Thriller
The Da Vinci Code
(2006)
Akiva Goldsman (screenplay), Dan Brown (novel)
Nominated for 1 Golden Globe. Another 5 wins & 21 nominations.
A murder inside the Louvre and clues in Da Vinci paintings lead to the discovery of a religious mystery protected by a secret society for two thousand years -- which could shake the foundations of Christianity.
The Day of the Jackal
(1973)
Frederick Forsyth (book), Kenneth Ross (screenplay)
Nominated for 1 Oscar. Another 1 win & 10 nominations.
It is the early 60s in France. The remaining survivors of the aborted French Foreign Legion have made repeated attempts to kill DeGaulle. The result is that he is the most closely guarded man in the world. As a desperate act, they hire The Jackal, the code name for a hired killer who agrees to kill French President De Gaulle for half a million dollars. We watch his preparations which are so thorough we wonder how he could possibly fail even as we watch the French police attempt to pick up his trail. The situation is historically accurate. There were many such attempts and the film closely follows the plot of the book.
The Dead Zone
(1983)
Jeffrey Boam (screenplay), Stephen King (novel)
7 wins & 4 nominations.
Teacher Johnny Smith gets in a horrible accident which forces him into a coma for five years. Once Johnny wakes up, he discovers he has the ability to read a person's life just by making physical contact with them. When the local police find out about Johnny's "powers", they bring him in on a murder case. Soon Johnny's abilities gets him into more trouble then he may be able to handle.
The Departed
(2006)
William Monahan (screenplay), Alan Mak, Felix Chong
Won 4 Oscars. Another 83 wins & 111 nominations.
In South Boston, the state police force is waging war on Irish American organized crime. Young undercover cop Billy Costigan is assigned to infiltrate the mob syndicate run by gangland chief Frank Costello. While Billy quickly gains Costello's confidence, Colin Sullivan, a hardened young criminal who has infiltrated the state police as an informer for the syndicate is rising to a position of power in the Special Investigation Unit. Each man becomes deeply consumed by their double lives, gathering information about the plans and counter-plans of the operations they have penetrated. But when it becomes clear to both the mob and the police both discover a mole in their midst, Billy and Colin are suddenly in danger of being caught and exposed to the enemy-and each must race to uncover the identity of the other man in time to save themselves. But is either willing to turn on their friends and comrades they've made during their long stints undercover?
The Descent: Part 2
(2009)
James McCarthy (screenplay), J Blakeson (screenplay), James Watkins (screenplay)
N/A
Refusing to believe her story about cave-dwelling monsters, the sole survivor of a spelunking exploration gone horribly wrong is forced to follow the authorities back into the caves where something awaits.
The Driller Killer
(1979)
Nicholas St. John (screenplay)
N/A
Reno is an artist struggling to survive in NYC. He draws inspiration from scenes of daily street life and occasional random violence. Under pressure to finish his oft-delayed grand masterpiece, his psychotic alter-ego takes over and he begins killing random vagrants to boost his creativity, not quite realizing that it is happening in reality. When an art dealer grimly rejects Reno's finished masterpiece, Reno's mental condition quickly deteriorates.
The Equalizer
(2014)
Richard Wenk (written by), Michael Sloan (television series) and Richard Lindheim (television series)
1 win & 9 nominations.
In The Equalizer, Denzel Washington plays McCall, a man who believes he has put his mysterious past behind him and dedicated himself to beginning a new, quiet life. But when McCall meets Teri (Chloë Grace Moretz), a young girl under the control of ultra-violent Russian gangsters, he can't stand idly by - he has to help her. Armed with hidden skills that allow him to serve vengeance against anyone who would brutalize the helpless, McCall comes out of his self-imposed retirement and finds his desire for justice reawakened. If someone has a problem, if the odds are stacked against them, if they have nowhere else to turn, McCall will help. He is The Equalizer.
The Equalizer 2
(2018)
Richard Wenk, Michael Sloan (based on the television series created by), Richard Lindheim (based on the television series created by)
1 win & 4 nominations.
Robert McCall serves an unflinching justice for the exploited and oppressed, but how far will he go when that is someone he loves?
The Exorcism of Emily Rose
(2005)
Paul Harris Boardman, Scott Derrickson
4 wins & 8 nominations.
A lawyer takes on a negligent homicide case involving a priest who performed an exorcism on a young girl.
The Eye
(2002)
Yuet-Jan Hui, Danny Pang, Oxide Chun Pang
8 wins & 6 nominations.
A blind girl gets a cornea transplant so that she would be able to see again. However, she got more than what she bargained for when she realized she could even see ghosts.
The Family
(2013)
Luc Besson (screenplay), Michael Caleo (screenplay), Tonino Benacquista (based on the book by)
1 nomination.
A mafia boss and his family are relocated to a sleepy town in France under the witness protection program after snitching on the mob. Despite the best efforts of CIA Agent Stansfield (Tommy Lee Jones) to keep them in line, Fred Manzoni (Robert De Niro), his wife Maggie (Michelle Pfeiffer) and their children Belle (Dianna Agron) and Warren (John D'Leo) can't help but revert to old habits and blow their cover by handling their problems the "family" way, enabling their former mafia cronies to track them down. Chaos ensues as old scores are settled in the unlikeliest of settings.
The Fog
(1980)
John Carpenter, Debra Hill
1 win & 2 nominations.
As the centennial of the small town of Antonio Bay, California approaches, paranormal activity begins to occur at midnight. 100 years ago, the wealthy leper Blake bought the clipper ship Elizabeth Dane and sailed with his people to form a leper colony. However, while sailing through a thick fog, they were deliberately misguided by a campfire onshore, steering the course of the ship toward the light and crashing it against the rocks. While the town's residents prepare to celebrate, the victims of this heinous crime that the town's founders committed rise from the sea to claim retribution. Under cover of the ominous glowing fog, they carry out their vicious attacks, searching for what is rightly theirs.
The Frozen Ground
(2013)
Scott Walker
1 nomination.
Alaska Trooper Jack Holcombe believes Robert Hansen is a serial killer who abducts young girls, tortures and sexually assaults them, then kills them. But Holcombe doesn't have enough evidence to get a search warrant for Hansen's premises. Holcombe knows that one victim, Cyndy Paulsen, somehow survived, so he decides to seek her help, but he finds that she's now a junkie with trust issues. Holcombe has to earn her trust; meanwhile, Hansen is still hunting and killing girls.
The Game
(1997)
John Brancato, Michael Ferris
1 nomination.
Nicholas Van Orton is a very wealthy San Francisco banker, but he is an absolute loner, even spending his birthday alone. In the year of his 48th birthday (the age his father committed suicide) his brother Conrad, who has gone long ago and surrendered to addictions of all kinds, suddenly returns and gives Nicholas a card giving him entry to unusual entertainment provided by something called Consumer Recreation Services (CRS). Giving in to curiosity, Nicholas visits CRS and all kinds of weird and bad things start to happen to him.
The Ghost
(2010)
Robert Harris (screenplay), Roman Polanski (screenplay), Robert Harris (novel)
34 wins & 54 nominations.
An unremarkable ghost-writer has landed a lucrative contract to redact the memoirs of Adam Lang, the former UK Prime Minister. After dominating British politics for years, Lang has retired with his wife to the USA. He lives on an island, in luxurious, isolated premises complete with a security detail and a secretarial staff. Soon, Adam Lang gets embroiled in a major scandal with international ramifications that reveals how far he was ready to go in order to nurture UK's "special relationship" with the USA. But before this controversy has started, before even he has closed the deal with the publisher, the ghost-writer gets unmistakable signs that the turgid draft he is tasked to put into shape inexplicably constitutes highly sensitive material.
The Girl on the Train
(2016)
Erin Cressida Wilson (screenplay by), Paula Hawkins (based on the novel by)
Nominated for 1 BAFTA Film Award. Another 4 wins & 10 nominations.
The Girl on the Train is the story of Rachel Watson's life post-divorce. Every day, she takes the train in to work in New York, and every day the train passes by her old house. The house she lived in with her husband, who still lives there, with his new wife and child. As she attempts to not focus on her pain, she starts watching a couple who live a few houses down -- Megan and Scott Hipwell. She creates a wonderful dream life for them in her head, about how they are a perfect happy family. And then one day, as the train passes, she sees something shocking, filling her with rage. The next day, she wakes up with a horrible hangover, various wounds and bruises, and no memory of the night before. She has only a feeling: something bad happened. Then come the TV reports: Megan Hipwell is missing. Rachel becomes invested in the case and trying to find out what happened to Megan, where she is, and what exactly she herself was up to that same night Megan went missing.
The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest
(2009)
Stieg Larsson (novel), Ulf Ryberg (screenplay)
1 win & 3 nominations.
Lisbeth is recovering in a hospital and awaiting trial for three murders when she is released. Mikael must prove her innocence, but Lisbeth must be willing to share the details of her sordid experiences with the court.
The Good Shepherd
(2006)
Eric Roth
Nominated for 1 Oscar. Another 2 wins & 11 nominations.
Laconic and self-contained, Edward Wilson heads CIA covert operations during the Bay of Pigs. The agency suspects that Castro was tipped, so Wilson looks for the leak. As he investigates, he recalls, in a series of flashbacks, his father's death, student days at Yale (poetry; Skull and Bones), recruitment into the fledgling OSS, truncated affairs, a shotgun marriage, cutting his teeth on spy craft in London, distance from his son, the emergence of the Cold War, and relationships with agency, British, and Soviet counterparts. We watch his idealism give way to something else: disclosing the nature of that something else is at the heart of the film's narration as he closes in on the leak.
The Grifters
(1990)
Jim Thompson (novel), Donald E. Westlake (screenplay)
Nominated for 4 Oscars.
Lily works for a bookie, placing bets to change the odds at the track. When her son is hospitalized after an unsuccessful con job and resultant beating, she finds that even an absentee parent has feelings for her child. This causes her own job to go wrong as well. Each of them faces the down side of the grift.
The Guard
(2011)
John Michael McDonagh
Nominated for 1 Golden Globe. Another 14 wins & 25 nominations.
Sergeant Gerry Boyle is a small-town Irish cop with a confrontational personality, a subversive sense of humor, a dying mother, a fondness for prostitutes, and absolutely no interest whatsoever in the international cocaine-smuggling ring that has brought straight-laced FBI agent Wendell Everett to his door.