An interesting, if borderline sci-fi story from The New York Times details how the American Army is testing soldiers for their ability to detect danger and risk with their minds. While on patrol in Iraqi and Afghan villages, some seem better able to anticipate road-side bombs and the like than others, making them a valuable asset, potentially more so than fancy bomb detection technology. Well, this is nothing new really, as we’d like to demonstrate with this listicle of 6 Precogniscent Characters.

Solitaire in Live and Let Die

In this drug war movie from Roger Moore’s days as 007, heroin magnate Mr. Big relies on Solitaire’s (Jane Seymour) psychic powers.

The Precogs in Minority Report

Remember those creepy kids floating in the water therapy tank in the Tom Cruise movie/Philip K. Dick short story? Those were the precogs, and by some strange system of checks and balances they pretty much predicted every crime far enough in advance for the cops to stop it from happening.

Henkov in Turtles Can Fly

In this kid-centric snapshot of life in Iraq, the leader of a group of orphans is interested in a girl whose brother has strange, prophetic knowledge of the tumultuous times ahead.

Spiderman in Spiderman

You know, he’s got that spider-sense thing. It’s fairly subtle, but this trailer for Spiderman 2 demonstrates fairly well how it works.

Oracle in The Matrix

Neo probably also qualifies as a precogniscent character, but he was awful lame compared with the late Gloria Foster’s awesome Oracle.

Cris Johnson in Next

Don’t remember this Nicholas Cage-Julianne Moore action movie about a Vegas magician whose powers to see into the future get him the attention of a secret anti-terrorist task force? Gee, we wonder why…