Directors of war films frequently overlook the Cold War because it was a psychological game in which both sides – capitalist countries and communist states – would try to outdo others in aspects of pride and achievements. And so, as to hike up your suspense, we have bought the best ranked cold war movies of all time.
While trying to spread lies and misinformation about their adversaries, trying to gather Intel through acts of covert operations, and funding small wars that did not directly involve themselves, known as surrogate or proxy wars.
However, the battle – which lasted from World War II in 1945 until the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 – created some incredible stories.
A few select geniuses have enabled them to be presented on the big screen, mostly in spectacular, beautiful ways.
Here are the best cold war movies ever made!
Table of Contents
Toggle20. Top Gun
- Director: Joseph Kosinski
- Cast: Tom Cruise, Val Kilmer
- IMDB Rating: 8.6
- Rotten Tomatoes: 96%
- Where to Watch: YouTube
“Top Gun” is a masterwork of American imagery and one of the most euphoric masterpieces of abstract expressionism.
As a teenage Tom Cruise confronts Russian bogeys and then a teeth-clenching Val Kilmer for supreme air dominance, scene after spectacular moment feels carved out of some cosmic Cold War screenplay.
Tony Scott, the director, has always been vastly underappreciated as an auteur. Perhaps it’s because of his older brother Ridley Scott’s lengthy shadow or because he never ventured far from action flicks, but credit for this gaze work of advertising has never been thrown at his feet.
“Top Gun” was produced in the patriotic image of classic World War II pictures, generating a significant recruiting surge.
Per the Washington Post, the Military merely paid $1.8 million for using all F-14s and a genuine US aircraft carrier. The film’s declared budget was $15 million, but the production value was in the billions.
“Top Gun” includes a lot of 1980s bravado and a handful of amusing sequences in which pilots lounge about in towels after a shower, squabbling about who flew closest to “the edge.”
Nonetheless, this is the most spectacular aviation film of all time and the closest thing to a full-fledged confrontation between modern American and Soviet jet aircraft since the Cold War.
19. Fail-Safe
- Director: Sidney Lumet
- Cast: Henry Fonda & Walter Mathau
- IMDB Rating: 8
- Rotten Tomatoes: 93%
- Where to Watch:
Fail-Safe, featuring Henry Fonda & Walter Matthau, is a legendary Cold War film. American bomber planes are outfitted with fail-safe boxes that tell pilots if and when to attack.
When an attack order is issued owing to a system failure, the American President must correct the error before bombs are dropped on Moscow.
Except for one desperate pilot eager to finish his job, the President successfully stops the attack.
Fail-Safe, based on Eugene Burdick & Harvey Wheeler’s novel of the same name, was a box office disappointment at the time of release. Still, it received critical acclaim for its cinematic representation of the Cold War.
18. The Third Man
- Director: Carol Reed
- Cast: Orson Welles,Joseph Cotten
- IMDB Rating: 8.1
- Rotten Tomatoes: 99%
- Where to Watch:
“The Third Man,” premiered in 1949, is probably the most beautiful black-and-white film ever created. Carol Reed, who directed both production divisions, worked long days until he acquired an amphetamine addiction to keep up.
Despite Reed’s emotional cost, the effect is one breathtaking celluloid view after another of Vienna. This is the ideal Cold War film for enthusiasts of symmetry and precise set design.
“The Third Man,” on the other hand, offers more than just elegance and whimsy. It’s also a fascinating mystery.
Holly Martins (Joseph Cotten) is a Western pulp author who travels to Vienna to see an old friend, Harry Lime (Orson Welles), to learn that he has suddenly died.
Martins discovers a World War II-ravaged Austria with a murky underside of black market warfare.
It portrays anarchy and fraud in the early stages of Cold War restructuring, and everyone is a suspect in this classic movie noir detective story. Of course, it’s a touch old, but the elegance of filmmaking survives the test of time.
17. Three Days of the Condor
- Director: Sydney Pollack
- Cast: Robert Redford, Faye Dunaway
- IMDB Rating: 7.4
- Rotten Tomatoes: 88%
- Where to Watch:
Dick Tracy and Dashiell Hammett, the author of Humphrey Bogart’s classic “The Maltese Falcon,” are mentioned in the opening sequence of 1975’s “Three Days of The Condor.”
Spy films and classic movie noirs share many similarities. Both are practical investigations with a primary hero drawn into a complex scheme that they must answer or perish.
Robert Redford depicts Joseph Turner, a nerdy CIA analyst in a shady Manhattan espionage company. He spends his days poring over foreign literature for espionage plots that may lead to genuine espionage.
But, when he returns from lunch one day, he discovers that everyone in his workplace has died, and he has got to figure it out before it’s too late.
Aside from the clunky disco music, this Sydney Pollack picture is enjoyable. It’s also a Wikileaks film. Thus the storyline is inward-looking, with no Russians to be found.
It’s a wonderfully filmed and well-acted thriller about a guy on the run. Redford, with Faye Dunaway, shares a fantastic romantic scene as well.
“Three Days of The Condor” is a naïve view of Cold War intrigue grounded in big conspiracy fears rather than a genuine grappling with the conflict’s mechanics. It’s also great fun.
16. No Way Out
- Director: Roger Donaldson
- Cast: Gene Hackman, Kevin Costner
- IMDB Rating: 7.1
- Rotten Tomatoes: 91%
- Where to Watch:
“No Way Out” was released years before the Berlin Wall fell, during the height of America’s rule as a superpower. It is dependent on interagency wrangling in an era of bloated budgets.
Brice, the US Secretary of Defense, is played by Gene Hackman. He intends to kill a pork-barrel program for a massive nuclear submarine and recruits Navy Lt. Cmdr. Farell (Kevin Costner) to gather information on various government institutions.
Unfortunately, before that can happen, Farell initiates a covert romance with Susan Atwell (Sean Young), who reveals to be Brice’s mistress. In a fit of wrath, Brice murders her and appoints Farell to lead a bogus operation to blame it all on a Soviet spy.
It may appear intricate, but it is a romantic drama with a “wrongly-accused-man” narrative. Farell must obtain information about Brice before the inquiry connects him to the deceased woman.
“No Way Out” is a riveting popcorn movie with a bizarre twist.
15. The Manchurian Candidate (1962)
- Director: John Frankenheimer
- Cast: Laurence Harvey, Frank Sinatra
- IMDB Rating: 7.9
- Rotten Tomatoes: 97%
- Where to Watch:
Near the close of the Korean War, a platoon of American soldiers is indoctrinated by communists, and when the company returns home, the men experience weird dreams. Captain Raymond Shaw of the battalion realizes he has become an unsuspecting assassin as part of a global communist plot.
Raymond Shaw, a Korean War veteran, and an influential political family member, is brainwashed by the Soviets when his unit is captured.
Shaw returns to the United States by becoming an assassin for the enemy, intending to overthrow the United States government eventually.
The core cast of The Manchurian Candidate includes Frank Sinatra, Laurence Harvey, and Angela Lansbury. The original video was released during the Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962, making the topic more relevant.
The film received two Academy Award nominations. In addition, the Manchurian Candidate was designated as “culturally, historically, or aesthetically important” by the United States National Film Registry in 1994.
14. The Lives of Others
- Director: Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck
- Cast: Ulrich Mühe, Sebastian Koch
- IMDB Rating: 8.4
- Rotten Tomatoes: 92%
- Where to Watch:
“The Lives of Others,” released in 2005, is all about a cold-blooded Cold War spy whose nefarious job takes an unexpectedly uplifting turn.
In the early 1980s, Gerd Wiesler (Ulrich Mühe) was a determined Stasi spy.
The Stasi, or East German secret police, was regarded as one of the most successful and authoritarian intelligence agencies ever devised.
Wiesler is listening in on the well-communist dramatist and his lover, who is accused of slight treachery. As he hears about the couple’s intimate lives, his sympathies shift from party to individual, and he intervenes to defend the pair.
Wiesler is only a cog who spends his days connected to a state machine via a stylish pair of studio headphones. On the other hand, his vicarious trip is only an optimistic fiction. Some have contended that it just cannot be accurate.
“To comprehend why a Wiesler could not be is to comprehend the ‘complete’ character of dictatorship,” author and Stasi expert Anna Funder wrote for The Guardian.
She claims that the Stasi-protected government was just too intelligent and thorough to give one person this much freedom to act.
Despite this, “The Lives of Others” received the Academy Award for best foreign-language Picture in 2006. It has the type of reserved dignity that the Academy prefers. It’s a poignant (though imaginative) human story better suited for those with the patience of Wiesler.
13. The Courier
- Director: Dominic Cooke
- Cast: Benedict Cumberbatch, Merab Nindze
- IMDB Rating: 7.1
- Rotten Tomatoes: 85%
- Where to Watch: Prime Video
The most acceptable sort of Cold War espionage film is that of the British Film “The Courier.”
It’s an (essentially) true story about an average civilian caught up in the conflict’s information battle, similar to “Bridge of Spies.”
Greville Wynne, a true middle-class British businessman hired by MI6 in 1960, is played by Benedict Cumberbatch.
He smuggled secrets from Moscow for two years, including material that aided the Western during the Cuban Missile Crisis. That ended in 1962 when he was apprehended, imprisoned, and tortured.
In the movies, Wynne makes an excellent spy since he has a lengthy track record of what his Eastern interactants regard as craven capitalism.
As he compares controlling field assets to keeping clients happy, he readily presents as a guy of great self-interest.
However, Wynne possessed another key espionage talent in real life. He authored two books on his experiences, and Cold War scholar and writer Nigel West claimed one of them.
“For all his fantastic work, [Wynne] was a danger and a con artist… He could not speak the truth. He had a disordered personality.
” However, filmmaker Dominic Cooke’s 2020 film was pieced together from different sources and is likely more realistic. The entrepreneur turned spy might’ve been a liar, but his story is well-crafted.
12. WarGames
- Director: John Badham
- Cast: Mathew Broderick, Ally Sheedy
- IMDB Rating: 7.1
- Rotten Tomatoes: 93%
- Where to Watch:
Techno-thrillers don’t usually age well, but “WarGames,” the tale of a teenager who nearly begins World War III via his bedroom, was compelling in 1983. And it’s still functional.
Three years before he portrayed the renowned Ferris Bueller, Matthew Broderick played David Lightman, a brilliant kid with a wicked mind and a strong knack for early computers.
In his search for video games, he inadvertently hacks and activates a military supercomputer entrusted by the Pentagon with fighting a global thermonuclear war.
As the clock to Armageddon begins, Lightman and his love Jennifer (Ally Sheedy) must persuade the grownups to let him stop it.
11. North By Northwest
- Director: Alfred Hitchcock
- Cast: Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint
- IMDB Rating: 8.3
- Rotten Tomatoes: 975
- Where to Watch: YouTube
Cary Grant plays Roger Thornhill in “North by Northwest,” a New York advertising executive who could efficiently work behind Don Draper’s desk on “Mad Men.”
Unfortunately, Roger also has identification issues, which leads to a dramatic chase by a hacker who frames them for murder.
He encounters Dame Fatale Eve Kendall (Eva Marie Saint) along the way, and the two flee across the nation to clear his reputation.
Despite the romanticism, this is Hitchcock’s most remote work. The magnitude of “North by Northwest” is impressive, approaching that of a current blockbuster.
However, that’s also the director’s most stunning work. It was shot using VistaVision, a high-quality 35 mm panoramic film material.
As Grant’s Thornhill rushes, the colors, scale, and creative framing combine to create a pop-art masterpiece.
10. First Man
- Director: Damien Chazelle
- Cast: Ryan Gosling, Claire Foy, Jason Clarke
- IMDB Rating: 7.3
- Rotten Tomatoes: 87%
- Where to Watch: Prime Video
“First Man” is the most striking film ever created on the Cold War race to the moon landing, focusing on the courageous yet humble man who essentially won this fight for the United States.
Damien Chazelle, known best for 2016’s “La La Land,” takes his passion for classic landscapes (and Ryan Gosling) and turns the vast narrative of Neil Armstrong’s lunar landing into a vital family drama with cinematographer Linus Sandgren.
Based on historian James R. Hansen’s rigorously researched 2005 book of the same title, Chazelle’s picture sees Armstrong (Gosling) working as a brave test pilot at the famed Edwards Air Force Base in California.
He’s sad over his little daughter’s cancer death, but he’s a born stoic, channeling his anguish into one near-death experience after another, piloting a succession of decrepit experimental planes.
Everyone knows of Armstrong’s space program and their big jump. Still, his situation and many other spectacular pre-NASA flying accomplishments are less well-known due to the man’s noble indifference to self-promotion.
The incredible smallness you will feel under the moon’s shadow and the towering majesty of the first person who conquered it will bring you to tears in “First Man.”
9. Charlie Wilson’s War (2007)
- Director:Â Mike Nichols
- Cast: Tom Hanks, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Julia Roberts
- IMDB Rating: 7/10
- Rotten Tomatoes: 82%
- Where to Watch: Youtube, Apple Tv
There are several cold war films based on genuine Cold War tales, with Charlie Wilson’s War being one of the most well-known.
Controversial congressman Charlie Wilson forms an odd partnership with a Texas socialite and a CIA spy to aid Afghan rebels in their struggle against the invading Soviets.
Tom Hanks, Julia Roberts, and Phillip Seymore Hoffman play the extraordinary trio whose secret actions finally led to the fall of the Soviet Union and helped bring the Cold War to an end after 45 years.
8. A Beautiful Mind
- Director:Â Ron Howard
- Cast: Russell Crowe, Jennifer Connelly, Ron Howard
- IMDB Rating: 8.2/10
- Rotten Tomatoes: 74%
- Where to Watch: Apple Tv, Netflix
This narrative is in a league of its own regarding reality or fiction.
This most certainly occurred during the Cold War, but the extent to which John Nash was associated with the CIA is a captivating enigma within the film.
Protagonist John Nash has schizophrenia, frequently suspecting his perception of reality.
However, that doesn’t change the fact that the Cold War is omnipresent in this film, based on the true story of a great American mathematician.
7. The Spy Who Came in From the Cold
- Director:Â Martin Ritt
- Cast: Richard Burton, Claire Bloom, Oskar Werner
- IMDB Rating: 7.6/10
- Rotten Tomatoes: 89%
- Where to Watch: VUDU or Vudu Movie & TV Store
The Spy Who Came in From the Cold is inspired by John le Carré’s spy novel of the same name and recounts the narrative of British MI6 agent Alec Leamas, who is dispatched to East Germany disguised as a drunken defector to gather intelligence on an East German intelligence official.
Leamas becomes entangled in a labyrinth of plans and counterplots when he is imprisoned. This legendary spy film stars a stellar ensemble that includes Richard Burton & Claire Bloom.
The film was a smash hit, winning four BAFTAs for Best British Film, Best Actor, Best Cinematography, and Best Art Direction.
6. Cold War
- Director: Paweł Pawlikowski
- Cast: Joanna Kulig, Tomasz Kot, Agata Kulesza
- IMDB Rating: 7.5/10
- Rotten Tomatoes: 92%
- Where to Watch: Netflix
Cold War, a 2018 Polish historical drama, is a realistic yet heartwarming love tale about a young, passionate female singer as well as the male director of a music band who aspires for her to leave Poland with him and start a new life in France, which is far less communist.
The film garnered mostly positive reviews from reviewers, who commended its acting, direction, style, emotion, photography, and settings; it also won numerous prizes, including three Academy Nominations (for Best Foreign Language Film, Best Cinematography, and Best Director).
5. The Hunt for Red October
- Director: John McTiernan
- Cast: Sean Connery, Alec Baldwin
- IMDB Rating: 7.6
- Rotten Tomatoes: 88%
- Where to Watch: Prime Video
“The Hunt for Red October” was a classic naval Cold War movie. But, apparently, through one producer, Tom Clancy’s 1984 book was also too complex and jargon-filled for Paramount Pictures.
Furthermore, the Cold War had ended when The Red October was released in 1990. Because the Communist Party wasn’t any longer in power in Russia, several industry observers predicted the film would bomb.
It didn’t work. The $30 million production costs are acceptable for the category, and the $200 million worldwide gross was a nice profit.
Sean Connery leads this stressful yet nostalgic undersea thriller, although he was added at the last minute and had only one day of practice.
Connery is the film’s leading hook as the renegade Soviet submarine captain Marko Ramius steals a sophisticated Russian nuclear submarine and heads for the East Coast to defect to the USA.
Both the Americans as well as the Soviets want him dead. Still, it’s up to Jack Ryan (Alec Baldwin) to prevent World War III by persuading his CIA contacts that Ramius wishes to defect, hand up this valuable technology, and happily live forever in Montana.
This is an optimistic thriller set during one of the more hopeful times in the history of this possibly apocalyptic superpower showdown.
4. Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
- Director: Stanley Kubrick
- Cast: Peter Seller, George G Scott
- IMDB Rating: 8.4
- Rotten Tomatoes: 98%
- Where to Watch:
The death-cult lunacy of nuclear war reasoning is captured in Stanley Kubrick’s “Dr. Strangelove: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.”
Mutual Destruction sounds like the insane musings of a lunatic or supervillain, so Kubrick invented Dr. Strangelove, a Nazi scientist with a Ph.D. in Cold War math.
The narrative is as ludicrous as the world’s situation. After growing persuaded that the Soviets contaminate the American water system, a deranged general called Jack D. Ripper conducts the first strike.
A race to save the planet ensues. Peter Sellers plays three crucial roles: the American POTUS, a British commander capable of stopping Ripper, and the eponymous wheelchair-using Strangelove.
3. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
- Director: Tomas Alfredson
- Cast: Gary Oldman, Benedict Cumberbatch, Colin Firth, Tom Hardy
- IMDB Rating: 7
- Rotten Tomatoes: 84%
- Where to Watch: Netflix
“Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy” is a rare spy film that does not guide you through its complicated narrative. There is no instructional text, expository language, or grand plot being monologued by a supervillain.
Instead, it’s two and a half hours of spies conducting their jobs quietly in soundproof chambers. If you can, catch them.
The film is based on John Le Carre’s classic novel of the same name. His core figure is expert spy George Smiley, who frequently leads “the circus,”
England’s overseas intelligence division fighting on the Cold War front lines. Smiley is played by Gary Oldman, who wears large spectacles that accentuate his alert eyes on his otherwise impassive face.
This hero hears far more than he speaks, constantly looking to learn.
Miley is tasked with sniffing out a mole put within the circus. Everyone in this excellent cast, including Benedict Cumberbatch & FColinirth, is a suspect.
Tom Hardy excels as a renegade field agent. The idea is that it’s all confusing. No Cold War film conveys the glass wall of mid-century spycraft better.
2. Bridge of Spies
- Director:
- Cast: Tom Hanks, Mark Rylance
- IMDB Rating: 7.6
- Rotten Tomatoes: 91%
- Where to Watch: SonyLIV
“Bridge of Spies” is based on an accurate tale. In 1957, a Manhattan insurance lawyer called James B. Donovan was hired to represent Soviet spy “Rudolf Abel.”
However, when Russians shot down such an American spy plane, Donovan, a regular family guy, found himself in the center of a tense Cold War prisoner exchange for pilot Francis Gary Powers.
Steven Spielberg made a 2015 movie based on Donovan’s memoir – “Strangers on a Bridge.” The public is outraged with Donovan (Tom Hanks) over representing a Soviet spy and taking the case to the Supreme Court.
However, Hanks plays Donovan with complete conviction. He says that the Constitution is the only thing that unites all Americans.
This single document represents the moral ground of the Westerners, in striking contrast to Stalin’s kangaroo tribunals and show trials of the Soviet Union.
Cold War espionage pictures are sometimes cynical moral dilemmas, but Hanks and Spielberg create patriotic war flicks that harken back to Hollywood’s significant era.
In addition, the script, authored in parts by Joel & Ethan Cohen, provides a thorough exposition of the film’s primary ideas of legal equality.
But, then, ever the sentimentalist, Spielberg brings it all home with a conclusion that will leave you with a knot in your neck and a teardrop in your eye.
1. The Death of Stalin
- Director: Armando Iannucci
- Cast: Steve Buscemi, Dermot Crowley, Jeffrey Tambor
- IMDB Rating: 7.2
- Rotten Tomatoes: 95%
- Where to Watch: Prime Video
This black comedy film chronicles the death of the Soviet Union’s leader, Josef Stalin, in 1953 and the politicians, leaders, and sycophants that struggled for the position of authority now available.
While talking about the best cold war movie, this ranks above many great films because of its lighter tone and humorous depiction.
During its run, numerous problems about the film’s subject matter threatened to derail its reception; it was forbidden in several countries for allegedly being anti-Soviet
A controversy arose regarding its historical authenticity (or, in this case, inaccuracy) – but it mainly received generally positive reviews and audiences for its humor, acting, directing, and tone.
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