Three Days of the Condor (1975)

The knock on this movie is they get together too quickly – or even at all. I suppose it’s not wrong. But this movie is a lot more adult than that. They don’t fall in love; the movie’s not sappy. They’re two lonely and scared people alone, together, in a bizarre, terrifying situation and they act out on that. And there are real repercussions that follow – she feels cheap and ashamed; he’s too wrapped around the axle of his own nightmare to realize he took advantage of her. But the conversations that follow are more grown-up than this aspect of the movie gets credit for.

The rest of it is always so much better than I remember, and I love this fucking movie. The acting elevates everything, including the many, many great lines:

Joe: I don’t remember yesterday. Today, it rained.

Higgins: He reads.
What does that mean?
Higgins: It means he reads everything.

Joubert: You have not much future there [in NYC]. It will happen this way. You may be walking. Maybe the first sunny day of the spring. And a car will slow beside you, and a door will open, and someone you know, maybe even trust, will get out of the car. And he will smile, a becoming smile. But he will leave open the door of the car and offer to give you a lift.

Wabash: I go even further back than that. Ten years after The Great War, as we used to call it. Before we knew enough to number them.

Higgins: It'd have to be somebody in the community.
Joe Turner: Community?
Higgins: Intelligence field.
Joe Turner: Community! Jesus, you guys are kind to yourselves. Community.

Turner: I was born in the United States, Joubert. I miss it when I'm away too long.

4⭐️