Hostage Thriller Movies

List of the best hostage thriller movies selected by visitors to our site: Phone Booth, Captain Phillips, Argo, Munich, The River Wild, Nightcrawler, The Ledge, Inside Man, Buried, Flight.

In the top there are new films of 2023, a plot description and trailers for films that have already been released.

Markimdb: 7.1
Genrethriller, crime
CountryUSA
Duration01:21

A slick New York publicist who picks up a ringing receiver in a phone booth is told that if he hangs up, he'll be killed... and the little red light from a laser rifle sight is proof that the caller isn't kidding.

Markimdb: 7.8
Genreaction, thriller, drama, crime
CountryUSA
Duration02:14

    The true story of Captain Richard Phillips and the 2009 hijacking by Somali pirates of the US-flagged MV Maersk Alabama, the first American cargo ship to be hijacked in two hundred years.

    Markimdb: 7.7
    Genrethriller, drama, biography
    CountryUSA, United Kingdom
    Duration02:00

    As the Iranian revolution reaches a boiling point, a CIA 'exfiltration' specialist concocts a risky plan to free six Americans who have found shelter at the home of the Canadian ambassador.

    Markimdb: 7.5
    Genrethriller, drama, history
    CountryFrance, Canada, USA
    Duration02:44

    During the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich, eleven Israeli athletes are taken hostage and murdered by a Palestinian terrorist group known as Black September. In retaliation, the Israeli government recruits a group of Mossad agents to track down and execute those responsible for the attack.

    Markimdb: 6.4
    Genrethriller, adventure, crime
    CountryUSA
    Duration01:51

    While on a family vacation, rafting expert Gail takes on a pair of armed killers while navigating a spectacularly violent river.

    Markimdb: 7.8
    Genrethriller, drama, crime
    CountryUSA
    Duration01:58

      When Lou Bloom, desperate for work, muscles into the world of L.A. crime journalism, he blurs the line between observer and participant to become the star of his own story. Aiding him in his effort is Nina, a TV-news veteran.

      Markimdb: 6.5
      Genrethriller, melodrama, drama
      CountryUSA, Germany, Saudi Arabia
      Duration01:41

      A thriller in which a battle of philosophies between a fundamentalist Christian and an atheist escalates into a lethal battle of wills.

      Markimdb: 7.6
      Genreaction, thriller, drama, crime, detective
      CountryUSA
      Duration02:09

      Bank robber Dalton Russell enters a Manhattan bank, locks the doors and takes hostages, working methodically and without haste. Detective Frazier is assigned to negotiate, but his mind is occupied with the corruption charges he is facing. With an army of police surrounding the bank, the thief, the cop and a high-profile 'fixer' enter high-stakes negotiations.

      Markimdb: 7
      Genrethriller, drama, detective
      CountrySpain, United Kingdom, USA, France
      Duration01:35

      Paul is a U.S. truck driver working in Iraq. After an attack by a group of Iraqis he wakes to find he is buried alive inside a coffin. With only a lighter and a cell phone it's a race against time to escape this claustrophobic death trap.

      Markimdb: 7.3
      Genrethriller, drama
      CountryUSA, United Arab Emirates
      Duration02:18

      Commercial airline pilot Whip Whitaker has a problem with drugs and alcohol, though so far he's managed to complete his flights safely. His luck runs out when a disastrous mechanical malfunction sends his plane hurtling toward the ground. Whip pulls off a miraculous crash-landing that results in only six lives lost. Shaken to the core, Whip vows to get sober -- but when the crash investigation exposes his addiction, he finds himself in an even worse situation.

      Markimdb: 6.8
      Genreaction, thriller, detective
      CountryUnited Kingdom, Germany, France, USA
      Duration01:53

      An American biologist attending a conference in Berlin awakens from a coma after a car accident, only to discover that someone has taken his identity and that no one, not even his wife, believes him. With the help of an illegal immigrant and a former Stazi agent, he sets out to prove who he is and find out why people are trying to kill him.

      Markimdb: 8
      Genrethriller, drama
      CountryUSA
      Duration02:14

      Two aging film actresses live as virtual recluses in an old Hollywood mansion. Jane Hudson, a successful child star, cares for her crippled sister Blanche, whose career in later years eclipsed that of Jane. Now the two live together, their relationship affected by simmering subconscious thoughts of mutual envy, hate and revenge.

      Markimdb: 6.4
      Genreaction, thriller, crime
      CountryUSA, United Kingdom
      Duration01:42

      Armed men hijack a New York City subway train, holding the passengers hostage in return for a ransom, and turning an ordinary day's work for dispatcher Walter Garber into a face-off with the mastermind behind the crime.

      Markimdb: 6.9
      Genrethriller, melodrama, drama
      CountryUSA
      Duration01:51

      Depressed single mom Adele and her son Henry offer a wounded, fearsome man a ride. As police search town for the escaped convict, the mother and son gradually learn his true story as their options become increasingly limited.

      Markimdb: 6.8
      Genrethriller, drama, adventure
      CountryUSA
      Duration01:57

        An oil drilling team struggles to survive after a plane crash strands them in the wilds of Alaska. Hunting them is a pack of wolves that sees them as intruders.

        Markimdb: 6.9
        Genrethriller, drama
        CountryUSA

        Based on the true story of the events that led to the death of Kenneth Chamberlain Sr., an elderly African American veteran with bipolar disorder, who was killed during a conflict with police officers who were dispatched to check on him.

        Genrethriller, drama, crime
        CountryUSA, Mexico, Canada

        An ambitious young carny with a talent for manipulating people with a few well-chosen words hooks up with a female psychiatrist who is even more dangerous than he is.

        Markimdb: 8.2
        Genrethriller, drama, detective
        CountryUSA
        Duration02:18

        World War II soldier-turned-U.S. Marshal Teddy Daniels investigates the disappearance of a patient from a hospital for the criminally insane, but his efforts are compromised by his troubling visions and also by a mysterious doctor.

        Markimdb: 6.6
        Genreaction, thriller, crime
        CountryUSA
        Duration01:42

          An ex-cop turned con threatens to jump to his death from a Manhattan hotel rooftop. The NYPD dispatch a female police psychologist to talk him down. However, unbeknownst to the police on the scene, the suicide attempt is a cover for the biggest diamond heist ever pulled.

          Markimdb: 8
          Genrethriller, drama, crime, biography
          CountryUSA
          Duration02:10

          Based on the true story of would-be Brooklyn bank robbers John Wojtowicz and Salvatore Naturale. Sonny and Sal attempt a bank heist which quickly turns sour and escalates into a hostage situation and stand-off with the police. As Sonny's motives for the robbery are slowly revealed and things become more complicated, the heist turns into a media circus.

          Markimdb: 7
          Genrethriller, drama, crime
          CountryUSA
          Duration01:56

          John Quincy Archibald is a father and husband whose son is diagnosed with an enlarged heart and then finds out he cannot receive a transplant because HMO insurance will not cover it. Therefore, he decides to take a hospital full of patients hostage until the hospital puts his son's name on the donor's list.

          Markimdb: 7.5
          Genrethriller, drama, detective
          CountryUnited Kingdom, USA
          Duration01:52

            After her son Kevin commits a horrific act, troubled mother Eva reflects on her complicated relationship with her disturbed son as he grew from a toddler into a teenager.

            Markimdb: 7.3
            Genrehorror, thriller, fantasy, drama, detective
            CountryUSA, United Kingdom

            A traumatized, alcoholic Dan Torrance meets Abra, a kid who also has the ability to "shine." He tries to protect her from the True Knot, a cult whose goal is to feed off of people like them in order to remain immortal. Doctor Sleep is a sequel to Stephen King's 1977 novel "The Shining". Doctor Sleep is set several decades after the events of the first "Shining".

            Markimdb: 7.3
            Genreaction, thriller, melodrama, drama, crime
            CountryUSA, France
            Duration02:13

              A married couple's life is turned upside down when the wife is accused of a murder. Lara Brennan is arrested for murdering her boss with whom she had an argument. It seems she was seen leaving the scene of the crime and her fingerprints were on the murder weapon. Her husband, John would spend the next few years trying to get her released, but there's no evidence that negates the evidence against her. And when the strain of being separated from her family, especially her son, gets to her, John decides to break her out. So he does a lot of research to find a way.

              Markimdb: 6.7
              Genrethriller, drama, crime
              CountryUSA
              Duration01:35

              Jordan Turner is an experienced 911 operator but when she makes an error in judgment and a call ends badly, Jordan is rattled and unsure if she can continue. But when teenager Casey Welson is abducted in the back of a man's car and calls 911, Jordan is the one called upon to use all of her experience, insights and quick thinking to help Casey escape, and not just to save her, but to make sure the man is brought to justice.

              Markimdb: 7
              Genrethriller, melodrama, drama, detective
              CountryUSA
              Duration01:43

                The Words follows young writer Rory Jansen who finally achieves long sought after literary success after publishing the next great American novel. There's only one catch - he didn't write it. As the past comes back to haunt him and his literary star continues to rise, Jansen is forced to confront the steep price that must be paid for stealing another man's work, and for placing ambition and success above life's most fundamental three words.

                Markimdb: 6.4
                Genrethriller, crime, detective
                CountryUSA, Spain, Hungary, Serbia
                Duration01:50

                A fictionalized account of the last days of Edgar Allan Poe's life, in which the poet is in pursuit of a serial killer whose murders mirror those in the writer's stories.

                Markimdb: 5.9
                Genrethriller, drama, detective
                CountryUSA
                Duration01:30

                On a beautiful college campus, something ugly is about to be spread around. A bit of gossip that was told is starting to take a frightening turn. Who could it have offended and how far will the person on the other side of the gossip handle the embarrassing situation.

                Markimdb: 7.1
                Genrethriller, drama
                CountryUSA
                Duration01:32

                A young writer is interrogated by a sadistic secret policeman. She is accused of embedding political messages in her children's stories. The entire movie takes place in one room, with only the two actors. The movie is set in an unidentified, modern police state.

                Markimdb: 7.7
                Genrethriller, drama, crime
                CountryUSA, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany
                Duration01:50

                Slevin is mistakenly put in the middle of a personal war between the city’s biggest criminal bosses. Under constant watch, Slevin must try not to get killed by an infamous assassin and come up with an idea of how to get out of his current dilemma. A film with many twists and turns.

                Markimdb: 8.5
                Genrethriller, detective
                CountryUSA
                Duration01:52

                Professional photographer L.B. "Jeff" Jeffries breaks his leg while getting an action shot at an auto race. Confined to his New York apartment, he spends his time looking out of the rear window observing the neighbors. He begins to suspect that a man across the courtyard may have murdered his wife. Jeff enlists the help of his high society fashion-consultant girlfriend Lisa Freemont and his visiting nurse Stella to investigate.

                Markimdb: 7.7
                Genrethriller, drama, crime, biography
                CountryUSA, Italy
                Duration02:10

                The real-life struggle of an honest New York City cop against a corrupt system.

                Markimdb: 6.5
                Genrethriller, drama
                CountryUSA
                Duration02:06

                In a prison for the criminally insane, deranged anthropologist Ethan Powell is set to be examined by a bright young psychiatrist, Theo Caulder. Driven by ambition and a hunger for the truth, Caulder will eventually risk everything—even put his very life on the line—in a harrowing attempt to understand the bizarre actions of this madman.

                Markimdb: 7.6
                Genrethriller, drama, crime
                CountrySpain, USA
                Duration02:00

                A brilliant plastic surgeon creates a synthetic skin that withstands any kind of damage. His guinea pig: a mysterious and volatile woman who holds the key to his obsession.

                Markimdb: 7.6
                Genrethriller, drama, crime, detective
                CountryUSA
                Duration01:54

                When 4 year old Amanda McCready disappears from her home and the police make little headway in solving the case, the girl's aunt, Beatrice McCready hires two private detectives, Patrick Kenzie and Angie Gennaro. The detectives freely admit that they have little experience with this type of case, but the family wants them for two reasons - they're not cops and they know the tough neighborhood in which they all live. As the case progresses, Kenzie and Gennaro face drug dealers, gangs and pedophiles. When they are about to solve the case, they are faced with a moral dilemma that tears them apart.

                Markimdb: 8
                Genrethriller, drama, crime, detective
                CountryUSA
                Duration01:20

                Two young men strangle their "inferior" classmate, hide his body in their apartment, and invite his friends and family to a dinner party as a means to challenge the "perfection" of their crime.

                Markimdb: 7.3
                Genreaction, thriller, crime, detective
                CountryGermany, USA
                Duration02:14

                The police try to arrest expert hostage negotiator Danny Roman, who insists he's being framed for his partner's murder in what he believes is an elaborate conspiracy. Thinking there's evidence in the Internal Affairs offices that might clear him, he takes everyone in the office hostage and demands that another well-known negotiator be brought in to handle the situation and secretly investigate the conspiracy.

                Markimdb: 7.5
                Genrethriller, drama, adventure, biography
                CountryUnited Kingdom, USA, France
                Duration01:33

                The true story of mountain climber Aron Ralston's remarkable adventure to save himself after a fallen boulder crashes on his arm and traps him in an isolated canyon in Utah.

                Markimdb: 6.2
                Genrethriller, comedy, melodrama, drama, crime
                CountryUSA
                Duration01:45

                Along with his new friends, a teenager who was arrested by the US Secret Service and banned from using a computer for writing a computer virus discovers a plot by a nefarious hacker, but they must use their computer skills to find the evidence while being pursued by the Secret Service and the evil computer genius behind the virus.

                Markimdb: 6.3
                Genrethriller, drama, crime
                CountryUSA
                Duration01:50

                A misguided museum guard who loses his job and then tries to get it back at gunpoint is thrown into the fierce world of ratings-driven TV gone mad.

                Markimdb: 6.4
                Genrehorror, thriller, drama, crime, detective
                CountryUSA
                Duration01:41

                Walter Sparrow is an animal control officer that becomes obsessed with a mysterious book that seems to be based on his own life. As soon as he opens the book, he notices strange parallels between what he reads and what he's experienced. But now he's worried that a fictional murder might materialize.

                Markimdb: 7.5
                Genrethriller, comedy, crime, detective
                CountryUSA
                Duration01:43

                  A petty thief posing as an actor is brought to Los Angeles for an unlikely audition and finds himself in the middle of a murder investigation along with his high school dream girl and a detective who's been training him for his upcoming role...

                  Markimdb: 7.3
                  Genrethriller, comedy, crime, detective
                  CountryUSA
                  Duration01:34

                  Lionel Twain invites the world's five greatest detectives to a 'dinner and murder'. Included are a blind butler, a deaf-mute maid, screams, spinning rooms, secret passages, false identities and more plot turns and twists than are decently allowed.

                  Markimdb: 7.4
                  Genrethriller, drama, crime, detective
                  CountryUnited Kingdom, Italy, USA
                  Duration02:19

                  Tom Ripley is a calculating young man who believes it's better to be a fake somebody than a real nobody. Opportunity knocks in the form of a wealthy U.S. shipbuilder who hires Tom to travel to Italy to bring back his playboy son, Dickie. Ripley worms his way into the idyllic lives of Dickie and his girlfriend, plunging into a daring scheme of duplicity, lies and murder.

                  Markimdb: 6.3
                  Genrethriller, drama, crime, detective
                  CountryUSA
                  Duration01:55

                  A female attorney learns that her husband is really a marine officer awol for fifteen years and accused of murdering fifteen civilians in El Salvador. Believing her husband when he tells her that he's being framed as part of a U.S. Military cover-up, the attorney defends him in a military court.

                  Markimdb: 7.6
                  Genrethriller, drama, history
                  CountryUSA, Germany, India
                  Duration02:39

                    During the Cold War, the Soviet Union captures U.S. pilot Francis Gary Powers after shooting down his U-2 spy plane. Sentenced to 10 years in prison, Powers' only hope is New York lawyer James Donovan, recruited by a CIA operative to negotiate his release. Donovan boards a plane to Berlin, hoping to win the young man's freedom through a prisoner exchange. If all goes well, the Russians would get Rudolf Abel, the convicted spy who Donovan defended in court.

                    Markimdb: 6.6
                    Genrethriller, drama
                    CountryUSA
                    Duration01:54

                    After surviving a stabbing by a student, teacher Trevor Garfield moves from New York to Los Angeles. There, he resumes teaching as a substitute teacher. The education system, where violent bullies control the classrooms and the administration is afraid of lawsuits, slowly drives Garfield mad.

                    Markimdb: 7.1
                    Genrethriller, drama, adventure, history
                    CountryUSA, Canada
                    Duration02:01

                    The amazing, true story of a Uruguayan rugby team's plane that crashed in the middle of the Andes mountains, and their immense will to survive and pull through alive, forced to do anything and everything they could to stay alive on meager rations and through the freezing cold.

                    Markimdb: 7.4
                    Genrethriller, drama, crime
                    CountryUSA
                    Duration02:00

                    A widescreen, Technicolor remake by Hitchcock of his 1934 film of the same title. A couple vacationing in Morocco with their young son accidentally stumble upon an assassination plot. When the child is kidnapped to ensure their silence, they have to take matters into their own hands to save him.

                    Markimdb: 7.5
                    Genrethriller, drama, crime
                    CountryUnited Kingdom, Germany, France, USA, Japan
                    Duration02:01

                    Captivated by the lure of sudden wealth, the quiet rural lives of two brothers erupt into conflicts of greed, paranoia and distrust when over $4 million in cash is discovered at the remote site of a downed small airplane. Their simple plan to retain the money while avoiding detection opens a Pandora's box when the fear of getting caught triggers panicked behavior and leads to virulent consequences




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