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Michael Caine has appeared in many great movies during his long and illustrious career. Known worldwide for his Cockney accent and wide smile, the London-born actor has made more than 160 films spanning eight decades.
Audiences in recent years will have enjoyed his performances as a regular in Christopher Nolan’s films including his Batman trilogy in which he played the caped crusader’s butler Alfred Pennyworth, as well as The Prestige, Inception and Interstellar.Â
The seasoned performer was also brilliant in 2006’s Children of Men, and as a pensioner-turned-vigilante in Harry Brown. Additionally, he’s enjoyed notable appearances in Now You See Me and its sequel, and voiced The Psammead in Four Kids and It.
Michael Caine and Harvey Keitel in Youth (2015).
Elsewhere, he joined star-studded ensembles for Going In Style (alongside Morgan Freeman and Alan Arkin) and King of Thieves (with Jim Broadbent, Tom Courtenay, Michael Gambon and Ray Winstone amongst others).
The best Michael Caine movies
Michael Caine in The Dark Knight with Christian Bale.
Michael Caine has been a constant on screen. Since the 1960s, he’s enjoyed recognition as an icon of British cinema, turning his Cockney swagger into a notable piece of the Hollywood furniture too.
Over the course of more than 70 years, Caine has appeared in at least one bona fide “great” film in every single decade he’s worked as an actor. Most recently you can point to Harry Brown in the 2000s, and Interstellar in the 2010s.
Prior to this there’s 1999’s The Cider House Rules for which he was nominated for an Academy Award, Educating Rita in 1983, The Man Who Would Be King and Get Carter in 1975 and 1971 respectively, and The Italian Job in 1969.
10 Great Thrillers Starring Michael Caine
Laurence Olivier and Michael Caine in Sleuth (1972).
While Caine is recognised for his Cockney accent which has made an appearance in almost all his films, his career is still very diverse. From horror, science-fiction, war and action-adventure to romantic comedy and even a much-loved Christmas musical (The Muppet Christmas Carol), Michael Caine has done the lot.
Of all these, one genre deserves plenty of attention. That is the “Michael Caine Thriller”. Not all the actor’s “thrilling” films are conventional examples of the genre. There are some such as The Fourth Protocol and The Black Windmill which are thrillers in the classic mould, others that bridge the gap between horror and thriller, and those, such as World War II film The Eagle Has Landed and spy film The Ipcress File that feature elements of the genre.
Suffice to say, Caine likes to have us on the edge of our seats…
10. The Hand
Dir. Stone (1981)
Caine plays a comic book artist who loses his hand in a freak accident while in a car with his wife. Struggling to come to terms with incident, he begins to lose his mind, hallucinating images of his severed hand coming alive and killing people.
Not your usual movie from director Oliver Stone, The Hand was nevertheless also written by the filmmaker. It would be his second directorial effort after 1974’s Seizure and before Platoon and Salvador (both of which were released in 1986).
9. The Eagle Has Landed
Dir. Sturges (1976)
Caine plays villain Kurt Steiner, a German paratrooper, who is sent to England on a covert mission to kill Winston Churchill. Written by celebrated screenwriter Tom Mankiewicz, who amongst others wrote James Bond adventure Live and Let Die (1973) and Superman (1978), The Eagle Has Landed stretches credulity with a pleasing sense of fun that’s framed around hammy performances from an all-star cast.
8. The Ipcress File
Dir. Furie (1965)
The Ipcress File is a taut, downbeat spy thriller with Caine as agent Harry Palmer sporting a brawler’s mentality and a robotic preciseness to the way he does business (and pleasure). It is engaging in a different way to James Bond, particularly because Caine’s spy appears to be far more vulnerable than 007.
The anti-Bond movie, the film is intended to show spies in a slightly off-colour, off-kilter world. Certainly, director Sidney J. Furie’s bizarre camera angles aesthetically sidestep the gloss of Bond, while his avoidance of exotic locations furthers magnifies the disparity. In fact, Palmer has only the grey skies of London to enjoy, his spy skills put to the test in sparse, malnourished warehouses.
7. Harry Brown
Dir. Barber (2009)
Harry Brown recalls Get Carter in its take-no-prisoners spirit and revenge motifs amidst urban decay, lawlessness and retribution. The film features one of Caine’s best performances; even more noteworthy because it comes more than 50 years after he made his first one.
Caine was 76 at the time Harry Brown was released. But he proves he’s lost none of his touch. Brown isn’t a vigilante in the mould of Jennifer Hills’ abused young woman in I Spit On Your Grave, he’s an aged man of the world. His military training has taught him the survival instincts to stay one step ahead of these young offenders despite his advanced years holding him back.
He doesn’t suddenly transform into a super-anti-hero. He doesn’t suddenly become the pissed off gun-toting granddad with a grudge. He’s driven to make amends by a police force unable to bring the killers of his best friend to justice or to curb the violence and stifle the drug trade that plagues his neighbourhood.
6. The Fourth Protocol
Dir. Mackenzie (1987)
Frederick Forsyth’s novel The Fourth Protocol is brought to life by director John Mackenzie, who was responsible, most notably, for 1980s Brit-gangster thriller The Long Good Friday.
Starring Caine alongside Pierce Brosnan, Cold War tensions collide on British soil as a KGB assassin is sent to blow up a military airbase. Brosnan is the clinical KGB killer Petrofksy who finds MI5 agent John Preston (Caine) hot on his heels after the British agent finds top confidential NATO files have been leaked to the Soviet Union.
The Fourth Protocol is undeniably entertaining. It’s great to see a film of this international scope filmed in England, particularly given the anaemic nature of the industry during the 1980s, while two British stars (one established as a true great, the other awaiting his stature to explode a few years later with James Bond) deliver the goods.
It might be weaker than Forsyth’s much-celebrated The Day of the Jackal in cinematic terms, but it’ll still ignite those same fires in audiences who enjoy the writer’s work on-screen.
5. The Black Windmill
Dir. Siegel (1974)
Michael Caine in The Black Windmill (1974)
Directed by Don Siegel, this British-made thriller displays all the classic hallmarks of the cherished Hollywood filmmaker. It’s unapologetically cynical and doused in testosterone; its isolated hero leading a one-man mission to save his kidnapped son from a criminal network that appears to have links to MI6.
Caine plays a British agent John Tarrant whose son is kidnapped for ransom. Underpinned by Siegel’s penchant for displaying lone individualism, The Black Windmill places increasingly challenging obstacles in Tarrant’s way.
As he is progressively cut off from his spy pals and their commanders whose support he once relied upon unquestionably, the notch is turned up on his and his son’s survival.
4. Deathtrap
Dir. Lumet (1982)
Caine is an absolute delight in this smartly constructed film version of Ira Levin’s play. The dependable Sidney Lumet directs proceedings which take place almost exclusively in the Long Island home of Caine’s struggling playwright Sidney Bruhl.
Having received the manuscript of a play called Deathtrap from one of his young writing students, Bruhl decides to invite its creator to his home under the pretence of refining it. However, the increasingly desperate Bruhl’s plan is to kill the man and pass the play off as his home with the help of his ailing wife.
Taut, at times funny, and satisfyingly full of plot twists, Deathtrap, which also stars Christopher Reeve and Dyan Cannon, is an entertaining ride similar in style to Caine’s 1972 film Sleuth.
3. Sleuth
Mankiewicz (1972)
Best remembered for the two-handed face-off between a couple of cinema’s greatest heavyweights – the incomparable veteran Laurence Oliver and the young, dynamic upstart Michael Caine – Joseph Mankiewicz’s Sleuth is all about watching skilled actors plying their trade to perfection.
Based on Anthony Shaffer’s Tony-awarding play, this mystery-thriller remains glued to its two leads as the roles of protagonist and antagonist blur to keep you on the edge of your seat. Its dense, deeply layered and intelligent script is cleverly staged with subtle simplicity. Fittingly, Olivier and Caine were nominated for Academy Awards for their performances.
2. Dressed To Kill
Dir. De Palma (1980)
Brian De Palma’s stylish Hitchcockian thriller sees Caine play a New York City psychiatrist whose transgender patient begins stalking call girl Liz Blake (Nancy Allen).
This twisty (and twisted) drama sees De Palma at his most inspired, his kinetic camera inspiring some truly great visuals to complement the suitably fast-paced and enthralling murder-mystery. Caine is perfectly cast in a role that allows him to break outside of his usual comfort zone.
1. Get Carter
Dir. Hodges (1971)
The undisputed king of Michael Caine movies is this 1971 revenge drama adapted from Ted Lewis’ 1969 novel Jack’s Return Home. The debut effort of director Mike Hodges, Get Carter’s thrills are elevated by the filmmaker’s experience in documentaries, providing a down-and-dirty aesthetic that adds a brutal realism to the sadistic, and at times very graphic, violence.
Caine invested a lot of energy into the film, firstly acting as its co-producer, then drawing on his own understanding of the criminal underworld to develop on-screen character Jack Carter. He’s a nasty piece of work but we ultimately root for him; his detective-like pragmatism is driven by an icy determination to get to the bottom of his brother’s mysterious death no matter the cost.
The straightforwardness of Carter’s brutality is at once deeply affecting and memorably downbeat while the ultimate tragedy of the whole affair adds gravitas to proceedings.
As Carter finds out more about his brother’s life, the mystery unfolds before the audience as it does for the vengeful sibling, making for a sparse character-driven thriller that grips from minute one and builds to an unforgettable conclusion.
If you enjoyed our look at the best Michael Caine thrillers, you may also like:
Top 10 Michael Caine Films
He’s worked with Olivier, Shirley MacLaine, Sean Connery, Ben Kingsley; he’s worked on Get Carter, The Italian Job, Zulu and The Dark Knight – he is the incredibly talented Michael Caine.
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