Thrillers might be the least clear-cut type. This name is a better way to describe how a movie makes people feel than its style, content, or tone, and it can be used for any movie that keeps us on the edge of our seats. Film noir, psychological horror, legal dramas, intellectual sci-fi, crime procedurals, creature features, and murder puzzles all put their characters in scary situations that make us jump.
As opposed to traditional horror movies, thrillers often keep us guessing through the power of implication and suggestion. They use all the tricks in the movie book to get our hearts rushing while not showing what makes the characters scared. Here is Entertainment Weekly’s ranked list of the 10 best thriller movies of all time.
The Must-Watch 10 Best Thriller Movies:
Zodiac (2007)
The movie “The Zodiac Killer” by David Fincher is based on real events. Jake Gyllenhaal plays a cartoonist who asks a cop (Mark Ruffalo) and a writer (Robert Downey Jr.) to help him find the killer. The film is about a man who becomes obsessed with finding answers but can’t. Fincher’s style, which is very careful and focused on details, fits the subject perfectly. Zodiac is a gripping, dirty crime story with strong acting and great photography, just like Seven and Panic Room.
The Handmaiden (2016)
Four people in Park Chan-wook’s period power play—an heiress (Kim Min-hee), her servant (Kim Tae-ri), her rich uncle (Cho Jin-woong), and her sneaky beau (Ha Jung-woo)—are all competing for a lot of money. The plot is full of love, lust, class conflict, cruelty, and trickery. Park keeps a firm hand on the reins, giving out just the right amount of information to set up rug pulls and double-crosses that are hard to see coming but feel like they had to happen anyway. Meanwhile, Kim Tae-ri and Kim Min-hee are amazing as the complicated women in the middle. They always show different levels of inner conflict that make it hard to guess what they will do or why.
Parasite (2019)
In Bong Joon-ho’s Best Picture-winning genre-bender, a working-class family sneaks into a rich family’s home with a dangerous secret. It’s an exciting story about social and economic worry, with strong acting, exact cinematography, beautiful set design, and a lively score. This movie is by far the funniest on this list, thanks in large part to Bong’s dark sense of humor.
Mulholland Drive (2001)
Mulholland Drive by David Lynch is a confusing nightmare of lies and broken identities that follows the relationship between Naomi Watts, who wants to be an actor, and Laura Harring, who has lost her memory. There is no way to tell what is real, what is made up, and what is performance when the movie and its characters keep blurring the lines between what is true and what is not. When Mary Sweeney cuts the movie and Lynch uses strange images, they create a dreamy rhythm that makes the movie experience hard to look away from and even harder to fully understand.
The Dark Knight (2008)
Christopher Nolan’s exciting second trip to Gotham City with Christian Bale boils down the Batman story to its most basic elements in order to explore the gray area between good and evil, heroes and criminals, order and chaos. The Dark Knight is still the most intense comic book movie ever made. It has a monster played by Heath Ledger who steals the show, a constantly pounding score, editing that makes you anxious, and stunning urban photography. When it’s over, you can’t take your eyes off of it or pause to think about it.
The Departed (2006)
Martin Scorsese’s Best Picture-winning version of Infernal Affairs (2002) sets an honest police officer (Matt Damon) against a secret police officer (Leonardo DiCaprio) in the seedy criminal underbelly of Boston. The Departed is one of the most exciting movies that Scorsese has ever made because both of the main characters are always at risk of letting their guard down. Thelma Schoonmaker, the editor, raises the excitement with some always exciting scenes, and many of them don’t even need music to do so.
War of the Worlds (2005)
Steven Spielberg’s new version of H.G. Wells’ famous science fiction story looks at the fear of an alien attack from the point of view of an East Coast working-class family. After 9/11, people were afraid, and now parents are scared too. Together, they make War of the Worlds, one of Spielberg’s most exciting movies, with a dark, really scary atmosphere of normal people being wiped out by unimaginable tragedy. The director’s visual direction is as strong as ever, with long takes that pull you in and stunning shot choices that no one else would think of. Tom Cruise and Dakota Fanning do a great job as the stressed-out father and daughter at the center of the story.
Gravity (2013)
Some of the best big-budget shooting techniques are used in Alfonso Cuarón’s out-of-this-world action, which goes well with the movie’s simple plot and deep themes. Gravity, starring Sandra Bullock and George Clooney, does a great job of showing how big and wild space is by using smooth, confusing long takes and stunning visual effects. The simple survival story creates a primal, heart-pounding tension that few movies can match, and it’s completely gripping the whole time.
Contagion (2011)
Steven Soderbergh’s medical thriller showed the problems with society and the way things are built that make pandemics so strange and terrible almost ten years before COVID-19. Contagion is one of the few American movies that is about a group of people rather than just a few individuals. It stars Matt Damon, Kate Winslet, Laurence Fishburne, Marion Cotillard, Gwyneth Paltrow, Jude Law, and Elliott Gould, all of whom are incredibly skilled. The movie handles its health problem with great balance and scope, creating an embarrassing conflict that feels truly global in scope.
The Insider (1999)
In Michael Mann’s exciting drama, a reporter (Al Pacino) and a tobacco business expert (Russell Crowe) work together to find a huge plot. As a compelling example of how to work with a source, put together a story, and send it out to the public, the movie’s main strength is its reporting process. The stakes are very high at every step of the way, and the investigation ends up putting the futures of several industries at risk and putting the main characters’ lives in danger.
