Top 250 Movies Like Before Daybreak

Led by Kim Philby, Plan Aurora is a plan that breaches the top-secret Fourth Protocol and turns the fears that shaped it into a living nightmare. A crack Soviet agent, placed under cover in a quiet English country town, begins to assemble a nuclear bomb, whilst an MI5 agent attempts to prevent it's detonation.

During WWII, the valet to the British Ambassador to Ankara sells British secrets to the Germans while trying to romance a refugee Polish countess.

Marshal Zhang Xueliang, Commander of the North Eastern Army, grows progressively disillusioned by Kuomintang leader Chiang Kai-shek's policy to engage the Chinese Communist Party rather than fight the Japanese invaders which are occupying Manchuria. Despite numerous pleas, Chiang does not budge. After discussing with fellow general Yang Hucheng, the two take events into their own hands and place Chiang Kai-shek under arrest on December 12, 1936, forcing Chiang into a coalition with the CCP.

Fan Ruyi, a detective, finds himself framed after getting a top secret mission. Along the way he meets a blind performer and a powerful warlord's daughter that further complicates his quest to clear his name.

The Unseen Enemy in this wartime meller is Nick (Leo Carrillo), the outwardly effusive manager of a San Francisco waterfront café. To make enough money to ensure his daughter Gen's (Irene Hervey) entree into society, Nick sells his services to a gang of foreign spies, who then use Nick's establishment as a rendezvous point. The plan is to covertly send out a Japanese vessel for the purpose of raiding and destroying American merchant ships. The spies' secret code is hidden in the lyrics of a song called "Lydia", which the unwitting Gen performs on request day after day.

Lieutenant Braden discovers that Sally, the woman he's been falling in love with, has actually been checking out his qualifications to be a U.S. Navy frogman. He must put his personal life behind him after being assigned to be smuggled into a Japanese-held island via submarine to photograph radio codes.

Shanghai gangsters grapple with lust and loyalty on the eve of war with Japan as they try to navigate an alliance with the enemy's army.

World War II is raging, and an American general has been captured and is being held hostage in the Schloss Adler, a Bavarian castle that's nearly impossible to breach. It's up to a group of skilled Allied soldiers to liberate the general before it's too late.

Having spent 10 years in prison for nationalist activities, Shack Twala is finally ordered released by the South African Supreme Court but he finds himself almost immediately on the run after a run-in with the police. Assisted by his lawyer Rina Van Niekirk and visiting British engineer Jim Keogh, he heads for Capetown where he hopes to recover a stash of diamonds, meant to finance revolutionary activities, that he had entrusted to a dentist before his incarceration. Along the way, they are followed by Major Horn of the South African State security bureau and it becomes apparent that he has no intention of arresting them until they reach their final destination

In 1930, two sisters from the countryside, the serious Zhang Lan (Ruan Lingyu) and the frivolous Zhang Tao graduate from the secondary school where their mother Zhang Jie serves as principal. They both love their cousin Zuo, but have ambitions other than marriage. Their lives change dramatically when both attend university in Shanghai and encounter modern urban life and rapidly changing society. The film also depicts the emergence of Chiang Kai-shek's 1934 New Life Movement. Lianhua Film Studio did the film to appease the Nationalist Party which accused it of primarily presenting left-wing films, which was true.

Canadian director Catherine Annau's debut work is a documentary about the legacy of Pierre Trudeau, the long-running Prime Minister of Canada, who governed during the 1970s. The film focuses particularly on Trudeau's goal of creating a thoroughly bilingual nation. Annau interviews eight people in their mid-30s on both sides of the linguistic divide. One tells of her life growing up in a community of hard-core Quebec separatists, while another, a yuppie from Toronto, recalls believing as a child that people in Montreal got drunk and had sex all day long. Annau has all of the interviewees discuss how Trudeau's policies affected their lives and their perceptions of the other side, in this issue that strikes to the heart of Canada's national identity.

The story of a super-secret spy organization that recruits an unrefined but promising street kid into the agency's ultra-competitive training program just as a global threat emerges from a twisted tech genius.

When an unauthorized letter is sent to Moscow alleging the U.S. government's willingness to help Russia attack China, former naval officer Charles Rone and his team are sent to retrieve it. They go undercover, successfully reaching out to Erika Kosnov, the wife of a former agent, now married to the head of Russia's secret police. Their plans are interrupted, however, when their Moscow hideout is raided by a cunning politician.

This is a drama set in Nazi-occupied France at the height of World War II. Charlotte Gray tells the compelling story of a young Scottish woman working with the French Resistance in the hope of rescuing her lover, a missing RAF pilot. Based on the best-selling novel by Sebastian Faulks.

Blacklisted in modern day WW2, a Swedish oil trader opts to assist British Allies, by means of infiltrating and surveying Nazi Germany.

Retired from active duty, and training recruits for the Impossible Mission Force, agent Ethan Hunt faces the toughest foe of his career: Owen Davian, an international broker of arms and information, who is as cunning as he is ruthless. Davian emerges to threaten Hunt and all that he holds dear -- including the woman Hunt loves.

Nicolas Shaw is a retired U.S. special operative who becomes part of an elite 'invisible' team that quietly takes out the worst villains around the world.

A Chinese-American woman tries to expose an illegal alien smuggling ring.

A greasy spoon diner provides a base for a spy smuggling nuclear secrets.

At a Shanghai apartment, Mr Hou, a Nationalist official, gets ready to move to Taiwan upon the imminent defeat of the KMT during the Civil War. Mrs Hou gives an ultimatum to the rest of the tenants to move out on behalf of her husband, who is the "owner" of the flat and who is now planning to sell it. From the conversations with the rest, we find out that Hou has been a Hanjian during the Sino-Japanese War and that he has since taken over the apartment by force from the old landlord, Mr Kong. The tenants, including Mr Kong, Mrs Xiao, Little Broadcast (alias Mr Xiao, played by Zhao Dan) and a schoolteacher, Mr Hua, and his wife, initially plan to band together, but circumstances force them to find other ways out. Mr Hua tries to find a place to stay at the KMT-sponsored school he is teaching in. Little Broadcast and Mrs Xiao invest in black market gold. As the situation escalates, Mr Hua gets arrested by KMT agents and his young daughter falls desperately ill.

A gambling queen uses blackmail to stop a British financier from closing her Chinese clip joint.

During a Caribbean holiday, a British civil servant finds herself falling in love with a Russian agent.

During World War II, a secret agent must seduce then assassinate an official who works for the Japanese puppet government in Shanghai. Her mission becomes clouded when she finds herself falling in love with the man she is assigned to kill.

Sly and dry intelligence agent Harry Palmer is tasked with investigating British Intelligence security, and is soon enmeshed in a world of double-dealing, kidnap and murder when he finds a traitor operating at the heart of the secret service.

The story of the WWII project to crack the code behind the Enigma machine, used by the Germans to encrypt messages sent to their submarines.

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.

A wounded soldier discovers his hospital is secretly run by the Nazis.

Sister Ye lives in a rural village, where everyone makes traditional toys. When Sister Ye's husband dies of an unknown illness, and while Ye is attending to him, her son is kidnapped and sold to a wealthy lady in the city of Shanghai. Shortly after, the village is destroyed during an attack between rival warlords, forcing the villagers move to the city, where they continue to make toys. Ten years pass, and Ye's daughter Zhu'er has become a toy designer. While helping the Nationalist army at the rear, Zhu'er is killed in an attack by the Japanese. On New Year's Eve, Sister Ye is dressed in rags, sitting on the curb, selling toys. A young boy buys toys from her, and it is none other than her son, whom she does not recognize.

In 1944, in eastern part of China, U.S.Army Major Baldwin and his volunteer team of demolition engineers are left behind the retreating Chinese forces. Their task is to slow down the Japanese advance into eastern China by blowing up bridges, roads, airfields and munitions dumps. They start by blowing up an American airfield and ammo dump. They receive the order to destroy a vital bridge over a mountain pass.The team uses a few army trucks to move around. At the bridge, they encounter a Nationalist Chinese Army unit in charge of guarding the bridge. Thanks to an American soldier who speaks some Chinese, Major Baldwin requests the permission, from the Chinese commander, to blow up the bridge.The Chinese colonel agrees but asks the American Major to do him a favor by also destroying a munitions dump located at some distance away.He also requests that Madame Sue-Mei Hung, the widow of a Chinese colonel, be transported by the American demolition team to the nearest major town.

Mr. Zhao tells the story of a philandering doctor living in Shanghai. His infidelity gets the best of him, however, when his mistress Tian Jing (Chen Yinan) announces she is pregnant, while his wife learns of his affair but refuses to grant a divorce

This tale of familial warfare and sacrifice takes place in hard-pressed Shanghai at the end of the 1940s. Hu Zhiqing can barely support his wife and children, and his situation is worsened by the unexpected arrival of his mother, brother and sister-in-law. When he is fired by his unscrupulous boss, the whole family becomes embroiled in one emotional/economic struggle after another.

Pink Dream tells the story of a young novelist who is supported by a loving and hard-working wife. The novelist, however, is drawn to the decadent life of a socialite who introduces him to the dance halls that dot Shanghai. As the film progresses, the novelist soon learns of the emptiness of this urban existence and rejects it as a "pink dream."

Ding Hui is a member of Purple Butterfly, a powerful resistance group in Japanese occupied Shanghai. An unexpected encounter reunites her with Itami, an ex-lover and officer with a secret police unit tasked with dismantling Purple Butterfly.

Iconic actress Jean Yu returns to Japanese-occupied China to star in a play directed by her former lover. However, her undercover work for the Allies soon places her life in grave danger.

Miss Winters is a dancer with the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra and is asked to secretly transport a prototype magnetic mine to Puerto Rico. She thinks that she is working for the US Government, but fails to see why she would be involved.

Set in the decadent 1920s, Temptress Moon tells the very complicated story of a wealthy family living on the outskirts of Shanghai. Their youngest daughter, Ruyi, is brought up as a servant to her opium-addicted father and brother. Meanwhile, her brother-in-law Zhongliang has a successful, if illegal, career seducing and blackmailing married women in the city. When he comes to Ruyi's home the two fall in love, and trouble ensues.

The cat and mouse game between government agents and a spy ring that has taken secret documents from a plane crash in Germany, not far from an US military research centre.

Sam Gallagher returns home to Los Angeles as an undercover spy for the Navy, getting a job at the shipyards where his brother, Jeff, is a foreman. Jeff still resents Sam for abandoning the family years ago and fears he may steal away Lea Damaron, his current girlfriend -- who is Sam's old flame. While Sam tries to sniff out Nazi saboteurs in the plant, he grows closer to Jill McGann, the agent tasked with pretending to be his wife.

Foreign spies and police pursue an attractive Dutch spy throughout Peking.

A pre-World War II saber-rattler that finds a munitions inventor kidnapped, a federal agent killed and a beautiful refugee mysteriously missing as Washington's deadly game of espionage and intrigue thunders on...as the FBI hunts the nation's invisble foes! They may have been invisible but their accents and billing names von Morhart, William Vaughn (William von Brincken already hiding under another name before hostilities were formally declared), Frederick Gierman and Walter Bonn---provide clues aplenty as to their country of origin and paymaster.

A CIA analyst takes over a case from his brother, a field agent who was killed in the line of duty, in this thriller based on a Robert Ludlum novel.

In preparation for Operation Overlord, the Allied invasion of Nazi occupied territory, the 'overlords' were the few Allied agents who knew the details of the operation. When one them is captured by the Germans, a double agent must infiltrate occupied Paris, with the help of a high level German officer and the French resistance.

A framed reporter and the crooks on his trail scramble to locate a book containing the names of American war profiteers and traitors who collaborated with the Nazis during the war.

This action drama centers on a former CIA operative who grudgingly rejoins the spy game due to the machinations of his one-time student - a screw up who goes to work for the Soviets. As his job drags him deeper into a dangerous and under-handed world, the student wants out of the agency and oout of the U.S.S.R. But the man's choices have made him a target and now both the United States and Russia want him dead, sending their mos able hit men to do it.

A beautiful Austrian refugee in England--who is also a Nazi agent--marries a scholarly English pacifist. He lives near a secret military base she needs to get information about so she can help in Hitler's planned invasion of England.

Dutch patriots, a U.S. officer and a British spy fool the Nazis with a fake Soho film company.

SPYING TURNS TO SECURITY DETAIL AS A YOUNG COUPLE AVOIDS MURDER, THE MOB, AND THE PAST. Human cloning, surveillance, and a life threatening relationship take center stage in this romantic thriller. Re-Released in the fall of 2012, SPY tells the story of Dante LeClair (Vincent Pastore) who was forced by mob boss (Frank Vincent) to fund illegal and unethical medical experiments after his daughter Susan (Lora Kojovic) was injured.

A training film for OSS agents who are to be dropped behind enemy lines.

World War II espionage drama, starring Preston Foster and Lynn Bari.

The Japanese has invaded far into china, defeating the Kuomintang (KMT) soldiers many times and pushing them back into Central China. There was a general sentiment among anti-Japanese resistance forces that the Communist Party of China (CCP) was not contributing enough to the war, and that they were only interested in expanding their power. As a result, the CCP planned a major offensive against the Japanese, consisting of 105 regiments, called the Hundred Regiments Offensive.

A former Navy man attempts to redeem his honor by exposing a shipping tycoon's dealings with the enemy.

The Secret Life of Ian Fleming follows the exciting life of a dashing young Ian Fleming, the mastermind behind the highly successful James Bond books and movies.

A truck convoy traveling the Burma Road is menaced by a group of smugglers.

When a prominent official is murdered at a banquet honoring Charle Chan, the detective and son Lee team up to expose an opium-smuggling ring.

A British man is hunted by British and German spies when he tries to sell blueprints.

An American man returns to a corrupt, Japanese-occupied Shanghai four months before Pearl Harbor and discovers his friend has been killed. While he unravels the mysteries of the death, he falls in love and discovers a much larger secret that his own government is hiding.

In this drama, a truck driver begins wooing a young woman who still lives with her father who constantly brags how he, not the town mayor, was responsible for catching a regiment of Germans during WW I. Unfortunately, no one in town takes him seriously. Later the daughter meets a German immigrant who confirms her father's claim. She then convinces her boy friend to use this information to blackmail the mayor into giving him a new truck and some extra amenities lest he tell the truth.

Wartime secret agents are on a mission to destroy a deadly new type of torpedo, hidden in a Nazi stronghold in France.

Made during the early days of sound cinema, this tense submarine adventure is an intriguing example of a hybrid silent-talkie. A disgraced English sub commander changes his name to Burke and joins the American Navy. When the U.S. submarine on which he is serving as a torpedo launcher begins to sink, Burke must make the ultimate sacrifice to save as many crew men as possible..

Major Lex Kearney, dishonourably discharged from the army for cowardice in battle, volunteers to go undercover to try to prevent raids against shipments of horses desperately needed for the Union war effort. Falling in with the gang of jayhawkers and Confederate soldiers who have been conducting the raids, he gradually gains their trust and is put in a position where he can discover who has been giving them secret information revealing the routes of the horse shipments.

Charlie attempts to solve a triple murder in which a dead man's finger prints show up at all three murder sites, and all three victims were connected with the conviction and execution of an evidently innocent man.

A murder occurs on a train bound for Shanghai during World War II.

U.S. Marine Sergeant O'Hara has his hands full training raw recruits, one of whom, 'Skeets' Burns, is a particular thorn in his side. If Burns's lackadaisical approach to the military were not bad enough, he also makes advances on nurse Nora Dale, whom Sergeant O'Hara secretly loves. Nora is oblivious to O'Hara's feelings and is attracted to the handsome 'Skeet.' But an indiscretion turns her against him, and it takes an expedition to China and a battle with a warlord's bandit brigade to sort things out among the nurse and her two Marines.

In northwest Africa, a tribal leader tries to stir up a rebellion against the ruling powers.

OSS agent, working with the French underground, ambushes Nazi convoy with high-ranking general, who escapes. Later they take him from a Nazi prison and smuggle him to England.

Alice Grayson's uncle develops a wireless torpedo that can be controlled by radio. After he announces his invention to several of his colleagues, two of them murder the scientist, steal the blueprints and prototype, and make plans to sell both to the highest bidder. When Alice discovers the identity of the thieves, the intrepid heroine, with the help of Bob Moore, her two-fisted boyfriend, desperately tries to recover the plans and torpedo before enemy countries can unleash the torpedoes against American ships. (IMDb)

Marine Sergeant James O'Hearn is being tried at the San Diego Marine base for desertion, theft, scandalous conduct and destruction of property in time of war. He refuses to testify or plead guilty or not guilty to the charges. Showgirl Ginger Martin takes the stand against his protest. She testifies O'Hearn won't talk because he is protecting the name of his pal, Marine Private Davey White. Ginger tells how she, broke and stranded, met the two marines in Shanghai two weeks before Pearl Harbor.

Merle Oberon plays a Norwegian resistance figure in a small town, married to a Nazi commandant. When his superiors begin to suspect her, the Allies land an assassin to kill him -- an assassin who happens to be her former lover.

One man’s campaign for vengeance takes on national stakes after he is revealed to be a former operative of a powerful and clandestine organization known as Beekeepers.

Exodus to Shanghai tells the story of two lovers who have to escape from Vienna to China after Dr. Ho, the Chinese Consul in Vienna in 1938, issued Exit Visas to many Jews against the instruction of his superiors. Fannia, a New York Jewish Violin student, falls in love with the Consul's nephew Bruce. Together they must leave Vienna as the Gestapo is chasing them to get the Jews and Hitler's painting.

August 1944 two months after D-Day, the Allies are advancing across France. A team of British and American commandos are dropped behind enemy lines on a secret mission to ambush a German Officer and steal maps charting the location of the enemy artillery along the front line.

Vusi Madlazi returns to the South African village he left as a young boy (he was organizing against apartheid, and left in fear of his life) to bury his father. He meets up with his brother Ernest, who tells him their other brother Stephen couldn't be contacted. Vusi goes to Johannesburg to find him, but at first can only find his neighbor/girlfriend, Karin, a stripper. Vusi proceeds to learn how conditions have changed since the end of apartheid, not always for the better for black men.

Secret Service agents must retrieve the briefcase allowing the President control of America's nuclear arsenal before massive destruction ensues.

In August 1937, Japanese troops occupied Shanghai. Three leaders in Shanghai go their separate ways: Jinrong Huang never sees other people; Xiaolin Zhang makes a great fortune and Yuesheng Du leaves for HongKong. Japanese form The Traitors Agents Headquarters to kill Chinese people. The patriotistic people composes the assassination team.

China, 1915. A secret and unequal treaty that would increase Japan's dominance over China is about to be signed unwillingly but not before external forces jump in to make sure it never happens. Therefore both the US and a small band of thieves and orphans (among them Lau Sek-Ming and Alexander Lo Rei) are ordered by their foster father (Zhang Feng-Yi) to track it down in Shanghai. Feeling an unease in terms of their involvement in high politics all of a sudden, it becomes clear there's a traitor in the group...

Rancher Buck Jones goes undercover as a ranch hand on his own spread

In this espionage caper, a government spy must keep enemy agents from spying upon a defense plant. His work is made easier by his newest invention, a word scrambler which makes it difficult for the enemy agent.

An American officer goes undercover to unmask a Revolutionary War traitor.

Two Marine sergeants (Victor McLaglen, Edmund Lowe) flirt with a cafe girl (Binnie Barnes) in San Diego, then find out she's a spy.

The film tells the story of a young girl who travels from Shanghai to Hong Kong in pursuit of education, but ends up working for her aunt seducing rich and powerful men.

A story of three couples and their intertwining love stories set in 1940s Taiwan and Shanghai, centered around the 1949 sinking of Taiping.

A beautiful Russian spy seduces an Austrian military officer in order to obtain secret plans. When she falls in love with him, both are placed in danger.

A New York socialite travels to Shanghai to visit her ailing aunt and falls in love with a Russian banker, who harbors a family secret.

A pilot carrying a valuable amulet is shot down over China by a ruthless Russian agent, who also wants the amulet.

A fourteen year old lad discovers his first love at the point of his pencil whilst drawing the portrait of a sickly but coquettish fifteen year old girl. In the neighbourhood an old freedom-fighter pits himself against bad types, a pretty cinema-ticket girl takes to the streets at night and a young anarchist dedicates himself to telling tall stories. Far away, in Shanghai, a hero of the Republic meets a beautiful femme fatal with oriental eyes. Reality and fiction become fused in an embrace.

A haunted theatre, filled with the vengeful spirits of a tragically-trapped performance troupe murdered in a fire 13 years ago, waits for the once-grand palatial playhouse to re-open with a new show - and bring in new victims.

In London, August 1914, Austrian star Elsa Duranyi (Gertrude Michael) and English matinee idol Alan Barclay (Herbert Marshall) are in love and plan an immediate marriage. But the War comes and Elsa mysteriously disappears. Alan's ease in speaking German results in his appointment to the British Intelligence and, to aid his use as a spy, they announce he was killed in action. He takes the name and personality of "shell-shocked" Hans Teller, a German prisoner, and is sent into Germany on an exchange of prisoners.

Eight strangers meet in Shanghai to stake claims to the fortune of a late shipping magnate, then must evade a murderer in their midst.

The film tells the story about the daughter of a Nationalist general who revisits the famous summer resort Lushan Mountain in Jiangxi province in 1980 and falls in love with the son of a senior general of the Chinese Communist Party.

An undercover CCP helps peaceful liberation of Peking.

In 1946, to prevent the Chinese civil war, Zhou Enlai who represented the Communists held a talk with the Chinese Nationalist Party, and George C. Marshall, who represented the Americans at Plum Village in Nanjing. A lost notebook stirred the already turbulent peace talk. The ripples alert the three sides and a battle of spy and anti-spy began. Many historical figures like Zhou Enlai, George Marshall, Chiang Kai-shek, Soong May-ling, He Yingqing, Chen Cheng, and Hu Zongnan are depicted in the movie. Other fictional persona such as the ace agent Xiong Huiquan, the female journalist, and a secret spy who belongs to the Confidential Bureau adds tension to the critical moment.

During World War I, German spies will stop at nothing to spy on the allied war plans stored at Gibraltar.

In the late 1930s, the Japanese army occupies Shanghai. Barber Lu Ping kills a Japanese officer by accident and then escapes from Shanghai to the residence of his master's brother, Song Fengnian. When he arrives at the small town, he falls in love with Song's daughter Jiayi at the first sight. However, Jiayi has had the engagement with an officer for a decent life in the wartime, even as concubine. After the victory of the Anti-Japanese War, Lu is sentenced to death as a traitor because Song, his boss, has worked for the Japanese. When he closes his eyes and waits for the sound of shot, Jiayi rescues him. Arranged by her husband, Lu becomes an officer. However, he can never forget Jiayi and his barber life. After the end of the Civil War, Lu is sent to work on a farm in the northwest. There he learns that Jiayi doesn't leave with her husband and has been waiting for him at the small town where they meet for the first time. Lu decides to look for Jiayu.

“It’s a story, adapted from the homonymous drama, that the new Forth Army struggles with the branch of Jiangsu-Shandong-Anhui of Kuomindang for Anti-Japanese, solidification and against surrender, abruption during the way going east.It reflects the complicate situation during the Anti-Japanese War andthe victory of the Anti-Japanese unibus policies of the CCP Center and Chairman Mao.” From the English Red Movie blurb

An underground CPC telegrapher, Li Xia, fights against the Japanese enemy and dies before the eve of Shanghai's liberation in 1939.

A young Japanese-American orphan in California is taken in by a priest who is actually a Japanese secret agent and a samurai warrior. Due to the samurai's training, the boy murders his English teacher, kills the American parents who have adopted him, smuggles Japanese secret plans into the country, and eventually becomes the governor of California with plans to infiltrate Japanese spies into the state so they can take over.

Mongolian girl Alima is assigned to accomplish an important mission by CCP. During the mission, her father and fellows are killed by the enemy in a public execution.

An agent infiltrating the Nationalist Party in wartime Shanghai finds himself under threat.

The Nationalists have a secret mission of sending a truckload of coins into the mountains but the commander of the army unit guarding the warehouse where the coins are stored wants them for his own use.

Operation Bosimao is put into effect by Chinese Nationalists to attempt to assassinate the mayor of Shanghai and slow Communist military action against a nearby island.