Best movies like The Hostage

An investigator looks into the activities of a movie producer he believes is involved in smuggling Asians into the U.S.

International terrorists attempt to kidnap a wealthy couple's child. Their plan comes unstuck when a deadly Black Mamba, sent by mistake instead of a harmless snake, escapes and the terrorists and several hostages are trapped in the boy's London home.

Robbie and his girlfriend, Amy, are among a group of students who play their private night games in the romantic thriller that catapulted Kidman to center stage. On screen throughout, Kidman discovers what will happen when a friendly game becomes real life ... and real life becomes a deadly game.

A decent but troubled young man is sent to a psychiatric institution for the criminally insane and soon finds himself in a fight for his life battling ghosts inside his head and very real enemies all around him.

A stomach churning potpourri of explosions, gunfire and army trucks ramming through grass and twig huts. The needle in a haystack plot seems to involve our protagonist rescuing his family from some South American drug cartel, or something. At one point Carradine yells those immortal words: "get the hell out of here" through closed lips. The villain of the piece never utters a line of dialogue, preferring instead to stalk about in a cape, squinting cannily beneath beret and drooping mustache (with hawk perched on shoulder for added effect). Avoid at all costs, unless you enjoy beating yourself repeatedly over the head with a flail.

The wife and mistress of the abusive headmaster of a boy's school plot and carry out his murder. They dump his body in the murky swimming pool at the school and await for it to surface. After several days, some unusual circumstances point to clues that he is not dead after all.

In this fictionalised account of the Great Train Robbery, career criminal Paul Clifton plans an audacious crime: the robbery of a mail train carrying millions in cash.

A drifter becomes both a bank robber and a hero in this crime thriller. Andrew McCarthy stars as Wade Corey, who hitches a ride on a freight train already occupied by Doyle Kennedy (Matt Dillon), a charming ex-con who convinces Wade to accompany him to his hometown. Once there, Wade realizes too late that Doyle is intent on robbing the local bank. After they are separated following the crime, Wade hides the money. Happening upon a drowning in progress, he saves a young girl who just happens to be the daughter of the state governor, and he becomes an unlikely hero. Finding work at a nearby farm, the meandering Wade becomes a hired hand, falls for the beautiful daughter (Leslie Hope) of his boss, and dreads the return of Doyle, who is sure to come looking for his money.

Haunted by visions from his abusive childhood, Montana deputy sheriff Lou Ford gradually exhibits the signs of a homicidal schizophrenic.

From chicken thief to cabin boy, riverboat pilot to circus performer, Huck Finn outsmarts everyone on his way down the muddy Mississippi.

Melodrama about a bomber on board an airplane, an airport almost closed by snow, and various personal problems of the people involved.

Bigfoot kidnaps some women and some bikers decide to go on a rescue mission to save them.

Jess Wade is innocently accused of having stolen a cannon from the Mexican revolutionary forces. He tries to find the real culprits, a gang of criminals.

When petty criminal Luke Jackson is sentenced to two years in a Florida prison farm, he doesn't play by the rules of either the sadistic warden or the yard's resident heavy, Dragline, who ends up admiring the new guy's unbreakable will. Luke's bravado, even in the face of repeated stints in the prison's dreaded solitary confinement cell, "the box," make him a rebel hero to his fellow convicts and a thorn in the side of the prison officers.

A lonely boy becomes good friends with Ben, a rat. This rat is also the leader of a pack of vicious killer rats, killing lots of people.

Four backpackers decide to take a hike in the mountains of Utah. But within the woods lurks a killer. But who...or what...is it? The lazy local sheriff blames bears. But the escalating body count seems to point to a human killer. Ignoring the warning signs, our campers remain lost in the woods...alone...awaiting their fate.

Three people driving into Los Angeles for a Dodgers game have car trouble and pull off into an old wrecking yard where they are held at bay by a bloodthirsty psycho and his crazy girlfriend.

A vicious gang war for drug dominance draws in a disturbed Special Forces veteran John Bradley. Trying to adjust to normal life and haunted by inner demons of a violent past, the underworld's retribution on his last connection to humanity, a daughter and grandchild leads to a descent of fury and violence that not even the brutality of gangland is prepared for.

Two police detectives try to catch a serial killer who is stalking a rural California drive-in theater, randomly killing people with a sword.

As Zipper's Clown Palace (a strip bar) closes, Neil wanders in and decides to hold the dancers, bartender, and remaining customers hostage. He torments them with little tasks he wants performed, playing on their weaknesses and relying on his gun for intimidation. Eventually the hostages begin formulating plans to thwart his control. Meanwhile, two policemen are observing the outside of the strip joint, realizing that something's wrong and trying to decide if it's worth ruining their buzz to intervene.

An all-female motorcycle gang, called 'The Maneaters' hold motorcycle races, as well as terrorize the residents of a small Florida town, and clash off against an all-male rival gang of hot-riders.

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.

A police chief about to retire pledges to help a woman find her daughter's killer.

A pilot is the only hope to stop the mutiny of a spacecraft by its security crew, who plot to sell the crew of the ship into slavery.

A driver and a mechanic travel around the United States hopping from drag strip to drag strip in a 1955 Chevy Bel-Air coupe. They race for money, betting with their competitors. The pair gains a young and talkative female stowaway. Along the way they unintentionally attract a well-to-do drifter driving a new Pontiac GTO. This older man, looking for attention, antagonizes their efforts.

A rich girl steals her dad's Rolls Royce and heads off to Las Vegas to get married. However, her angry parents, a jealous suitor, and a bunch of reward seekers are determined to stop her.

Jody Deakes joins up with his father after many years, just to discover that his dad is part of an outlaw gang on the run from a relentless bounty hunter named Santee. Jody is orphaned soon after Santee catches up to the gang, and follows Santee in hopes of taking vengeance for his father's death. Instead, however, Jody discovers that Santee is a good and loving man, tormented by the death of his young son at the hands of another outlaw gang. Santee and his wife take Jody in and a father and son relationship begins to grow. Then the gang that shot Santee's son shows up. The film was produced by Edward Platt of Get Smart fame. It was one of the first motion pictures to be shot electronically on videotape and then transferred to film.

Dan Aykroyd, John Candy, Gilda Radner and Cheech and Chong present this compilation of classic bad films from the 50's, 60's and 70's. Special features on gorilla pictures, anti-marijuana films and a special tribute to the worst film maker of all-time, Ed Wood.

Russell has been expelled from several schools for lewd, crude and nude conduct. Busterburger University is his last chance at education and satisfying his disappointed parents

The host of a children's TV show is really a psychopathic killer, and when he hears stories from the kids who watch his show about the abuse they get from their parents, he starts visiting the parents and murdering them.

A serial killer turns the life of a family on vacation into a nightmare.

A kid unknowingly carries a bomb to his parents. When they get killed he is traumatized. Many hellish years later he vows revenge against the criminals who gave him the bomb.

Searching for a doctor who can help him get his son to speak again--the boy hadn't uttered a word since he saw his mother die in the fire that burned down the family home--a Confederate veteran finds himself facing a 30-day jail sentence when he's unfairly accused of starting a brawl in a small town. A local woman pays his fine, providing that he works it off on her ranch. He soon finds himself involved in the woman's struggle to keep her ranch from a local landowner who wants it--and whose sons were responsible for the man being framed for the fight.

A mad scientist implants an electronic device into the brain of an injured soldier, which turns him into a psychotic killer.

Sexy but unstable wife and mother Jude walked out on her family three years ago. Now, just as suddenly, she is back. But her husband, Robert, has fallen in love with Callie, an assistant principal at his sons' school. He asks Jude for a divorce. She responds by trying to turn her three boys against Callie, then by slashing herself and blaming her rival and finally by drawing her 12-year-old, Kes, into a murderous plot.

A young millionaire is obsessed by a woman he keeps dreaming about but doesn't know. After an investigation, he discovers that she is a large-breasted stripper who spends a lot of time in a nudist camp. He decides to follow her there.

John Carradine narrates five horror tales, each with a comically predictable surprise ending. In the first, "The Witches Clock," the Farrells have purchased an old mansion in Salem Massachusetts and are warned by the town doctor of the history of witches in the community. The second story, "King of the Vampires," deals with a slight-figured killer called the King of the Vampires by Scotland Yard. The third, "Monster Raid," is about a man turned zombie when he ODs on his experimental drug. "Spark of Life" deals with a doctor Mendell obsessed with the experiments of a thrown-out professor named Erich von Frankenstein. "Count Alucard" is a variation on the Dracula story, with the Count acquiring the deed to Carfax Abbey from Harker as vampiresses and dead bodies start turning up.

A group of swingin' teens take time out from having fun in the sun to try to foil a group of crooks searching for a stolen scroll.

Gena is a sweet and dedicated mother to her little son. One day, whilst shopping with him for a halloween mask, her son is accidently shot through the chest by a Japanese Gunman, trying to kill an opposing gang of bus operators. Gena notices that the gunman has a picture of a blue tiger on his chest. She is turned into an obsessed person and has an identical red tiger etched into her skin. She then tracks down the killer and plots his death. This leads her into the world of the Japanese Mafia

Actor Michael Madsen turns the tables on notorious paparazzo, Billy Dant, by hiring a trio of documentary filmmakers to chronicle Dant's life, loves, and troubles.

Harlin Garret loses his memory and finds himself closed in a facility claimed to belong to the state security services. The manager of this place tells Garrett he used to be a killer for the mob but Garrett refuses to believe. Then he is forced to kill people that are a "Risk to the state security", but the whole story gets complicated when Garret falls in love with one of his victims...

Sydney Carpenter is a devoted mother to her young son, and is now accustomed to the puzzling existence of her mysterious, non-communicative husband, Matthew. When her husband and son are suddenly lost at sea after a boating accident, Sydney's comfortable existence is shattered. Although overwhelmed by her grief, Sydney cannot ignore the strange pieces from her husband's past that continue to make their way into the present.

The crew of an interplanetary commercial freighter beams aboard a now horribly mutated saxophone player who has been adrift in space for over twenty years. He starts to get along with the crew, and very close with an alluring journalist. But that's when two criminals are beamed aboard, taking the ship hostage.

A spy thriller involving an American who is enlisted by British intelligence to replace one of its recently murdered agents and smash a ring of blackmailers -- James Bond style -- headed by a nefarious figure known as Scorpio.

A gangster is caught and arrested by police. When he's being transported by bus -- filled with innocent civilians -- it's hi-jacked by his gang in attempt to free their boss. They hide out. As the authorities close in they threaten to torch the barn the escapee and his men are hiding in -- with their hostage inside.

Though very polite and British, this feature-length documentary about German filmmaker Wim Wenders offers the most penetrating insights and the best overall critique of his work that I have encountered anywhere. Paul Joyce, who directed it, has also made documentaries about Nicolas Roeg, David Cronenberg, Nagisa Oshima, and Dennis Hopper, and he knows the conventional format well enough to get the most out of it. There are good clips and interesting commentaries from the interviewed subjects, who include Wenders himself, cinematographer Robby Muller, filmmaker Sam Fuller, novelist Patricia Highsmith, musician Ry Cooder, actors Harry Dean Stanton, Peter Falk, and Hanns Zischler, and critic Kraft Wetzel, who is especially provocative. A must-see for Wenders fans, highly recommended for everyone else. –Jonathan Rosenbaum, 1989

A made-for-television remake of Alfred Hitchcock’s 1954 film.

Sex Club International finds a savvy businesswoman (Carol Kane) running a chain of high-class cathouses that cater to affluent clients, but before you can say "shakedown," the mob wants a piece of the pie.

E.J. Mackernutt, Jr., an 11-year-old boy who has always been fascinated by space and astronauts, sneaks into Cape Kennedy and becomes a stowaway on a spaceship scheduled for a lunar landing. After he is discovered, NASA at first cancels the landing, but E.J. and the astronauts convince them to go forward with it. Problems arise when one of the astronauts is incapacitated by illness and the other two are stranded on the moon's surface, but E.J. is able to command the space capsule and save the day.

A look at the history of American hobo life.