Movies like The Professional (1981)
The best movies like The Professional (1981) are The Living Daylights (1987), Breakout (1975) and Mission: Impossible III (2006). If The Professional hooked you with its action and adventure, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedCasino Royale (2006)7.6/10 from 12,204 votes
- NewestThe Amateur (2025)Released 2025
- In FrenchHunter Will Get You (1976)Also in French
The Living Daylights (1987)
After a defecting Russian general reveals a plot to assassinate foreign spies, James Bond is assigned a secret mission to dispatch the new head of the KGB to prevent an escalation of tensions between the Soviet Union and the West.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both action & adventure
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBreakout (1975)
A bush pilot is hired for $50,000 to go to Mexico to free an innocent prisoner.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both action & adventure
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMission: Impossible III (2006)
Retired from active duty, and training recruits for the Impossible Mission Force, agent Ethan Hunt faces the toughest foe of his career: Owen Davian, an international broker of arms and information, who's as cunning as he is ruthless. Davian emerges to threaten Hunt and all that he holds dear – including the woman Hunt loves.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both adventure & action
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisHunter Will Get You (1976)
L'Alpagueur is a free-lance spy from the French secret agency. He's put on the investigation about L'epervier, a serial-killer who employs young boys to help him robbing banks before killing them.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both action & thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMission: Impossible (1996)
When Ethan Hunt, the leader of a crack espionage team whose perilous operation has gone awry with no explanation, discovers that a mole has penetrated the CIA, he's surprised to learn that he's the prime suspect. To clear his name, Hunt now must ferret out the real double agent and, in the process, even the score.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both adventure & action
Worth the HypeMovies like thisSecret Agents (2004)
From his offices in Switzerland, Russian Igor Lipovsky is engaged in a vast and profitable gunrunning operation with Africa. The French government wants to hinder the activities of the arms dealer and sends a team to sink one of his ships heading for Angola with a load of illegal weaponry. Lisa, Brisseau, Loïc, Tony and Raymond are professionals: they carefully set up their cover, plan all their moves meticulously, and carry out orders without asking questions. Perhaps they should. The code-name of the mission is "Janus"; and just like with the ancient deity, there are two opposite faces for every aspect of the operation: the objective of the French government, the role of each team member, the presumed friend and the assumed foe...
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both action & thriller
SnoozefestMovies like thisHanna (2011)
Raised by her father, an ex-CIA agent, in the wilds of Finland, Hanna's upbringing has been geared to making her the perfect assassin. Sent into the world by her father on a mission, Hanna journeys across Europe, eluding agents dispatched after her by a ruthless intelligence operative. As she nears her ultimate target, Hanna faces startling revelations about her existence.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both action & thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Bourne Identity (2002)
Wounded to the brink of death and suffering from amnesia, Jason Bourne is rescued at sea by a fisherman. With nothing to go on but a Swiss bank account number, he starts to reconstruct his life, but finds that many people he encounters want him dead. However, Bourne realizes that he has the combat and mental skills of a world-class spy—but who does he work for?
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both action & thriller
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Domino Principle (1977)
Roy Tucker, a Vietnam war veteran with excellent shooting skills, is serving a long prison sentence when a mysterious visitor promises him that he will be released if he agrees to carry out a dangerous assignment.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both thriller & action
SnoozefestMovies like thisPoint of No Return (1993)
Hardened criminal Maggie Hayward's consistent violence, even in police custody, ends in the execution chamber. However, top-secret US government agent 'Bob' arranges a staged death, so Maggie can be elaborately trained as a phantom killer and subdued into obedience.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both action & thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisWho Am I? (1998)
A group of covert CIA operatives trailing a potential new energy source are double-crossed by corrupt agent Morgan, who causes a helicopter crash in remote South Africa. The sole survivor, suffering severe amnesia, is nursed to recovery by a kindly native tribe who call him "Whoami" after the question he keeps asking. With the help of a mysterious reporter Christine, Whoami pieces together his past and tracks the turncoat agent and his criminal cohorts.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both adventure & action
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Day of the Jackal (1973)
An international assassin known as ‘The Jackal’ is employed by disgruntled French generals to kill President Charles de Gaulle, with a dedicated gendarme on the assassin’s trail.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both action & thriller
Worth the HypeMovies like thisNikita (1990)
A beautiful felon, sentenced to life in prison for the murder of a policeman, is given a second chance – as a secret political assassin controlled by the government.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both action & thriller
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Fourth Protocol (1987)
Led by Kim Philby, Plan Aurora is a plan that breaches the top-secret Fourth Protocol and turns the fears that shaped it into a living nightmare. A crack Soviet agent, placed under cover in a quiet English country town, begins to assemble a nuclear bomb, whilst an MI5 agent attempts to prevent its detonation.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both action & thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisRonin (1998)
A briefcase with undisclosed contents – sought by Irish terrorists and the Russian mob – makes its way into criminals' hands. An Irish liaison assembles a squad of mercenaries, or 'ronin', and gives them the thorny task of recovering the case.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both action & thriller
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Amateur (2025)
After his life is turned upside down when his wife is killed in a London terrorist attack, a brilliant but introverted CIA decoder takes matters into his own hands when his supervisors refuse to take action.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both thriller & action
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisCasino Royale (2006)
Le Chiffre, a banker to the world's terrorists, is scheduled to participate in a high-stakes poker game in Montenegro, where he intends to use his winnings to establish his financial grip on the terrorist market. M sends Bond—on his maiden mission as a 00 Agent—to attend this game and prevent Le Chiffre from winning. With the help of Vesper Lynd and Felix Leiter, Bond enters the most important poker game in his already dangerous career.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both adventure & action
Worth the HypeMovies like thisRed Scorpion (1988)
A Soviet commando is sent to eliminate a rebel leader in Africa. Soon he finds himself doubting his mission.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both adventure & action
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisAvalanche Express (1979)
CIA agent Harry Wargrave is sent to aid Gen. Marenkov, a senior Russian official, who is defecting to the west. Wargrave decides they should travel to safety on a train across Europe, the "Atlantic Express". During the journey, they must survive attacks by terrorists and an avalanche, all planned by Russian spy-catcher Nikolai Bunin.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both action & thriller
SnoozefestMovies like thisHaywire (2011)
A black ops soldier seeks payback after she is betrayed and left for dead.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both action & thriller
SnoozefestMovies like thisGoldenEye (1995)
When a powerful secret defense system is stolen, James Bond is assigned to stop a Russian crime syndicate from using it.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both adventure & action
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisTriple Cross (1966)
Safecracker Eddie Chapman is languishing in prison on the island of Jersey when the Nazis arrive. An adept manipulator of situations, Chapman convinces the Germans to use him to spy on the British. And when the would-be traitor arrives home, he convinces the English to use him as a double agent -- in exchange for a full pardon.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both adventure & action
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisViolent City (1970)
A hitman is double-crossed by his girlfriend and barely escapes a murder attempt. He then sets out to take his revenge on the woman and the gang boss who put her up to it.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both action & thriller
SnoozefestMovies like thisKali: Avenging Angel (2024)
Lisa, aka Kali, has nothing left to lose when she finds out her husband has been executed in Rio to cover up a corruption scandal. A former Special Forces recruit, she heads to Brazil with fists, blood and explosives, to find out the truth.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both action & thriller
Worth the HypeMovies like thisAnna (2019)
Beneath Anna Poliatova's striking beauty lies a secret that will unleash her indelible strength and skill to become one of the world's most feared government assassins.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both action & adventure
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisScribe (2016)
Two years after a burn-out, Duval is still unemployed. Contacted by an enigmatic businessman, he is offered a simple and well-paid job: transcribing telephone tapping. Duval accepts financially without questioning the purpose of the organization that employs him. Precipitated at the heart of a political plot, he must face the brutal mechanics of the underground world of the secret services.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both action & thriller
SnoozefestMovies like thisThe Eiger Sanction (1975)
A classical art professor and collector, who doubles as a professional assassin, is coerced out of retirement to avenge the murder of an old friend.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both action & adventure
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSubway (1985)
Fred, a raffish safe blower, takes refuge in the Paris Metro after being chased by the henchmen of a shady businessman from whom he has just stolen some documents. While hiding out in the back rooms and conduits of the Metro, Fred encounters a subterranean society of eccentric characters and petty criminals.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both action & thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Magnificent One (1973)
A writer of pulpy book series in which he's the hero and his beautiful English roommate is the love interest attempts to finish his new book in time at the publisher's demand.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both action & adventure
Worth the HypeMovies like thisLargo Winch II (2011)
Propelled to the head of the W Group after the death of his adoptive father, Largo Winch decides, to everyone's surprise, to sell it, and use the proceeds to create an ambitious humanitarian foundation. But on the very same day, he finds himself accused of crimes against humanity by a mysterious witness. To prove his innocence, Largo will have to retrace the steps of his past life, in the heart of the Burmese jungle.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both action & adventure
SnoozefestMovies like this
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like The Professional?
The closest matches to The Professional are The Living Daylights (1987), Breakout (1975) and Mission: Impossible III (2006). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after The Professional?
People who watched The Professional most often go on to The Living Daylights (1987), Breakout (1975) and Mission: Impossible III (2006).
What is the highest-rated movie like The Professional?
Casino Royale (2006), rated 7.6/10 by 12,204 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like The Professional?
The Amateur (2025) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there French movies like The Professional?
Yes: Hunter Will Get You (1976), Secret Agents (2004) and Nikita (1990).
How are movies similar to The Professional chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside The Professional, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.