Best movies like The Manchurian Candidate

Similar in 88%

Advise & Consent (1962)

Plot Summary:

A Senate investigation into the President's newly-nominated Secretary of State gives light to a secret from the past, which may not only ruin the candidate, but the President's character as well.

Similar in 84%

The Parallax View (1974)

Plot Summary:

An ambitious reporter, investigating a senator's assassination, realizes witnesses to the shooting are systematically dying and discovers a multi-million dollar corporation which serves as a front for the recruitment of political assassins.

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Conspiracy Theory (1997)

Plot Summary:

A man obsessed with conspiracy theories becomes a target after one of his theories turns out to be true. Unfortunately, in order to save himself, he has to figure out which theory it is.

Similar in 76%

The China Syndrome (1979)

Plot Summary:

A modern nightmare nearly becomes reality in this tension-filled story about an "incident" at a nuclear power plant. Jane Fonda stars as Kimberly Wells, an ambitious TV reporter covering a story on energy sources, who is present at the nuclear plant when a startling accident occurs that nearly causes the meltdown of the reactor. A newsreel cameraman accompanying Wells (Michael Douglas) captures the incident on film but the television station won't air the footage. Though the plant's corporate heads are quick to deny the possibility of any real danger, Jack Godell (Jack Lemmon), the plant's veteran engineer, discovers faulty equipment at the plant. Attempting to tell others about his findings, an attempt is made on his life. In desperation, he forcibly takes control of the power plant and invites the media to hear his ceremony. But the corporation is determined to stop him in a taut and shocking climax!.

Similar in 86%

Fail-Safe (1964)

Plot Summary:

Because of a technical defect an American bomber team mistakenly orders the destruction of Moscow. The President of the United States has but little time to prevent an atomic catastrophe from occurring. Director Sidney Lumet gives an atmospheric vision of the future with a Cold War backdrop.

Similar in 87%

State of Play (2009)

Plot Summary:

Handsome, unflappable U.S. Congressman Stephen Collins is the future of his political party: an honorable appointee who serves as the chairman of a committee overseeing defense spending. All eyes are upon the rising star to be his party's contender for the upcoming presidential race. Until his research assistant/mistress is brutally murdered and buried secrets come tumbling out.

Similar in 88%

The Pelican Brief (1993)

Plot Summary:

Two Supreme Court Justices have been assassinated. One lone law student has stumbled upon the truth. An investigative journalist wants her story. Everybody else wants her dead.

Similar in 75%

The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1965)

Plot Summary:

British agent Alec Leamas refuses to come in from the cold war during the 1960s, choosing to face another mission, which may prove to be his final one.

Similar in 75%

The Manchurian Candidate (2004)

Plot Summary:

When his army unit was ambushed during the first Gulf War, Sergeant Raymond Shaw saved his fellow soldiers just as his commanding officer, then-Captain Ben Marco, was knocked unconscious. Brokering the incident for political capital, Shaw eventually becomes a vice-presidential nominee, while Marco is haunted by dreams of what happened -- or didn't happen -- in Kuwait. As Marco (now a Major) investigates, the story begins to unravel, to the point where he questions if it happened at all. Is it possible the entire unit was kidnapped and brainwashed to believe Shaw is a war hero as part of a plot to seize the White House? Some very powerful people at Manchurian Global corporation appear desperate to stop him from finding out.

Similar in 81%

Marathon Man (1976)

Plot Summary:

A graduate student and obsessive runner in New York is drawn into a mysterious plot involving his brother, a member of the secretive Division.

Similar in 82%

The Day of the Jackal (1973)

Plot Summary:

An international assassin known as ‘The Jackal’ is employed by disgruntled French generals to kill President Charles de Gaulle, with a dedicated gendarme on the assassin's trail.

Similar in 82%

In the Line of Fire (1993)

Plot Summary:

Veteran Secret Service agent Frank Horrigan is a man haunted by his failure to save President Kennedy while serving protection detail in Dallas. Thirty years later, a man calling himself "Booth" threatens the life of the current President, forcing Horrigan to come back to protection detail to confront the ghosts from his past.

Similar in 75%

Black Sunday (1977)

Plot Summary:

An Israeli anti-terrorist agent must stop a disgruntled Vietnam vet cooperating in a plot to commit a terrorist plot at the Super Bowl.

Similar in 88%

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.

Similar in 90%

Seven Days in May (1964)

Plot Summary:

A U.S. Army general alerts the president of a planned military coup against him.

Similar in 75%

The Ipcress File (1965)

Plot Summary:

This espionage thriller represents a landmark in spy movies introducing the sly, dry intelligence agent Harry Palmer. The story, centers on Palmer's investigation into British Intelligence security. He's soon enmeshed in a world of double-dealing, kidnap and murder and finds a traitor is operating at the heart of the secret service. Will the mysterious 'Ipcress File' reveal who the traitor is?.

Similar in 79%

The Tailor of Panama (2001)

Plot Summary:

A British spy is banished to Panama after having an affair with an ambassador's mistress. Once there he makes connection with a local tailor with a nefarious past and connections to all of the top political and gangster figures in Panama. The tailor also has a wife, who works for the Panamanian president and a huge debt. The mission is to learn what the President intends to do with the Canal.

Similar in 90%

Rendition (2007)

Plot Summary:

When an Egyptian terrorism suspect "disappears" on a flight from Africa to Washington DC, his American wife and a CIA analyst find themselves caught up in a struggle to secure his release from a secret detention facility somewhere outside the US.

Similar in 80%

The Contender (2000)

Plot Summary:

Political thriller about Laine Hanson's nomination and confirmation as Vice President. An allegation that she was involved in a sexual orgy at the age of 19 is leaked to the press. As pressure mounts on Laine, she's torn between fighting back or sticking to her principles and refusing to comment on the allegations.

Similar in 87%

Thirteen Days (2000)

Plot Summary:

Dramatisation of the Cuban Missile Crisis, the nuclear standoff with the USSR sparked by the discovery by the Americans of missle bases established on the Soviet allied island of Cuba. Shown from the perspective of the US President, John F Kennedy, his staff and advisors.

Similar in 77%

JFK (1991)

Plot Summary:

New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison discovers there's more to the Kennedy assassination than the official story.

Similar in 81%

The Ides of March (2011)

Plot Summary:

Dirty tricks stand to soil an ambitious young press spokesman's idealism in a cutthroat presidential campaign where 'victory' is relative.

Similar in 76%

Jacob's Ladder (1990)

Plot Summary:

A traumatized Vietnam war veteran finds out that his post-war life isn't what he believes it to be when he's attacked by horned creatures in the subway and his dead son comes to visit him.

Similar in 82%

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011)

Plot Summary:

In the bleak days of the Cold War, espionage veteran George Smiley is forced from semi-retirement to uncover a Soviet mole within his former colleagues at the heart of MI6.

Similar in 87%

The Good Shepherd (2006)

Plot Summary:

Edward Wilson, the only witness to his father's suicide and member of the Skull and Bones Society while a student at Yale, is a morally upright young man who values honor and discretion, qualities that help him to be recruited for a career in the newly founded OSS. His dedication to his work does not come without a price though, leading him to sacrifice his ideals and eventually his family.