From Russia With Love (1963)
Coolest Element: His training - Grant gets to practice by sneaking up on hapless goons wearing Sean Connery face masks.
Road To Perdition (2002)
The Assassins: With once-reliable Mob enforcer Michael Sullivan (Tom Hanks) now a loose cannon, it's up to seedy Harlen Maguire (Jude Law) to track Sullivan down.
Weapon Of Choice: Sullivan's a typical Thompson submachine gun fan, but Maguire favours a Winchester shotgun.
Coolest Element: Maguire's cover is that of a press photographer, meaning he can make an extra buck selling snaps of his own crime scenes.
Nikita (1990)
The Assassin: Nikita (Anna Parillaud), a teenage junkie retrained as a weapon of mass destruction.
Weapon Of Choice: Female sexuality. She looks well slinky in a cocktail dress.
Coolest Element: She's even hard enough to take on the notorious Cleaner (Jean Reno) and win.
Apocalypse Now (1979)
The Assassin: Captain Willard (Martin Sheen), sent upriver during the Vietnam War to terminate ("with extreme prejudice") rogue Colonel Kurtz.
Weapon Of Choice: Willard's machete murder of Kurtz is timed to coincide with the ceremonial slaughter of a buffalo. It's, like, symbolic.
Coolest Element: The journey - a phantasmagorical voyage through all kinds of weird, wired wartime shenanigans.
The Killer (1989)
The Assassin: Triad hitman and unexpectedly nice guy Ah Jong (Chow Yun Fat).
Weapon Of Choice: A gun in each hand, best fired from a diving position.
Coolest Element: Ah Jong comes out of retirement for one last job, simply to fund an eye operation for a girl he accidentally blinded.
Mr & Mrs Smith (2005)
The Assassins: John and Jane Smith (Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie), unhappily married largely because neither knows that the other is a professional killer.
Weapon Of Choice: Neither is fussy; their home has two distinct and well-stocked secret armouries.
Coolest Element: Working out their marital issues using skills from their day job, i.e. a marathon fight-turned-shag.
The Manchurian Candidate (1962)
The Assassin: Raymond Shaw (Laurence Harvey), a Korean War veteran brainwashed to murder a Presidential candidate.
Weapon Of Choice: Plausible denial. Shaw is programmed to kill under auto-suggestion and then forget everything he did.
Coolest Element: Shaw's blatantly untrue character testimonial, conditioned into his platoon: "Raymond Shaw is the kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful human being I've ever known in my life."
The Long Kiss Goodnight (1996)
The Assassin: Suburban housewife Samantha Caine (Geena Davis), in reality amnesiac CIA killer Charly Baltimore.
Weapon Of Choice: A simple rabbit punch will suffice when all else fails.
Coolest Element: She's also in the goddamn P.T.A.
Ghost Dog: The Way Of The Samurai (1999)
The Assassin: Ghost Dog (Forest Whitaker), a modern-life samurai who conducts his hits for the Mafia to pay off a life-debt.
Weapon Of Choice: A laser-sighted Astra-100, compact enough even when firing up a drain pipe.
Coolest Element: Ghost Dog is truly off the grid; he only communicates by homing pigeon.
Collateral (2004)
The Assassin: Vincent (Tom Cruise), a cold-hearted killer hired to bump off five targets in a single night.
Weapon Of Choice: Speed. Vincent's brisk itinerary is made possible by hiring a taxi cab driven by Max Durocher (Jamie Foxx) for the night.
Coolest Element: Balls of steel, as Vincent forces Max - who now knows the truth about his fare - to follow his nightly routine and visit his mother.
