A new advanced Soviet submarine is about to launch, it's new electro-drive makes it virtually undetectable giving the Soviets a sizeable advantage in any nuclear war. Luckily for the US, the captain of the submarine (Red October) is Ramius (Sean Connery) who wants to defect and will bring the submarine with him! When the Soviets raise the alert, CIA analyst Jack Ryan (Alec Baldwin) is the only one who suspects this is a defection and not a Soviet preparation for war.
As the Red October tries to reach the West and safety, Jack heads out to the cold waters of the North Atlantic to contact Ramius and find out for sure what his intensions are as Soviet and US forces converge...
A great tense film set mostly aboard a submarine (therefore the perfect location for tenseness!) Seen nowadays it has an amusing coincidence in that the troublesome political officer (Peter Firth) whom Ramius has to kill early on is called Putin! Great sets and some exciting (and - because it is based on a Tom Clancy story - realistic) underwater combat scenes make this one of the best Cold War dramas.
