Top 5, Bottom 5: Political Thrillers

Not long ago, I watched my 20th political drama, according to Flickchart, and this past week I watched my 20th and 21st political thrillers. That means it's time for a Top 5, Bottom 5 post! These rankings are all out of 2145 movies on my Flickchart thus far.

Top 5:
1. The Lives of Others (2006, #118). Calling this a "thriller" is probably a stretch, as it's a pretty slow-moving drama. But it is really, really amazing.
2. Fail-Safe (1964, #350). Man, this is a good movie. It reminds me of 12 Angry Men -- another Henry Fonda flick -- in that it's mostly people sitting around talking, but it's gripping stuff.
3. Argo (2012, #528). It's dropped down a few spots since I talked about it in my political drama blog. Still a pretty entertaining thriller though.
4. The Manchurian Candidate (1962, #552). Another one mentioned in my political drama blog. Super entertaining, even if the plot is kind of ridiculous.
5. The Crying Game (1992, #671). I just watched this one, although I definitely enjoyed the dramatic parts of it far more than the thriller parts. That shouldn't be a surprise to anyone, though.

Bottom 5:
5. Man Hunt (1941, #1335). I really like the end of this movie, but you have to wait through a lot of weird characterization to get there.
4. JFK (1991, #1473). This is a decent movie, but I felt every minute of those three hours. There have been plenty of three-hour movies that were really engaging throughout, but this was not one of them.
3. The Interpreter (2005, #1525). A fun premise that just doesn't live up to its potential.
2. The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956, #1737). I vastly prefer the 1930s version to this, which feels very, very slow to me and gives us approximately 10 trillion renditions of "Que Sera Sera." Actually, if that song hadn't been in the movie I'd probably like it much better.
1. The Art of War (2000, #1806). And this is the other one I just watched. To be honest, it's only been like a week since I saw this movie and I still can't remember what actually happened in it.