While the idea of a quiet night in typically conjures images of several hours spent horizontally on a couch watching sweet rom-coms or comforting feel-good movies, sometimes you want something a bit more high-stakes. For those nights—when you’re feeling up to spending two hours on the edge of your seat, but (usually) without the guts and gore of a classic horror movie—a thriller is your best bet.
But before you start the dreaded endless scroll on Netflix to find the perfect offering within the genre, check out this list instead. We’ve done the work for you and rounded up more than two dozen of the best thrillers on the streamer, from high-intensity heist movies to eerie post-apocalyptic pictures to twisty noir mysteries, so you're sure to find something here that’ll get your heart pumping.
'A Simple Favor' (2018)
Based on the 2017 mystery-thriller novel of the same name, this stylish crime thriller is a tale of two mothers who are much more than they appear. Mommy blogger Stephanie (Anna Kendrick) befriends fashion exec Emily (Blake Lively) shortly before the latter disappears under mysterious circumstances. As Stephanie unravels Emily's secrets, she also lends her "support" to Emily's husband Sean (Henry Golding). Trust me, you'll want to follow along with these mamas' drama.
'All Good Things' (2010)
If you’re diving back into all the Robert Durst drama amid the release of the long-awaited second season of The Jinx—one the best true crime documentaries of 2024—don't forget to stream this 2010 thriller. Ryan Gosling and Kirsten Dunst star in this fictionalized account of Durst’s alleged murders of his first wife, Kathleen McCormack, and a neighbor, Morris Black, as well as the murder of his friend Susan Berman, for which he was found guilty in 2021. In an interesting twist, the real-life Durst enjoyed the film so much that he allowed its director, Andrew Jarecki, to interview him; those recorded interviews ultimately turned into The Jinx, which led to Durst’s conviction in the Berman case.
'Bird Box' (2018)
Based on Josh Malerman's 2014 novel of the same name, this post-apocalyptic thriller was a massive hit for Netflix when it was released in late 2018. If you somehow missed the boat then, here’s a quick overview: It stars Sandra Bullock as a woman forced to navigate a terrifying new reality in which catching sight of mysterious entities drives people insane and suicidal, so the only way to survive is to move about the world completely blindfolded.
'The Call' (2020)
This 2020 South Korean film is basically the thriller version of The Lake House. In this case, instead of Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves sending each other love letters two years apart, a young woman in 2019 begins receiving calls on an old landline at her childhood home from a woman in 1999, and their conversations begin changing both of their lives—in mostly terrible ways.
'Carry-On' (2024)
As if air travel during the holidays wasn’t stressful enough! This Netflix original kicks up the drama several notches, with Taron Egerton playing Ethan, a TSA agent wrapped up in an under-the-radar mercenary’s criminal plot on Christmas Eve. Despite growing threats from the killer (Jason Bateman, playing a bit outside of his usual type) and escalating action, Ethan is relentless in his race to both stop the crime and keep the people he loves safe.
'Darlings' (2022)
This Hindi-language black comedy has plenty of funny moments and a healthy dose of sweet mother-daughter bonding, but the murder plot at its core still firmly earns it a spot on this list. Darlings follows Alia Bhatt’s Badru as she enlists her mother’s help to get revenge on her husband, a violent alcoholic—and chaos ensues.
'The Devil All the Time' (2020)
Based on the 2011 novel of the same name, this psychological crime thriller follows a cast of interconnected characters in Ohio across several decades in the mid-20th century. Its star-studded cast includes Tom Holland, Robert Pattinson, Riley Keough, Eliza Scanlen, Sebastian Stan, and more, all of whom play people plagued by darkness, including a World War II vet, an abusive preacher, and a husband-wife serial killer team.
'El Camino' (2019)
While it does help to have seen Breaking Bad before watching, this epilogue film for the acclaimed crime drama is just as propulsive as a standalone. It follows former meth cook Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul) as he struggles to make his way out of Albuquerque following—spoiler alert for the finale!—the death of Walter White. As he revisits several locations on the way out of town, Jesse faces his demons and processes his trauma from the past few years, with the help of extensive flashbacks (and cameos).
'Emily the Criminal' (2022)
Is there anything more disturbing than student loans and unfair hiring practices? Aubrey Plaza takes on the titular role in this crime film, as a young woman bogged down with student debt and unable to find a well-paying job due to a felony conviction on her record. Inevitably, she gets swept up in a ring of credit card scammers.
'Fair Play' (2023)
This (criminally overlooked) Netflix original starts as a sexy romance movie about newly engaged couple Emily and Luke, played by Phoebe Dynevor and Alden Ehrenreich, who have to keep their relationship a secret at the hedge fund where they both work. But things quickly take a turn in the relationship when one of the pair gets a major promotion—leaving the other flailing and increasingly resentful.
'Gerald's Game' (2017)
Netflix regular Mike Flanagan is behind this adaptation of Stephen King's 1992 novel of the same name, so prepare for some psychological horror-thriller excellence. Jessie (Carla Gugino) is enjoying a romantic getaway with her husband Gerald (Bruce Greenwood) when he unexpectedly dies of a heart attack. Jessie, who was handcuffed to the bed at the time of his death, is left to figure out how to free herself and survive.
'The Good Nurse' (2022)
This ripped-from-the-headlines movie is based on the true story of serial killer Charles Cullen, who’s believed to have killed at least dozens, if not hundreds, of patients while working as a nurse from the late ‘80s through the early 2000s. Eddie Redmayne plays Cullen in this dramatization of the disturbing story—and earned several major award nominations for his truly unsettling performance—while Jessica Chastain stars as another nurse who initially befriends Cullen before beginning to suspect him.
'The Gray Man' (2022)
One of Netflix’s most expensive films ever made, The Gray Man boasts a blockbuster cast and a thrilling plot. Ryan Gosling plays a CIA assassin who discovers the corruption of one of the agency’s officials, leading the official to hire a hit man who was kicked out of the CIA for his sociopathic behaviors—played by Chris Evans—to eliminate Gosling’s Sierra Six, making for an action-packed game of cat and mouse.
'The Guilty' (2021)
This thriller doesn't show any of the actual drama, but your heart will still be pounding by the end. It takes place almost entirely in a 911 dispatch center, where LAPD officer Joe Baylor (Jake Gyllenhaal) gets a call from a woman claiming she’s been abducted. When her call ends, Joe becomes obsessed with saving the woman and her children, using every tool at his disposal to track them down—only to learn that he is missing a few important pieces of the puzzle.
'Hold the Dark' (2018)
This eerie and very dark 2018 film takes place in a remote Alaskan village, where several children appear to have been killed by a pack of wolves. Riley Keough plays Medora, the mother of one of the children, who hires Jeffrey Wright’s Russell, a wolf expert, to hunt down the animals responsible before her husband (Alexander Skarsgård) returns from the war in Iraq.
'I Care a Lot' (2020)
Rosamund Pike earned a Golden Globe for her lead role in this dark comedy-thriller. She plays Marla Grayson, who’s made a living by running a lucrative elder financial abuse scam—until one of her targets turns out to be the mother of a powerful mafia boss. A wild showdown ensues, culminating in a shocking final act.
'The Killer' (2023)
No list of the best thrillers would be complete without an entry from genre giant David Fincher. The Killer stars Michael Fassbender in the titular role, a professional assassin whose highly regimented life suddenly takes a turn for the unpredictable after he makes a major error on a job.
'Leave the World Behind' (2023)
Be warned: This is one of those apocalypse movies that feels a little too real. Adapted from Rumaan Alam's 2020 novel of the same name, Leave the World Behind stars Julia Roberts and Ethan Hawke as a married couple who take their family on a weekend getaway that delves into chaos when the owner of their rental house (Mahershala Ali) returns in the middle of the night looking for a place to stay. As he and his daughter (Myha'la) interrupt their vacation because of a major cybersecurity attack that has sent most technology and communication services offline and provoked fears of massive breakdowns of the world order, tension follows as the two families must agree how to face the potential end of the world together.
'Luckiest Girl Alive' (2022)
Mila Kunis stars in this Netflix adaption of Jessica Knoll’s hit 2015 novel, which should come with a trigger warning for sexual assault and gun violence. The title is very much a sarcastic one: The main character, Ani, had an extremely traumatic childhood, during which she survived both a horrific sexual assault and a school shooting—but it’s not until the movie goes on that we find out the full, devastating extent of each event, and how they’ve impacted Ani’s adult life.
'Luther: The Fallen Sun' (2023)
Idris Elba’s gritty detective returned after a few years away from TV screens in Luther: The Fallen Sun, the first feature-length addition to the Luther series. In the movie, which picks up where the fifth season of the show left off—spoiler alert for the final episode!—Luther escapes from prison to help end the crimes of a wealthy serial killer.
'Mea Culpa' (2024)
This Tyler Perry-directed drama stars Kelly Rowland as a criminal defense attorney who agrees to represent an artist (Trevante Rhodes) accused of killing his girlfriend—even though her brother-in-law is leading the case against the artist, causing her husband’s (very manipulative) family to urge her to drop the case. Mea plows ahead, though, and soon begins unraveling a case that may hit closer to home than she’d expected.
'Oldboy' (2003)
Park Chan-wook's 2003 masterpiece is a gruesome, mind-blowing thriller about Oh Dae-su (Choi Min-sik), a man who is kidnapped and imprisoned for 15 years in a sealed hotel room without knowing the reason. While he was trapped, his anonymous captors framed him for his wife's murder, leaving his daughter to grow up an orphan. When he's finally let free, Dae-su sets out to learn the truth of his capture with incredibly disturbing results.
'The Pale Blue Eye' (2022)
Another novel adaptation, this 2022 mystery film is set in 1830 and stars Christian Bale as a retired detective sent to investigate a murder at West Point, where he enlists the help of one Edgar Allan Poe (played by Harry Melling). Fun fact: The real-life Poe was a cadet at West Point at that time, though he brought his military career to an abrupt end just a few months later.
'Rebel Ridge' (2024)
Most crime thrillers feature a corrupt cop or two, but this Netflix original takes the trope to a whole new level, pitting one man against a small-town police force that seems to be rotten through and through. It all starts when a pair of officers unjustly seize the $36,000 in cash that Terry (played by Aaron Pierre) is planning to use to bail out his cousin—and things just keep escalating to horrific new heights from there.
'The Weekend Away' (2022)
This 2022 Netflix original based on Sarah Alderson's 2021 novel is about a girls' trip gone very, very wrong. Leighton Meester plays new mom Beth, who goes on a weekend getaway to Croatia with her best friend Kate (Christina Wolfe), only to wake up after their first night there with Kate missing. As Beth tries to get to the bottom of Kate’s disappearance, she must sift through an increasingly tangly web of lies and cover-ups.
'The Woman in the Window' (2021)
Amy Adams took on the titular role of an agoraphobic woman, child psychologist Anna Fox, who keeps an eye on her neighbors from inside her apartment in Netflix’s 2021 adaptation of the A.J. Finn bestseller. As she continues to watch the people inside the homes around hers—played by Gary Oldman, Julianne Moore, and more—Anna’s observations eventually get her wrapped up in a serial killer’s plot, from which she must save herself, as the police have deemed her an untrustworthy witness.
'Woman of the Hour' (2024)
It sounds like a fictional premise: A serial killer goes on a televised dating show in the ‘70s to find his next victim. But perhaps the most terrifying part of Woman of the Hour—Anna Kendrick’s directorial debut, by the way—is that it’s based on the very true story of Rodney Alcala, a convicted serial killer who did indeed appear on The Dating Game in 1978, amid his murderous spree. Here’s hoping our modern dating show producers are doing very thorough background checks.
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