The Best Cold War Films
by LNAndersen | created - 19 Feb 2022 | updated - 3 months ago | Public- Instant Watch Options
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1. Panic in the Streets (1950)
Approved | 96 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
A doctor and a policeman in New Orleans have only 48 hours to locate a killer infected with pneumonic plague.
Director: Elia Kazan | Stars: Richard Widmark, Paul Douglas, Barbara Bel Geddes, Jack Palance
Votes: 8,848
2. Hell and High Water (1954)
Approved | 103 min | Action, Adventure, Drama
During the Cold War, a scientific team refits a Japanese submarine and hires an ex-Navy officer to find a secret Chinese atomic island base and prevent a Communist plot against America that could trigger WW3.
Director: Samuel Fuller | Stars: Richard Widmark, Bella Darvi, Victor Francen, Cameron Mitchell
Votes: 2,235
3. Moscow on the Hudson (1984)
R | 115 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
A Russian saxophonist visiting New York City with a USSR circus troupe suddenly decides to defect in Bloomingdale's.
Director: Paul Mazursky | Stars: Robin Williams, Maria Conchita Alonso, Cleavant Derricks, Alejandro Rey
Votes: 13,107 | Gross: $25.10M
4. The Equalizer (1985–1989)
TV-PG | 48 min | Action, Crime, Drama
A retired Intelligence Agent turned private detective helps various threatened clients to equalize the odds.
Stars: Edward Woodward, Keith Szarabajka, Robert Lansing, Mark Margolis
Votes: 5,924
5. A Bullet for Joey (1955)
Approved | 85 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
-In Montreal (Canada), a police inspector slowly discovers a plot to kidnap a nuclear physicist, American mobsters, foreign spies, and a blonde seductress, are all involved.
Director: Lewis Allen | Stars: Edward G. Robinson, George Raft, Audrey Totter, George Dolenz
Votes: 1,229
6. The Whip Hand (1951)
Approved | 82 min | Action, Adventure, Crime
Matt Corbin, a vacationing magazine writer, takes a fishing trip to Minnesota, and stumbles across a lake in which all the fish have mysteriously died. The locals are tight-lipped about it,... See full summary »
Director: William Cameron Menzies | Stars: Carla Balenda, Elliott Reid, Edgar Barrier, Raymond Burr
Votes: 716
7. The Iron Curtain (1948)
Approved | 87 min | Biography, Crime, History
The story of Soviet cypher-clerk Igor Gouzenko who was posted to the Soviet Embassy in Ottawa,Canada in 1943 and defected in 1945 to reveal the extent of Soviet espionage activities directed against Canada.
Director: William A. Wellman | Stars: Dana Andrews, Gene Tierney, June Havoc, Berry Kroeger
Votes: 1,107
8. A Very British Coup (1988)
Not Rated | 148 min | Drama
Disaster befalls the UK under a seemingly corrupt Conservative government. The Labour Party is elected - but committed to radical change, under a firmly left-wing leader. That's not supposed to happen. Who will save the traditional rulers?
Stars: Ray McAnally, Marjorie Yates, Geoffrey Beevers, Keith Allen
Votes: 1,021
9. Diplomatic Courier (1952)
Approved | 97 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
A US State Department courier tangles with Soviet agents and seductive women in post WW2 Europe.
Director: Henry Hathaway | Stars: Tyrone Power, Patricia Neal, Stephen McNally, Hildegard Knef
Votes: 1,427
10. Rambo III (1988)
R | 102 min | Action, Adventure, Thriller
Rambo mounts a one-man mission to rescue his friend Colonel Trautman from the clutches of the formidable invading Soviet forces in Afghanistan.
Director: Peter MacDonald | Stars: Sylvester Stallone, Richard Crenna, Marc de Jonge, Kurtwood Smith
Votes: 140,209 | Gross: $53.72M
11. No Retreat, No Surrender 2 (1987)
R | 92 min | Adventure, Action
In this sequel, Scott Wylde, an American kickboxer, must go to Cambodia to rescue his Vietnamese girlfriend from Russian and Vietnamese troops.
Director: Corey Yuen | Stars: Loren Avedon, Max Thayer, Cynthia Rothrock, Patra Wanthivanond
Votes: 2,101 | Gross: $0.11M
12. Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)
PG | 95 min | Comedy, War
An unhinged American general orders a bombing attack on the Soviet Union, triggering a path to nuclear holocaust that a war room full of politicians and generals frantically tries to stop.
Director: Stanley Kubrick | Stars: Peter Sellers, George C. Scott, Sterling Hayden, Keenan Wynn
Votes: 518,313 | Gross: $0.28M
13. Ice Station Zebra (1968)
G | 148 min | Adventure, Thriller
USN nuclear sub USS Tigerfish must rush to the North Pole to rescue the staff of Drift Ice Station Zebra weather station.
Director: John Sturges | Stars: Rock Hudson, Ernest Borgnine, Patrick McGoohan, Jim Brown
Votes: 11,876
14. Man on a Tightrope (1953)
Approved | 105 min | Drama, Thriller
A Czech circus owner/clown and his entire troupe employ a daring stratagem in order to escape en masse from behind the iron curtain.
Director: Elia Kazan | Stars: Fredric March, Terry Moore, Gloria Grahame, Cameron Mitchell
Votes: 1,838
15. Captain Scarface (1953)
Approved | 72 min | Action, Drama, Romance
A man desperate to leave South America books passage on a freighter, and learns that the captain has made plans to force a scientist to participate in a mission of destruction.
Director: Paul Guilfoyle | Stars: Barton MacLane, Virginia Grey, Leif Erickson, Peter Coe
Votes: 262
16. The Fearmakers (1958)
Approved | 85 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
A Korean War veteran returns to Washington D.C. only to discover his business partner had died and their public-research business sold, so he works there undercover to find out the truth.
Director: Jacques Tourneur | Stars: Dana Andrews, Dick Foran, Marilee Earle, Veda Ann Borg
Votes: 849
17. Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978)
PG | 115 min | Horror, Sci-Fi
When strange seeds drift to earth from space, mysterious pods begin to grow and invade San Francisco, replicating the city's residents one body at a time.
Director: Philip Kaufman | Stars: Donald Sutherland, Brooke Adams, Jeff Goldblum, Veronica Cartwright
Votes: 69,866 | Gross: $24.95M
18. The Green Berets (1968)
G | 142 min | Drama, War
Col. Mike Kirby picks two teams of crack Green Berets for a mission in South Vietnam. First off is to build and control a camp that is trying to be taken by the enemy the second mission is to kidnap a North Vietnamese General.
Directors: Ray Kellogg, John Wayne, Mervyn LeRoy | Stars: John Wayne, David Janssen, Jim Hutton, Aldo Ray
Votes: 13,875 | Gross: $21.71M
19. Pickup on South Street (1953)
Passed | 80 min | Crime, Film-Noir, Mystery
A pickpocket unwittingly lifts a message destined for enemy agents and becomes a target for a Communist spy ring.
Director: Samuel Fuller | Stars: Richard Widmark, Jean Peters, Thelma Ritter, Murvyn Vye
Votes: 16,151
20. On the Waterfront (1954)
Approved | 108 min | Crime, Drama, Thriller
An ex-prize fighter turned New Jersey longshoreman struggles to stand up to his corrupt union bosses, including his older brother, as he starts to connect with the grieving sister of one of the syndicate's victims.
Director: Elia Kazan | Stars: Marlon Brando, Karl Malden, Lee J. Cobb, Rod Steiger
Votes: 164,918 | Gross: $9.60M
21. Red Scorpion (1988)
R | 105 min | Action, Adventure
A Spetsnaz commando is sent on a covert mission by his Soviet superiors to infiltrate a rebel army and assassinate its leader.
Director: Joseph Zito | Stars: Dolph Lundgren, M. Emmet Walsh, Al White, T.P. McKenna
Votes: 9,778 | Gross: $4.19M
22. Animal Farm (1999 TV Movie)
PG | 91 min | Comedy, Drama, Family
The animals of a farm successfully revolt against its human owner, only to slide into a more brutal tyranny amongst themselves.
Director: John Stephenson | Stars: Kelsey Grammer, Ian Holm, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Julia Ormond
Votes: 6,484
23. Animal Farm (1954)
Approved | 72 min | Animation, Drama
A successful farmyard revolution by the resident animals vs. the farmer goes horribly wrong when the victors create a new tyranny among themselves.
Directors: Joy Batchelor, John Halas | Stars: Gordon Heath, Maurice Denham
Votes: 18,998
24. Invasion U.S.A. (1985)
R | 107 min | Action, Thriller
A one-man army comes to the rescue when the United States are invaded by communists.
Director: Joseph Zito | Stars: Chuck Norris, Richard Lynch, Melissa Prophet, Alexander Zale
Votes: 11,015 | Gross: $17.54M
25. Missing in Action 2: The Beginning (1985)
R | 100 min | Action, Drama, Thriller
Prequel to the first Missing In Action, set in the early 1980s it shows the capture of Colonel Braddock during the Vietnam war in the 1970s, and his captivity with other American POWs in a brutal prison camp, and his plans to escape.
Director: Lance Hool | Stars: Chuck Norris, Soon-Tek Oh, Steven Williams, Bennett Ohta
Votes: 9,308 | Gross: $10.80M
26. I'm All Right Jack (1959)
Not Rated | 105 min | Comedy
A naive aristocrat in search of a career becomes caught up in the struggles between his profit-minded uncle and an aggressive labor union.
Director: John Boulting | Stars: Ian Carmichael, Terry-Thomas, Peter Sellers, Richard Attenborough
Votes: 4,366
27. The Defeated (2020)
TV-MA | 45 min | Drama, History, Thriller
Max McLaughlin is an American cop who arrives in Berlin in the summer of 1946 to help create a police force in the chaotic aftermath of the war.
Stars: Taylor Kitsch, Michael C. Hall, Logan Marshall-Green, Nina Hoss
Votes: 8,096
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