MRQE Ranks: Cinema's Best Assassin Movies

1

Taxi Driver (1976)

Cast: Robert De Niro, Jodie Foster, Cybill Shepherd, Peter Boyle, Leonard Harris

Director: Martin Scorsese

Synopsis: "All the animals come out at night" -- and one of them is a cabby about to snap. In Martin Scorsese's classic 1970s drama, insomniac ex-Marine Trav... [MORE]

2

Pulp Fiction (1994)

Cast: John Travolta, Samuel L. Jackson, Bruce Willis, Uma Thurman, Harvey Keitel

Director: Quentin Tarantino

Synopsis: Outrageously violent, time-twisting, and in love with language, Pulp Fiction was widely considered the most influential American movie of the 1990s... [MORE]

3

The Manchurian Candidate (1962)

Cast: Laurence Harvey, Frank Sinatra, Angela Lansbury, James Gregory, Janet Leigh

Director: John Frankenheimer

Synopsis: An unusually tense and intelligent political thriller, The Manchurian Candidate was a film far ahead of its time. Its themes of thought control, po... [MORE]

4

No Country for Old Men (2007)

Cast: Tommy Lee Jones, Javier Bardem, Josh Brolin, Woody Harrelson, Kelly Macdonald

Director: Joel Coen

Synopsis: When a Vietnam veteran discovers two million dollars while wandering through the aftermath of a Texas drug deal gone horribly awry, his decision to... [MORE]

5

Blow Out (1981)

Cast: John Travolta, Nancy Allen, John Lithgow, Dennis Franz, Peter Boyden

Director: Brian De Palma

Synopsis: Brian De Palma's homage to Michelangelo Antonioni's classic art movie Blow-Up (1966) blends suspense and political paranoia when a Philadelphia sou... [MORE]

6

JFK (1991)

Cast: Kevin Costner, Sissy Spacek, Gary Oldman, Jay O. Sanders, Ed Asner

Director: Oliver Stone

7

The Terminator (1984)

Cast: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Linda Hamilton, Michael Biehn, Paul Winfield, Lance Henriksen

Director: James Cameron

Writer: James Cameron

Synopsis: Endlessly imitated, The Terminator made the reputation of cowriter/director James Cameron -- who would go on to make 1997's titanic Titanic -- and ... [MORE]

8

Le Samouraï (1967)

Cast: Alain Delon, Nathalie Delon, François Périer, Cathy Rosier

Director: Jean-Pierre Melville

9

Z (1969)

Cast: Yves Montand, Irene Papas, Jean-Louis Trintignant, Jacques Perrin, Charles Denner

Director: Constantin Costa-Gavras

Synopsis: Z is one of the most politically insightful films ever made, exposing government hypocrisy and cover-up in the wake of a political assassination. Z... [MORE]

10

Blood Simple. (1984)

Cast: John Getz, M. Emmet Walsh, Frances McDormand, Dan Hedaya

Director: Joel Coen

Synopsis: In the first film of brothers Joel Coen and Ethan Coen, M. Emmett Walsh plays Visser, an unscrupulous private eye hired by Texas bar owner Marty (D... [MORE]

11

The Killer (1989)

Cast: Chow Yun-Fat, Sally Yeh, Danny Lee, Kenneth Tsang, Chu Kong

Director: John Woo

Synopsis: Though John Woo's lifelong admiration of Sam Peckinpah, Sergio Leone, Martin Scorsese, and Stanley Kubrick are also evident in this stylish actione... [MORE]

12

The Bourne Ultimatum (2007)

Cast: Matt Damon, Julia Stiles, David Strathairn, Scott Glenn, Paddy Considine

Director: Paul Greengrass

Synopsis: Jason Bourne (Matt Damon) races to solve the mystery of his past while being hunted by members of the very organization he was hired into as direct... [MORE]

13

Leon: The Professional (1994)

Cast: Jean Reno, Natalie Portman, Gary Oldman, Danny Aiello, Peter Appel

Director: Luc Besson

Synopsis: As visually stylish as it is graphically violent, this thriller directed by Luc Besson concerns Mathilda (Natalie Portman), a 12-year-old girl livi... [MORE]

14

Kill Bill: Vol. 2 (2004)

Cast: Uma Thurman, David Carradine, Michael Madsen, Daryl Hannah, Gordon Liu

Director: Quentin Tarantino

Synopsis: Quentin Tarantino's sprawling homage to action films of both the East and the West reaches its conclusion in this continuation of 2003's ultra-viol... [MORE]

15

Munich (2005)

Cast: Eric Bana, Daniel Craig, Ciaran Hinds, Mathieu Kassovitz, Geoffrey Rush

Director: Steven Spielberg

Synopsis: Much as Steven Spielberg followed 1993's special-effects blockbuster Jurassic Park with a far more downbeat and personal project later the same yea... [MORE]

16

Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (2003)

Cast: Uma Thurman, David Carradine, Daryl Hannah, Michael Madsen, Vivica A. Fox

Director: Quentin Tarantino

17

Collateral (2004)

Cast: Tom Cruise, Jamie Foxx, Jada Pinkett Smith, Mark Ruffalo, Peter Berg

Director: Michael Mann

Synopsis: A taxi driver is unexpectedly taken on the ride of his life in this stylish thriller from acclaimed director Michael Mann. Max (Jamie Foxx) is a ca... [MORE]

18

Road to Perdition (2002)

Cast: Tom Hanks, Paul Newman, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Jude Law, Stanley Tucci

Director: Sam Mendes

Synopsis: The acclaimed graphic novel from crime writer Max Allan Collins becomes this big budget Dreamworks drama from director Sam Mendes and screenwriter ... [MORE]

19

In Bruges (2008)

Cast: Colin Farrell, Brendan Gleeson, Ralph Fiennes, Clemence Poesy, Jeremie Renier

Director: Martin McDonagh

Synopsis: Having just carried out a particularly difficult hit in London, two hitmen seek shelter in Bruges, Belgium, only to find their views on life and de... [MORE]

20

Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai (1999)

Cast: Forest Whitaker, John Tormey, Henry Silva, Cliff Gorman, Isaach De Bankole

Director: Jim Jarmusch

Synopsis: A surreal crime drama told as only Jim Jarmusch could, Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai stars Forest Whitaker as Ghost Dog, a hit man living in an... [MORE]

21

Panic (2000)

Cast: William H. Macy, Neve Campbell, John Ritter, Donald Sutherland, Miguel Sandoval

Director: Henry Bromell

Synopsis: A middle-aged man finds love in the last place he was looking -- his psychiatrist's waiting room -- in this dark comedy drama. Alex (William H. Mac... [MORE]

22

The Bourne Supremacy (2004)

Cast: Matt Damon, Franka Potente, Brian Cox, Julia Stiles, Karl Urban

Director: Paul Greengrass

Synopsis: The second chapter in the "Bourne Trilogy," based on Robert Ludlum's best-selling espionage novels, reaches the screen in this sequel to the 2002 t... [MORE]

23

Jing Ke ci Qin Wang (1998)

Cast: Gong Li, Zhang Fengyi, Li Xuejian, Sun Zhou, Wang Zhiwen

Director: Chen Kaige

24

The Matador (2005)

Cast: Pierce Brosnan, Greg Kinnear, Hope Davis, Philip Baker Hall, Adam Scott

Director: Richard Shepard

Synopsis: A chance meeting between two middle-aged men leads one into a life of crime in this offbeat comedy. Danny Wright (Greg Kinnear) is an American busi... [MORE]

25

Grosse Pointe Blank (1997)

Cast: John Cusack, Minnie Driver, Dan Aykroyd, Alan Arkin, Joan Cusack

Director: George Armitage

Synopsis: Most people have trouble deciding what to say when they're asked what they've been doing with their lives at a High School reunion, but Martin Blan... [MORE]

26

The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007)

Cast: Brad Pitt, Casey Affleck, Mary-Louise Parker, Brooklyn Proulx, Sam Rockwell

Director: Andrew Dominik

Synopsis: Brad Pitt stars as legendary Wild West outlaw Jesse James in Chopper director Andrew Dominik's cinematic rendering of the events that would eventua... [MORE]

27

Three Days of the Condor (1975)

Cast: Robert Redford, Faye Dunaway, Cliff Robertson, Max von Sydow, John Houseman

Director: Sydney Powell, Sydney Pollack

Synopsis: "His code name is Condor. In the next 24 hours, everyone he trusts will try to kill him." As the ads ominously announced, a low-level spook confron... [MORE]

28

Ronin (1998)

Cast: Robert De Niro, Jean Reno, Natascha McElhone, Stellan Skarsgard, Sean Bean

Director: John Frankenheimer

Synopsis: John Frankenheimer directed this $20 million international action thriller from a screenplay by Richard Weisz (pseudonym for David Mamet) and J.D. ... [MORE]

29

The Manchurian Candidate (2004)

Cast: Denzel Washington, Meryl Streep, Liev Schreiber, Jeffrey Wright

Director: Jonathan Demme

Synopsis: Jonathan Demme directed this updated remake of John Frankenheimer's 1962 cult favorite The Manchurian Candidate, a pioneering examination of politi... [MORE]

30

The Bourne Identity (2002)

Cast: Matt Damon, Franka Potente, Chris Cooper, Clive Owen, Brian Cox

Director: Doug Liman

Synopsis: The best-selling suspense novel by late author Robert Ludlum comes to the screen for a second time, following a 1988 made-for-TV movie. Matt Damon ... [MORE]

31

In the Line of Fire (1993)

Cast: Clint Eastwood, John Malkovich, Rene Russo, Dylan McDermott, Gary Cole

Director: Wolfgang Petersen

Synopsis: Clint Eastwood delivers one of his finest performances, as a secret service agent haunted by his past in Wolfgang Petersen's taut thriller In the L... [MORE]

32

The American (2010)

Cast: George Clooney, Paolo Bonacelli, Thekla Reuten, Violante Placido, Irina Bjorklund

Director: Anton Corbijn

Synopsis: In the aftermath of a job gone awry, an American hitman retreats to the Italian countryside, where he befriends a local priest and strikes up an un... [MORE]