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Mar 27, 2024 · From Alfred Hitchcock classics like ‘Psycho’ to modern masterpieces like ‘Zodiac,’ Entertainment Weekly is counting down the 40 best thriller movies of all time, ranked.
Top 100 Thriller movies of all time. by miltkar7 | created - 28 Feb 2015 | updated - 19 Apr 2020 | Public. Refine See titles to watch instantly, titles you haven't rated, etc. 113 titles. 1. Psycho (1960) R | 109 min | Horror, Mystery, Thriller. 8.5. Rate. 97 Metascore.
- 25 'Double Indemnity'
- 24 'North by Northwest'
- 23 'M'
- 22 'Vertigo'
- 21 'Reservoir Dogs'
- 20 'Oldboy'
- 19 'High and Low'
- 18 'Witness For The Prosecution'
- 17 'The Lives of Others'
- 16 'Memento'
IMDb Rating: 8.3/10
Director Billy Wilder's Double Indemnity is a classic crime thriller and standard-setting film noir that stars Fred MacMurray as insurance salesman Walter Neff. The film follows the protagonist as he is ensnared in a deadly web of deceit after meeting the seductive Phyllis Dietrichson (Barbara Stanwyck). Together, they come up with a plan to murder her husband and claim a hefty insurance payout through a double indemnity policy. A quintessential example of the film noir genre, Double Indemnit...
IMDb Rating: 8.3/10
North by Northwest is a gripping spy thriller movie that fully explores a story of mistaken identity. One of the best Alfred Hitchcock movies of all time, it revolves around Roger Thornhill (Cary Grant), an advertising executive who is mistaken for a government agent and thrust into a perilous world of espionage and intrigue. As the protagonist attempts to clear his name and survive a relentless pursuit, viewers are taken along for the wild ride, featuring some iconic American landmarks. Sett...
IMDb Rating: 8.3/10
M is a chilling and groundbreaking classic German thriller that stars Peter Lorreas Hans Beckert, a child murderer in a German city. It follows the relentless pursuit of Beckert by both the police and the criminal underworld, where his heinous actions have earned him a bad reputation among other criminals. Directed by Fritz Lang, the film combines elements from the suspense, thriller, and mystery genres to weave its absorbing manhunt-centered story. It was notable for being Lang's first sound...
IMDb Rating: 8.3/10
A classic psychological thriller by director Alfred Hitchcock, Vertigo follows former police detective John "Scottie" Ferguson (James Stewart), whose fear of heights has led to his retirement from the force. When he's hired by an acquaintance to investigate his wife, Madeleine (Kim Novak), things start to get strange. What's initially supposed to be an easy investigation turns into a mind-bending mystery that begins to play with his mind. Known for its iconic visual effects, the 1958 film ori...
IMDb Rating: 8.3/10
Director Quentin Tarantino's 1992 feature-length directorial debut, Reservoir Dogs, is a visceral neo-noir crime thriller that left an indelible mark on cinema, and would hint at his massive success and recognizable trademarks in the future. This ensemble crime film revolves around a group of criminals, each identified by a color-coded alias, who are brought together for a heist. However, when the robbery goes awry and trust issues emerge, the film turns into a suspenseful whodunit between th...
IMDb Rating: 8.4/10
Oldboy, the director's most infamous film, helped establish Park Chan-wook's reputation for creating disturbing movies with unexpected twists and turns. Oh Dae-su (Choi Min-sik), the protagonist of the neo-noir action film, has just been released from jail when he discovers that he is enmeshed in an extensive plot that is being manipulated by unknown influences. It is in viewers' best interest to walk into this film with as little prior information as possible about the complicated and provoc...
IMDb Rating: 8.4/10
Directed by the legendary Akira Kurosawa, High and Low is a police procedural crime thriller centered on a kidnapping that targets a wealthy man's family. It gets even more complicated when the target, Kingo Gondo (Toshiro Mifune), realizes that the kidnapper has taken the wrong kid, abducting his chauffeur's child instead. The rest of the movie, which is based on the 1959 novel King's Ransom by Ed McBain, is a nail-biting display of the family and authorities' attempts at safely retrieving t...
IMDb Rating: 8.4/10
Based on the eponymous 1953 play by Agatha Christie, Witness for the Prosecution is a classic legal mystery thriller that depicts a twisty trial centered on Leonard Vole (Tyrone Pole). Set in the Old Bailey in London, the film follows his case after he's accused of murder, with the talented lawyer Sir Wilfrid Robarts (Charles Laughton) choosing to defend him. Aside from being a surprisingly heart-pounding thriller, Witness for the Prosecutionalso has elements of film noir and black comedy to...
IMDb Rating: 8.4/10
The Lives of Others marked an important moment in German cinematic history, as it was the first film to tackle the fall of the Berlin Wall with a serious tone. Directed by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, the film is set in 1983 East Berlin and follows the experiences of Stasi officer Gerd Wiesler (Ulrich Mühe), who is tasked with spying on a couple suspected to be traitors to the Communist Party. In the process, he begins to become sympathetic towards them. A slow-paced thriller, The Lives...
IMDb Rating: 8.4/10
In the neo-noir psychological thriller film Memento, the main character, Leonard Shelby (Guy Pearce), is a man who lives with anterograde amnesia, which means he is unable to form new memories. The former insurance investigator goes on a complicated journey after being brutally assaulted by two assailants who also took his wife's life, which is what prompted him to go on a mission to exact revenge. The unconventional narrative of Christopher Nolan's mind-bending film is presented in a non-lin...
- Updates Editor
Feb 19, 2024 · From Fincher’s Seven to Hitchcock’s The 39 Steps, take a journey to Hollywood’s dark, suspenseful side with our countdown of the 100 greatest thrillers
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- Jeremy Urquhart
- Feature Writer/Senior List Writer
- 'The Third Man' (1949) Director: Carol Reed. Orson Welles plays a small but memorable role in The Third Man, a classic mystery/suspense film that memorably takes place in Vienna.
- 'The Night of the Hunter' (1955) Director: Charles Laughton. Few movies from the 1950s still prove to be truly exciting from the perspective of a modern-day viewer.
- 'Se7en' (1995) Director: David Fincher. Film noir movies already tend to be pretty bleak, and the genre's next iteration - the neo-noir - often gets even bleaker.
- 'Blue Velvet' (1986) Director: David Lynch. There are plenty of David Lynch movies that are hard to pin down into one genre, and the case could be made that 1986's Blue Velvet bleeds into a few.
1. Se7en (1995) R | 127 min | Crime, Drama, Mystery. 8.6. Rate. 65 Metascore. Two detectives, a rookie and a veteran, hunt a serial killer who uses the seven deadly sins as his motives. Director: David Fincher | Stars: Morgan Freeman, Brad Pitt, Kevin Spacey, Andrew Kevin Walker. Votes: 1,800,644 | Gross: $100.13M. 2.
Jun 21, 2023 · We've done our best here to give you a grand sampling of suspenseful movies, a rundown that spans multiple decades, evokes different moods, and showcases many directors (though there are a few...
