Another exercise in stoicism and crime from legendary French filmmaker Jean-Pierre Melville (Le Samourai), in which hard men spend a lot of time giving each other hard stares. Over the course of 140 minutes, an escaped criminal (Gian Maria Volonte) and a newly released ex-con (Melville regular Alain Delon) fatefully meet, save each other’s life

John Frankenheimer’s freaky and feverish political thriller, based on Richard Condon’s novel, must have seemed to have come from the future, what with its paranoid plot involving Communist infiltration, right-wing hysteria and political assassinations – all in the midst of the Cuban missile crisis and not long before John F. Kennedy’s murder. A sweaty Frank

One of the rare instances in which Woody Allen strays from the subject of neurotic New Yorkers and their failed romances – and evidence that variety becomes him. Match Point is set in contemporary London, where a former tennis professional (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) becomes involved with a ridiculously rich family. He marries the daughter (Emily

Austrian writer-director Michael Haneke’s quietly insidious film doesn’t just scare you; it messes with your head. Someone certainly is messing with the central couple (Daniel Auteuil and Juliette Binoche), who find a videotape on their doorstep that consists of nothing more than the image of their own home. As more tapes arrive, suspicion spreads. Cache

The personal and the global are at frustrating odds in this ambitious adaptation of a John Le Carre novel that tries to tie together one man’s love for his late wife with drug-company espionage in Africa. Ralph Fiennes and Rachel Weisz ably anchor the personal story, while talented Brazilian director Fernando Meirelles (City of God)

A practice run for Woody Allen’s superior Match Point, this essentially has the same premise: an adulterer considers killing his mistress when she threatens to upend his placid domestic life. What Match Point wisely avoided, Crimes indulges in: overwrought philosophical pontificating, obvious symbolism and, most notably, the onscreen presence of Allen himself. Allen has a

Steven Spielberg’s career hit its creative stride with this television movie. Essentially a 90-minute dissertation on the slight embarrassment of being passed on the open road, Duel follows a milquetoast businessman (Dennis Weaver) on a trip who is harassed and eventually hunted by the mysterious driver of a massive tanker truck. Weaver’s ironically named David

Writer-director John Carpenter’s police thriller throbs with the sort of dread that can come from getting lost in a bad neighborhood. It brings to life our worst fears about the chaos that might erupt at any moment in the American urban wasteland. On the last night before a blighted precinct closes and police presence pretty

Adapted from an Armistead Maupin novel – Maupin had a hand in the screenplay – The Night Listener is an oddly inert thriller, a movie of shocking revelations and sneaky twists that somehow still never jars you. Part of the problem is Robin Williams, who tends to become inert when giving one of his ‘serious’