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Best Assassination Movies

Ranked by how strongly each film carries the visual signature of assassination cinema — measured across 1,922 indexed frames from 26 films, against a 408,752-frame catalogue baseline. Not by box office, and not by vote.

Assassination films over-index on uniform, military uniform and dress shirt — the objects that make the genre recognisable before a line is spoken.

  1. 1

    Z (1969)

    Costa-GavrasDP Raoul CoutardIMDb 8.1TMDB 7.8See in full on FrameThrower →

    In a mid-sized metropolis (population 500,000) in a right-wing military led country, a pacifist organization, which supports the opposition party in the government, is planning on holding an anti-military, nuclear disarmament rally. The organization's charismatic leader - the deputy - is scheduled to arrive in the town from the capital the day of the rally. Beyond the problems arranging the rally due to the probable incitement of violence at such a rally, the organization learns of an unconfirmed report that there will be an attempt on the deputy's life. The rally does happen, after which a three-wheeled kamikaze runs over the deputy, who eventually passes away from his injuries. The official report is that the incident was a drunken accident. In reality, the deputy's death was murder orchestrated by the secret police, the general for who likens the pacifist organization to mildew killing off agricultural crops. A magistrate is assigned to the case. Although he does have political views, he is more interested in finding out the truth, and as such has to wade through the political rhetoric and politically motivated testimony he hears. Thrown into the mix is a photojournalist who too is looking for the truth, as it, he believes, will make a great front page story.

  2. 2

    JFK (1991)

    Oliver StoneDP Robert RichardsonIMDb 8.0TMDB 7.6See in full on FrameThrower →

    On November 22, 1963, president John F. Kennedy is assassinated in Dallas. Lee Harvey Oswald is arrested for the crime and subsequently shot by Jack Ruby, supposedly avenging the president's death. An investigation concludes that Lee Harvey Oswald and Jack Ruby acted alone in their respective crimes, but Louisiana district attorney Jim Garrison is skeptical. Assembling a trusted group of people, Garrison conducts his own investigation, bringing about backlash from powerful government and political figures.

  3. 3

    The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! (1988)

    David ZuckerDP Robert M. StevensIMDb 7.6TMDB 7.3See in full on FrameThrower →

    A rerun of many of the gags from the television series Police Squad! (1982). An Airplane! (1980)-type spoof, this time with the an incompetent Lieutenant Frank Drebin, who always "gets his man". Visual gags come thick and fast, and it's impossible to catch them all with one viewing. The plot: Queen Elizabeth II of England is coming to town, and Vincent Ludwig has plans to assassinate her using a brainwashed baseball player.

  4. 4

    The Manchurian Candidate (2004)

    Jonathan DemmeDP Tak FujimotoIMDb 6.6TMDB 6.5See in full on FrameThrower →

    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.

  5. 5

    North By Northwest (1959)

    Alfred HitchcockDP Robert BurksIMDb 8.3TMDB 8.0See in full on FrameThrower →

    Madison Avenue advertising man Roger Thornhill is thrust into the world of spies when he is mistaken for a man named George Kaplan. Foreign spy Philip Vandamm and his henchman Leonard try to eliminate him, but when he tries to make sense of the case, he is framed for murder. Now on the run from the police, he manages to board the 20th Century Limited bound for Chicago where he meets beautiful blonde Eve Kendall, who helps him evade the authorities. His world is turned upside-down yet again when he learns that Eve isn't the innocent bystander he thought she was. Nothing is as it seems, leading to a dramatic rescue and escape at the top of Mt. Rushmore.

  6. 6

    Snake Eyes (1998)

    Brian De PalmaDP Stephen H. BurumIMDb 6.1TMDB 6.2See in full on FrameThrower →

    Ricky Santoro is a flamboyant and corrupt Atlantic City cop with a dream: become so well connected that he can become mayor. In lieu of that, he'll settle for keeping his comfortable lifestyle. On the night of the heavyweight boxing championship, Rick becomes mixed up in the assassination of the Secretary of Defense, an assassination involving his best friend. Becoming the investigating officer in the case, Rick soon uncovers a conspiracy to kill the Secretary and a mysterious woman in white. The conspiracy was shocking, but not half as shocking as the identity of its mastermind.

  7. 7

    You Only Live Twice (1967)

    Lewis GilbertDP Freddie YoungIMDb 6.8TMDB 6.6See in full on FrameThrower →

    During the height of the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union lose one spacecraft each after they are both seemingly swallowed whole by a second unidentified spacecraft. The two superpowers are quick to blame one another for the disappearances, causing tensions to skyrocket. The United Kingdom has an alternate theory regarding the disappearances however, a theory involving Japan, and sends their number one spy, James Bond, to investigate there. With the help of the Japanese Secret Service, he uncovers a plot far more sinister than anyone could have ever imagined.

  8. 8

    Judas and the Black Messiah (2021)

    Shaka KingDP Sean BobbittIMDb 7.4TMDB 7.3See in full on FrameThrower →

    Fred Hampton, a young, charismatic activist, becomes Chairman of the Illinois chapter of the Black Panther Party - putting him directly in the crosshairs of the government, the FBI, and the Chicago Police. But to destroy the revolution, the authorities are going to need a man on the inside.

  9. 9

    Valkyrie (2008)

    Bryan SingerDP Newton Thomas SigelIMDb 7.1TMDB 6.9See in full on FrameThrower →

    In Nazi Germany during World War II, as the tide turned in favor of the Allies, a cadre of senior German officers and politicians desperately plot to topple the Nazi regime before the nation is crushed in a nearly inevitable defeat. To this end, Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg, an Army officer convinced he must save Germany from Adolf Hitler, is recruited to mastermind a real plan. To do so, he arranges for the internal emergency measure, Operation: Valkyrie, to be changed to enable his fellows to seize control of Berlin after the assassination of Der Führer. However, even as the plan is put into action, a combination of bad luck and human failings conspire on their own to create a tragedy that would prolong the greater one gripping Europe.

  10. 10

    The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956)

    Alfred HitchcockDP Robert BurksIMDb 7.4TMDB 7.4See in full on FrameThrower →

    While attending a medical conference in Paris, an American physician, Dr. Ben McKenna, along with his wife, retired musical theater actress and singer Jo McKenna née Conway, and their adolescent son, Hank McKenna, decide to take a side trip to Marrakesh, French Morocco. On the bus to Marrakesh, they meet a Frenchman, Louis Bernard. The following day at the market, Louis is masquerading as an Arab and approaches Ben with a knife plunged in his back. Before dying, Louis cryptically whispers into Ben's ear that there will be an attempted assassination in London of a statesman. Ben is reluctant to provide any information of this news to the authorities because he learned Hank was kidnapped by a British couple, Edward and Lucy Drayton. The people the Draytons were working for threatened to kill Hank if Ben divulged any information told to him by Louis Bernard. With what little information they have on hand, Ben and Jo head to London to try and thwart the assassination attempt and more importantly find Hank alive and safe. Scotland Yard is aware of some pieces to the puzzle, including the fact that Louis Bernard was a French secret service agent and that there will be an assassination attempt on someone. They will have to work together as they hit a diplomatic roadblock, one that may be overcome with a special Jo Conway song.

What assassination films are made of

How much more often each element appears in a assassination frame than in an average frame from the catalogue. A ratio, not a share — uniform is not in most frames, it is simply far more common here than anywhere else.

  • uniform7.8×
  • military uniform3.5×
  • dress shirt2.8×
  • necktie2.8×
  • suit2.8×
  • tie2.7×
  • suit jacket2.6×
  • microphone2.2×

How assassination films are shot

Weaker signals than the objects above, and worth saying so: most dramatic genres skew dark and night-heavy, so these numbers separate assassination from the catalogue far more than they separate it from its neighbours.

  • 11%interior indeterminatevs 7% baseline
  • 84%eye levelvs 69% baseline
  • 24%widevs 20% baseline

What breaks the pattern

Ran (1985) is the least typical film here — it carries the least of what the rest of this list is made of. Which is either a failure of the genre label, or the most interesting film on the page.

Method

Every frame in the FrameThrower catalogue is tagged for shot size, lighting, time of day, camera angle, colour and the objects visible in it. This page aggregates those tags across 1,922 frames from 26 films carrying the assassination label, and compares each figure to the same measurement across the whole catalogue (408,752 frames). Films are ranked by how closely they match the theme’s over-indexed elements, weighted by how distinctive each element is; one film per series. Only films with at least 20 indexed frames and 500 TMDB votes are listed.

Machine-readable: /api/list/assassination

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These are real movie frames, shown at reduced resolution. All rights remain with their respective owners; they appear here for study, commentary and education under fair-use principles. How these are meant to be used