The Next Man (also known as The Arab Conspiracy and Double Hit) is a 1976 American political action thriller film starring Sean Connery, Cornelia Sharpe [de; it], Albert Paulsen, and Charles Cioffi.

Within 48 hours of this plan's becoming known to the Americans and Russians, the three top men in the group are assassinated — the Kuwaiti is defenestrated, the Saudi is shot, and the Tunisian (Adolfo Celi) is seduced, drugged, and asphyxiated.

Due to his predecessor's assassination, Khalil Abdul-Muhsen (Sean Connery) becomes the new Saudi Arabian minister of state — the "next man."

Abdul-Muhsen returns to the UN, where he delivers a second impassioned speech, this time announcing that Saudi Arabia will invite Israel to join OPEC.

As Abdul-Muhsen and his entourage depart the Saudi Arabian embassy en route to the airport, his enemies place four suitcase bombs among the protesters in the street outside.

Roger Ebert began his review: "When good directors work with bad material, Pauline Kael once said, [...] they shove art into the crevices of dreck.

"[5] Vincent Canby of The New York Times described the film as a "suspense melodrama made by people whose talent for filmmaking and knowledge of international affairs would both fit comfortably into the left nostril of a small bee.

"[6] Like Ebert, he criticized the plot, remarking that "The Next Man is obsessed with political assassination but it never really identifies its villains, preferring, instead, to cop out by playing on natural paranoia that assumes that everyone everywhere is on the take from someone somewhere.

"[6] Variety was not impressed, commenting, "The Next Man emerges more a slick travesty with political overtones than the cynical suspense meller it was designed to be ... No less than four writers compiled the screenplay and it shows.