20 best movies like Pascali's Island (1988)

Martial arts expert Matt Hunter was one of the most promising operatives in Army intelligence until his parents were killed by terrorists, and he retired to the family's farm in Louisiana to take care of his 12-year-old sister Sara and their grandfather Jimmy. Larry Richards, a black man running for the Senate, is one of Matt's best friends. Larry has become the target of The Pentangle, a racist organization led by a man named Glastenbury, and Glastenbury doesn't want Larry to be elected. In an attempt on Larry's life during a Mardi Gras parade in New Orleans, The Pentangle kills one of Larry's sons. Matt lets Larry, his wife Daisy, and his other son move to the remotely located farm so they can hide from Glastenbury and the Pentangle, but the Pentangle strikes again, setting the farmhouse on fire. Matt and Sara escape as the only survivors. Then the Pentangle kidnaps Sara, sending Matt on a mission to rescue Sara from Glastenbury and the Pentangle

A mysterious American gets mixed up with gunrunners in Syria.

Roy Tucker, a Vietnam war veteran with excellent shooting skills, is serving a long prison sentence when a mysterious visitor promises him that he will be released if he agrees to carry out a dangerous assignment.

When the Nazi high command learns in late 1943 that Winston Churchill will be spending time at a country estate in Norfolk, it hatches an audacious scheme to kidnap the prime minister and spirit him to Germany for enforced negotiations with Hitler.

While working undercover as a bodyguard to arms dealer Harry, former-soldier-turned-secret-service-agent Ewan survives a bloody shootout with a member of an Islamic terrorist cell who steals Harry's briefcase full of Semtex explosives and escapes. Ewan's spymasters task Ewan with hunting down the cell members and retrieving the briefcase.

A safecracker turns double agent during WWII.

Professional killer Holland is forced out of retirement to break a Central American government's political torture ring when one of his friends, a Latin American journalist, is killed. The murderer, Doctor Clement Molloch, is the master sadist behind the political torture of innocent victims. Posing as a journalist, Holland lures Molloch out of his fortress-like headquarters by using his murdered friend's wife and daughter as bait. When Holland kidnaps Molloch's sister, the doctor is led on a wild chase that takes him to an abandoned opal mine where he finally comes face to face with Holland.

After two British Secret Intelligence Service agents are murdered at the hands of a cryptic neo-Nazi group known as Phoenix, the suave agent Quiller is sent to Berlin to investigate.

In Camelot, kingdom of Arthur and Merlin, Lancelot is well known for his courage and honor. But one day he must quit Camelot and the Queen Guinevere's love, leaving the Round Table without protection.

Matrac (Humphrey Bogart) is a freedom-loving French journalist who sacrifices his happiness and security to battle Nazi tyranny.

Different factions in WWII-era Holland race to find a stash of Nazi gold.

David Hare concludes his trilogy of films about MI5 renegade Johnny Worricker with another fugue on power, secrets and the British establishment. Johnny Worricker goes on the run with Margot Tyrell across Europe, and with the net closing in, the former MI5 man knows his only chance of resolving his problems is to return home and confront prime minister Alec Beasley.

At the start of World War II, Cmdr. Ericson is assigned to convoy escort HMS Compass Rose with inexperienced officers and men just out of training. The winter seas make life miserable enough, but the men must also harden themselves to rescuing survivors of U-Boat attacks, while seldom able to strike back. Traumatic events afloat and ashore create a warm bond between the skipper and his first officer

Tim Burstall directs then-up-and-comers Mel Gibson and Sam Neill in this action-packed Cannes Film Festival selection about the grim realities of World War II, a gritty drama based on actual events. Sent to rescue survivors from the site of a plane crash in the South Pacific, Capt. P.G. Kelly (Gibson) and his elite squad of Australian commandos must keep tabs on a defecting Japanese official who could hold the secret to peace.

The captain of a submarine sunk by the Japanese during WWII is finally given a chance to skipper another sub after a year of working a desk job. His singleminded determination for revenge against the destroyer that sunk his previous vessel puts his new crew in unneccessary danger.

A member of British Intelligence assumes a fictitious criminal identity and allows himself to be caught, imprisoned, and freed in order to infiltrate a spy organization and expose a traitor; only, someone finds him out and exposes him to the gang...

General George S. Patton died in a car accident in 1945. However, now speculates that his death was actually a murder carefully prepared by his staff to cover a large theft of gold.

Set in German-occupied Norway, resistance fighter Knut Straud enlists the reluctant physicist Rolf Pedersen in an effort to destroy the German heavy water production plant in rural Telemark.

Modesty Blaise, a secret agent whose hair color, hair style, and mod clothing change at a snap of her fingers is being used by the British government as a decoy in an effort to thwart a diamond heist. She is being set up by the feds but is wise to the plot and calls in sidekick Willie Garvin and a few other friends to outsmart them. Meanwhile, at his island hideaway, Gabriel, the diamond thief has his own plans for Blaise and Garvin.

In 1880s London, pornographic bookseller Verloc is a double agent for the Russian government, providing information to Chief Inspector Heat about a lazy anarchist organization. In order for the anarchists to be arrested, an act of terrorism must occur. So Verloc decides to set up bombs – which leads to tragedy – not only for himself but also for his family, including wife Winnie and brother-in-law, Stevie.

A 16-year-old girl raised by her father to be the perfect assassin is dispatched on a mission across Europe. Tracked by a ruthless operatives, she faces startling revelations about her existence and questions about her humanity.

A network of older spies from the West recruits a young intelligence officer with a photographic memory to accompany them on a mission inside Russia. They must recover a letter written by the CIA that promises American assistance to Russia if China gets the atomic bomb.

The true story of the formation of Ian Fleming's 30 Commando unit, a precursor for the elite forces in the U.K.

Based on true events, an American submarine collides into a Soviet sub of the coast of America and an ensuing standoff occurs that could lead to total annihilation.

A young woman finds out that her mother worked as a spy for the British Secret Service during World War II and has been on the run ever since.

An espionage thriller set in the 1950s and adapted from the novel "Year Suan/Plot Against" by May Jia. Tony Leung Chiu Wai plays a blind man who works for a piano tuner. He is recruited for a spy mission because of his exceptional hearing.

A Hollywood stunt performer who moonlights as a wheelman for criminals discovers that a contract has been put on him after a heist gone wrong.

The professional mercenary Sir William Walker instigates a slave revolt on the Caribbean island of Queimada in order to help improve the British sugar trade. Years later he is sent again to deal with the same rebels that he built up because they have seized too much power that now threatens British sugar interests.

A naval adventure, based on the novels by C.S. Forester, about the heroic, 19th-century British seafarer. The story sails with his ship, the Lydia, through battles with Spain and then France won with wit rather than might.

Set in Stalin-era Soviet Union, a disgraced MGB agent is dispatched to investigate a series of child murders -- a case that begins to connect with the very top of party leadership.

An American Army officer is recruited by the yet to exist Israel to help them form an army. He is disturbed by this sudden appeal to his jewish roots. Each of Israel's Arab neighbors has vowed to invade the poorly prepared country as soon as partition is granted. He is made commander of the Israeli forces just before the war begins.

A government agent is determined to come to his son's rescue, when a sinister official kidnaps him to harness his extremely powerful psychic abilities.

As youths in Azusa, Vinnie, Carter, and Rosie pull off a racing scam, substituting winners for plodders and winning big bucks on long odds. When an official uncovers the scam, they set him up for blackmail. Jump ahead twenty years, Carter and Rosie are married, successful racers in Kentucky about to sell their prize stallion, Simpatico. Vinnie is a drunk in Pomona. Vinnie decides to make a play for Rosie, lures Carter to California, steals his wallet and heads for Kentucky with the original blackmail material. Carter begs Vinnie's friend, a grocery clerk named Cecilia, to follow Vinnie and get the stuff back that he has in a box. Will she succeed?

Rachel Singer is a former Mossad agent who tried to capture a notorious Nazi war criminal – the Surgeon of Birkenau – in a secret Israeli mission that ended with his death on the streets of East Berlin. Now, 30 years later, a man claiming to be the doctor has surfaced, and Rachel must return to Eastern Europe to uncover the truth. Overwhelmed by haunting memories of her younger self and her two fellow agents, the still-celebrated heroine must relive the trauma of those events and confront the debt she has incurred.

One of the US Air Force's most modern tactical aircrafts, an F-100 with a new laser guidance system, crashes into the sea near Malta - a region where the Soviet forces are highly present, too. The CIA immediately sends out their best secret agent, Ken Tani, to salvage the system before it falls into enemy hands. To ensure his loyalty, they bring his two young sons to a nearby hotel on the island.

A chronicle of events that led to the British involvement in the Crimean War against Russia and which led to the siege of Sevastopol and the fierce Battle of Balaclava on October 25, 1854 which climaxed with the heroic, but near-disastrous calvary charge made by the British Light Brigade against a Russian artillery battery in a small valley which resulted in the near-destruction of the brigade due to error of judgement and rash planning on part by the inept British commanders.

Charles Dobbs is a British secret agent investigating the apparent suicide of Foreign Office official Samuel Fennan. Dobbs suspects that Fennan's wife, Elsa, a survivor of a Nazi Germany extermination camp, might have some clues, but other officials want Dobbs to drop the case. So Dobbs hires a retiring inspector, Mendel, to quietly make inquiries. Dobbs isn't at all sure as there are a number of anomalies that simply can't be explained away. Dobbs is also having trouble at home with his errant wife, whom he very much loves, having frequent affairs. He's also pleased to see an old friend, Dieter Frey, who he recruited after the war. With the assistance of a colleague and a retired policeman, Dobbs tries to piece together just who is the spy and who in fact assassinated Fennan.

Set in the 1970s London during the height of the Cold War when a young spy discovers the disturbing truth about his father's complex past. Based on Alan Judd's 2001 novel Legacy, the second in the Thoroughgood series after 1981's A Breed Of Heroes (adapted by the BBC in 1994). As the three day week, petrol rationing and industrial strife plunge Britain into a state of emergency, MI6 trainee spy Charles Thoroughgood is asked to reconnect with an old university friend, Russian diplomat Viktor Koslov, with a view to 'turning' him. Viktor has his own agenda, though, and reveals a shocking truth about Charles's own family that threatens to derail him, both personally and professionally. He is catapulted into a dangerous personal odyssey to uncover the truth but finds himself drawn into a lethal KGB plot to mount an attack within the UK. His life is further complicated by a relationship with the wife of another agent, which forces him to realise that betrayal can take many forms.

Set 10 years later, the Phantom has escaped from Paris to New York where he lives amongst the joyrides and freak shows of Coney Island. He has finally found a place for his music to soar, all that is missing is his love Christine Daaé. In a bid to win back her love, the Phantom lures Christine, her husband Raoul, and their young son Gustave from Manhattan, to the glittering and glorious world of Coney Island... they have no idea what lies in store for them... You truly haven’t experienced Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Love Never Dies until you see this spectacular new Australian production, filmed at Melbourne’s iconic Regent Theatre.

The circularity of violence seen in a story that circles on itself. In Macedonia, during war in Bosnia, Christians hunt an ethnic Albanian girl who may have murdered one of their own. A young monk who's taken a vow of silence offers her protection. In London, a photographic editor who's pregnant needs to talk it out with her estranged husband and chooses a toney restaurant.

19 years after President Timothy Keegan was assassinated, his brother Nick discovers a dying man claiming to have been the gunman. While trying to avoid his wealthy and domineering father's attempts to control his actions, Nick follows the clues that have been handed to him. As he progresses, it becomes increasingly difficult to discern the real trails from the dead ends, and increasingly dangerous as unknown parties try to stop Nick from uncovering the truth.

Vietnam veteran Billy Ray Lancing, a former CSA agent who now works on a wildlife refuge in Northern Alaska, has been exchanging letters in a pen-pal relationship with Irina Morawska, a 13-year-old orphaned girl in Poland that he's helping out financially. When the letters suddenly stop coming, Billy heads to Poland to figure out why -- only to discover that the orphanage that Irina was staying in, which is financed by honest -- and unsuspecting -- good-intentioned Samaritans, is a cover for a human trafficking network.

Slipstream is a 1989 post-apocalyptic science fiction adventure film. The plot has an emphasis on aviation and contains many common science-fiction themes, such as taking place in a dystopian future in which the landscape of the Earth itself has been changed and is windswept by storms of great power. There are also numerous sub-plots, such as free will and humanity amongst artificial intelligence.

Dr Jake Terrell, who has been training a pair of dolphins for many years, has had a breakthrough. He has taught his dolphins to speak and understand English, although they do have a limited vocabulary. When the dolphins are stolen, he discovers they're to be used in an assassination attempt. Now he is in a race to discover who is the target, and where the dolphins are, before the attempt is carried out.

Diplomats, soldiers and other representatives of a dozen nations fend off the siege of the International Compound in Peking during the 1900 Boxer Rebellion. The disparate interests unite for survival despite competing factions, overwhelming odds, delayed relief and tacit support of the Boxers by the Empress of China and her generals.

Rick, a down-and-out American boxer, is hired to transport a sword to Japan, unaware that the whole thing is a set up in a bitter blood-feud between two brothers, one who follows the traditional path of the samurai and the other a businessman. At the behest of the businessman, Rick undertakes samurai training from the other brother, but joins his cause. He also becomes romantically involved with the samurai's daughter.

To obtain a supply of a rare mineral, a ship raising operation is conducted for the only known source, the Titanic.

Three U.S. journalists (Nick Nolte, Joanna Cassidy, Gene Hackman) get too close to one another and their work in 1979 Nicaragua.

A U.S. Army colonel alerts the president of a planned military coup against him.

Belfast police conduct a door-to-door manhunt for an IRA gunman wounded in a daring robbery.