Thriller

Catch him if you can. The Fugitive is on the run! Harrison Ford and Tommy Lee Jones race through the breathless manhunt movie based on the classic TV series. Ford is prison escapee Dr. Richard Kimble, a Chicago surgeon falsely convicted of killing his wife and determined to prove his innocence by leading his pursuers to the one-armed man who actually committed the crime. Jones (1993 Academy Award and Golden Globe winner as Best Supporting Actor) is Sam Gerard, an unrelenting bloodhound of a U.S. Marshal. They are hunted and hunter.

When Neil Jordan is really on his game, as he is with The Good Thief, his directorial skill is a marvel to behold. In the character-driven mode of Jordan's Mona Lisa and The Crying Game, this smooth, underrated caper provides an abundance of cinematic riches, not the least being Jordan's peerless knack for dialogue and a tailor-made role for Nick Nolte. For better or worse, Nolte's off-screen drug abuse served him well in portraying Bob Montagnet, ace thief, recovering heroin addict, and beloved denizen of the French Riviera, where his luck is about to take some very clever turns.

In this plot-twisting, high-tech thriller, relentless FBI agent Sean Archer must go dangerously undercover to investigate the location of a lethal biological weapon planted by his arch rival, the sadistic terrorist-for-hire Castor Troy. After undergoing a radical surgical procedure, Archer literally "borrows" Troy's face and identity to carry out his mission. But things go awry when Troy, emerging from a coma, transforms into Archer and wreaks havoc upon his life, both at work and at home.

Sean Connery plays a master thief thought to be long retired, while Katherine Zeta-Jones is his foil, a hotshot insurance investigator assigned to his case. They both have a little something to hold over each other's heads, until it turns out that Zeta-Jones is a professional art thief herself and is playing on both sides of the fence. At first they eye each other with mutual distrust until they team up for a job, which goes off without a hitch.

Steven Seagal gets killed during the first 20 minutes of this enjoyable thriller, so the movie scores points for ingenuity because it immediately improves when you realize that Seagal's role is just a heroic cameo. That leaves Kurt Russell to star as an American intelligence expert who (due to Seagal's untimely demise) finds himself leading a strike force against Islamic terrorists who have seized in-flight control of a 747 jetliner with 400 passengers.

This is the TV movie that put Steven Spielberg on the map, shortly before he made The Sugarland Express. Working from a script by Richard Matheson, the film stars Dennis Weaver as a mild-mannered traveling salesman who unintentionally angers the driver of a semi truck. Suddenly, the truck is not only riding his tail but trying to run him off the road. No matter what he does (pulling over, stopping at a diner, calling the cops), he can't get rid of it. Spielberg makes the wise decision of never showing the driver, even as he cranks the voltage on the film's suspense elements.

The date movie of the late 1980s, this had everyone arguing in the aisles. Does Michael Douglas deserve the unwanted attention he and his family are receiving at the hands of loony stalker Glenn Close? After a weekend extramarital affair with colleague Close, he returns home to wife Anne Archer, and Close becomes progressively angrier. You might even say she is boiling bunny mad. Directed by Adrian Lyne, this is not your average thriller, as it garnered six Academy Award nominations. The plot is too obvious, but the dialogue rings true and the intense performances hold the story together.

Three-time Oscar nominee Tom Cruise delivers the most electrifying performance of his career in this riveting film based on the international best-seller. Cruise plays Mitch McDeere, a brilliant and ambitious Harvard Law grad. Driven by a fierce desire to bury his working class past, Mitch joins a small, prosperous Memphis firm that affords Mitch and his wife (Jeanne Tripplehorn) an affluent lifestyle beyond their wildest dreams.

Robert Clayton Dean (Will Smith) is a lawyer with a wife and family whose happily normal life is turned upside down after a chance meeting with a college buddy (Jason Lee) at a lingerie shop. Unbeknownst to the lawyer, he's just been burdened with a videotape of a congressman's assassination. Hot on the tail of this tape is a ruthless group of National Security Agents commanded by a belligerently ambitious fed named Reynolds (Jon Voight).

Clint Eastwood held the dual role of director and star of this 1975 spy thriller, which makes up for sluggish pacing with a breathtaking climax on a treacherous peak in the Swiss Alps. The plot kicks into gear when Eastwood, playing a retired assassin, is recruited back into a secret organization to avenge the murder of an old friend. He's then blackmailed into making a second "hit"; this time his target is one of three men who will be attempting to conquer the Eiger, a dangerous peak in Switzerland.