"One man will make a mistake. The other will make it a spectacle."

1997

1h 54m

6.2(370 votes)

Thriller

Drama

Overview

A misguided museum guard who loses his job and then tries to get it back at gunpoint is thrown into the fierce world of ratings-driven TV gone mad.

Where to Watch

Buy

Rent

Links & Resources

IMDbView

Social & External

IMDb

Production Companies

The people behind it

Cast & crew

10 featured cast members

Starring

John Travolta

Sam Baily

Dustin Hoffman

Max Brackett

Mia Kirshner

Laurie Callahan

Alan Alda

Kevin Hollander

Robert Prosky

Lou Potts

Blythe Danner

Mrs. Banks

William Atherton

Dohlen

Ted Levine

Lemke

Milton Davis Jr.

The Kids

Bill Nunn

Cliff Williams

Creative team

Directed by: Costa-Gavras
Written by: Tom Matthews
Eric Williams
Produced by: Arnold Kopelson
Anne Kopelson

Similar Movies

7.0

1973

Between Friends

An ex-con, his daughter and her two friends plan the elaborate heist of a nickel mine in Northern Ontario.

Movie

6.8

2002

Panic Room

Trapped in their New York brownstone's panic room, a hidden chamber built as a sanctuary in the event of break-ins, newly divorced Meg Altman and her young daughter Sarah play a deadly game of cat-and-mouse with three intruders - Burnham, Raoul and Junior - during a brutal home invasion. But the room itself is the focal point because what the intruders really want is inside it.

Movie

5.9

1980

Opera Prima

Matias meets Violeta, his cousin one morning in Madrid at the Plaza de Opera. He is twenty-five. She is 18. He's a divorced journalist trying to write a thriller. She studies violin. She's a vegetarian. He loves meat. Many things separate them, but he moves into her apartment.

Movie

6.0

2007

Lions for Lambs

Three stories told simultaneously in ninety minutes of real time: a Republican Senator who's a presidential hopeful gives an hour-long interview to a skeptical television reporter, detailing a strategy for victory in Afghanistan; two special forces ambushed on an Afghani ridge await rescue as Taliban forces close in; a poli-sci professor at a California college invites a student to re-engage.

Movie

4.3

1983

Bolero

Pete is no stranger to success, delivering hit series as a musician in a rock group. When he parts ways with his band and produces his first solo LP, he learns for the first time what a flop means. He did not expect this. He is insecure and desperate, while Lena, his wife, accepts this low blow as a challenge. Jealously, Pete observes that Lena is becoming more and more independent and self-confident in her surroundings. At home there are arguments until everyone packs his bags. Alone with his longing and tenderness for Lena, Pete composes the "Bolero" on his white grand piano that calls her back.

Movie

5.5

2007

Hotel Very Welcome

Five young Europeans (German, English, and Irish) try to find answers to life's questions in India and Thailand.

Movie

6.3

2007

Bordertown

American corporations are using the North American Free Trade Agreement by opening large maquiladoras right across the United States–Mexico border. The maquiladoras hire mostly Mexican women to work long hours for little money in order to produce mass quantity products. Lauren Adrian, an impassioned American news reporter for the Chicago Sentinel wants to be assigned to the Iraq front-lines to cover the war. Instead, her editor George Morgan assigns her to investigate a series of slayings involving young maquiladora factory women in a Mexican bordertown.

Movie

6.5

1999

Edge of Seventeen

1984, Sandusky, Ohio. A naive 17-year-old navigates heartbreak and self-expression as he explores his sexuality.

Movie

5.0

1962

The Dance

The Dance is a 1962 French comedy film directed by Norbert Carbonnaux and starring Jean-Pierre Cassel, Françoise Dorléac and Arletty. The film is based on the French comic strip 13 rue de l'Espoir.

Movie

7.5

1987

Hostage

The leader of a South African Nation is imprisoned. His followers, led by Zabo, hijack a plane with the intent to use the passengers as hostages to trade for his release. They select a plane carrying a religious leader to use as their main hostage. They soon learn that they have an added bonus of the daughter and grandson of Colonel Shaw, a bigwig in the country. The grandson all the while has to cope with the dual problems of being hijacked and held hostage while needing a kidney transplant. The hijackers have everything in their favor, except that the colonel's daughter is the sweetheart of Major Sam Striker. Striker puts together a band of mercenaries and sets about freeing the hostages.

Movie

5.2

1980

Traficantes Del Panico

A band of thugs belonging to an organized crime family assaults several casinos at the same time creating death and panic in their wake. As they flee the scenes of their crimes police begin to close in on them, so they quickly hide themselves in a villa owned by a wealthy industrialist taking him and his family hostage.

Movie

6.6

2024

The Man Who Loved UFOs

In the late 1980s, journalist José de Zer seeks proof of alien life in Argentina — even if he has to fake evidence — causing a surreal media circus.

Movie

2007

Why Didn't Anybody Tell Me It Would Become This Bad in Afghanistan

Near-silent and shot via a cell phone, a war veteran observes the world which has been colored by his experiences in Afghanistan.

Movie

3.6

1997

Juvenile Crime

In November of 1988 four young men abducted and held Junko Furuta for several weeks in the house of one of her captors. This is her story.

Movie

7.0

1987

Cry Freedom

A dramatic story, based on actual events, about the friendship between two men struggling against apartheid in South Africa in the 1970s. Donald Woods is a white liberal journalist in South Africa who begins to follow the activities of Stephen Biko, a courageous and outspoken black anti-apartheid activist.

Movie

6.7

2000

Pollock

In August of 1949, Life Magazine ran a banner headline that begged the question: "Jackson Pollock: Is he the greatest living painter in the United States?" The film is a look back into the life of an extraordinary man, a man who has fittingly been called "an artist dedicated to concealment, a celebrity who nobody knew." As he struggled with self-doubt, engaging in a lonely tug-of-war between needing to express himself and wanting to shut the world out, Pollock began a downward spiral.

Movie

5.6

1989

Shocker

About to be electrocuted for a catalog of heinous crimes, the unrepentant Horace Pinker transforms into a terrifying energy source. Only young athlete Jonathan Parker, with an uncanny connection to him through bizarre dreams, can fight the powerful demon.

Movie

6.9

1981

Southern Comfort

A squad of National Guards on an isolated weekend exercise in the Louisiana swamp must fight for their lives when they anger local Cajuns by stealing their canoes. Without live ammunition and in a strange country, their experience begins to mirror the Vietnam experience.

Movie

6.2

1993

Kaspar Hauser

In May 1828, a feral boy aged around 16 was found in Nuremberg. Kaspar Hauser, as he is called, can only speak a few indistinct words and knows nothing about his origins or family. The film depicts the - presumed - circumstances under which Hauser was held captive in complete isolation in a hiding place from infancy onwards. From this emerges the picture of an intrigue involving high circles of aristocratic society. Five years after his liberation, in December 1833, Kaspar Hauser died as a result of a stab wound inflicted by an unknown perpetrator.

Movie

4.4

2008

Vegas: Based on a True Story

The film takes place away from the glittering strip of mega casinos, but the greed of Sin City is just as pervasive on the desert outskirts. This is where a happy family learns of a forgotten fortune that may be buried beneath their home. Their lives are turned upside down. A sophisticated study of just how far people are able and willing to go if faced with the tempting prospect of easily acquired wealth.

Movie

Recommended Movies

7.4

2019

Richard Jewell

Richard Jewell thinks quick, works fast, and saves hundreds, perhaps thousands, of lives after a domestic terrorist plants several pipe bombs and they explode during a concert, only to be falsely suspected of the crime by sloppy FBI work and sensational media coverage.

Movie

6.2

2023

On Fire

Inspired by true and harrowing events, an ordinary man finds his world suddenly torn apart as devastating wildfires rip through the surrounding countryside. With precious moments ticking by, he must flee with his son and pregnant wife if they have any hope of surviving the rapid forces of mother nature.

Movie

6.2

2006

Unknown

Five men wake up in a locked-down warehouse with no memory of who they are. They are forced to figure out who is good and who is bad to stay alive.

Movie

7.5

1993

A Perfect World

A kidnapped boy strikes up a friendship with his captor: an escaped convict on the run from the law, headed by an honorable U.S. Marshal.

Movie

6.2

2012

The Company You Keep

A former Weather Underground activist goes on the run from a journalist who discovers his identity.

Movie

5.8

2017

6 Below: Miracle on the Mountain

An adrenaline seeking snowboarder gets lost in a massive winter storm in the back country of the High Sierras where he is pushed to the limits of human endurance and forced to battle his own personal demons as he fights for survival....

Movie

5.9

1988

The House on Carroll Street

A reporter, fired after refusing to give names to a 1951 House Un-American Activities Committee, takes a part-time job as companion to an old lady. While working she overhears a noisy argument in the neighboring house, being conducted largely in German and involving her HUAC prosecutor. She begins to investigate, enlisting the help of the FBI Agent initially detailed to surveil her.

Movie

6.2

1987

Black Widow

Federal agent Alexandra Barnes believes that Catherine Petersen is a serial killer who marries rich men and then murders them for their money. But since Catherine is seemingly a master of disguise and has multiple identities, Alexandra can't prove anything with conventional detective work. With no other option, she goes undercover, pursuing the same man as Catherine, and hoping that Catherine will slip up and reveal her true identity.

Movie

7.0

2024

September 5

During the 1972 Munich Olympics, an American sports broadcasting crew finds itself thrust into covering the hostage crisis involving Israeli athletes.

Movie

6.1

2017

Overdrive

Master car thieves square off against French gangsters in the South of France with money, women and lives all on the line.

Movie

6.5

2008

Eagle Eye

Jerry Shaw and Rachel Holloman are two strangers whose lives are suddenly thrown into turmoil by a mysterious woman they have never met. Threatening their lives and family, the unseen caller uses everyday technology to control their actions and push them into increasing danger. As events escalate, Jerry and Rachel become the country's most-wanted fugitives and must figure out what is happening to them.

Movie

The Amazing Digital Circus: The Last Act

8.8

2026

The Amazing Digital Circus: The Last Act

With Caine gone and the circus dark, the cast are left with only the mistakes and traumas of their pasts to keep them company. As the prospect of eternity closes in around them, they discover the truth about the Digital Circus and its history. Will they come to terms with what they uncover, or will they make... the other choice? Also, presumably at some point someone says something funny, because this ending can’t be THAT depressing, can it? A theatrical screening of episode 8 and the all new, hour-long episode 9.

Movie

6.0

2022

The 355

A group of top female agents from American, British, Chinese, Colombian, and German government agencies are drawn together to try and stop an organization from acquiring a deadly weapon to send the world into chaos.

Movie

6.1

2010

Hereafter

Three people — a blue-collar American, a French journalist and a London school boy — are touched by death in different ways.

Movie

7.0

1940

Foreign Correspondent

American crime reporter John Jones is reassigned to Europe as a foreign correspondent to cover the imminent war. When he walks into the middle of an assassination and stumbles on a spy ring, he seeks help from a beautiful politician’s daughter and an urbane English journalist to uncover the truth.

Movie

6.9

2025

Last Breath

Seasoned deep-sea divers battle the raging elements to rescue their crewmate trapped hundreds of feet below the ocean's surface.

Movie

7.1

2002

John Q

John Quincy Archibald is a father and husband whose son is diagnosed with an enlarged heart and then finds out he cannot receive a transplant because HMO insurance will not cover it. Therefore, he decides to take a hospital full of patients hostage until the hospital puts his son's name on the donor's list.

Movie

6.5

2013

White House Down

Capitol Policeman John Cale has just been denied his dream job with the Secret Service protecting President James Sawyer. Not wanting to let down his little girl with the news, he takes her on a tour of the White House, when the complex is overtaken by a heavily armed paramilitary group. Now, with the nation's government falling into chaos and time running out, it's up to Cale to save the president, his daughter, and the country.

Movie

7.1

2016

Snowden

CIA employee Edward Snowden leaks thousands of classified documents to the press.

Movie

6.5

2007

The Hunting Party

A young journalist, an experienced cameraman and a discredited reporter find their bold plan to capture Bosnia's top war criminal quickly spiraling out of control when a UN representative mistakes them for a CIA hit squad.

Movie