just five individual fims, so I'll include franchises as well as specific genre spy films...

Spy franchises:
The Bourne films (Bourne Identity & Bourne Supremacy)
The Harry Palmer films (Ipcress File, Funeral in Berlin, Billion Dollar Brain)
The Flint films (In Like Flint, Our Man Flint)
The Richard Johnson "Bulldog Drummond" films (Deadlier Than the Male, Some Girls Do)
The Jack Ryan films (Hunt for Red October, Patriot Games, Clear & Present Danger)

WWII spy flicks:
Where Eagles Dare
Operation Crossbow
The Guns of Navarone
The Dirty Dozen
Spy Smasher (serial)

Individual spy flims:
Ronin
Spartan
True Lies
The Spy Who Came in From the Cold
Arabesque

TV Series:
The Avengers
I Spy
The Equalizer
Alias
24

[Number Six]

1. The Spy Who Came in From the Cold
2. North by Northwest
3. The Third Man
4. Charade
5. The Man Who Knew Too Little

[Yellow Pinky]

Wow, I couldn't come up with just 5 to begin with and now I've been reminded by all of you folks of so many more that I hadn't thought of...

Charade, 3 Days of the Condor, North by Northwest, Day of the Jackal...

Man!! I love the whole espionage genre!!

[ComplimentsOfSharky]

Forgot about Ronin, love that one.

[J.C.D'Arc]

I forgot about Ronin, too. Maybe because, while it's a thriller, I didn't see it as a "spy" film. But it certainly is one of the best thrillers ever, in my humble opinion.

[killkenny kid]

1. North by Northwest.

2. Three Days of the Condor. (check for the man in the brown overcoat walking down Park Row. A very young killkenny kid.)

3. Notorious.

4. Hunt for Red Oct.

5. Ipcress Files.

[K1Bond007]

Spy Game
Bourne Identity & Supremacy
Mission Impossible (only the first)

I really can't think of many off the top of my head. I would put the Jack Ryan series, but I don't really classify those as a "spy movie". Bond is a spy. Bristow is a spy. Phelps is a spy. Ryan is not.

[Loomis]

2. Three Days of the Condor. (check for the man in the brown overcoat walking down Park Row. A very young killkenny kid.)

Seriously? You're in THREE DAYS OF THE CONDOR?

When I was 12, I almost made it into a scene in A FISH CALLED WANDA. Almost.

Anyone else been in anything? I believe Athena is in DEEP IMPACT and maybe also WAR OF THE WORLDS. Right, Athena?

[Lazenby880]

The Bourne Identity

The Bourne Supremacy

The Ipcress File

Torn Curtain

North By Northwest

[killkenny kid]

2. Three Days of the Condor. (check for the man in the brown overcoat walking down Park Row. A very young killkenny kid.)

Seriously? You're in THREE DAYS OF THE CONDOR?

When I was 12, I almost made it into a scene in A FISH CALLED WANDA. Almost.

Anyone else been in anything? I believe Athena is in DEEP IMPACT and maybe also WAR OF THE WORLDS. Right, Athena?

In the scene, where Robert Redford and Cliff Robertson leave a bar in lower Manhattan. I was just walking down the street, I never saw the camera. I was shocked when I saw the movie.

[james st.john smythe]

1. condorman 2. austin powers international man of mystry 3. teen agent 4. carry on spying 5. one hour photo

[DLibrasnow]

1. WHEN EIGHT BELLS TOLL - This is my personal favorite spy movie based on the novel by Alistaor MacLean, It's very Bondian in structure.
2. WHERE EAGLES DARE - Based on another MacLean novel. Great war spy film.
3. NORTH BY NORTHWEST - Amazingly, this movie was made before the Bond series had started.
4. THREE DAYS OF THE CONDOR - Met the guy who played the postman/assassion last year, He talked about that great fight scene.
5. THE HUNT FOR RED OCTOBER - great structure, performances and visuals, Based on a great book too.

Also rans:
CONDORMAN - Loved it growing. Based on the book The Game of X. Plus it also features the incredible Barbara Carrera.
THE FOURTH PROTOCOL - I prefer this to Caine's Harry Palmer movies - also based on a great book
THE BOURNE SUPREMACY - Prefer the sequel to the original.
OPERATION CROSSBOW - Fantastic true spy stoiy from World War II.
THE 39 STEPS - I love all three versions.

[Alessandra]

All sharing the same place (in that I love them all)

Spy Game
Mission: Impossible
Charade
To Catch a Thief
Enemy of the State
The Peacemaker
North by Northwest

So yes it's more than five..and I'd have others to add, too!
Actually.. on old war-spy movies I'd like to add an absolute masterpiece of humour paired with spy: La Grande Vadrouille, a 1966 movie with Louis De Fun

Edited by Alessandra, 29 November 2005 - 02:26 PM.

[Scrambled Eggs]

1. The Third Man (Perfect)
2. The 39 Steps
3. The Ipcress File ("I'm going to cook you the best meal you've ever tasted")
4. The Lady Vanishes
5. Day of the Jackal (not quite a spy film, but it uses the same ingredients if not the same recipe)

The whole list could be the Hitchcock spy films.

[ACE]

No particular order.

1) The Third Man

[Scrambled Eggs]

3)      JFK - Oliver Stone

That's a good call.

[ACE]

3)      JFK - Oliver Stone

That's a good call.

I know it might stretch what is deemed a "spy" film but it can easily slip in the list.

Besides, it is the best piece of film-making and best film for the last 40 years.

FACT!

(take cover....)

IMHO

ACE

[Scrambled Eggs]

[quote name='ACE' date='29 November 2005 - 15:18'][quote name='Scrambled Eggs' date='29 November 2005 - 15:13'][quote name='ACE' date='29 November 2005 - 15:11']
3)

[ACE]

[quote name='Scrambled Eggs' date='29 November 2005 - 15:23']
[quote name='ACE' date='29 November 2005 - 15:18'][quote name='Scrambled Eggs' date='29 November 2005 - 15:13'][quote name='ACE' date='29 November 2005 - 15:11']
3) JFK - Oliver Stone

It's a great film but would have been so much better minus Kevin Costner.

[/quote]

Really?

Not generally a Costner fan but he has made some great movies.

He was perfect in this and Dances With Wolves. IMHO.


That's the real question, isn't it -
"Why?" - the "how" is just "scenery"
for the suckers... it keeps people guessing
like a parlor game, but it prevents
them from asking the most important
question - Why? Who benefitted? Who has
the power to cover it up?...


ACE

[Alessandra]

[quote name='ACE' date='29 November 2005 - 16:11']No particular order.

1) The Third Man

[Scrambled Eggs]

Really?

Not generally a Costner fan but he has made some great movies.

He was perfect in this and Dances With Wolves. IMHO.


                        That's the real question, isn't it -
                        "Why?" - the "how" is just "scenery"
                        for the suckers...  it keeps people guessing
                        like a parlor game, but it prevents
                        them from asking the most important
                        question - Why?  Who benefitted?  Who has
                        the power to cover it up?...


ACE

He's just too bloody American. I want to punch him every time I see him on screen. Him and Tom Hanks. If we must have Americans acting in films, let it be the Bogart type.
Donald Sutherland spoke those lines you've quoted above - now that's my kind of American actor! Costner's just too Mid West.

Kev C's made some great films though, haven't seen JFK for a while so I'm willing to reconsider my view of him.

Edited by Scrambled Eggs, 29 November 2005 - 03:47 PM.

[ACE]

He's just too bloody American. I want to punch him every time I see him on screen. Him and Tom Hanks. If we must have Americans acting in films, let it be the Bogart type.
Donald Sutherland spoke those lines you've quoted above - now that's my kind of American actor! Costner's just too Mid West.

Kev C's made some great films though, haven't seen JFK for a while so I'm willing to reconsider my view of him.

Well, I don't mind American actors. For me, it doesn't really matter where someone is from. That would be...something bad. It matters the job they do. And actors, generally, are beholden to scripts and directors.

BTW, Donald Sutherland is not American. He is Canadian. There is a difference.

ACE

Edited by ACE, 29 November 2005 - 04:03 PM.

[spynovelfan]

I agree that Costner appears very bland. I think it's one reason NO WAY OUT is so overlooked. People just think 'Oh, that's with Kevin Costner' and immediately categorise it as middle-of-the-road, when it's one of the cleverest - and bleakest - films to come out of Hollywood. The Costner effect is so great that people just blank the last scene of the film (which, of course, is the whole point - it's like blanking the end of THE GAME with Michael Douglas, also sorely unappreciated). But it's a double-edged sword: it's precisely because of Costner's cleancut all-American jib that no viewer would have seen the ending coming. Can you even imagine them making this film now, faithfully? I can't.

I quite like Donald Sutherland's DAY OF THE JACKAL ripoff: THE EYE OF THE NEEDLE.

[Alessandra]

It seems to me that the majority of successful actors are American, or have taken American nationality. Hollywood invented movie business as we know it, so American actors are everywhere.
now I do like Kevin Costner, but I am not estatic about him.
But on Tom Hanks's good acting I don't think there's much to object. He has dozens of great films and awards on his side.
Anyway I'm probably partial, since I PREFER American actors to others in general.