Movies on the anguish of kidnapping

Actors: Hugh Jackman, Jake Gyllenhaal, Maria Bello, Terrence Howard

Keller Dover (Hugh Jackman) is facing every parent's worst nightmare. His six-year-old daughter, Anna, is missing, together with her young friend, Joy, and as minutes turn to hours, panic sets in. The only lead is a dilapidated RV that had earlier been parked on their street. Heading the investigation, Detective Loki (Jake Gyllenhaal) arrests its driver, Alex Jones (Paul Dano), but a lack of evidence forces his release. As the police pursue multiple leads and pressure mounts, knowing his child's life is at stake the frantic Dover decides he has no choice but to take matters into his own hands. But just how far will this desperate father go to protect his family? Led by Oscar® nominees Jackman and Gyllenhaal, this dramatic thriller features an all-star cast, including Oscar® nominees Viola Davis and Terrence Howard, Golden Globe Award nominee Maria Bello, Academy Award® winner Melissa Leo, and Paul Dano.

Actors: Frances McDormand, William H. Macy, Steve Buscemi

In Fargo, filmmaking brothers Joel and Ethan Coen both embrace and satirize their North Dakota roots. A patrolman and two innocent bystanders are discovered murdered in cold blood on a snowy North Dakota highway, leading very pregnant policewoman Marge Gunderson (Frances McDormand) on an investigation that uncovers a conspiracy of greed and ineptitude. Minneapolis husband, farther and car salesman Jerry Lundegaard (William H. Macy), who has long chafed under the thumb of his wealthy boss and father-in-law, concocts an elaborate scheme involving the kidnapping of his wife and a million-dollar ransom to pay off his extensive gambling debts. However, everything that could possibly go wrong indeed DOES go wrong. Officer Gunderson's outwardly homespun and folksy persona conceals a penetrating mind and a fierce moral compass, and she easily sees through the poorly executed and badly hidden events perpetrated by the bumbling, yet highly dangerous kidnappers (Steve Buscemi and Peter Stormare). Her hilarious and arresting performance netted her an Oscar, and the Coens were also rewarded with a Best Original Screenplay award.

Actors: Casey Affleck, Michelle Monaghan, Morgan Freeman, Ed Harris

Critics are calling Ben Affleck's directorial debut "mesmerizing" (Peter Travers, Rolling Stone). When two young private detectives (Casey Affleck, GOOD WILL HUNTING, and Michelle Monaghan, MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE III) are hired to take a closer look into the mysterious disappearance of a little girl, they soon unravel a multitude of twists and turns where nothing is what it seems. Ultimately they must risk everything their relationship, their sanity, and even their lives in the search to find her. Casey Affleck and Morgan Freeman are electrifying, and Amy Ryan (CAPOTE) delivers "a vibrant, knockout performance" (Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times) in this edge-of-your-seat crime drama. GONE BABY GONE "will have you talking long after it's over" (Christy Lemire, The Associated Press).

Actors: Angelina Jolie, John Malkovich

Clint Eastwood directs Oscar® winner Angelina Jolie and Oscar® nominee John Malkovich in a riveting and unforgettable true story. Los Angeles, 1928. When single mother Christine Collins (Jolie) leaves for work, her son vanishes without a trace. Five months later, the police reunite mother and son; but he isn't her boy. Driven by one woman's relentless quest for the truth, the case exposes a world of corruption, captivates the public and changes LA forever. This emotionally gripping story illustrates the profound power of a mother's love in "a mesmerizing film that burns in the memory" (Peter Travers, Rolling Stone).

Actors: Jeff Bridges, Kiefer Sutherland, Sandra Bullock

A young man embarks on an obsessive search for the girlfriend who mysteriously disappeared while the couple were taking a sunny vacation trip, and his three-year investigation draws the attention of her abductor, a mild-mannered professor with a diabolically clinical mind. An unorthodox love story and a truly unsettling thriller, Dutch filmmaker George Sluizer’s The Vanishing unfolds with meticulous intensity, leading to an unforgettable finale that has unnerved audiences around the world.

Actors: Sean Penn, Tim Robbins, Kevin Bacon

Three friends who grew up in working-class Boston drift apart after a terrible tragedy. Years later, brutal events reconnect them. Jimmy's 19-year-old daughter is coldly murdered. Dave is a suspect. And Sean, now a cop, scrambles to solve the crime before volatile Jimmy takes the law into his own hands. Working from Brian Helgeland's adaptation of Dennis Lehane's novel, director Clint Eastwood shapes a masterful, brooding thriller built on family, friends and innocence lost. Sean Penn, Tim Robbins and Kevin Bacon play the pivotal threesome, joining Laurence Fishburne, Marcia Gay Harden and Laura Linney in one of the most powerful casts ever.

Actors: Mel Gibson, Rene Russo, Gary Sinise

Actors: Bruce Willis, Emile Hirsch, Justin Timberlake, Anton Yelchin, Sharon Stone

They grew up together in the suburbs of LA, living their own version of the American dream, with every day a blur of partying and looking for the next thrill. Johnny (Emile Hirsch, Lords of Dogtown) is the leader in their sordid world of drugs, greed, power and privilege. But when he is double-crossed by another dealer, things quickly begin to spiral out of control, and an impulsive kidnapping leads to a shocking conclusion. Justin Timberlake (Edison), Sharon Stone (Bobby) and Bruce Willis (Lucky Number Slevin) co-star in this powerful and controversial film.

Actors: Meg Ryan, Russell Crowe

Academy Award and Golden Globe-winner Russell Crowe ("Cinderella Man," "A Beautiful Mind") and Golden Globe-nominee Meg Ryan ("Kate & Leopold," "You've Got Mail") star in this steamy romantic drama. When an American engineer working in South America is kidnapped, his wife enlists a special agent to help free him. Complications arise when the agent falls in love with her. Co-starring David Morse ("Bait," "The Green Mile") and Golden Globe-winner David Caruso (TV's "C.S.I. Miami," TV's "NYPD Blue"). Directed by Academy Award-winner Taylor Hackford ("Ray," "The Devil's Advocate").

Actors: Liam Neeson, Famke Janssen, Maggie Grace

When his estranged daughter is kidnapped in Paris, a former spy (Liam Neeson) sets out to find her at any cost. Relying on his special skills, he tracks down the ruthless gang that abducted her and launches a one-man war to bring them to justice and rescue his daughter.

Actors: Michael Douglas, Brittany Murphy, Sean Bean

Actors: Denzel Washington, Dakota Fanning, Cristopher Walken, Giancarlo Giannini, Mickey Rourke, Marc Anthony

Hard-drinking, burnt-out ex-CIA operative John Creasy (Denzel Washington) has given up on life--until his friend Rayburn (Academy Award winner Christopher Walken) gets him a job as a bodyguard to nine-year-old Pita Ramos (Dakota Fanning). Bit by bit, Creasy begins to reclaim his soul, but when Pita is kidnapped, Creasy unleashes a firestorm of apocalyptic vengeance against everyone responsible.

Actors: Ryan Reynolds, Rosario Dawson, Scott Speedman

In this psychological thriller from Academy Award Nominated director Atom Egoyan, Matthew (Ryan Reynolds) steps briefly into a diner and comes out to find that his young daughter Cassandra has vanished without a trace from the back of his truck. Her unsolved abduction destroys Matthew's once-happy relationship with his wife, Tina (Mireille Enos), who, haunted by mementos of Cassandra that appear mysteriously at her work, suspects her husband of foul play. Years later, when detectives Nicole (Rosario Dawson) and Jeffrey (Scott Speedman) discover recent images of Cassandra online, Matthew risks everything to ensure his daughter's safe return—and to save himself and Tina from the limbo of unrelenting despair. Kevin Durand, Alexia Fast, and Bruce Greenwood co-star.

Actors: Liam Neeson

Liam Neeson stars in A Walk Among the Tombstones, an action-thriller based on Lawrence Block’s bestselling series of mystery novels. Neeson plays Matt Scudder, an ex-cop turned unlicensed private investigator who reluctantly agrees to help a heroin trafficker (Dan Stevens, TV's Downton Abbey) hunt down the men who brutally murdered his wife. When the PI learns that this is not the first time, nor will it be the last, that these men have committed this sort of twisted crime, he must blur the line between right and wrong as he races to track the deviants through the backstreets of New York City before they kill again.