1. The Cold War Thriller
If there was one thing that defined the Cold War - the period of unease and mutually assured destruction between the Western powers and the Soviet Union, it was paranoia. In countries like Britain and the United States, people lived in fear of many things, ranging from the spread of communism to a full on nuclear holocaust. Such an atmosphere lent itself well to films. For almost half a century, representatives of the two sides squared off on the silver screen in gritty thrillers that were nailbiting from start to finish, including some of the finest Bond films and adaptations of the works of authors such as Frederick Forsyth and John Le Carre. Russians, whether sympathetic, devious or nefarious, almost always made for complex and interesting characters, but the fall of the Berlin Wall and the break-up of the Soviet motherland all but killed the genre that they were best suited to, which lives on only in period pieces such as the Gary Oldman-starring adaptation of Le Carre's Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. Such films, though excellent, sadly lack the impact of those made during the Cold War period itself.
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