Unfortunately I feel that while it's very well shot and paced, the gendered interplay from RR and his co-star feels a little iffy in the modern day - particularly since the romantic sub-plot requires so much suspension of disbelief. So much so that the main characters in the Elmore Leonard spy-comedy "Out of Sight" ridicule it.

Apparently, as per Reddit, the director kept wanting her to look more scared in her initial scenes; explaining the horror of being kidnapped and imprisoned in her own home by a strange man. She kept pleading "But it's Robert Redford"!

If you like the espionage and unique feel of films of that era though, you can't do much better than Francis Ford Coppola's 'The Conversation', starring a wonderfully morose Gene Hackman. A very worthy Palme D'Or winner in '74.

Fred Zinnemann's 'The Day of the Jackal' in '73 is also a high-point for espionage-thrillers of the decade.

Completely agree with everything you've written. I probably missed my chance to enjoy Three Days of the Condor by not watching it earlier in life because - to me - it doesn't hold up to viewing through a modern lens. The interplay between the two leads is wild, the sex scene almost plays as a rape with the way she's acting.

These are great but day of the jackal is more of a police procedural than a spy thriller.

There is a whole sub-genre called Paranoid thrillers of the 70s. Some more:

- Marathon Man

- Klute

- All the president’s men

- The Parallax View

- The China Syndrome

- Capricorn One

- The Boys from Brazil

- Z

- Blow Out