Comingsoon.net is running from the law in an effort to compile the best movies about fugitives. Check out our picks in the gallery below!
Thrillers differ from horror movies because they don’t have to be about big scares or blood and gore—they just have to get your heart pounding. For this reason, action movies often venture into thriller territory. A drama can be a thriller, too, if the story is gripping enough. To be even more specific, action movies and dramas about fugitives might be the best way to get that pulse up.
A main character (or two) on the run makes for a very thrilling, very suspenseful narrative. With great examples spanning from 1935 to as recently as 2007, this very common ground for films proves to be endlessly engrossing. Whether they’re running from the law, from another person, from their past, or from themselves, these movies about fugitives are practically perfect.
fugitive movies
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Badlands (1973)
Terrence Malick’s debut feature remains one of the greatest films about fugitives. Sissy Spacek and Martin Sheen star, both at the very beginning of their respective careers and both giving some of their greatest performances ever. Malick’s direction is inimitable, and his first movie’s remarkable strength cemented all three of their careers.
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Bonnie and Clyde (1967)
This 1967 film might be the most recognizable of this batch of fugitive films—as a matter of fact, Bonnie and Clyde are probably the most recognizable fugitives period, on-film or not. Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway had a lot of pressure on their shoulders with these roles, but they definitely stuck the landing.
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Breathless (1960)
One of the most popular films by French New Wave icon Jean-Luc Godard, Breathless follows a French criminal and his American lover as they flee from the cops following the former’s fatal altercation with a random officer. The film revolutionized not only the genre, but the medium of film as a whole.
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Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969)
A classic, to be sure, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid is a Western about two outlaws on the run after a string of train robberies throughout the US countryside. Paul Newman and Robert Redford are two superstars of yesteryear, and it's clear to see why they were so successful when watching this iconic film.
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Catch Me If You Can (2002)
Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Hanks are two of the closest things the 21st century has to the movie stars of Old Hollywood, and Steven Spielberg of all people knows this. Catch Me If You Can pits the two against each other, serving as one of the very best conman-on-the-loose films to date.
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No Country for Old Men (2007)
Easily one of the greatest films of the past two decades (and of the Coen brothers’s entire catalog), No Country for Old Men takes this tried-and-true story of a fugitive and the law officer in pursuit of him and perfects it, making it the very best it can be. Josh Brolin and Javier Bardem are exceptional here, as are Woody Harrelson and Tommy Lee Jones.
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North by Northwest (1959)
Alfred Hitchcock has been known as the king of suspense, mainly for his films like Psycho or The Birds. However, these thrillers aren’t his only examples of perfectly-constructed suspenseful narratives. North by Northwest is an incredible movie about a man on the run that feels more like the framework for the Mission: Impossible movies than the framework for modern horror like many of his other films.
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The 39 Steps (1935)
The second of two Alfred Hitchcock films on this list, The 39 Steps has a few similarities to North by Northwest but is undoubtedly its own thing. For starters, it came first, but it’s also much more British than the American fugitive thriller that Hitchcock would make 24 years later.
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The Fugitive (1993)
Harrison Ford is a true star, and The Fugitive is one of the lesser-known examples of this. (Sure, the film has plenty of success, but everything in his filmography is lesser-known compared to Star Wars and Indiana Jones.) Simply put, Ford is the man on the run and Tommy Lee Jones is the one hot on his tail. Its based on a TV show, but its better by a long shot.
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Thelma and Louise (1991)
Susan Sarandon and Geena Davis give their greatest performances in Ridley Scott’s one-of-a-kind fugitive film, Thelma and Louise. This film is about two women on the run instead of the traditional man-on-the-run narrative, tracking two best friends who find themselves roped up in consequences that are way over their heads.
