Medianoche en San Petersburgo

After you've watched Bullet to Beijing, in which Michael Caine plays the famous fictional spy Harry Palmer, go out and rent the sequel Midnight in Saint Petersburg. Technically, you can watch this one by itself, but it starts up when the other ended, and so the ending of the first movie would be spoiled.

Once again, Michael Caine finds himself mixed up with bad guys in Russia. He's trying to stop them from acquiring plutonium, and together with Jason Connery—who's just as adorable and endearing as he was in the first film—they head back to Saint Petersburg to save the world! One of my favorite scenes is when Michael finds a bomb in his office. He throws it out of the window, but a dog picks it up and starts running around with it. Michael and his Russian colleagues are shouting at the dog in different languages, trying to get him to drop the bomb, but he runs down an alley seconds before the explosion. Everyone is pretty depressed—and so is the audience—until the dog trots out of the alley, unscathed! Very tense, but with a happy ending.

I liked these later Harry Palmer movies because they're pretty light and fun, without a lot of heavy drama or complicated plot points. Check them out for an afternoon marathon!