Best movies like The Foreigner
Last updated March 2024
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Plot Summary:
A French special op suffers an existential crisis as he wanders New York City in search of a mission and the requisite connections.
IMDB Rating: 5.0
IMDB Votes: 214
Genere: Drama, Thriller
Country: USA
Duration: 77 min
Plot tags: independent film, atmospheric, serious, realistic, suspenseful, stylized, existential
Best tv shows and movies like The Foreigner (1978):
Similar in 75%
All Mistakes Buried (2015)
Plot Summary:
A lone, struggling addict takes on a dangerous underground criminal ring in his small Southern town to retrieve a stolen pendant he believes will save his marriage.
IMDB Rating: 4.9
IMDB Votes: 408
Genere: Drama, Thriller
Country: USA
Duration: 84 min
Plot tags: serious, realistic, suspenseful, disturbing, gloomy, independent film
Similar in 86%
The Cat Burglar (1961)
Plot Summary:
Unwitting pickup artist Jack Coley (Jack Hogan) nabs a briefcase holding a costly scientific formula, turning himself into a moving target for owner Alan Sheridan (John Baer), foreign agents and the fuzz -- all bent on a blistering game of finders, keepers. In this stylized crime drama, the quarry coolly eludes the pack while eliciting the aid of an unlikely party: blonde beauty Nan Baker (June Kenney), the attaché's original carrier.
IMDB Rating: 5.9
IMDB Votes: 282
Genere: Crime, Drama, Thriller
Country: USA
Duration: 65 min
Plot tags: exciting, rough, serious, realistic, suspenseful
Similar in 87%
Rocket Attack U.S.A. (1960)
Plot Summary:
It's the height of the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union with the Communists launching a spy satellite that has the Free World leaders in a panic. Fears about the nature of the satellite force the United States to send an agent undercover behind the Iron Curtain to discover what the Soviets have learned. What he finds is the Communists have used the information acquired from their spy satellite to help them perfect a new and even more deadly nuclear weapon.
IMDB Rating: 1.7
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Thriller
Country: USA
Duration: 68 min
Plot tags: grindhouse, serious, realistic, suspenseful, psychotronic, independent film
Similar in 87%
In the Shadows (2001)
Plot Summary:
When a stunt man dies in Miami, his uncle, a New York mob boss, sends a hit man to tail the stunt coordinator, whom the boss wants dead. The hit man, Eric O'Bryne, gets close to his mark's daughter, and through her he asks her dad to teach him to do stunts. While waiting for the word to kill this mentor, Eric discovers the joy of stunt work and of being part of a family. Meanwhile, several people are looking for the dead man's briefcase of money and a cloth bag of illegal drugs that he stole from an undercover FBI agent now desperate to get the borrowed drugs back to the bureau. The stunt coordinator says that 'we dance in the shadows of death.' Can Eric step out into the sun?.
IMDB Rating: 5.0
IMDB Votes: 991
Genere: Drama, Thriller
Country: USA
Duration: 105 min
Plot tags: tense, serious, realistic, suspenseful, independent film
Similar in 75%
Tucked Away (2007)
Plot Summary:
On the surface, Ray Ryan has it all. He's a successful advertising executive with a new promotion. He has a nice home and a beautiful fiancée. Underneath it all is a dark secret he's finding harder to hide. Ray's nightmares are giving way to visions of his abusive father, unlocking a suppressed violence he's unable to control. When ray brutally assaults a man in a parking lot, it leads to an investigation by an aging detective with a connected past. Neither is prepared as the secrets begin to unfold over a thirty-year-old murder they've both struggled to keep buried.
IMDB Rating: 5.3
IMDB Votes: 29
Genere: Drama, Thriller
Country: USA
Duration: 96 min
Plot tags: rough, serious, realistic, suspenseful, independent film
Similar in 87%
The Cape Town Affair (1967)
Plot Summary:
A color remake of the Sam Fuller film, Pickup on South Street.
IMDB Rating: 4.3
IMDB Votes: 477
Genere: Drama, Thriller
Country: South Africa
Duration: 96 min
Plot tags: suspense, exciting, serious, realistic, suspenseful, neo noir, eurospy
Similar in 76%
Confess (2005)
Plot Summary:
political thriller that charts the exploits of disillusioned ex-hacker Terell Lessor. A return to New York, coupled with a humiliating attempt at getting a new job, serves as the catalyst for him to take action against those who slighted him in the past. Employing strategically placed spy-cams, and operating in tandem with backer, strategist and lover Olivia, he captures compromising footage and broadcasts the edited clips via a newly-minted website. Recognizing the power of their model, the two begin to target CEOs, politicians, those who represent the worst of the establishment. Soon Terell's every move is front-page news, law enforcement is after him, and copy-catters are taking his abduction-and-confession model to extremes he never imagined. With these forces colliding, Terell has to decide whether his actions are sustainable - a decision that will compromise his agenda, his first taste of romance, and his physical wellbeing.
IMDB Rating: 4.7
IMDB Votes: 458
Genere: Thriller, Drama
Country: USA, Mexico
Duration: 89 min
Plot tags: rough, serious, suspenseful, suspense, realistic, surprise ending, political thriller
Similar in 83%
To Commit a Murder (1967)
Plot Summary:
A writer gets wrapped up in espionage.
IMDB Rating: 5.9
IMDB Votes: 113
Genere: Action, Crime, Drama, Thriller
Country: France, West Germany, Italy
Duration: 93 min
Plot tags: exciting, rough, serious, realistic, suspenseful, eurospy
Similar in 81%
The Detective 2 (2011)
Plot Summary:
Mysteries keep revolving around Tam’s life.
IMDB Rating: 5.6
IMDB Votes: 582
Genere: Crime, Drama, Thriller
Country: Hong Kong
Duration: 104 min
Plot tags: realistic, atmospheric, serious, suspenseful, stylized, tense, rough
Similar in 82%
A Few Days in September (2006)
Plot Summary:
1 September 2001. Elliot, an American C.I.A. agent holding top secret information on the immediate future of the world, disappears. His sole aim was to meet his daughter Orlando, whom he abandoned ten years before. Irène, a French agent who used to work with him, and David, his adoptive son, will help him and lead the girl to her father. Chased by William Pound, a strangely poetic psycho, they will defy the dangers of international espionage from Paris to Venice and finally get to Elliot on 11 September 2001.
IMDB Rating: 5.2
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama, Thriller
Country: Italy, France, Portugal
Duration: 116 min
Plot tags: realistic, suspenseful, serious, political thriller, tense
Similar in 84%
The Zone (1995)
Plot Summary:
Former Gulf War hero Rowdy Welles is framed for murder by unscrupulous CIA boss Dick Althorp. As his price of freedom, Welles is ordered to undertake a deadly mission to destroy a nuclear processing plant in a foreign nation, owned by dangerous tyrant Lothar Krasna.
IMDB Rating: 4.6
IMDB Votes: 219
Genere: Action, Drama, Thriller
Country: USA
Duration: 96 min
Plot tags: independent film, serious, realistic, suspenseful
Similar in 77%
A Show of Force (1990)
Plot Summary:
In this thriller, television reporter Kate Ryan de Meléndez investigates the death of two radical Puerto Rican activists, whom she begins to believe may have been framed and murdered by undercover American agents.
IMDB Rating: 5.3
IMDB Votes: 842
Genere: Drama, Thriller
Country: USA
Duration: 95 min
Plot tags: rough, serious, realistic, suspenseful
Similar in 76%
The Patriots (1994)
Plot Summary:
Ariel, un jeune Juif français, décide de quitter sa famille pour partir en Israël et devenir un agent du Mossad, les services secrets israéliens. En participant à des missions à Paris, Tel Aviv et Washington, il sera initié à l'art délicat de la manipulation.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama, Thriller
Country: France
Duration: 138 min
Plot tags: serious, realistic, suspenseful
Similar in 86%
The 9/11 Commission Report (2006)
Plot Summary:
Independent writer-director Leigh Slawner helms this chilling dramatization of the findings laid out in the best-selling 9/11 Commission Report, a document that sought to analyze the circumstances surrounding coordinated terrorist attacks against American civilians on Sept 11 2001.
IMDB Rating: 2.9
IMDB Votes: 497
Genere: Drama, Thriller
Country: USA
Duration: 86 min
Plot tags: rough, serious, realistic, suspenseful, bleak, mockbuster, independent film
Similar in 84%
Aldrich Ames: Traitor Within (1998)
Plot Summary:
Fact-based story about a 90's espionage case that was chronicled as the worst case of espionage in US history.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 360
Genere: Drama, Thriller
Country: USA
Duration: 100 min
Plot tags: exciting, serious, realistic, suspenseful
Similar in 76%
Complicit (2013)
Plot Summary:
An MI5 officer's attempts to foil a possible terrorist plot are undermined by bureaucracy and moral dilemmas. Will he make the world a safer place or be complicit in making a tense situation even worse?.
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 789
Genere: Drama, Thriller
Country: UK
Duration: 99 min
Plot tags: tense, serious, realistic, captivating, psychological, disturbing, thought provoking, gloomy
Similar in 82%
The Naked Runner (1967)
Plot Summary:
Sam Laker is an American industrialist, working in Britain, who has just been awarded an international award for industrial design. He is planning to travel to East Germany to attend a trade show and show off his invention, taking his 10 year old son with him for a holiday. Meanwhile a British Intelligence officer who served with Laker in the Second World War decides to use the opportunity of Laker's trip and his lack of an intelligence profile to coerce him into carrying out an assassination.
IMDB Rating: 5.9
IMDB Votes: 540
Genere: Drama, Thriller
Country: UK
Duration: 101 min
Plot tags: atmospheric, serious, realistic, suspenseful, independent film, microfilm
Similar in 86%
Safe House (1998)
Plot Summary:
A psychological thriller; Mace Sowell, an ex-intelligence operative and whose past government activities catches up with him, faces his own mortality, in the shape of the onset of Alzheimer's disease. Holding the electronic key to secret information which implicates a Presidential front-runner, Mace struggles for his life while battling the debilitating effects of the disease.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama, Thriller
Country: USA
Duration: 112 min
Plot tags: political, psychological, exciting, mind bending, serious, realistic, suspenseful, suspense, independent film
Similar in 77%
Little Nikita (1988)
Plot Summary:
Roy Parmenter is an FBI agent in San Diego; 20 years ago his partner was killed by a Soviet spy, nicknamed Scuba, still at large. Scuba is now trying to extort the Soviets; to prove he's serious, he's killing their agents one by one, including "sleepers," agents under deep cover awaiting orders. Roy interviews a high school lad, Jeff Grant, an applicant to the Air Force Academy. In a routine background check, Roy discovers that Jeff's parents are sleepers. He must see if Jeff is also a spy, confront the parents yet protect them, and catch his nemesis. Meanwhile, the Soviets have sent their own spy-catcher, the loner Karpov, to reel in Scuba. Alliances shift; it's cat and mouse.
IMDB Rating: 5.9
IMDB Votes: 6000
Genere: Drama, Thriller
Country: USA
Duration: 98 min
Plot tags: exciting, tense, suspenseful, cult classic, serious, realistic, psychological, sexy, clever, brutal
Similar in 76%
Möbius (2013)
Plot Summary:
An FSB officer fall in love with his agent, an American woman who works as a trader in a Russian bank.
IMDB Rating: 6.1
IMDB Votes: 6000
Genere: Drama, Thriller
Country: France, Belgium, Luxembourg
Duration: 103 min
Plot tags: tense, serious, realistic, suspenseful, political thriller, stylized
Similar in 84%
The Serpent (1973)
Plot Summary:
Vlassov is a Soviet spy who defects in France. He is whisked to the U.S, where Allan Davies takes over the case. After polygraph tests and cross-examinations, Vlassov names several Western European agents who are also spying for the Soviets. Davies wants to take the listed agents into custody; meanwhile, those on the list start dying under mysterious circumstances.
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama, Thriller
Country: France, Italy, West Germany
Duration: 124 min
Plot tags: political thriller, psychological, serious, realistic, suspenseful, eurospy
Similar in 78%
Spy(ies) (2009)
Plot Summary:
Vincent is a bright young man but has introverted personality. He is working as a baggage handler at an airport and refuses to follow a career path accordingly to his education. With his colleague, Gerard, Vincent used to steal objects from the luggage in the hold before shipment. As he opens a diplomatic baggage, Gerard provokes an explosion and dies.
IMDB Rating: 5.9
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama, Romance, Thriller
Country: France, UK
Duration: 99 min
Plot tags: sentimental, realistic, suspenseful, serious, psychological, bleak
Similar in 86%
The Secret Agent (1996)
Plot Summary:
London of the late 19th century is a haven for political exiles of all sorts - refugees, partisans, anarchists. Verloc has made his living spying for the Russian goverment, an agent provacateur of sorts, while simultaneously providing information to the London police, specifically Chief Inspector Heat. When the new Russian ambassador demands he prove his worth or lose his salary, Verloc sets off a tragic chain of events that involves his pretty young wife Winnie, her retarded brother Stevie, and a figure called the Professor, whose fascination with explosives and destruction makes him the person to call on when Verloc needs a bomb.
IMDB Rating: 5.6
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama, Thriller
Country: UK
Duration: 95 min
Plot tags: psychological, harsh, realistic, suspenseful, tense, serious, political thriller, bleak, light, romantic
Similar in 80%
Legacy (2013)
Plot Summary:
Set in the 1970s London during the height of the Cold War when a young spy discovers the disturbing truth about his father's complex past. Based on Alan Judd's 2001 novel Legacy, the second in the Thoroughgood series after 1981's A Breed Of Heroes (adapted by the BBC in 1994). As the three day week, petrol rationing and industrial strife plunge Britain into a state of emergency, MI6 trainee spy Charles Thoroughgood is asked to reconnect with an old university friend, Russian diplomat Viktor Koslov, with a view to 'turning' him. Viktor has his own agenda, though, and reveals a shocking truth about Charles's own family that threatens to derail him, both personally and professionally. He is catapulted into a dangerous personal odyssey to uncover the truth but finds himself drawn into a lethal KGB plot to mount an attack within the UK. His life is further complicated by a relationship with the wife of another agent, which forces him to realise that betrayal can take many forms.
IMDB Rating: 5.7
IMDB Votes: 461
Genere: Drama, Mystery, Thriller
Country: UK
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: serious, captivating, tense, realistic, suspenseful
Similar in 85%
Farewell (2009)
Plot Summary:
Engaging, emotional and riveting, FAREWELL is an intricate and highly intelligent thriller pulled from the pages of history— about an ordinary man thrust into the biggest theft of Soviet information of the Cold War. Ronald Reagan called this piece of history - largely unknown until now - “one of the most important espionage cases of the 20th century.” FAREWELL begins in 1981, after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. A French businessman based in Moscow, Pierre Froment, (Guillaume Canet) makes an unlikely connection with Grigoriev (Emir Kusturica), a senior KGB officer disenchanted with what the Communist ideal has become under Brezhnev. Grigoriev begins passing Froment highly sensitive information about the Soviet spy network in the US.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 7000
Genere: Drama, Romance, Thriller
Country: France
Duration: 113 min
Plot tags: tense, serious, realistic, suspenseful, political, sincere
Similar in 75%
Dying of the Light (2014)
Plot Summary:
Evan Lake, a veteran CIA agent, has been ordered to retire. But when his protégé uncovers evidence that Lake's nemesis, the terrorist Banir, has resurfaced, Lake goes rogue, embarking on a perilous, intercontinental mission to eliminate his sworn enemy.
IMDB Rating: 4.5
IMDB Votes: 11000
Genere: Action, Drama, Thriller
Country: Bahamas, USA
Duration: 94 min
Plot tags: realistic, suspenseful, rough, serious, suspense, cult classic
Similar in 89%
Enigma (1982)
Plot Summary:
Five highly-trained KGB agents are sent to the west to assassinate several Soviet dissidents. In order to stop the diabolical plot, an American agent must infiltrate Soviet intelligence and obtain information from a Russian computer.
IMDB Rating: 5.9
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama, Thriller
Country: UK, France
Duration: 122 min
Plot tags: suspenseful, intense, serious, realistic, political, political thriller, independent film, exciting, romantic, atmospheric
Similar in 88%
The Game (2014)
Plot Summary:
London 1972. When a defecting KGB officer, Arkady Malinov, reveals Operation Glass, a devastating Soviet plot that could change the course of the Cold War, Daddy, the head of MI5, assembles a secret team to investigate. As the Soviets awaken a list of sleeper agents all over Britain, Daddy's team must move swiftly to gain information about the plot.
IMDB Rating: 7.7
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama, Mystery, Thriller
Country: UK
Duration: 59 min
Plot tags: atmospheric, suspenseful, tense, clever, serious, captivating, realistic, stylized, period drama
Similar in 75%
The Executioner (1970)
Plot Summary:
A British intelligence agent must track down a fellow spy suspected of being a double agent.
IMDB Rating: 6.0
IMDB Votes: 450
Genere: Drama, Thriller
Country: UK
Duration: 107 min
Plot tags: exciting, rough, serious, realistic, suspenseful, talky, suspense, eurospy
Similar in 89%
Topaz (1969)
Plot Summary:
A French intelligence agent becomes embroiled in the Cold War politics first with uncovering the events leading up to the 1962 Cuban Missle Crisis, and then back to France to break up an international Russian spy ring.
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 19000
Genere: Drama, Thriller
Country: USA
Duration: 143 min
Plot tags: suspense, tense, suspenseful, psychological, political thriller, enigmatic, psychological thriller, exciting, retro, art house