Few elements in cinema generate as much nail-biting tension as a race against the clock. The rhythmic tick-tock drives characters to desperate measures. From Hitchcock’s The 39 Steps to Brad Pitt’s Spy Games, we count down some of our favorite pulse-pounding movies - meticulously compiled within an agonizingly short timeframe to ratchet up the tension.
15. The Taking of Pelham One, Two Three (1974)
Robert Shaw (From Russia With Love, Jaws) is outstanding in this crime drama involving a gang who hijack a train and hold passengers hostage after their journey begins at Pelham Bay Park station in the Bronx at 1:23 pm. The movie was so successful, the New York City Transit Authority would not schedule any train to leave Pelham Bay Park station at 1:23 for years afterward. The film was remade in 2009 but the original more than holds its own. (Prime Video, Google Play, YouTube, Apple TV)
14. Run Lola Run (1998)
Berlin criminal Manni (Moritz Bleibtreu) accidentally leaves a payment for smuggled goods on the subway and has 20 minutes to deliver the money to his boss or face dire consequences. He calls his girlfriend, Lola (Franka Potente), who sprints through the streets of Berlin as she becomes increasingly desperate to beg, borrow, or steal to somehow raise the money. (Vudu, Apple TV, Prime Video)
13. The Fugitive (1993)
Accused murderer Dr. Richard Kimble (Harrison Ford) is being hunted by a US Marshal while he tries to clear his name. Can Kimble expose the killer before it is too late? Ford was at the peak of his career in the ‘90s but during an interview for The Fugitive, he reflected on how life could have turned out very differently. When Ford was just starting out in Hollywood, he was told to change his name and get an Elvis haircut. His reaction? “Unprintable,” Ford said. (YouTube, Google Play, Apple TV, Prime Video)
12. Memento (2000)
Leonard (Guy Pearce) is tracking the man who raped and murdered his wife. There’s only one problem. Leonard has a form of memory loss that means new recollections are erased every 15 minutes, so he’s on a never-ending quest to finish the job in front of him before his latest memory is wiped. Director Christopher Nolan loves playing with time, so be prepared for sections of the story to be presented backward. (Netflix, YouTube, Sky Store, Google Play, YouTube, Prime Video, Chile, Rakuten)
11. The 39 Steps (1935)
While on vacation in London, Canadian Richard Hannay (Robert Donat) gets mixed up in an international spy ring related to 39 mysterious steps. Hannay soon finds himself in a chase across Scotland but who is the pursuer and who is being pursued? Alfred Hitchcock’s thriller is packed with murder, police, espionage, and romance. What’s not to like? (Prime Video, Google Play, Apple TV - or stream for free on YouTube)
10. Spy Game (2001)
CIA case officer Nathan Muir (Robert Redford) is on his last day of work in 1991 and looking forward to retiring in the Bahamas. He’s done with theSpy Game but is called by a task force to provide intel on Tom Bishop (Brad Pitt), a CIA undercover officer apprehended by the government in China. Bishop will be executed in 24 hours unless Muir can save his former protégé. “The story is a chess game and it’s very intelligent the way it is laid out,” Pitt says. (Sky Store, Prime Video)
9. The Manchurian Candidate (2004)
Major Ben Marco (Denzel Washington) is still having nightmares years after his squad’s ambush during the Gulf War. He’s also worried that a former squad mate, Sergeant Raymond Shaw (Liev Schreiber), is running for vice president but may not be the hero he claims to be. Marco finds an implant embedded in his back and his memories resurface just as the clock ticks down to the election. The Manchurian Candidate is based on a thrilling book and real-life CIA mind-control experiments. (Vudu, Prime Video, Paramount+, Showtime, Apple TV)
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Few elements in cinema generate as much nail-biting tension as a race against the clock. The rhythmic tick-tock drives characters to desperate measures. From Hitchcock’s The 39 Steps to Brad Pitt’s Spy Games, we count down some of our favorite pulse-pounding movies - meticulously compiled within an agonizingly short timeframe to ratchet up the tension.
15. The Taking of Pelham One, Two Three (1974)
Robert Shaw (From Russia With Love, Jaws) is outstanding in this crime drama involving a gang who hijack a train and hold passengers hostage after their journey begins at Pelham Bay Park station in the Bronx at 1:23 pm. The movie was so successful, the New York City Transit Authority would not schedule any train to leave Pelham Bay Park station at 1:23 for years afterward. The film was remade in 2009 but the original more than holds its own. (Prime Video, Google Play, YouTube, Apple TV)
14. Run Lola Run (1998)
Berlin criminal Manni (Moritz Bleibtreu) accidentally leaves a payment for smuggled goods on the subway and has 20 minutes to deliver the money to his boss or face dire consequences. He calls his girlfriend, Lola (Franka Potente), who sprints through the streets of Berlin as she becomes increasingly desperate to beg, borrow, or steal to somehow raise the money. (Vudu, Apple TV, Prime Video)
13. The Fugitive (1993)
Accused murderer Dr. Richard Kimble (Harrison Ford) is being hunted by a US Marshal while he tries to clear his name. Can Kimble expose the killer before it is too late? Ford was at the peak of his career in the ‘90s but during an interview for The Fugitive, he reflected on how life could have turned out very differently. When Ford was just starting out in Hollywood, he was told to change his name and get an Elvis haircut. His reaction? “Unprintable,” Ford said. (YouTube, Google Play, Apple TV, Prime Video)
12. Memento (2000)
Leonard (Guy Pearce) is tracking the man who raped and murdered his wife. There’s only one problem. Leonard has a form of memory loss that means new recollections are erased every 15 minutes, so he’s on a never-ending quest to finish the job in front of him before his latest memory is wiped. Director Christopher Nolan loves playing with time, so be prepared for sections of the story to be presented backward. (Netflix, YouTube, Sky Store, Google Play, YouTube, Prime Video, Chile, Rakuten)
11. The 39 Steps (1935)
While on vacation in London, Canadian Richard Hannay (Robert Donat) gets mixed up in an international spy ring related to 39 mysterious steps. Hannay soon finds himself in a chase across Scotland but who is the pursuer and who is being pursued? Alfred Hitchcock’s thriller is packed with murder, police, espionage, and romance. What’s not to like? (Prime Video, Google Play, Apple TV - or stream for free on YouTube)
10. Spy Game (2001)
CIA case officer Nathan Muir (Robert Redford) is on his last day of work in 1991 and looking forward to retiring in the Bahamas. He’s done with theSpy Game but is called by a task force to provide intel on Tom Bishop (Brad Pitt), a CIA undercover officer apprehended by the government in China. Bishop will be executed in 24 hours unless Muir can save his former protégé. “The story is a chess game and it’s very intelligent the way it is laid out,” Pitt says. (Sky Store, Prime Video)
9. The Manchurian Candidate (2004)
Major Ben Marco (Denzel Washington) is still having nightmares years after his squad’s ambush during the Gulf War. He’s also worried that a former squad mate, Sergeant Raymond Shaw (Liev Schreiber), is running for vice president but may not be the hero he claims to be. Marco finds an implant embedded in his back and his memories resurface just as the clock ticks down to the election. The Manchurian Candidate is based on a thrilling book and real-life CIA mind-control experiments. (Vudu, Prime Video, Paramount+, Showtime, Apple TV)
Yes, we know you love Matt Damon as Jason Bourne, but give Jeremy Renner the opportunity to test your loyalties. When we meet up with Bourne, he’s on a training exercise in the Alaskan wilderness. He must find a remote cabin while being stalked by wolves but that’s not his only race. Bourne’s running low on chems and he’s quickly becoming desperate and dangerous. Rachel Weisz co-stars. (Apple TV, Sky Store, Microsoft, Rakuten, Google Play, YouTube, Prime Video)
7. WarGames (1983)
WarGames is a slice of Cold War nostalgia that stands up decades later. Teen hacker David (Matthew Broderick) breaks into a military supercomputer to look for video games and starts unknowingly playing a high-stakes game of Global Thermonuclear War with the Soviet Union. It’s up to David and his girlfriend (Ally Sheedy) to stop the onset of WWIII. Broderick wasn’t sure what he was doing during filming. He’d read a book on computers and learned how to type for the part, but the technology was a puzzle to him in the ‘80s: “I pretty much couldn't make heads or tails of it,” he told the BBC. (Prime Video, Apple TV, Google Play, YouTube)
6. Argo (2012)
Based on a mission conducted by real-life CIA operative Tony Mendez, Ben Affleck poses as a CIA officer-cum-sci-fi-film producer in a ruse to extract six American hostages hiding after a siege on the American Embassy in Tehran. The plan has a few holes. Or as one of the doubtful Americans puts it: “You're gonna sneak 007 over here into a country that wants CIA blood on their breakfast cereal, and you're gonna walk the Brady Bunch out of the most watched city in the world.” Quite right. Ben Affleck’s Best Picture-winning movie races the clock to bundle the hostages out alive. (Prime Video, Google Play, YouTube, Apple TV)
5. Das Boot (1981)
A German U-boat stalks the North Atlantic as its young crew experiences the terror and claustrophobic life of a submariner in WWII. As they are hunted by enemies, the life-and-death question is whether the men can sneak through the Straits of Gibraltar and make it home. “Taut, breathtakingly thrilling, and devastatingly intelligent,” according to Rotten Tomatoes. Director Wolfgang Petersen’s movie forces the audience to relate to the Nazis. “That is a quality of the film, to show that war is war and young people die for horrible reasons,” he told Germany’s DW. (Apple TV, Microsoft, Sky Store)
4. A Most Wanted Man (2014)
German spy Günther Bachmann (the late Philip Seymour Hoffman) and his team race to prevent a potential terrorist attack. Based on John le Carré's book of the same name, Bachmann is a conflicted character - a once-disgraced operative who’s showing signs of self-neglect - yet Hoffman found something in the innate ‘goodness’ of the character that attracted him to the role. His nuanced, compelling performance is unmissable. (Apple TV, Prime Video, Google Play, Rakuten, YouTube, Microsoft, Sky Store, Microsoft)
3. Tenet (2020)
Don’t try to understand it. Feel it. Christopher Nolan's 2020 sci-fi action thrillerTenetis a heist-style film involving a secret organization that tries to stop the end of the world through time travel. “Just enjoy it and then the second or third time you can start to break it down,” advises John David Washington, the protagonist in this visually dazzling spy film puzzle. (Prime Video, Google Play, YouTube)
2. Mission: Impossible - Fallout (2018)
With the threat of nuclear strikes on the Vatican, Jerusalem, and Mecca in Saudi Arabia, Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) and his IMF team race the clock, striving to keep a devastating arsenal out of malevolent clutches. Choosing the top Mission: Impossible is like choosing your favorite child, so stream one or stream all - you won’t be disappointed. ((Paramount+, Apple TV, Rakuten, Microsoft, YouTube, Google Play, Prime Video)
1. Goldfinger (1964)
Auric Goldfinger’s cataclysmic Operation Grand Slam plan is to raid Fort Knox and obliterate the world economy. Luckily, James Bond (Sean Connery) and his trusty Aston Martin are on the case, racing against time to prevent the end of the world as we know it. Rotten Tomato critics rated Goldfinger as 99/100 but you may also want to check out later Bond flicks - including Casino Royale (2006) and Skyfall(2012) - to compare Daniel Craig’s take on 007. Nobody does it better than Bond. (Prime Video, Google Play, YouTube, Rakuten, Microsoft, Chili)
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