Rami Malek has become one of Hollywood’s most eclectic and diverse stars, appearing in such wildly different movies that his next project is often hard to predict. Most recently, he starred in the political spy thriller “The Amateur,” returning to the world of espionage after playing the villain in Daniel Craig’s final 007 film, “No Time To Die.” This time, though, Malek plays the hero, and an unconventional one at that.

Malek stars as Charlie Heller, a proverbial pencil-pusher at the CIA, far from the gung-ho, terrorist-stopping intelligence agents Hollywood usually gives us, like Jack Bauer or James Bond. All of that changes when his wife is killed in a terrorist attack and his own agency refuses to hunt for the killer. Desperate to see justice done, Heller blackmails his superiors and forces them to train him for a mission to find answers on his own as he takes up a personal quest for vengeance. Before long, Heller is on a globe-trotting adventure, uncovering evidence of a much broader conspiracy.

A stunning spy thriller, “The Amateur” saw modest success when it hit theaters early in 2025, but it’s lighting it up on streaming, hitting #1 on Hulu’s top movies for July. If it surprised you like it has many others, check out our list of 12 more movies to watch if you loved “The Amateur.”

In “The Amateur,” Rami Malek plays a man desperate for justice after the death of his wife. The authorities won’t help him, nobody will take him seriously, and despite being ill-equipped to go it alone, he takes it upon himself to hunt down the people responsible. In many ways, this mirrors the plot of the 1988 thriller “Frantic,” from controversial director Roman Polanski and starring everyone’s favorite whip-wielding relic hunter, Harrison Ford.

The film opens on Dr. Richard Walker (Ford), who is visiting Paris for a medical conference. When Walker’s wife, Sondra (Betty Buckley), disappears from their hotel room, nobody seems to know anything about it, and he witnesses suspicious behavior from those around him. To his surprise, authorities at the US Embassy in Paris are completely unhelpful, and it becomes clear that if he’s going to find his wife, Walker must take matters into his own hands. His search — with the aid of a local sex worker who seems to be the only person who wants to help him — reveals that Sondra may have been unwittingly caught up in a political conspiracy that placed a target on her back.

A tension-addled drama, “Frantic” is a first-rate ’80s thriller that demonstrates Harrison Ford’s singular ability to play a desperate, ordinary man caught up in an extraordinary situation.

Those who have discovered “The Amateur” on Hulu might be unaware of the fact that it’s actually a remake. Back in the early ’80s, not long after some of the biggest spy movies of all time had dazzled audiences, “The Amateur” arrived, starring John Savage, Christopher Plummer, and Marthe Keller. Sadly, it wasn’t widely seen and had been mostly forgotten by the time Rami Malek was tapped for the reboot, its anonymity helping it become one of the most underrated political thrillers ever made.

The plots of the two films are largely the same: Heller (Savage) is a desk agent in the CIA whose wife is killed in a terrorist attack. As in the 2025 version, he blackmails his superiors and goes on a one-man mission to track down those responsible, and, in doing so, he uncovers a conspiracy. The original, of course, is set amid the tensions of the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union, so the powers at play are all a little different, and the technology used is also of its time.

A satisfying if by-the-numbers thriller, the original version of “The Amateur” tells the same story as the Rami Malek remake but with a very different flavor. Propped up by some clever twists and turns and a standout performance from John Savage, it’s easy to see why it was perfect for a 21st-century remake.

Not long after “Frantic,” Harrison Ford was recruited for another film that will appeal to fans of “The Amateur” for its story of an ordinary man who is forced to track a killer all on his own. Like “The Amateur,” it’s also a remake, but this time it retells a story originally developed for the small screen. We are, of course, talking about “The Fugitive,” which saw Ford once again playing a doctor seeking justice for his wife, who, this time, is murdered during an apparent home invasion.

Ford plays Dr. Richard Kimble, whose fight for justice is complicated by the fact that authorities quickly name him the prime suspect in his wife’s death. After having been tried and sentenced to death for the crime, a freak bus accident on the way to prison gives him a second chance to prove his innocence and uncover the truth. Forced to investigate his wife’s murder while on the run from the law, Kimble soon uncovers evidence that the killer wasn’t a random burglar.

Like “The Amateur,” the movie begins with a murder and culminates with the hero exposing a conspiracy. But thanks to the added twist of a nationwide manhunt, “The Fugitive” is something all its own and is generally regarded as one of Ford’s best movies.

By now, you’ve probably figured out that when it comes to stories about ordinary people who are forced to seek justice by themselves, your best bet is to turn to Harrison Ford’s filmography. While we could probably recommend a half dozen more Ford titles in the same vein as “The Amateur,” the best in terms of political intrigue is probably “Clear and Present Danger.” While it doesn’t involve Ford fighting for justice for a loved one, it does involve a battle against authority and the tough moral choices that result.

Here, Ford reprises his role of intelligence officer Jack Ryan, who has been elevated to Acting Deputy Director of the CIA after former director James Greer (James Earl Jones) is hospitalized with cancer. But his new role brings more ethical dilemmas as his first assignment reveals that his own agency may be involved in a conspiracy that links them to South American drug cartels. As he finds himself increasingly isolated, Ryan must defy orders to confront the political crisis on his doorstep.

Like Charles Heller, Jack Ryan is a CIA agent who uncovers more than he bargained for and must face the reality that his own people may be involved in dirty dealings. Of course, “Clear and Present Danger” is also a sequel to “Patriot Games,” a film that — despite not having as much in common with “The Amateur” — is even better.

Political thrillers are a favorite of streaming services because they can offer suspense and thrills on a modest budget. The genre had been around for ages, but gained more mainstream attention in the 1970s with hits like “All the President’s Men,” “The Marathon Man,” and “The Parallax View.” One of the best of the era is Sydney Pollack’s “Three Days of the Condor,” which boasts an “Amateur”-like story of a CIA desk jockey forced to take on a role as a field agent amid a sinister conspiracy.

Long considered one of the best spy movies ever made, “Three Days of the Condor,” based on a novel by James Grady, stars Robert Redford as CIA analyst Joe Turner, codenamed “Condor.” He has a rather passive role in the CIA, though, leading the collection of publicly available intelligence on rival nations. But on one eventful afternoon, Turner returns from a lunch break only to find every other person in the office has been murdered. The only agent left alive, Turner is forced to take action on his own and get to the bottom of what happened to his fellow agents. A crash course in international espionage follows, as Turner suddenly finds himself the target of shadowy assassins. An Oscar nomineein 1976, “Three Days of the Condor,” like “The Amateur,” openly confronts the harsh realities of what our governments do behind closed doors.

Action star Gerard Butler appeared in some of the most underrated action movies in recent memory, and he’s shot more than one film worth recommending to fans of “The Amateur.” Topping the list, though, is the 2009 F. Gary Gray action-thriller “Law Abiding Citizen,” which sees Butler playing an ordinary man on a mission to seek justice for his family when the system fails him.

Butler plays Clyde Shelton, whose wife and daughter are killed in a brutal home invasion. When the case gets to trial, prosecuting attorney Nick Rice (Jamie Foxx) strikes a deal with the murderer that allows him to skate on lesser charges of manslaughter. Unable to accept what he views as a miscarriage of justice, Shelton decides to deal with the killer himself. In the aftermath, Shelton goes on trial, but rather than attempt to be found not guilty, he does everything he can to disrupt the proceedings to prove just how broken the legal system really is.

“The Amateur” and “Law Abiding Citizen” have similar inciting incidents and protagonists who are willing to do anything to see the guilty punished for the death of a loved one. But the latter shows what happens next, going further in its exploration of a complicated justice system that fails us more often than we’d care to admit.

“The Amateur” is hardly what anyone would call a comedy; outside of a couple of sly quips, there’s really nothing funny at all about Charlie Heller or his mission to expose a conspiracy while seeking justice for his murdered wife. But if you’re in the mood for some laughs from a movie that does share some similarities to Rami Malek’s thriller, your best bet is the slapstick farce “Spy,” starring the unlikely duo of Melissa McCarthy and Jason Statham.

Directed by Paul Feig, “Spy” casts McCarthy in the role of CIA agent Susan Cooper, who, like Heller, is not a field agent. While she’s long wished to strap on a sidearm and go on daring missions, she instead spends her days sitting behind a desk. All of that changes when a massive data leak at the CIA exposes every agent in the field — leaving her the agency’s last, best hope to stop a terrorist madman hell-bent on starting a nuclear war. Thankfully, the ill-prepared Cooper has help in the form of Rick Ford, a bumbling retired CIA agent who can’t seem to get out of his own way.

A comedic send-up of films just like “The Amateur,” “Spy” thrives on McCarthy and Statham’s chemistry as a bona fide buddy comedy duo. McCarthy’s over-the-top antics pair well with Statham’s straight-laced persona, making for a wit-first action movie that will delight any spy thriller fan looking for a laugh.

In 2005, “Three Days of the Condor” director Sydney Pollack returned to the spy world with a new political thriller. “The Interpreter,” starring Sean Penn, Nicole Kidman, and Catherine Keener, revolves around a conspiracy to assassinate a foreign leader. Despite being a similar suspense story about a geopolitical conspiracy, it never became quite as beloved as Pollack’s earlier film, but that’s not a knock on its quality.

Kidman stars as U.N. interpreter Sylvia Bloom, who is attending a summit of global leaders who have gathered to address disturbing allegations against the leader of a fictional African nation. President Edmund Zuwanie (Earl Cameron) has been accused of ethnic cleansing, and it appears to be an open and shut case. Bloom, who lost her brother to violence under Zuwanie’s rule, is there only in her official capacity as an interpreter, and when she unwittingly gets wind of a sinister plot to kill the African president, no one will believe her. Forced to investigate the situation on her own, Bloom finds herself in the middle of a dangerous international conspiracy.

Armed with information that implicates powerful world leaders, Bloom must decide whether to expose them and save the life of the man responsible for her brother’s death. Like “The Amateur,” “The Interpreter” shows us just how perilous it can be to stand up for the truth. 

Today, he’s best known for playing Voldemort, but before he starred in “Harry Potter,” actor Ralph Fiennes was known for his roles in some of the best dramas of the ’90s, like “Schindler’s List” and “The English Patient.” His 2005 political thriller, “The Constant Gardener,” never reached the heights of his other work, but it deserves to be in the conversation. It’s adapted from a novel by acclaimed spy author John le Carré, whose books “A Spy Who Came in From the Cold,” “The Night Manager,” and “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy” have all received acclaimed adaptations.

In “The Constant Gardener,” Fiennes steps into the role of Justin Quayle, a British diplomat who marries Amnesty International activist Tessa Abbott (Rachel Weisz) after a whirlwind love affair. During a posting to Kenya, however, Abbott discovers a link between mysterious deaths and an experimental drug, and not long after, she turns up dead. When Quayle investigates on his own and learns that his wife may have had a target on her back placed there by his own government, he sets out to expose them and get justice when no one else will.

A tale about a man on a mission of justice who is willing to risk his own life to expose a broader conspiracy, “The Constant Gardener” is a pitch-perfect political thriller that shares a lot in common with “The Amateur.” It’s also a murder mystery and a sprawling globe-trotting adventure that will have you on the edge of your seat, wondering who is really pulling the strings.

“The Amateur” is ultimately a revenge story, with political intrigue adding to the thrills. In that vein, we recommend “Taken,” a story that’s a more personal tale with no larger, complex geopolitical conspiracies at play. While it’s been made infamous thanks to social media, where out-of-context clips play for laughs, “Taken” isn’t the silly action movie the memes would have you believe.

Liam Neeson stars as Bryan Mills, who has a difficult relationship with his daughter, Kim (Maggie Grace), though his hopes are high after he gets his ex-wife’s permission to take Kim on a trip to Paris. Things take a turn for the worse when she’s abducted off the street, and when authorities don’t seem interested in pursuing his daughter’s abductors, Mills makes it his personal mission to hunt them down and dish out bloody punishment. This goal is easier to achieve than it would be for most men because Mills is no mere father; he’s a man with exceptional skills — a former Green Beret and retired CIA field agent who has no qualms about putting dirtbags down.

Though its sequels took the franchise a little too far into the absurd, “Taken” is the quintessential revenge movie. While Bryan Mills is a very different kind of CIA agent than Charlie Heller, he’s no less motivated to get justice for his family.

Benedict Cumberbatch is one of Britain’s biggest stars, with roles in multiple blockbuster franchises, but he’s also headlined quite a few political thrillers. Among them is “The Courier,” a film many overlooked when it was released, possibly because it arrived amongst the flurry of post-COVID-19 releases. Like “The Amateur,” it centers on an ordinary man who finds himself thrust into an intelligence mission with global consequences.

“The Courier” has Cumberbatch playing not a spy or military general, but a rather average man who spends his days in the drudgery of office work. His name is Greville Wynne, and as a salesman and engineer, he’s far from the daring intelligence agent you’d want in the spy service. But that’s exactly where he ends up when American and British intelligence agencies decide that their latest mission — to retrieve a cache of Soviet nuclear secrets from an apparent defector — requires just such a person. Wynne’s regular visits to Moscow for business serve as the perfect cover, making him the ideal courier to ferry Soviet secrets out of Russia.

A taut thriller filled with Cold War espionage and shadowy foreign agents, “The Courier” might be too outlandish to believe — if it weren’t based on a true story.

Spy games, terrorists, a mission of revenge, and an intelligence agent looking for the truth about his wife’s involvement in a global conspiracy. “Black Bag” has all the elements of “The Amateur,” but director Steven Soderbergh tosses them into a blender to create something a little different: a thriller centered on a spy whose own wife may be involved in a conspiracy within his own agency.

Focusing far more on the spycraft elements than “The Amateur,” Soderbergh’s story is a tense game of cat and mouse. It stars Michael Fassbender as George Woodhouse, a counterintelligence officer with the National Cyber Security Centre who is troubled when he’s told by his superiors that there may be a mole leaking the agency’s classified information. Making things more complicated, when he’s given a list of likely suspects, his own wife, Kathryn (Cate Blanchett), is among them. To get to the bottom of what’s really going on, Woodhouse plays a series of psychological mind games in an effort to uncover the truth, setting off a battle of wits between the suspects and their pursuer.

A very different kind of spy movie, “Black Bag” feels like a cross between “The Amateur” and “Knives Out.” It all adds up to a film we called “an exquisite spy thriller” in our review, with expert direction and a cast of stars at the top of their game.