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Official Site: TriStar Pictures

Cliffhanger is a 1993 American action-adventure thriller directed by Renny Harlin and starring Sylvester Stallone and John Lithgow. Stallone plays a mountain climber who becomes embroiled in a failed heist set in a U.S. Treasury plane flying through the Rocky Mountains. The film was a critical and box office success, earning more than $250 million worldwide.

In the opening scene, hotshot mountain climber and rescue ranger Gabe Walker (Sylvester Stallone) and fellow ranger Jessie Deighan (Janine Turner) are dispatched to pick up their friend Hal Tucker (Michael Rooker) on a narrow peak in the Rocky Mountains called "The Tower", where he was stranded after a knee injury. While moving from one mountaintop to a helicopter via a steel cable, Hal's girlfriend Sarah's (Michelle Joyner) harness breaks and she is left dangling over a deep chasm. While the others try frantically to come up with a solution, Gabe straps himself in and goes out to save Sarah, but is unsuccessful; her gloved hand slips through Gabe's and she falls 4,000 feet to her death in the chasm.

Eight months later, Gabe returns to town for the first time since Sarah's funeral. Overcome with guilt over having lost Sarah, Gabe has returned only to pack his remaining possessions to leave permanently and convince Jessie to come with him. However, a radio distress call comes in to the local rescue center where Hal and Jessie still work. Hal heads off to find the stranded climbers while Jessie pleads with Gabe to join Hal's rescue attempt. Battling his inner demons Gabe meets Hal on the mountain, where Hal, still angry with Gabe for being unsuccessful at saving Sarah, lashes out and almost throws Gabe off a ledge.

The distress call turns out to be a fake; the two climbers are taken prisoner by a group of ruthless thieves led by former Military Intelligence member Eric Qualen (John Lithgow), who seeks to recover three suitcases containing $100 million in uncirculated $1,000 bill belonging to the United States Department of the Treasury. With the aid of turncoat Treasury agent Richard Travers (Rex Linn), Qualen and his mercenaries attempt to steal the suitcases via a daring air-to-air transfer, but the transfer is foiled and the three suitcases are lost among the mountains and two die during the heist. The thieves' plane loses power during the attempt and crashes. The suitcases holding the money have beacon locators, but the thieves need expert help locating them in the mountainous terrain, thus prompting them to summon the unwitting Gabe and Hal to their aid.

Eric Qualen has not been a contender in any CBUB matches.