Top 15 Best Hostage Movies

Former agent Bryan Mills races through Paris after his daughter is kidnapped by human traffickers. With its iconic 'particular set of skills' phone monologue, lightning-fast action and a role that turned Liam Neeson into a late-career action hero, Taken is the embodiment of relentless fatherly vengeance.

Denzel Washington plays Creasy, a burnt-out bodyguard in Mexico City. When the girl he protects is kidnapped, he unleashes a furious crusade. Stylish editing, a fiery soundtrack and a heartbreaking emotional core lift this revenge story above the average action film.

Two girls disappear on Thanksgiving. Desperate father Keller Dover pushes Detective Loki and himself past legal limits. Denis Villeneuve delivers a bleak, morally complex thriller in which rain, cages and mazes keep your nerves stretched tight.

'Look at me. I'm the captain now.' Tom Hanks plays the merchant ship captain taken hostage by Somali pirates. Paul Greengrass' handheld camera puts you on the swaying bridge as humanity and desperation collide on the open sea.

A bank robbery turns into a brilliant chess match between robber Dalton Russell and detective Frazier. Spike Lee combines an elegant puzzle structure with social commentary, while you keep wondering who's really being held hostage: the bank, the public or the truth.

A bus full of passengers can't drop below 50 mph or it will explode. Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock race through Los Angeles while a sadistic bomber watches. Pure kinetic tension; every bump in the freeway feels like a skipped heartbeat.

On a scorching hot day, a bank robbery goes wrong and turns into a media circus and hostage drama. Al Pacino's desperate cries to the crowd ('Attica!') make this true story a socially charged, sweltering classic.

John McClane, one man against a dozen armed hostage-takers in a skyscraper. A Christmas party, air ducts and unforgettable one-liners make it the ultimate high-rise hostage thriller. Yippee-ki-yay.

Terrorists hijack the presidential plane, but the president (Harrison Ford) turns out to be an old-school former soldier. Air pressure, politics and claustrophobia add up to two hours of patriotic nail-biting at 30,000 feet. 'Get off my plane!'

During the 1979 Iran hostage crisis, CIA officer Tony Mendez devises a crazy cover plan to rescue six American diplomats: pretending they're a Canadian sci-fi film crew. With '70s mustaches, tension and dry humor, Argo shows that truth is sometimes more absurd than fiction. It won the Oscar for Best Picture.

Injured novelist Paul Sheldon ends up in the 'loving' care of superfan Annie Wilkes. What follows is the most claustrophobic nursing ever: casts, a sledgehammer and psychopathic devotion. An intimate hostage story that cracks bones and nerves.

For young Jack, the shed called 'Room' is the whole world; for his mother, it's a prison. Their escape only starts the real struggle: learning to breathe in freedom. Moving, gripping and hopeful at the same time, with an Oscar-winning Brie Larson.

Serial killer Buffalo Bill holds a senator's daughter captive; FBI trainee Clarice Starling seeks help from cannibal Hannibal Lecter. Psychological hostage-taking on several fronts, steeped in intellectual sparring and pure nightmare suspense.

When billionaire Tom Mullen's son is kidnapped, he turns the tables: he offers the ransom money as a bounty on the kidnappers. Mel Gibson and Gary Sinise deliver a cat-and-mouse game full of moral gray areas.

Armed men hijack a New York subway train and demand a million dollars, threatening to kill a hostage for every minute the money is late. Walter Matthau's dry humor clashes wonderfully with the hijackers' ice-cold efficiency. A tight ticking-clock scenario that still requires nerves of steel.