Film

The American

Name: The American
Genre: Crime, Drama, Thriller
Released: 2010
Cast: George Clooney, Violante Placido, Thekla Reuten, Paolo Bonacelli, Johan Leysen

A hitman in hiding finds refuge in a small Italian town, where the slow rhythm of life and an unexpected connection threaten the careful distance he's maintained from the world. Deliberate and atmospheric, it's a character study dressed as a thriller—for those who prefer mood and implication to plot momentum.

TMDb rating

3.0

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you want a slow-burn character study where silence and framing do the talking, and a killer's quiet craftsmanship matters more than gunfights.

Skip it if you need the plot to keep moving; long stretches of a man brooding, working and wandering can feel like waiting for the film to start.

What it asks of you: Unhurried and quiet, it stretches out long pauses, sparse dialogue and lingering shots of landscape and small gestures, so it rewards stillness more than momentum.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

Drive2011

A getaway driver navigates Los Angeles with the same quiet intensity and moral ambiguity. Gorgeous cinematography, minimal dialogue, and a protagonist whose silences speak volumes. Pure mood.

But The pacing is glacial by design. If you need incident and dialogue to stay engaged, this will test your patience.

A Ghost Story2017

Two people in a house, the weight of time, and the question of what we leave behind. Like The American, it's interested in stillness as a form of storytelling. Haunting and meditative.

But It's experimental and deliberately slow. The central conceit—a ghost watching from under a sheet—requires you to buy into its emotional logic early.

Only God Forgives2013

Ryan Gosling in Bangkok, seeking vengeance with the same glacial composure as Clooney's assassin. Nicolas Winding Refn trades Italy for Thailand but keeps the dreamlike atmosphere and moral emptiness intact.

But It's aggressively stylish and thin on plot. The neon-soaked violence will alienate anyone looking for conventional narrative thrust.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from The American

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

The Leopard1963

Both films use Italy's beauty as a stage for men observing the dissolution of their old lives. Visconti taught Antonioni; The American inherits that European slowness and moral opacity.

Luchino Visconti's epic about a Sicilian nobleman watching his world dissolve. Like The American, it moves with painterly deliberation through Italian landscapes, examining how men adapt—or fail to—when the ground shifts beneath them. Ravishing and melancholic.

But It's 205 minutes of 1963 cinema. The rhythm is operatic; if you're impatient with long takes and philosophical dialogue, you'll find it remote.

In the Cut2003

A woman entangled with a detective in a murder investigation, shot with voyeuristic unease. Like The American, it's about the gap between surfaces and what lurks beneath—sensual and unsettling.

But The sexual content is explicit and the tone is ambiguous in ways that can feel uncomfortable rather than intriguing.

Thief1981

Michael Mann's masterpiece about a jewel thief trying to go straight. It has The American's obsession with professionalism as identity, plus a synthesizer score that's hypnotic.

But The '80s aesthetic hasn't aged gracefully for everyone. Some scenes drag; the emotional payoff requires patience.

The Counselor2013

Ridley Scott and Cormac McCarthy on the Mexican border. Clooney appears here too, in a world where moral compromise has actual teeth. Richly written and visually sumptuous.

But It's pretentious and baroque. The dialogue can feel overwrought, and the violence is gratuitous in ways that alienate more than clarify.

A Prophet2009

A young man's education in a French prison, where survival means reinvention. Like Jack, the protagonist learns that isolation and cunning are survival tools. Gripping and deeply intelligent.

But It's in French with subtitles. The prison violence is brutal and the moral universe is bleak; there's no redemption arc to soften the edges.

Killing Zoe1993

A bank robber in Paris during a single night of escalating chaos. It has The American's European setting and its interest in professionals operating in moral grey zones, but with more frenetic energy.

But The '90s indie aesthetic feels dated. The violence is stylised in a way that some will find overwrought or gratuitous.

Bitter Lake2015

A classified operative arrives in Afghanistan to assess the situation and finds nothing is as it seems. Slow-burn paranoia and institutional corruption echo The American's themes of isolation and buried truth.

But It's a BBC documentary masquerading as narrative, and its critique of Western intervention is relentless without offering easy answers. Dense and demanding.

Stalker1979

Both films trust stillness and implication over exposition. Both concern men defined by their function—assassin, guide—who discover that hiding from the world offers no refuge from themselves. Both are about the weight of waiting.

Andrei Tarkovsky's science-fiction meditation on desire, faith, and the spaces between what we want and what we find. A guide escorts two men through a mysterious zone toward a room that grants wishes. Hypnotic, philosophical, utterly unconcerned with plot.

But It's nearly three hours of Russian cinema from 1979. If you need action, conventional narrative, or emotional catharsis, this will feel like watching paint dry in a language you don't speak.

A Dark Song2016

Both films use isolation—geographical, emotional, spiritual—as their true subject. Both slow down time to examine what happens when someone tries to outrun their past by staying still. The American is about a man who succeeds; A Dark Song is about a woman who learns she cannot.

A woman and an occultist lock themselves in a house for a ritual that might be redemption or delusion. It shares The American's patience with atmosphere and its fascination with two people circling each other in close quarters, but the emotional register is rawer—grief rather than control.

But It's a quiet Irish film about grief and faith that doubles as a dark-mirror romance. If you hate ambiguity about supernatural elements or find grief-centred narratives exhausting, this won't move you.