The Manchurian CandidateMovies like The Manchurian Candidate
- Key Features:
- Political thriller, Conspiracy, Brainwashing, Military, Paranoia, Post-traumatic stress, Government corruption, Mind control, Psychological manipulation, Violence-moderate, Remake
- Tone:
- serious, suspense-driven, cynical
- Target Audience:
- Thriller enthusiasts, Political conspiracy buffs, Suspense fans, Cerebral moviegoers
- Emotional Arc:
- Confusion → Suspicion → Revelation
The Manchurian Candidate

Years after his squad was ambushed during the Gulf War, Major Ben Marco finds himself having terrible nightmares. He begins to doubt that his fellow squad-mate Sergeant Raymond Shaw, now a vice-presidential candidate, is the hero he remembers him being. As Marco's doubts deepen, Shaw's political power grows, and, when Marco finds a mysterious implant embedded in his back, the memory of what really happened begins to return.
The Manchurian Candidate
Near the end of the Korean War, a platoon of U.S. soldiers is captured by communists and brainwashed. Following the war, the platoon is returned home, and Sergeant Raymond Shaw is lauded as a hero by the rest of his platoon. However, the platoon commander, Captain Bennett Marco, finds himself plagued by strange nightmares and soon races to uncover a terrible plot.

Alex Thomas was the man in charge of protecting the president but, when the time came to fulfill his duties, everything just went wrong. His conscience haunted by a bullet, and his devotion to his country stronger than ever, Alex teams with a seasoned reporter to navigate a treacherous web of lies, unlocking a dangerous conspiracy, and enter a deadly world in which skilled assassins and highly-trained ex-special ops lurk in every shadow.

When a congressional aide is killed, a Washington, D.C. journalist starts investigating the case involving the Representative, his old college friend.

Bill McKay is a candidate for the U.S. Senate from California. He has no hope of winning, so he is willing to tweak the establishment.

Pete St. John is a powerful and successful political consultant, with clients spread around the country. When his long-time friend and client Ohio senator Sam Hastings decides to quit politics, he is rapidly drafted to help with the campaign of the man destined to succeed him, unknown and mysterious businessman Jerome Cade...

The vice president is dead, and as the president makes his choice for a replacement, a secret contest of wills is being waged by a formidable rival. When Senator Laine Hanson is nominated as the first woman in history to hold the office, hidden agendas explode into a battle for power.

A young man's life is turned upside down when his violent dreams begin to blend with reality.

A military veteran goes on a journey into the future, where he can foresee his death and is left with questions that could save his life and those he loves.

A man obsessed with conspiracy theories becomes a target after one of his theories turns out to be true. Unfortunately, in order to save himself, he has to figure out which theory it is.

Called in to recover evidence in the aftermath of a horrific explosion on a New Orleans ferry, Federal agent Doug Carlin gets pulled away from the scene and taken to a top-secret government lab that uses a time-shifting surveillance device to help prevent crime.

When a train carrying atomic warheads mysteriously crashes in the former Soviet Union, a nuclear specialist discovers the accident is really part of a plot to cover up the theft of the weapons. Assigned to help her recover the missing bombs is a crack Special Forces Colonel.

Bedraggled college professor Michael Faraday has been vexed — and increasingly paranoid — since his wife's accidental death in a botched FBI operation. When a seemingly all-American couple set up house next door, Michael begin to suspect there’s more to them than meets the eye.

A Gulf War veteran with PTSD heads to a small town to find his friend. When he arrives his friend and his family have vanished and the townsfolk afraid to answer questions about their disappearance. He soon discovers that the town is owned and controlled by one man, and he doesn't like people asking questions.

A disgruntled henchman teams up with an ambitious prosecutor to bring down a leading presidential candidate and the news editor behind him who is truly pulling the strings.

A CIA operation to purchase classified Russian documents is blown by a rival agent, who then shows up in the sleepy seaside village where Bourne and Marie have been living. The pair run for their lives and Bourne, who promised retaliation should anyone from his former life attempt contact, is forced to once again take up his life as a trained assassin to survive.

George W. Bush picks Dick Cheney, the CEO of Halliburton Co., to be his Republican running mate in the 2000 presidential election. No stranger to politics, Cheney's impressive résumé includes stints as White House chief of staff, House Minority Whip and Defense Secretary. When Bush wins by a narrow margin, Cheney begins to use his newfound power to help reshape the country and the world.

In order to diagnose the psychic traumas suffered by his patients, Dr. Paul Novotny gets young Alex Gardner to enter their dreams.

Dirty tricks stand to soil an ambitious young press spokesman's idealism in a cutthroat presidential campaign where 'victory' is relative.

Three stories told simultaneously in ninety minutes of real time: a Republican Senator who's a presidential hopeful gives an hour-long interview to a skeptical television reporter, detailing a strategy for victory in Afghanistan; two special forces ambushed on an Afghani ridge await rescue as Taliban forces close in; a poli-sci professor at a California college invites a student to re-engage.

When CIA Analyst Jack Ryan interferes with an IRA assassination, a renegade faction targets Jack and his family as revenge.

An unsuspecting, disenchanted man finds himself working as a spy in the dangerous, high-stakes world of corporate espionage. Quickly getting way over-his-head, he teams up with a mysterious femme fatale.

The Belgian PM is abducted and he finds his wife and children taken hostage. If he wants to see them again – alive – he has to kill the person he is meeting later that day. And that person is no less than... the president of the United States.

Following the murder of his fiancée, Mitch Rapp trains under the instruction of Cold War veteran Stan Hurley. The pair then is enlisted to investigate a wave of apparently random attacks on military and civilian targets.

Construction worker Douglas Quaid's obsession with the planet Mars leads him to visit Recall, a company that manufactures memories. When his memory implant goes wrong, Doug can no longer be sure what is and isn't reality.

A man becomes obsessed with facts and events that have been collectively misremembered by thousands of people. Believing the phenomena to be the symptom of something larger, his obsession eventually leads him to question reality itself.

CIA Agent Bill Pope is on a mission to track down a shadowy hacker named 'The Dutchman'. When he gets mysteriously killed, an experimental procedure transfers his memories into a dangerous ex-convict. When he wakes up Pope's memories, his mission is to eliminate The Dutchman before the hacker launches ICBMs and starts World War III.

A man becomes involved in a memory manipulation operation to try and regain lost memories. He thinks the exercise may help repair his failed marriage, but accidentally ends up with the mind of a serial killer.

Factory worker Doug Quaid takes a virtual mind-trip vacation with the Rekall company, opting for implanted memories of being a spy. When the procedure goes wrong, Quaid becomes a wanted man by the police and joins forces with a rebel fighter to stop the evil Chancellor Cohaagen.

Following the assassination of President Marc Jarry, a member of the investigation committee refuses to sign off on the committee's final findings.

Harris, a CIA interrogator at an Agency black site, finds himself the target of a rendition operation after being scapegoated for an interrogation gone horribly wrong. As the team tasked to bring Harris in begins to question their orders -- and each other --Olsen, a senior intelligence officer, and his subordinate, Visser, raise the stakes. Now, it's up to Harris and some newfound allies to uncover the truth and turn the tables.

It's the final weeks of the most consequential presidential election in history. America is poised to elect either its first female president or its first viable independent candidate. Reporting history as it's made, an idealistic young journalist teams up with her idol, legendary journalist Nick Booker, to uncover a conspiracy that places the fate of the election, and the country, in their hands.

In the near future, Major is the first of her kind: a human saved from a terrible crash, then cyber-enhanced to be a perfect soldier devoted to stopping the world's most dangerous criminals.

An ambitious lobbyist faces off against the powerful gun lobby in an attempt to pass gun control legislation.

Bobby Bishop is a special assistant to the President of the United States. Accidentally, he meets his friend professor Pochenko on the street. Pochenko has time to tell Bishop about some conspiracy in the White House but then immediately gets killed by an assassin. Now bad guys are after Bobby as the only man who knows about a plot. Bishop must now not only survive, but to stop the conspirators from achieving their goal. And he doesn't know whom to trust.

The host of an investigative news show is convinced by the CIA that the friends he has invited to a weekend in the country are engaged in a conspiracy that threatens national security.

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.

A Witness Protection specialist becomes suspicious of his co-workers when dealing with a case involving high-tech weapons.

On a road trip, Nic and two friends are drawn to an isolated area by a computer genius. When everything suddenly goes dark, Nic regains consciousness – only to find himself in a waking nightmare.

An elite group of American operatives, aided by a top-secret tactical command team, must transport an asset who holds life-threatening information to an extraction point 22 miles away through the hostile streets of an Asian city.

During the U.S.-led occupation of Baghdad in 2003, Chief Warrant Officer Roy Miller and his team of Army inspectors are dispatched to find weapons of mass destruction believed to be stockpiled in the Iraqi desert. Rocketing from one booby-trapped and treacherous site to the next, the men search for deadly chemical agents but stumble instead upon an elaborate cover-up that threatens to invert the purpose of their mission.

The most dangerous former operative of the CIA is drawn out of hiding to uncover hidden truths about his past.

The secret US abduction of a suspected terrorist from his Middle East homeland leads to a wave of terrorist attacks in New York. An FBI senior agent and his team attempt to locate and decommission the enemy cells, but must also deal with an Army General gone rogue and a female CIA agent of uncertain loyalties.

Two rival politicians compete to win an election to represent their small North Carolina congressional district in the United States House of Representatives.

On the day of his scheduled execution, a convicted serial killer gets a psychiatric evaluation during which he claims he is a demon, and further claims that before their time is over, the psychiatrist will commit three murders of his own.

A prominent politician is murdered during a demonstration. The government and army are trying to suppress the truth. But, a tenacious magistrate is determined to not to let them get away with it.

After a colleague is murdered, insurance worker Kafka gets embroiled in an underground group who are attempting to thwart a secret organization that controls the major events in society.

Darius Stone's criminal record and extreme sports obsession make him the perfect candidate to be the newest XXX agent. He must save the U.S. government from a deadly conspiracy led by five-star general and Secretary of Defense George Deckert.

The irreverent host of a political satire talk show decides to run for president and expose corruption in Washington. His stunt goes further than he expects when he actually wins the election, but a software engineer suspects that a computer glitch is responsible for his surprising victory.

When the CIA discovers one of its agents leaked information that cost more than 100 people their lives, veteran operative Henry Pelham is assigned to root out the mole with his former lover and colleague Celia Harrison.

A paranoid, secretive surveillance expert has a crisis of conscience when he suspects that the couple he is spying on will be murdered.

A fictional investigative documentary looks back on the "assassination" of George W. Bush and attempts to answer the question of who committed the murder. Perhaps less morbid and disturbing to watch now than during Bush's presidency, the film doesn't address Bush's policies at all, instead focusing on the way a nation assigns blame in a time of crisis.

The vice-minister of Foreign Affairs of Czechoslovakia, knowing he's being watched and followed, is one day arrested and put into solitary confinement.

Mysterious cell phone messages promise a young American engineer untold wealth - then make him the target of a deadly international plot. Dangerous security operatives chase the engineer across the globe, while a powerful government official pursues a mysterious agenda that threatens the stability of the entire world.

Someone is blackmailing the CIA by assassinating foreign journalists and making it look like the agency is responsible. As the world begins to unite against the U.S., the CIA must lure its most brilliant – and rebellious – operative out of retirement, forcing him to confront his checkered past while unraveling an international conspiracy.

A writer stumbles upon a long-hidden secret when he agrees to help former British Prime Minister Adam Lang complete his memoirs on a remote island after the politician's assistant drowns in a mysterious accident.

Five police officers in Hong Kong are kidnapped. The police commissioner is on a business trip overseas. Two vice commissioners, Sean Rau and M.B. Lee, then take over the case. The two vice commissioners are rivals who both vie for the police commissioner seat. At first, M.B. Lee takes the lead in the case, but comes to a dead end. Sean Lau then takes the lead, but he falls into a trap. Both men are then investigated by the ICAC (Independent Commission Against Corruption).

Will Radford is a top analyst for Homeland Security who tracks potential threats through a mass surveillance program, until one day an attack by an unknown entity leads him to question whether the government is hiding something from him... and from the rest of the world.

During the Iraq War, a Sergeant recently assigned to an army bomb squad is put at odds with his squad mates due to his maverick way of handling his work.

Carter, who awakens two months into a deadly pandemic originating from the DMZ that has already devastated US and North Korea. He who has no recollections of his past finds a mysterious device in his head, and a lethal bomb in his mouth. A voice in his ears gives him orders to avoid getting killed and he's thrown into a mysterious operation while the CIA and North Korean coup chase him close.

A cover-up that spanned four U.S. Presidents pushed the country's first female newspaper publisher and a hard-driving editor to join an unprecedented battle between journalist and government. Inspired by true events.

A veteran soldier returns from his completed tour of duty in Iraq, only to find his life turned upside down when he is arbitrarily ordered to return to field duty by the Army.

An ambitious reporter gets in trouble while investigating a senator's assassination which leads to a vast conspiracy involving a multinational corporation behind every event in the world's headlines.

While doing a series of reports on alternative energy sources, opportunistic reporter Kimberly Wells witnesses an accident at a nuclear power plant. Wells is determined to publicize the incident, but soon finds herself entangled in a sinister conspiracy to keep the full impact of the incident a secret.

A former British spy stumbles into in a plot to overthrow Communism with the help of a supercomputer. But who is working for whom?

Jerry Shaw and Rachel Holloman are two strangers whose lives are suddenly thrown into turmoil by a mysterious woman they have never met. Threatening their lives and family, the unseen caller uses everyday technology to control their actions and push them into increasing danger. As events escalate, Jerry and Rachel become the country's most-wanted fugitives and must figure out what is happening to them.

Yan Jian, a young Chinese IT engineer who volunteers to go to North Africa and help the company he works for to win a competition. The winner can own the right to control the communication between south and north. French spy Michael works for the West. His boss ordered him to go to the North Africa and win the competition, and they can control the great mineral resources of Africa. He hired the best mercenary in Africa whose name is Lauder and a former general Kabbah to help him. Yan has discovered their conspiracy, he is the only one who can stop them.

The film covers through fiction real-life events like the occupation of Iraq, the execution of Daniel Pearl, the Hood event and the Abu Ghraib torture scandal.

All bets are off when shady homicide cop Rick Santoro witnesses a murder during a boxing match. It's up to him and lifelong friend, Naval intelligence agent Kevin Dunne, to uncover the conspiracy behind the killing. At every turn, Santoro makes increasingly shocking discoveries that even he can't turn a blind eye to.

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 troubling visions and a mysterious doctor.

During the final weeks of a presidential race, the President is accused of sexual misconduct. To distract the public until the election, the President's adviser hires a Hollywood producer to help him stage a fake war.

Leonard Shelby is tracking down the man who raped and murdered his wife. The difficulty of locating his wife's killer, however, is compounded by the fact that he suffers from a rare, untreatable form of short-term memory loss. Although he can recall details of life before his accident, Leonard cannot remember what happened fifteen minutes ago, where he's going, or why.

Alex, an assassin-for-hire, finds that he's become a target after he refuses to complete a job for a dangerous criminal organization. With the crime syndicate and FBI in hot pursuit, Alex has the skills to stay ahead, except for one thing: he is struggling with severe memory loss, affecting his every move. Alex must question his every action and whom he can ultimately trust.

The Middle Eastern oil industry is the backdrop of this tense drama, which weaves together numerous story lines. Bennett Holiday is an American lawyer in charge of facilitating a dubious merger of oil companies, while Bryan Woodman, a Switzerland-based energy analyst, experiences both personal tragedy and opportunity during a visit with Arabian royalty. Meanwhile, veteran CIA agent Bob Barnes uncovers an assassination plot with unsettling origins.

A Marine on death row is recruited by a shadowy U.S. military officer as part of a top-secret ops team, then gets framed for murder when the team and its officer set him up as the fall guy for the assassination of the First Lady.

A soldier recounts his relationship with a famous political prisoner attempting to overthrow their country's authoritarian government.

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.

Agent Neil Shaw is called out of retirement and finds himself in the midst of a plot to assassinate several leading Senators with himself set-up to take the rap for a recent killing

The Zodiac murders cause the lives of Paul Avery, David Toschi and Robert Graysmith to intersect.

When bookish CIA researcher Joe Turner finds all his co-workers dead, he, together with a woman he has kidnapped, must work together to outwit those responsible until he determines who he can really trust.

A businessman, on his daily commute home, gets unwittingly caught up in a criminal conspiracy that threatens not only his life but the lives of those around him.

A dangerous CIA renegade resurfaces after a decade on the run. When the safe house he's remanded to is attacked by mercenaries, a rookie operative escapes with him. Now, the unlikely allies must stay alive long enough to uncover who wants them dead.

A Marine Colonel is brought to court-martial after ordering his men to fire on demonstrators surrounding the American embassy in Yemen.

Soldier Robert Miller returns home from Afghanistan unable to fit back into society. Living on a violent council estate and finding work in undercover surveillance, he becomes obsessed with taking down a group of local gangsters who are intrinsically tied to a suspected terrorist cell. Taking the situation into his own hands, Robert embarks on a brutal quest for justice, with devastating consequences.

Seattle medical examiner David Krane is obsessed with solving his wife's murder. A possible solution presents itself in an experimental "memory" serum designed by a neurobiology professor, which has the ability to transfer memories from one person to another, but with potentially fatal consequences.

When Bond's latest assignment goes gravely wrong, agents around the world are exposed and MI6 headquarters is attacked. While M faces challenges to her authority and position from Gareth Mallory, the new Chairman of the Intelligence and Security Committee, it's up to Bond, aided only by field agent Eve, to locate the mastermind behind the attack.

After the unexpected death of the Pope, Cardinal Lawrence is tasked with managing the covert and ancient ritual of electing a new one. Sequestered in the Vatican with the Catholic Church’s most powerful leaders until the process is complete, Lawrence finds himself at the center of a conspiracy that could lead to its downfall.

Television made him famous, but his biggest hits happened off screen. Television producer by day, CIA assassin by night, Chuck Barris was recruited by the CIA at the height of his TV career and trained to become a covert operative. Or so Barris said.

On the day of his retirement, a veteran CIA agent learns that his former protégé has been arrested in China, is sentenced to die the next morning in Beijing, and that the CIA is considering letting that happen to avoid an international scandal.

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.

Unconscious soldiers are dropped into a testing site only to discover their memories have been wiped and that once docile machines are the new intelligence.

Henry Brogan is an elite 51-year-old assassin who's ready to call it quits after completing his 72nd job. His plans get turned upside down when he becomes the target of a mysterious operative who can seemingly predict his every move. To his horror, Brogan soon learns that the man who's trying to kill him is a younger, faster, cloned version of himself.

A political activist is convinced that her guest is a man who once tortured her for the government.

Plagued by strange memories, Neo's life takes an unexpected turn when he finds himself back inside the Matrix.

When the president of Russia suddenly dies, a man whose politics are virtually unknown succeeds him. The change in political leaders sparks paranoia among American CIA officials, so CIA director Bill Cabot recruits a young analyst to supply insight and advice on the situation. Then the unthinkable happens: a nuclear bomb explodes in a U.S. city, and America is quick to blame the Russians.

Captain Glass of the USS Arkansas discovers that a coup d'état is taking place in Russia, so he and his crew join an elite group working on the ground to prevent a war.

Two years after a burn-out, Duval is still unemployed. Contacted by an enigmatic businessman, he is offered a simple and well-paid job: transcribing telephone tapping. Duval accepts financially without questioning the purpose of the organization that employs him. Precipitated at the heart of a political plot, he must face the brutal mechanics of the underground world of the secret services.

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

Political double-talk, dirty tricks, hidden microphones, spy satellites, bugging the Oval Office and a nuclear bomb for sale are all ingredients in this swift, funny and frightening look at the possibilities in today's political arenas. Sean Connery stars as TV Newsman Patrick Hale on an international chase to track two suitcase sized nuclear weapons and to uncover the twisting maze of apparent involvement of US Government agencies.

After learning that the death of his wife was not an accident, a former CIA Station Chief is forced back into the espionage underworld, teaming up with an adversary to unravel a conspiracy that challenges everything he thought he knew.
