Tommy Lee Jones points a gun at Harrison Ford in 'The Fugitive' Image via Warner Bros. Pictures By Erik Hawkins Published Aug 19, 2026, 11:03 PM EDT Erik Hawkins is an award-winning writer and editor who's been obsessed with cinema since he was old enough to hold Roger Ebert's Video Home Companion in his hands. He lives in NYC, where he rabidly watches everything from the newest releases to the more odd and obscure, and regularly shares his thoughts on Letterboxd. From ghost-writing fiction and webisodes in South America to local news, trial coverage, and politics in NYC, he's rarely put down his laptop over the past 15 years. Sign in to your Collider account Add Us Add on Google Preferred Source Google News Summary Generate a summary of this story Like Like follow Follow followed Followed Listen Thread Log in Here is a fact-based summary of the story contents: Try something different: Show me the facts Explain it like I’m 5 Give me a lighthearted recap It may be hard to imagine, even with today's massive critical and commercial genre hits like the John Wick and the Mission: Impossible series, but fast-moving, crowd-pleasing action pictures once had a legitimate shot at sweeping the Academy Awards . One of those films was Andrew Davis 's The Fugitive in 1993. Still a staple of the dad cinema and TNT afternoon canon, the impeccably crafted thriller is now enjoying a second life as it skyrockets up the Pluto TV charts — people will never be able to get enough of Richard Kimble's quest for justice.
Fresh off the surprise-hit Steven Seagal vehicle Under Siege , Davis tackled The Fugitive not as a typical television adaptation (though it absolutely is that), but a bare-bones, take-no-prisoners thriller loaded with character moments for character actors and practical special effects. It earned co-star Tommy Lee Jones his only Oscar win for Best Supporting Actor and the film itself a Best Picture nod, among five other nominations and near-universal acclaim. Luckily, this prototype for today's man-on-the run films still thrills.
Harrison Ford in The Fugitive. Image via Warner Bros. The Fugitive begins with Ford's Dr. Richard Kimble discovering the murder of his wife — and a glimpse of the one-armed man who killed her. Kimble's trial and sentencing to death are played as a Kafka-esque nightmare until a violent prisoner revolt and a bus crash leave him on the run and in the crosshairs of Jones' U.S. Marshal Sam Gerard. The cat and mouse pursuit that follows, with Kimble desperately gathering evidence to clear his name and barely stymieing Gerard at every turn, largely plays out in and around the city of Chicago and eventually balloons into a larger (and less plausible) conspiracy plot.
The film is a somewhat faithful adaptation of the massively influential 1960s TV series with David Janssen and Barry Morse in the Ford and Jones roles, respectively. The series was one of the first to follow a single, twisted plot across multiple seasons with a two-part finale built up as an event viewers couldn't refuse to miss. Series creator Roy Huggins stayed on board as executive producer for the film, which proved a box office juggernaut in 1993, earning almost $400 million at the global box office.
We've selected only the best of the best – the film series with the most good/great movies and least bad ones.
Harrison Ford looking angrily ahead in The Fugitive Image via Warner Bros. Pictures Tommy Lee Jones as Samuel Gerard, dripping with water and holdin…