Who doesn't love a good, tense spy thriller? I know I sure do. And sometimes some of the very best ground themselves into a gritty reality and focus not on some super secret spy organization, but on the CIA itself. Instead of superheroes and fierce gun battles, these movies focus on political maneuvering, detective work, but most importantly on very smart characters – guys who fight with their brains instead of brawn. And who doesn't love watching that every once in a while?

Here are some of my favorite spy thrillers:

Spy Game (2001)
Buried in the nation's immediate post-9/11 funk, this excellent high-energy story never got the exposure it deserved. Robert Redford plays a seasoned, genius CIA operative forced to play a tense game on his last day in order to save the life of his longtime friend and field operative, played by none other than Brad Pitt. Told in flashback and within the walls of CIA Headquarters at Langley, this is a unique spy thriller with two of our greatest acting talents working in tandem.

The Conversation (1974)
Francis Ford Coppola's brilliantly paranoid film about a CIA surveillance tech wizard, played by Gene Hackman, who ends up finding out more than he should and wrestles with what he's discovered. Decades ahead of its time, the brilliant final scene shared with us a glimpse of the future that was to come in which technology could see or hear us at almost any time. And Hackman's performance nails down a generation's feelings on the coming technology.

The Hunt for Red October (1990)
You can keep your Harrison Ford. As much as I love him, he is Indiana Jones and Han Solo. He is not Jack Ryan in my mind. Alec Baldwin is. Before they turned this series into a number of action movies, this tense, perfectly paced thriller put a CIA analyst in the field to test his theory that a renegade submarine captain (Sean Connery) might actually be defecting. This movie single-handedly ushered in the techno-thriller era and finished off John McTiernan's perfect three-film run of this, Predator and Die Hard.

Breach (2007)
Out just this year and now on DVD, this is the frighteningly true story of how they caught one of the worst and most damaging spies in U.S. history. Ryan Phillippe plays a young agent who wants nothing more than operational experience. Though, he is paired with a paranoid agent, played by the amazing Chris Cooper, who the agency suspects of spying. They both know he's guilty. Phillippe's character just has to get the goods to prove it. The question of the film is: who is on to whom? A great, real crime-spy thriller.

C. Robert Cargill - - - Email Me
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Austin-based Cargill, who not only loves but owns The Cutting Edge, writes on movies and DVD five times a week.

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