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Recipe for a James Bond thriller

James Bond thrillers have been around for years and they all follow a certain chain of events and characters that signify them as what they are; Bond's character varies although he always has the same characteristics that make him the sexy, heroic, charming man he is with women falling at his feet. The role of James Bond is a secret agent or 'the good guy' helping to save people. Each Bond film includes one or more beautiful women with whom Bond would incur some sort of love affair with on his tough missions.
Each Bond film has some sort of exciting and exotic location, whether that be somewhere desireable like a beach or beautiful dessert, or even situated on top of arctic mountains - whatever the setting, they are always interesting and keep us intrigued and hooked on whats occuring with Bond.
As if all of this excitement wasn't enough in the Bond films, we cant not highlight the amazing stunts that Bond manages to pull off; jumping out of planes that fly thousands of feet above the ground and surviving, epic car chases and explosions and always managing to come out alive. Bond's unrealistic skills make him even more of an idol than what he is.
One last thing we cant forget - the bond song! Memorable songs such as 'live and let die', 'licence to kill', 'you only live twice', 'diamonds are forever' and the most recent 'sky fall' all help to make James Bond the iconic figure he is, helping to endure popularity in all of the Bond films we know.

North by Northwest

Carry Grant is mistaken for someone who knows government secrets when in fact he is an innocent man. He is kidnapped before escaping and going on a fast paced mission to get away from these men and maintain survival.  He meets a beautiful woman whom he begins to have an affair with, this is the macguffin, she fools us into forgetting about what is actually occuring in the film, keeping us hooked and intrigued into the film.

Birds

A young and beautiful Melanie Daniels meets Mitch Brenner by chance in a bird shop. She acts as if she works there in a bid to get to know him. She comes to a realistion that he is looking to purchase birds for his much younger sister. He knows all along that she is bluffing and is intrigued by her actions. When he leaves to visit his mother for the weekend, Melanie goes on a quest to find him and takes some lovebirds with her for his little sister. When she arrives we begin to see a romance blossom between the two of them, as she gets to know his mother and sister she also meets his ex girlfriend, a school teacher who points her in his direction.
Things begin to get strange as all types of birds start to attack, first individuals are left scarred, then the birds arrive in masses attacking large groups of people. An attack is made on Mitch's sisters parts, her school, inside his house and just all over the town in general. People begin to look to Melanie as a scapegoat because the attacks only started when she arrived. The film is fast paced with lots of quick cuts in parts that involve hightened action, to make the viewer feel uncomfortable, but at the same time drawn in.

Macguffin

Macguffin's are often used in thrillers to sidetrack the audience. It often makes us forget the reason as to why all of the events we see unfolding actually happen. An example of this occurs in the film 'Birds.' The Macguffin would be the romance that begins to blossom between Melanie and Mitch which makes us almost forget that the main theme of the film is the birds which are attacking the town.
The effect of this is that we are drawn into the film further and then surprised with the memory of what is actually happening. This automatically intrigues the audience and keeps them hanging on to what's going to happen as an outcome of these unpredictable events.