Best Fbi Movies
Ranked by how strongly each film carries the visual signature of fbi cinema — measured across 4,569 indexed frames from 49 films, against a 408,752-frame catalogue baseline. Not by box office, and not by vote.
Fbi films over-index on dress shirt, police officer and tie — the objects that make the genre recognisable before a line is spoken.
- 1
Die Hard (1988)
John McTiernanDP Jan de BontIMDb 8.2TMDB 7.8See in full on FrameThrower →
NYPD cop John McClane goes on a Christmas vacation to visit his wife Holly in Los Angeles where she works for the Nakatomi Corporation. While they are at the Nakatomi headquarters for a Christmas party, a group of robbers led by Hans Gruber take control of the building and hold everyone hostage, with the exception of John, while they plan to perform a lucrative heist. Unable to escape and with no immediate police response, John is forced to take matters into his own hands.
- 2
Rush Hour (1998)
Brett RatnerDP Adam GreenbergIMDb 7.0TMDB 7.1See in full on FrameThrower →
Cultures clash and tempers flares as the two cops named Detective Inspector Lee a Hong Kong Detective and Detective James Carter FBI, a big-mouthed work-alone Los Angeles cop who are from different worlds discovers one thing in common: they can't stand each other. With time running out, they must join forces to catch the criminals and save the eleven-year-old Chinese girl of the Chinese consul named Soo Yung.
- 3
Dog Day Afternoon (1975)
Sidney LumetDP Victor J. KemperIMDb 8.0TMDB 7.8See in full on FrameThrower →
Based upon a real-life incident which occurred in August 1972 in which a Chase Manhattan Bank branch in Gravesend, Brooklyn, New York, was held siege by Sonny, a Vietnam veteran turned bank robber determined to steal enough money ($2500) for his "wife" (Leon, a man; the two, were, according to an onscreen TV news report, married in a church by a priest who was defrocked shortly after, although Leon says to the police that Sal is "married and has children") to undergo a sex change operation. (The real life character upon whom Leon is based did, in fact, get the operation.) On a hot summer afternoon, Sonny and two cohort, Stevie and Sal, go to rob the (fictional) First Savings Bank of Brooklyn. Stevie soon gets nervous and flees. Although the bank manager and female tellers agree not to interfere with the robbery, Sonny finds there is not much to steal, as most of the cash has been picked up for the day. Sonny then gets an unexpected phone call from Captain Moretti of the NYPD, who tells him the place is surrounded by the city's entire police force. Having few options under the circumstances, Sonny nervously bargains with Moretti, demanding safe escort to the airport and a plane out of the country in return for the bank employees' safety.
- 4
All the President's Men (1976)
Alan J. PakulaDP Gordon WillisIMDb 7.9TMDB 7.7See in full on FrameThrower →
In the run-up to the 1972 elections, Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward covers what seems to be a minor break-in at the Democratic Party National headquarters. He is surprised to find top lawyers already on the defense case, and the discovery of names and addresses of White House fund organizers on the accused further arouses his suspicions. The editor of the Post is prepared to run with the story and assigns Woodward and Carl Bernstein to it. They find the trail leading higher and higher in the White House.
- 5
The Informant! (2009)
Steven SoderberghDP Steven SoderberghIMDb 6.5TMDB 6.2See in full on FrameThrower →
Mark Whitacre has worked for lysine developing company ADM for many years and has even found his way into upper management. But nothing has prepared him for the job he is about to undertake - being a spy for the FBI. Unwillingly pressured into working as an informant against the illegal price-fixing activities of his company, Whitacre gradually adopts the idea that he's a true secret agent. But as his incessant lies keep piling up, his world begins crashing down around him.
- 6
Casino (1995)
Martin ScorseseDP Robert RichardsonIMDb 8.2TMDB 8.0See in full on FrameThrower →
This Martin Scorsese film depicts the Janus-like quality of Las Vegas--it has a glittering, glamorous face, as well as a brutal, cruel one. Ace Rothstein and Nicky Santoro, mobsters who move to Las Vegas to make their mark, live and work in this paradoxical world. Seen through their eyes, each as a foil to the other, the details of mob involvement in the casinos of the 1970s and '80s are revealed. Ace is the smooth operator of the Tangiers casino, while Nicky is his boyhood friend and tough strongman, robbing and shaking down the locals. However, they each have a tragic flaw--Ace falls in love with a hustler, Ginger, and Nicky falls into an ever-deepening spiral of drugs and violence.
- 7
Catch Me If You Can (2002)
Steven SpielbergDP Janusz KamińskiIMDb 8.1TMDB 8.0See in full on FrameThrower →
A true story about Frank Abagnale Jr. who, before his 19th birthday, successfully conned millions of dollars worth of checks as a Pan Am pilot, doctor, and legal prosecutor. An FBI agent makes it his mission to put him behind bars. But Frank not only eludes capture, he revels in the pursuit.
- 8
Arlington Road (1999)
Mark PellingtonDP Bobby BukowskiIMDb 7.2TMDB 7.0See in full on FrameThrower →
In suburban Reston, Virginia, George Washington University American History professor Michael Faraday is still mourning the death of his wife, FBI agent Leah Faraday, after three years. His inside knowledge of the agency colors what he teaches in his classes. Although on good terms with Leah's ex-partner, Whit Carver, and the agency in general, Michael wants the agency at least to acknowledge their responsibility in her death in the line of duty. Michael is moving on with his personal life, he being in a serious relationship with his former teaching assistant Brooke Wolfe. Although he likes Brooke, Michael and Leah's nine year old son, Grant Faraday, may not yet be quite ready for Brooke to be a permanent part of their lives. It is only in helping adolescent Brady Lang who he sees in medical distress that Michael meets his new neighbors, Oliver and Cheryl Lang, Brady's parents. In the process, Michael and Brooke becomes friends with the Langs, as Grant and Brady become friends. However, the more time that he spends with them and catches discrepancies in their stories, Michael becomes suspicious that the Langs may not be everything they appear on the surface. As such, Michael, against Brooke's concerns of invasion of the Lang's privacy, begins his own investigation of Oliver in particular. What Michael discovers has serious national security implications, as well as possible life threatening dangers to him, Brooke and Grant.
- 9
Collateral (2004)
Michael MannDP Dion BeebeIMDb 7.5TMDB 7.2See in full on FrameThrower →
This action thriller follows LA cabbie Max Durocher, the type of person who can wax poetic about other people's lives, which impresses U.S. Justice Department prosecutor Annie Farrell, one of his fares, so much that she gives him her telephone number at the end of her ride. Although a dedicated man as seen through the efficiency in which he does his work, he can't or won't translate that eloquence into a better life for himself. He deludes himself into believing that his now twelve year cabbie job is temporary and that someday he will own his own limousine service. He even lies to his hospitalized mother that he already owns one, with a further lie that he tells her as such primarily to make her happy, rather than the truth which is that he won't do anything to achieve that dream. One night, Max picks up a well dressed man named Vincent, who asks Max to be his only fare for the evening. For a flat fee of $600, plus an extra $100 if he gets to the airport on time - Vincent wants Max to drive him to five stops that evening. Max somewhat reluctantly agrees. Max learns the hard way at their first stop when a body falls from a third story apartment window and lands dead on top of his cab that Vincent is a contract hit man. Vincent's main goal, as per his current contract, is to kill five people, one at each of the stops, but he will not let others get in the way of that goal, even if it means killing them, including Max. As Vincent forces Max to continue driving him for the evening, Max tries slyly at every turn to take back control of his life from Vincent, especially when Max learns of one of the names on Vincent's hit list. Meanwhile, LAPD narcotics detective, Ray Fanning, and ultimately the FBI get involved when Vincent's first victim is associated with a case in which Ray is working undercover. Ray is able to piece together information which makes him hot on Max and Vincent's tail.
- 10
Peter LandesmanDP Adam KimmelIMDb 6.4TMDB 6.2See in full on FrameThrower →
1972. Following the death of fifty year FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover who the last three Presidents had considered firing, FBI outsider L. Patrick Gray is appointed Acting Director. Associate Director Mark Felt, a dedicated, loyal and meticulous employee of the Bureau for thirty years, and his wife Audrey, feel he being passed over for the job is a major snub, they who have sacrificed their own personal lives for the Bureau. Part of that sacrifice is not being able to devote time in locating the Felts' daughter, Joan Felt, who they have not heard from in a year, they only assuming that she going off their radar being on her own volition in her anti-establishment ideals. Felt not getting the job is arguably due to he being such an integral figure in the controversial Hoover tenure. One of the first cases for the Bureau in Gray's tenure is a break-in at and bugging of the Democratic National Committee offices, the case unofficially called Watergate for the complex in which the break-in occurred. Ordered by Gray by what what seems to be unofficial orders passed down from the White House, FBI staff are hamstrung in their investigation, Watergate which has seeming ties to the Committee for the Re-Election of the President and thus possibly the Republican administration in the White House. For the first time in his career, Felt decides to go rogue in an effort for the FBI to gain back its independence without interference by any other organization, including especially the White House. Those rogue actions are largely the treasonous offense of leaking FBI information into the Watergate investigation to the media, first to his friend, Time reporter Sandy Smith, then to Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, their source - Felt - known in the public mindset through the code name, Deep Throat. Through the process, Felt tries to protect himself from discovery and protect his FBI associates from innuendo each as possibly being Deep Throat, which becomes more and more difficult with the reelection of Richard Nixon, his administration which uses every tool in their legal and illegal toolbox, including through their patsy Gray, to discover the identity of Deep Throat.
What fbi films are made of
How much more often each element appears in a fbi frame than in an average frame from the catalogue. A ratio, not a share — dress shirt is not in most frames, it is simply far more common here than anywhere else.
- dress shirt3.8×
- police officer3.7×
- tie3.3×
- necktie3.3×
- telephone3.2×
- handgun2.9×
- suit jacket2.9×
- wristwatch2.4×
How fbi 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 fbi from the catalogue far more than they separate it from its neighbours.
- 85%eye levelvs 69% baseline
What breaks the pattern
Love Lies Bleeding (2024) 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 4,569 frames from 49 films carrying the fbi 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/fbi
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