Top ten political thrillers

And no Dave Cameron in sight

Munich (Steven Spielberg 2005)
In Steven Steven Spielberg's semi-fictionalised tale Eric Bana stars as the leader of a squad of Mossad agents tasked with assassinating those responsible for the so-called 'Munich Massacre' at the 1972 Olympic Games. Uncharacteristically dark and morally ambiguous for Spielberg, it was the film that proved that he could do more than just cute aliens and Nazi-fighting archaeologists.

The Bourne Trilogy (Doug Liman, Paul Greengrass 2004-2007)
A rare example of a series where the sequels keep getting better, the Bourne films showed that action movies don't have to be brainless. The series' distinctive 'shaky cam' action scenes have been ripped-off by nearly every hack in Hollywood and led to the sharpest increase in audience motion sickness in cinema history.

All The President's Men (Alan J Pakula 1976)
Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman starred as Woodward and Bernstein, the two reporters who blew open the Watergate scandal and brought down Richard Nixon, in this 1970s Oscar winning classic. Men in bad suits drinking coffee and listing to wiretaps has never been so riveting.

JFK (Oliver Stone 1991)
Paranoid fantasy or a vital expose of America's biggest cover-up? In truth, it doesn't matter. Oliver Stone's three-hour magnum opus presents such a wild ride through American politics that that you can just sit back and enjoy the madness, magic bullet and all.

Air Force One (Wolfgang Peterson 1997)
Proof that not all political thrillers have to be clever. A group of Soviet terrorists plot to hijack the President's plane. What they did not count on was the President, played by Indiana Jones himself, Harrison Ford, deciding to start kicking ass and taking names. Somehow we don't think George-Dubya would have stood up as well.

The Manchurian Candidate (John Frankenheimer 1962)
Frank Sinatra stars as a damaged war veteran who knows there's something not quite right with decorated war hero Laurence Harvey, and creepy Senator step-father, in this classic paranoid thriller. A film that cuts so close to the bone that Sinatra was rumoured to have tried to have it removed from cinemas following JFK's assassination.

The Lives of Others (Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck 2007)
This German thriller bagged the Best Foreign Language Oscar in 2007, with good reason. Set during the final years of East Germany, the film follows a secret service agent who starts to question his commanders when he given the task of spying on a young couple. A masterpiece of world cinema, don't let the subtitles and heavy subject matter put you off.

Body of Lies (Ridley Scott 2007)
Two Hollywood heavyweights, Leonardo DiCaprio and Russell Crowe, teamed up with master director Ridley Scott for this tense topical terrorism thriller. A chilling look at the present international political climate, even more scary than the 63 pounds Crowe gained for his role as a sleazy CIA boss.

State of Play (Kevin MacDonald 2009)
Adapting a six hour British television drama into a feature length Hollywood movie was always going to be a tricky proposition, but it's an even harder one when that TV series is one of the most acclaimed pieces of television in years. But by cleverly updating the focus from newspapers to web 2.0, highlighting the massive shifts in journalism over the last years, it more than established itself as its own beast. Plus having Russell Crowe to step in for John Simms was handy.

Carlos (Olivier Assayas 2010)
An epic, sprawling biopic of the notorious revolutionary, French director Olivier Assayas' film attempts to uncover the man behind the enigma that is Carlos the Jackal. Despite the heavy subject matter and vast scope, the film rattles along at fantastic pace, anchored by a fantastic performance by Edgar Ramirez, looking effortlessly cool and swaggering between the film's stunning set-pieces.

Carlos is in cinemas 22 October.