The Bourne Trilogy

The series that turned boy-next-door Matt Damon into one of cinema's more unlikely action heroes, the Bourne Trilogy brought intelligence and realism back to the Hollywood spy thriller. Very loosely based on Robert Ludlum's checkout-line novels, the trio of films was kicked off by indie director Doug Liman (The Bourne Identity), who established the key trademarks of lightning-quick pacing and intense action. British helmer Paul Greengrass, along with screenwriter Tony Gilroy, then took the franchise's gritty tone and spare dialogue even further with The Bourne Supremacy and The Bourne Ultimatum. Both pursuing and pursued by his shadowy past, the amnesiac Bourne is perpetually on the run, utilizing his many startling abilities (improvised weapons include a pen, a book, and a towel) as he searches for the mysterious organization that gave him his considerable skills (and apparently employs an impressive array of character actors). In addition to numerous visceral fight scenes and jarring car chases, the trilogy features the stunning surveillance-dodging Waterloo Station sequence (Ultimatum), a veritable master class in taut, tense filmmaking. Even inspiring reboots of iconic franchises that came before it (the James Bond, Mission: Impossible, and Die Hard movies), the Bourne Trilogy actually got better as it went along, and it stands as a high-water mark in the action-thriller genre.