11 Best Movies About Assassins & Hitmen (Like The Killer) (2025)

While director David Fincher’s Netflix-streaming hit The Killer has proven a hit with both critics and viewers, there are many more classic hitman and assassin movies that viewers ought to seek out. Hitmen and assassins have been central figures in crime cinema for decades. There is something endlessly intriguing about a cold-blooded killer who can take lives for money, and these characters have been murky, morally ambiguous antiheroes as often as they have been outright villains. Michael Fassbender’s stoic unnamed lead character in David Fincher’s The Killer is the latest hitman to win over audiences despite his grisly career.

While the end of Fincher's The Killer reaffirms itself as a successful hitman movie, there are many more entries into this genre that are worth watching. Some are more comedic, wringing dark laughs out of the gruesome work of killing, while others are action-packed extravaganzas that feature bloody bullet ballets. Still others are dark excursions into the minds of people who kill for a living, while some are surprisingly funny, playful deconstructions of the crime movie genre. However, what all of these movies have in common is a focus on the world of contract killers, assassins, and hitmen, as well as the people who hire them.

11 John Wick (2014)

A Spectacular Hitman-Centric Action Movie

The franchise-spawning 2014 hit John Wick saw Keanu Reeves take on the role of the titular contract killer, a retired hitman who is forced back into the game when his beloved dog is killed by a thoughtless villain. Throughout the movie, the audience learns more about the legend of John Wick and how he earned his nickname Baba Yaga as a killer of almost supernatural abilities.

The growing John Wick franchise features some of the most impressive action set-pieces of all the movies listed here, as Reeves revives the action hero persona he perfected in earlier hits like Point Break and The Matrix movies. Like The Killer, John Wick is a man deadset on showing his enemies, which includes his former employer, that he is the wrong man to have messed with and making them pay for that mistake.

10 Kill List (2011)

Ben Wheatley's Deeply Unsettling Hitman Horror

Director Ben Wheatley’s Kill List could not be a bigger departure from the glamorous, neon-drenched world of John Wick. A strange blend of kitchen-sink realism and folk horror, this British indie chiller sees a soft-spoken hitman watch his life unravel after he takes on one last job. Like The Killer, Jay is a hitman who has botched a previous job. In need of money, he returns to the professional for three high-paying missions which brings him far more than he bargained for.

What begins as a tragic story of a troubled man trying to make ends meet gradually devolves into a full-blown nightmare as Kill List uses the business of killing to ground an increasingly dark, surreal horror story. There are incredibly eerie and shocking sequences that build to the movie's bleak and haunting ending. While totally different from The Killer in many ways, it's still a great assassin movie.

9 Killing Them Softly (2012)

A Brutally Bleak Assassin Thriller

The Killer is a hitman movie in the hands of an auteur filmmaker like David Fincher. It makes for a much more compelling genre entry than the typical fare and that is similar to Andrew Dominik's subversive and engrossing hitman movie Killing Them Softly. Following a mob poker game being robbed, a hitman is brought in to deal with the situation and kill those responsible.

Brad Pitt is in typically solid form as the brooding enforcer Jackie Cogan, but it is a dark sense of humor and a stellar ensemble cast that make this one unmissable. From Scoot McNairy to the late, great James Gandolfini, Killing Them Softly’s lineup makes for an unforgettable rogue’s gallery. However, similar to how The Killer goes for a more precise and clean look at the life of a hitman, Killing Them Softly takes a look at the business side of things with Coogan being a pragmatic operator who likes to handle things as simply as possible.

8 Pulp Fiction (1994)

Quentin Tarantio's Legendary Crime Anthology

No list of great hitman movies would be complete without Quentin Tarantino’s time-twisting hit Pulp Fiction. The movie is a look at the underbelly of the Los Angeles crime scene, with stories focusing on two lovebird robbers, a boxer on the run from a mobster, and a pair of hitmen, played by John Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson. However, Tarantino helped to change the view of movie hitmen forever with these two, chatting about pop culture and fast food instead of ruminating on morality and society.

The early scenes of Michael Fassbender's Killer eating MacDonalds and going about the mundane aspects of being a hitman seem like direct reflections on how Pulp Fiction changed the genre. Tarantino examined the pulpy genre stories and looked at the fun and colorful characters that could populate these worlds. It is one of the most influential movies of the 1990s

7 Killer Joe (2011)

Matthew McConaughey's Creepy Pitch Black Comedy

The 2011 movie Killer Joe somehow managed to outdo Killing Them Softly’s bleak story to tell an even grittier, more cynical story of hitmen and small-time crooks during the same year. Killer Joe sees Matthew McConaughey play a deeply creepy policeman who moonlights as a contract killer hired by a gutless criminal to murder his mother for insurance money. However, when Joe asks for an unusual price for the job, it ignites a brutal and violent odyssey.

What follows is one of director William Friedkin’s most underrated movies and one of his nastiest outings as double-crosses and bodies pile up in a thoroughly unpredictable thriller. Long before his acclaimed work in True Detective or his Oscar-winning role in Dallas Buyers Club, McConaughey delivered a terrific performance that showed he was ready for a career comeback.

6 Le Samouraï (1967)

The Killer's Classic Inspiration

The 1967 French film Le Samouraï imagines Alain Delon’s assassin Jef Costello as a modern-day samurai, operating within the criminal underworld while maintaining his own strict code of ethics. Similar to The Killer, it follows this hired assassin having a job go wrong as he leaves witnesses to his crimes. As a result, he attempts to cover his tracks only to find himself spiraling into more trouble.

Visually striking, Le Samouraï might be the biggest influence on Fincher’s The Killer among the other listed movies. However, for all its style, Le Samouraï has a beating heart beneath its icy exterior. Five years after its success in France, an English dub of the movie was released in America with the nonsensical title of The Godson attempting to capitalize on the success of The Godfather. Despite this, it has grown to be respected as a neo-noir classic and a brilliant movie in its own right.

5 No Country For Old Men (2007)

A Dark Story Of An Unstoppable Assassin

The 2007 Cormac McCarthy adaptation No Country for Old Men stands high among the best Coen Brothers movies, but it is also one of their bleakest outings. Josh Brolin stars as a man who comes across a drug deal gone bad in the desert and finds a satchel of cash. However, upon choosing to take it, he becomes the target of a relentless killer who has his own dark code based on the absolutism of fate.

Where Fincher’s bloody The Killer makes Michael Fassbender's unblinking assassin a morally complex figure, No Country for Old Men’s murderous hitman is barely even human. Javier Bardem’s infamous and Oscar winning role as the hitman Anton Chigurgh often feels more like an embodiment of death itself than a person; a glowering, terrifying villain that can’t be reasoned with, bribed, or escaped.

4 Collateral (2004)

Tom Cruise Chills As A Methodical Killer

Michael Mann is another director, like David Fincher, whose stylish and precise direction can elevate the crime genre and turn a pulpy and fun story into a near masterpiece. Collateral saw perennial multiplex hero Tom Cruise play against type as a hitman who comes to Los Angeles to carry out a series of murders. Jamie Foxx plays a cab driver who is unlucky enough to pick up Cruise's hitman and is dragged along on his deadly missions.

Cruise’s performance in the 2004 thriller movie is a revelation and one of his most underrated, but it is a jittery, anxious Jamie Foxx who steals the show in director Mann’s underworld thriller, earning the actor an Oscar nomination. Visually stylish and consistently unpredictable, Collateral remains an underrated classic of assassin cinema with vibrant and grounded action sequences that show the ferocious side of Cruise.

3 Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2005)

The Sparky Subversive Contract Killer Rom Com

While 2005’s Mr. & Mrs. Smith might be a lot sillier than many of the movies listed here, there is a reason that the movie received a TV reboot less than twenty years after its original release. is proof of just how irresistible this action-thriller’s killer premise is. The idea of two contract killers unknowingly marrying each other, only to then be tasked with assassinating each other, proved to be a perfect playful vehicle for Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie’s chemistry.

There is a lot of fun to be had with these two characters keeping their secrets from each other while attempting to maintain a mundane domestic life. However, the fun really begins when they become each other's targets and struggle with their conflicted feelings of being enemies while still being married. Director Doug Liman infuses the movie with a lot of fun action sequences with the best being the wild house fight between the spouses.

2 Grosse Pointe Blank (1997)

John Cusack Stars In An Offbeat Hitman Comedy

Grosse Pointe Blank is another lighter look at the world of assassins that debuted in 1997, and like The Killer, focuses on a hitman who treats the job as very matter-of-fact only to find himself the target of some of his competitors. John Cusack stars as a cynical, world-weary hitman whose life is turned upside down when he attends his high school reunion in his small hometown.

Making the most of Cusack’s considerable charm at the peak of his career, Grosse Pointe Blank is silly, surprising, and consistently fun despite occasional moments of gruesome violence. It once again has a lot of fun stripping down the mystique of the hitman profession, making it seem like any other job with its share of obstacles and annoyances. The movie also features a strong supporting cast, including Minnie Driver, Alan Arkin, and Dan Akroyd in a scene-stealing role as Cusack's main rival in the business.

1 In Bruges (2008)

Martin McDonagh's Underrated Assassin Comedy Of Errors

Before 2022’s The Banshees of Inisherin reunited director Martin McDonagh with stars Brendan Gleeson and Colin Farrell, In Bruges saw the trio collaborate in a blackly comic hitman tale. Like The Killer, the movie begins with a botched hit. In the aftermath, Farrell and Gleeson's hitmen partners are told by their boss (Ralph Fiennes) to go hideout in Bruges, Belgium, and await further instructions.

Moments of vicious violence punctuate both the character comedy and philosophical ruminations of In Bruges, but it is the stellar central performances that make this one an enduring cult classic. Farrell is at his best as the well-meaning but unstable Ray, while Gleeson imbues Ken with a hopeless humanity that even The Killer’s central turn couldn’t outdo. Fiennes also has a scene-stealing role as their hot-headed boss who lives by his own strict code.