You’d think we all have enough stress in our lives already, but for some reason we still love those heart-pumping thrillers—whether the quiet, suspenseful kind, or the big action spectacles. It might be that the things that get our hearts racing in real life are in the realm of “wow, look at this medical bill,” making a spy movie, a heist-gone-wrong scenario, or even a dark kidnapping story a good vehicle for vicarious (and comparatively cheap) thrills.
Regardless, here are the best thrillers currently streaming on Netflix, with a variety of tones that run from mildly tense to extremely dark.
Spiderhead (2022)
While Joseph Kosinski’s Netflix original Spiderhead didn’t make quite the splash of his mega blockbuster, Top Gun: Maverick, it does make for a smart thriller with sci-fi overtones. Chris Hemsworth plays Steve Abnesti, who oversees a prison program in which prisoners receive less oversight and reduced sentences in exchange for serving as test subjects for a variety of pharmaceuticals. Supposedly, this is the project of some benevolent geniuses who just want to improve humankind, but you might not be surprised to learn (if you’ve ever lived in our world) that a pharmaceutical conglomerate has a lot more to do with it. The experiments grow increasingly manipulative and even deadly, with solid performances from Miles Teller and Jurnee Smollett as two of the prison’s inmates.
Fatal Attraction (1987)
King of the erotic ’80s thriller Adrian Lyne directed this prime example of the form, with Michael Douglas as a married Manhattan attorney and Glenn Close as the increasingly unhinged woman who falls for him. It’s a thoroughly entertaining soap opera, even if rather terribly dated in its approach to gender roles. More than that, though, it was a massive blockbuster—and a reminder that there was a time when movies for grown-ups, and dealing with sex, could have mass appeal.
American Psycho (2000)
It’s another 1980s throwback—kinda. Writer/director Mary Harron rather brilliantly adapts Bret Easton Ellis’ novel with Christian Bale as New York investment banker Patrick Bateman, who moonlights as a serial killer (maybe? Or is it all in his head?). Incredibly stylish and violent, the film wrings every ounce of satire out of its narrative, skewering misogyny, capitalism, and America-style narcissism just as brutally as Patrick does his victims. Entirely unique.
Society of the Snow (2023)
You might be familiar with the true story of the 1972 Uruguayan rugby team lost in the Andes following a plane crash—the incident has been the subject of multiple documentaries and two previous dramas, including Frank Marshall’s 1993 Alive. This is probably the best take on the tragedy, a thoughtful and tastefully thrilling drama. Director J. A. Bayona emphasizes both the heart-stopping physical perils faced by the team, and the spiritual toll their survival takes on them.
Missing (2023)
A particularly effective take on screenlife (a sub-genre that’s a bit like found footage, except that all the action is shown from the point of view of a computer or mobile device), the micro-budgeted Missing made a very solid showing at the 2023 box office. Storm Reid plays June Allen, the daughter of single mother Grace (Nia Long). June is thrilled that her overprotective mom is heading off on vacation with her new boyfriend—until she doesn’t come back. June sets out to investigate Grace’s disappearance from afar, getting some help from Columbian gig worker Javier (Joaquim de Almeida). Given that this is pretty much how we experience life now, the aesthetic isn’t all that weird, and the suspense ratchets higher and higher with every click into darker corners of the internet.
I Don’t Feel at Home in This World Anymore (2017)
When nursing assistant Ruth (a fabulous Melanie Lynskey) comes home to find that she’s been burglarized, she sets out with her neighbor (Elijah Wood) to get her stuff back, and get revenge, in the most incompetent manner possible. As a vigilante farce, it nearly reaches Coen-brothers levels of absurdity, but it hits a lot of those beats while alternately challenging and confirming our worst instincts about our fellow humans.
The Pale Blue Eye (2022)
This broody mystery is a compelling (and twisty) tale that plays fast and loose with history, even as it conjures up a chilly and brooding atmosphere. Christian Bale plays a retired and troubled detective teaming up with a young West Point cadet you might have heard of: his name’s Edgar Allen Poe, and he’s played here by Harry Melling, who’s great. The two team up to solve a case involving dead students and creepy occult signifiers.
The Killer (2023)
Michael Fassbender plays the titular (nameless) hitman, a fastidious and ruthless killer who is suffering from the fallout of the first mistake of his career—accidentally shooting the wrong person, whoops—as his carefully managed life begins crumbling faster than he can shore it up. Very unlike his previous Netflix original, Mank, this is about as close as Fincher gets to a pure action thrill ride.
Oldboy (2003)
A cult classic that was long difficult to watch in the U.S., Oldboy has finally made it to Netflix. Now broad North American audiences can see what all the fuss is about when it comes to this absolutely batshit South Korean thriller. Choi Min-sik plays Oh Dae-su, a businessman mysteriously imprisoned in a hotel room for 15 years. He doesn’t know why he was held, and doesn’t know why he’s been released at the start of the movie’s present day. His ultra-violent, ultra-stylish quest for revenge leads him smack dab into a unbelievably wild twist.
Bird Box (2018)
This Netflix original had a cultural moment way back in 2018, riding the success of A Quiet Place with a story about creatures YOU MUST NOT LOOK AT. Sandra Bullock leads an impressive cast that includes John Malkovich, Sarah Paulson, Lil Rel Howery, and BD Wong in a post-apocalypse in which the only way to survive is with a blindfold and, perhaps, a stylish puffer jacket.
Cam (2018)
Director Daniel Goldhaber (the upcoming How to Blow Up a Pipeline) teamed up with writer Isa Mazzei, who based this Black Mirror-esque story partly on her own memoir. Madeline Brewer (Orange is the New Black) plays online sex worker Alice Ackerman, aka Lola_Lola, who once night discovers there’s another Lola out there—a cam girl who’s identical to Alice in appearance and general vibe, but whose willingness to go further puts her out in front in terms of viewership. It’s a horror movie with a lot to say about the dehumanization of sex workers, with a great central performance from Brewer.
Berlin Syndrome (2017)
Travel broadens the mind and expands horizons—unless you’re American and in a thriller, in which case you should absolutely stay home. Teresa Palmer plays Clare, a photographer from Brisbane on a trip to Berlin who meets and falls for (at least in a one-night-stand kind of way) a local named Andi, played by Max Riemelt. After a night together, the kind-seeming and perpetually calm Andi isn’t keen on letting her leave.
The Guilty (2021)
It’s not quite up to the standard of the Danish original, but this American remake of a 2018 film is still excellent. Director Antoine Fuqua is joined by screenwriter Nic Pizzolatto (True Detective) in the film starring Jake Gyllenhaal as Joe Baylor, an LAPD officer who’d been busted down to 911 dispatcher for initially unspecified errors in judgment. He gets a call from a panicked woman that leads him to make some dramatic decisions, not all of them good. An exercise in pure suspense, the contained movie very much rests on Gyllenhaal’s shoulders, though a few famous names show up via voiceover.
Shimmer Lake (2017)
This crime drama begins on a Friday, with Andy (Rainn Wilson) hiding in his basement while his wife stalls his brother Zeke (Benjamin Walker), who’s also the sheriff. Andy, on the run with a bag of money, will be dead before the day’s out, but we’re going backwards here: writer/director Oren Uziel’s narrative then takes us to Thursday, and each previous day subsequently, until we understand how everyone wound up where they are.
The Devil’s Own (1997)
As a movie that does an even halfway decent job of dealing with the conflicts around Northern Ireland during the period of the Troubles, The Devil’s Own isn’t it. But the quiet tension between Harrison Ford’s Irish-American police sergeant and the IRA partisan (Brad Pitt) whom he unknowingly welcomes into his home is compelling enough to make up for some slightly silly plotting. Pitt’s character is in New York to buy arms, while Ford’s character will have to stop him, even as his own sympathies are divided.
Gerald’s Game (2017)
Set entirely in an isolated cabin in the woods, this Stephen King adaptation involves a single immobilized character for much of its running time. Director Mike Flanagan, nevertheless, manages to craft a taut, suspenseful story about a married woman (Carla Gugino) trapped in a remote cabin when her husband played by Bruce Greenwood, dies after having handcuffed her to the bed. Increasingly delirious, she’s forced to face not only her past trauma, but the hungry dog that keeps sniffing around.
Lou (2022)
Lou (Allison Janney) is a quiet loner on Orcas Island in 1986; she’s also landlady to Hannah (Jurnee Smollett). Lou has just come by to tell Hannah that the rent is due when she learns that Hannah’s daughter has been kidnapped by the girl’s father, an ex-Green Beret and war criminal. Fortunately for Hannah, Lou has some very John Wick-esque secrets regarding her past, making her an unexpectedly good ally against the kidnapper.
Luther: The Fallen Sun (2023)
Continuing from the British crime series starring Idris Elba, but also a movie you can watch on its own, the film finds disgraced, imprisoned former DCI John Luther taunted by a serial killer (Andy Serkis) who, he’s pretty sure, can only be stopped if Luther busts out of jail and hunts him down. If you watched the series, this is an essential follow-up. If you haven’t, it’s a perfectly good time to find out why Elba is doing the morally-gray detective thing better than anyone, maybe ever.
Captain Phillips (2013)
We don’t often find Tom Hanks in a genuine thriller, but he’s impressive here in this biopic about the title’s Rich Phillips and the 21st century pirates who hijack his container vessel out of Oman. The result is an impossibly tense two hours, supported by an Academy Award-nominated performance from Barkhad Abdi as the pirate leader. Pirates of the Caribbean, this is not.
Backcountry (2014)
Look, bears are not all coke-addled fiends, OK? Sometimes they’ll try to chase you down just because! Backcountry is a great way to experience the thrill of being hunted by a man-eating black bear without the inconvenience of actually being eaten. Based very loosely on a true story, this survival thriller sees a couple (Missy Peregrym and Jeff Roop) trying to work out their relationship issues by going off-trail in a Canadian provincial park. Bad idea. It’s a great debut for director Adam MacDonald, who went on to helm the justifiably acclaimed supernatural horror flick Pyewacket.
Creep (2014)
Mark Duplass (The Morning Show) co-writes and stars alongside director/co-writer Patrick Brice in this sly, spin on the found footage genre. Filmmaker Aaron (Brice) answers an ad from Josef (Duplass) who says he wants to document his life for the benefit of his unborn child. Things start off normal enough, but then Josef’s requests keep getting more and more bizarre, and Aaron’s car keys go missing. The slightly comedic vibe, at least at the outset, only serves to make the whole affair more unsettling.
Fractured (2019)
This is a solid example of that type of thriller in which one person realizes someone has disappeared, and everyone else acts like that person was never around at all. (If it’s not quite a sub-genre, it’s definitely a thing.) After an accident at an exposed construction site, Ray (Sam Worthington) takes his family to the hospital, then dozes off in the waiting room. Big mistake: When he wakes up, they’re gone, and the hospital has no idea what he’s talking about. If it isn’t entirely original, it’s still a fun and creepy mystery.
Emily the Criminal (2022)
Emily (Aubrey Plaza) is a deeply relatable character: She went to an expensive school, and finds herself saddled with a mountain of debt. A relatively minor criminal record has made it hard for her to get a good-paying job. When given a chance to learn all about credit card fraud, the potential benefits are too good to turn down—which is approximately when things go wrong, and get violent. And then we find out exactly what Emily is capable of. Plaza is so brilliant here as the anti-hero that it’s a little hard not to cheer her on.
The Paramedic (2020)
Mario Casas stars here as Ángel, the title’s paramedic—not the greatest guy, really, and one who takes souvenirs from the people he helps, either to sell or to keep. An accident sees him lose the use of his legs, and his turmoil and rage don’t turn him into a better person, but instead sees him letting loose on a world he blames for pretty much everything. In particular danger is the girlfriend who left him. It’s a standard horror/thriller setup, but Casas is impressively compelling in his transformation from run-of-the-mill jerk to complete monster.
The Gray Man (2022)
The Russo brothers took a break from Avengers movies for this other blockbuster—at a cost of around $200m, it’s not like they decided to do a quiet indie drama. Ryan Gosling plays spy Sierra Six, whose latest mission involves taking out a fellow agent. He’s soon on the run from a corrupt agency boss (played by Regé-Jean Page), and helped and hindered by a supporting cast including Billy Bob Thornton, Ana de Armas, Chris Evans, and Alfre Woodard. Sierra Six doesn’t make much of an impression as a character, but the Russos know how to craft an action spectacle, and this one kicks up the action early on, and never really slows down.
I Care a Lot (2020)
Rosamund Pike’s Marla Grayson might be the worst character on this list, which is definitely saying a lot. She’s a con artist who specializes in convincing courts to grant her guardianship of old people who, she says, can’t take care of themselves. She then drains their bank accounts at her leisure. It’s all going great (for her) until she fucks with the wrong senior: in this case, Jennifer Peterson (Dianne Wiest), who looks like the ultimate score. It turns out that she’s the mom of a scary Russian mobster (Peter Dinklage), and things escalate from there. The tone here is satirical to the point of comedy, but it’s both tense and satisfying to see the screws turn on Marla.
Hold the Dark (2018)
Jeffrey Wright plays Russell Core, a writer and wolf expert summoned by Riley Keogh’s Medora Slone to investigate the disappearance of three small kids in rural Alaska. Not all the locals are convinced that wolves are to blame—or, at least, that it was just wolves. The return of Medora’s husband (Alexander Skarsgård) from Iraq only complicates the mystery further. If you’ve seen director Jeremy Saulnier’s previous feature Green Room, you’ll have a sense of the dark tone and grimy aesthetic in store for you.
The Occupant (2020)
Advertising executive Javier Muñoz (Javier Gutiérrez) once lived with his family in an ultra-posh apartment, but they simply couldn’t afford once he lost his job. Reduced circumstances have them in a tiny rental in a less-than-coveted neighborhood of Barcelona—but there’s this set of spare keys, you see, and Javier can’t help but go and scope out his old home and the new family that lives there. His interest quickly turns to an obsession with getting his old place back…though in fairness, none of his actions seem all that wild given today’s real estate market.
The Little Things (2021)
This 1990s period piece stars Denzel Washington and Rami Malek as detectives investigating a string of murders in Los Angeles. As they start to suspect a weird loner (Jared Leto), the pair find that the case has ties to Washington’s past. It’s a familiar piece of genre fare in many ways, but the performances from the three leads elevate the material significantly. (Yes, even Leto.)
A Simple Favor (2018)
The darkly comedic tone makes this one bit lighter than many of the other films on this list, but it’s all the more twisted for it. It all starts when mommy blogger Stephanie (Anna Kendrick) makes friends with, and unwisely confides in, Emily (Blake Lively), a PR director and mother of her son’s schoolmate. Then Emily disappears, Stephanie sleeps with Emily’s husband (Henry Golding), and the lurid secrets that Stephanie spilled start to come to light under shocking circumstances. It’s all lot of fun, and boasts some genuinely wild twists.
