There are certain films that I’m almost always in the mood to watch. That is, when I see them pop up on a streaming service or — back in the day — on TV, my first thought was “Yeah, I could go for that right now.” This describes films like The Abyss, Sneakers, and chief among them, The Hunt for Red October.

Adapting Tom Clancy’s best-selling 1984 novel, John McTiernan delivers a slick Cold War-era thriller about a renegade captain in charge of the Soviet Union’s most advanced submarine and the cat-and-mouse game between the Americans trying to contact him and Soviets trying to sink him. Indeed, The Hunt for Red October might be the Cold War-era thriller.

McTiernan’s directing is taut and economical, the film’s story is grounded and never once insults your intelligence, and the film’s cast — which includes Sean Connery as the sub captain, Sam Neill as his second-in-command, Alec Baldwin as the CIA analyst tasked with bringing him Stateside, and Scott Glenn as a skeptical US sub captain — all deliver career-best performances.