Best Hostage Situation Movies & TV Shows

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.

In 2006, a group of thieves performed what is considered one of the most famous and smart bank heists in the history of Argentina. How they robbed the Rio bank is as surprising as what happened afterwards. This is their story.

A gang of armed criminals bursts into the home of a woman, taking her and the daughters of three of her friends hostage.

When his wealthy grandfather finally dies, Jason Stevens fully expects to benefit when it comes to the reading of the will. But instead of a sizable inheritance, Jason receives a test, a series of tasks he must complete before he can get any money.

On September 1, 2004, a group of heavily armed rebel extremists stormed into School No. 1 in Beslan, Russia. For three days, more than a thousand children and adults were held hostage in a sweltering gymnasium, denied food and water, and forced to keep their hands over their heads. The harrowing siege ended on September 3 with a series of explosions and a hail of gunfire that killed some 350 people - half of them children. In this film, the youngest survivors of Beslan tell their story.

Mumbai, India, November 26, 2008. While several terrorists spread hatred and death through the city, others attack the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel. Both hotel staff and guests risk their lives, making unthinkable sacrifices to protect themselves and keep everyone safe while help arrives.

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.

When a team of mercenaries breaks into a wealthy family compound on Christmas Eve, taking everyone inside hostage, the team isn’t prepared for a surprise combatant: Santa Claus is on the grounds, and he’s about to show why this Nick is no saint.

When an armed, masked gang enter a Manhattan bank, lock the doors and take hostages, the detective assigned to effect their release enters negotiations preoccupied with corruption charges he is facing.

The full story of the 1972 Munich Olympics Massacre and the Israeli revenge operation 'Wrath of God.' The 1972 Munich Olympics were interrupted by Palestinian terrorists taking Israeli athletes hostage. Besides footage taken at the time, we see interviews with the surviving terrorist, Jamal Al Gashey, and various officials detailing exactly how the police, lacking an anti-terrorist squad and turning down help from the Israelis, botched the operation.

The Strategic Response Unit (SRU) is an elite team of cops who specialize in high-risk critical incidents. Trained in tactics and psychology, they deal with extreme situations, where split-second decisions could save a life...or cost one.

A TV reporter and cameraman are taken hostage on a tugboat while covering a workers strike. The demands of the hostage-takers are to collect all the nuclear detonators in the Charleston, SC area so they may be detonated at sea. They threaten to detonate a nuclear device of their own of their demand isnt met.

When vengeful General Francis X. Hummel seizes control of Alcatraz Island and threatens to launch missiles loaded with deadly chemical weapons into San Francisco, only a young FBI chemical weapons expert and notorious Federal prisoner have the stills to penetrate the impregnable island fortress and take him down.

Gabby, the waitress in an isolated Arizona diner, dreams of a bigger and better life. One day penniless intellectual Alan drifts into the joint and the two strike up a rapport. Soon enough, notorious killer Duke Mantee takes the diner's inhabitants hostage. Surrounded by miles of desert, the patrons and staff are forced to sit tight with Mantee and his gang overnight.

S.W.A.T. is an American action/crime drama series about the adventures of a Special Weapons And Tactics team operating in an unidentified California city. A spin-off of The Rookies, the series aired on ABC from February 1975 to April 1976. Like The Rookies, S.W.A.T. was produced by Aaron Spelling and Leonard Goldberg.

After a heroic job of successfully landing his storm-damaged aircraft in a war zone, a fearless pilot finds himself between the agendas of multiple militias planning to take the plane and its passengers hostage.

Seth Gecko and his younger brother Richard are on the run after a bloody bank robbery in Texas. They escape across the border into Mexico and will be home-free the next morning, when they pay off the local kingpin. They just have to survive 'from dusk till dawn' at the rendezvous point, which turns out to be a Hell of a strip joint.

A woman with a mysterious illness is forced into action when a group of terrorists attempt to hijack a transatlantic overnight flight. In order to protect her son she will have to reveal a dark secret, and unleash the inner monster she has fought to hide.

Desperate for money and running out of options, Marine veteran Brian Brown-Easley holds several people hostage inside a bank, setting the stage for a tense confrontation with police.

Slick lawyer Thomas Farrell has made a career of defending mobsters in trials. It's not until he meets a lovely showgirl at a mob party that he realizes that there's more to life than winning trials. Farrell tries to quit the racket, but mob boss Rico Angelo threatens to hurt the showgirl if Farrell leaves him.

A California congressman's wife and daughter are abducted and held hostage in a historic hotel. Logan McQueen is rushed to the scene to assist his former partner, Charlie Duffy, who has been taken captive trying to broker the ransom deal. McQueen must risk his life to face the cunning killer and save the hostages and his long-time friend.

When famous DJ Alan Partridge’s radio station is taken over by a new media conglomerate, it sets in motion a chain of events which see Alan having to work with the police to defuse a potentially violent siege.

An NYPD hostage negotiator teams up with a federal agent to rescue dozens of tourists held hostage during a 10-hour seige at the U.S. Federal Reserve.

A small group of military veterans sets out to rob a major bank in Pittsburgh. When things go awry, they're forced to take more than a dozen hostages from all walks of life, including a wealthy and powerful businessman's daughter.

Chronicles the true story behind Argo’s Hollywood embellishments by looking at the efforts of the venerable Ken Taylor, Canada’s former ambassador to Iran, who personally sheltered six American diplomats in the operation that became known as "the Canadian Caper."

Eric Beaumont's crisis negotiator team is brought in to save lives and resolve the most difficult kidnap and ransom cases when no one else can.

In the near future, a drone pilot is sent into a deadly militarized zone and must work with an android officer to locate a doomsday device.

Hancock is a down-and-out superhero who's forced to employ a PR expert to help repair his image when the public grows weary of all the damage he's inflicted during his lifesaving heroics. The agent's idea of imprisoning the antihero to make the world miss him proves successful, but will Hancock stick to his new sense of purpose or slip back into old habits?

When a mafia accountant is taken hostage on his beat, a police officer – wracked by guilt from a prior stint as a negotiator – must negotiate the standoff, even as his own family is held captive by the mob.

The adventures of a group of friends who plan to recover crates full of gold from a fall in Canada.

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.

A young couple on a weekend getaway inadvertently intrude on a criminal couple's remote hideout, triggering a violent battle for freedom. Escape attempts, shifts of power, relationship issues and a looming secret fuel this confrontational encounter.

Darcy and Tom gather their families for the ultimate destination wedding but when the entire party is taken hostage, “’Til Death Do Us Part” takes on a whole new meaning in this hilarious, adrenaline-fueled adventure as Darcy and Tom must save their loved ones—if they don’t kill each other first.

Dressed as a clown, the clever rascal Grimm holds up the most secure bank of Montreal and takes 30 hostages. While confusing and ridiculing the police with his strange behavior, he calmly manages to rid the bank of a fortune. But then an unsatisfied companion arouses trouble...

An American soldier who had been killed during the Vietnam War is revived 25 years later by the military as a semi-android, UniSols, a high-tech soldier of the future. After the failure of the initiative to erase all the soldier's memories, he begins to experience flashbacks that are forcing him to recall his past.

Valencia, Spain. On a rainy morning, six armed men in disguise assault a bank. But what seemed like an easy heist, quickly goes wrong with nothing unfolding as planned, and mistrust quickly builds between the two leaders of the gang.

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.

Young babysitter Amanda arrives at the Lloyd residence to spend the evening looking after their young son. Soon after the Lloyds leave, a series of frightening occurrences in the gloomy old house have Amanda's nerves on edge. The real terror begins, however, when the child's biological father appears after recently escaping from a nearby mental institution.

When the daughter of a psychiatrist is kidnapped, he's horrified to discover that the abductors' demand is that he break through to a post traumatic stress disorder suffering young woman who knows a secret..

Criminals hijack an airplane carrying five beauty contest finalists, but unknowingly they've also kidnapped a government agent carrying a dangerous virus that is to be used in bacterial warfare.

A dramatization of the incident in 1972 when Arab terrorists broke into the Olympic compound in Munich and murdered 11 Israeli athletes.

As corruption grows in 1950s LA, three policemen - one strait-laced, one brutal, and one sleazy - investigate a series of murders with their own brand of justice.

London, England, April 1980. Six terrorists assault the Embassy of Iran and take hostages. For six days, tense negotiations are held while the authorities decide whether a military squad should intervene.

A flamboyant master criminal and several specialists stage an audacious scheme to capture the Eiffel Tower and hold as hostage one of its visitors, the U.S. President's mother, while the head of a UN security force tries to stop them.

A high-octane suspense drama that centers on Dr. Ellen Sanders, a premier surgeon thrust into a chilling political conspiracy when she and her family are held captive in their home by rogue FBI Agent Duncan Carlisle, a desperate man doing the wrong thing for the right reasons, who orders Dr. Sanders to assassinate the President when she operates on him.

A man takes over a TV station and holds a number of hostages as a political platform to awaken humanity, instead of money.

A disgraced parole officer is indebted to a local gang leader and forced to pull off a series of dangerous drug heists within twelve hours in order to pay the $2 million dollars he owes, rescue his kidnapped pregnant wife, and settle a score with the city's corrupt police chief, who is working with the gang leader and double-crossed him years ago.

Based on a true Military operation by Israeli commandos. An Air France flight is hijacked by the PFLP. The plane has about 100 Jewish passengers. The plane is grounded in Uganda. Israelis would not negotiate. The movie then shows how less than 500 soldiers actually flew so far and rescued the passengers in one of the most successful Military operations in history. The only casualty for Israeli soldiers was Lt. Col. Jonathan "Yoni" Netanyahu..

Goro, a criminal mastermind, plot to steal a massive cache of gold from the Rossini family. Unbeknownst to Goro and his soldiers of fortune, one of Rossini's guest is a highly trained foreign operative who fights to not only save the hostages and the gold, but his imperiled family.

Murphy goes after bad guys who shot his friend the sheriff and abducted a local girl. In a plot reminiscent of High Noon, the posse of town blowhards gradually abandons Murphy; only tenderfoot banker Saxon remains, to prove his manhood. When they find the girl, obviously abused by her captors, Murphy shows her acceptance and sympathy whereas the others disply only revulsion.