The thriller genre is being particularly successful at the box office and streaming charts in 2025, proving that audiences are desperate for stories that demand their full attention. Movies like Steven Soderbergh’s Black Bag and Spike Lee’s Highest 2 Lowest have generated massive online discourse because they offer a communal experience that is becoming increasingly rare. These films provide a specific kind of intellectual stimulation, forcing viewers to piece together clues and anticipate twists before the narrative reveals its hand. That’s no surprise, as thrillers thrive on tension and the promise of a resolution, offering a satisfying sense of closure that chaotic real-world events often lack.
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Despite the audience’s hunger for suspense, the mechanisms of film distribution often ensure that some of the best entries in the thriller genre go completely unnoticed by the general public. A brilliant film might suffer from a botched marketing campaign that misrepresents its tone, or it might be buried by an algorithm that prioritizes newer content. International thrillers face an even steeper climb, as they often lack the promotional budget to break through the noise of domestic releases. Consequently, many exceptional stories fade from the collective memory, known only to die-hard enthusiasts who actively seek them out.
7) Malice
The 1990s were a playground for high-gloss, sleazy melodramas, and Malice stands as the absolute peak of that forgotten art form. In the movie, Bill Pullman stars as Andy Safian, a college dean whose comfortable life disintegrates the moment he rents a room to Dr. Jed Hill (Alec Baldwin), a surgeon with a god complex that rivals any villain in cinema history. What begins as a domestic drama involving Andy’s wife, Tracy (Nicole Kidman), rapidly spirals into a chaotic web of medical malpractice and serial murder, keeping you guessing all the time. Screenwriter Aaron Sorkin polished the script, and his fingerprints are visible in the razor-sharp dialogue that makes the moral decay feel sophisticated. As a result, Malice is a movie that commits to its own insanity with total confidence, anchored by Baldwin’s terrifyingly arrogant performance.
6) The Gift
Joel Edgerton made an underrated directorial debut with The Gift, a film that effectively weaponizes social anxiety. The story follows Simon (Jason Bateman) and Robyn (Rebecca Hall), who move to Los Angeles for a fresh start, only to run into Gordo (Joel Edgerton), a relic from Simon’s high school days who refuses to take a hint. Gordo’s behavior shifts from mildly awkward to deeply intrusive, but the narrative refuses to rely on standard jump scares or cartoonish villainy. The film instead dissects the rot beneath Simon’s nice-guy exterior, forcing the audience to constantly re-evaluate who the real victim is. In The Gift, Bateman is also cast against type with chilling effectiveness, using his inherent comedic charm to mask a toxicity that destroys lives without ever lifting a finger.
5) Nocturnal Animals
Fashion designer Tom Ford proved he was a serious filmmaker with Nocturnal Animals, a story that is as beautiful as it is cruel. The film traps the viewer in a dual narrative, following gallery owner Susan Morrow (Amy Adams) as she reads a violent manuscript sent by her estranged ex-husband, Edward Sheffield (Jake Gyllenhaal). The editing sharply cuts between Susan’s lonely reality and the visceral fiction of the novel, where a man named Tony (also Gyllenhaal) faces a nightmare scenario on a dark highway at the hands of the sadistic Ray Marcus (Aaron Taylor-Johnson). That highway sequence is an exercise in pure dread, creating a level of tension that is physically exhausting to watch. Ford uses the fictional crime to mirror the real-world emotional devastation of the couple’s past, proving that a broken heart can lead to disturbing consquences.
4) Border
Swedish cinema is often known for being bleak, but Border manages to be disturbing, romantic, and grotesque all at the same time. Tina (Eva Melander) is a customs officer with a facial difference and the inexplicable ability to smell guilt on travelers, a talent that makes her exceptional at her job but isolated in her personal life. Her world expands when she meets Vore (Eero Milonoff), a stranger who shares her unique physical traits and deep connection to nature. While the plot involves a grim police investigation into a pedophile ring, the true hook is the bizarre bond that forms between the two leads. Through their relationship, Border blends the gritty aesthetic of a police procedural with the logic of a dark fairy tale, challenging the viewer to find beauty in the unconventional.
3) I Saw the Devil
Revenge thrillers usually offer some form of catharsis, but I Saw the Devil refuses to give the audience that satisfaction. In the movie, South Korean director Kim Jee-woon tells the story of Kim Soo-hyun (Lee Byung-hun), a secret agent whose fiancée is brutally murdered by a serial killer named Jang Kyung-chul (Choi Min-sik). Instead of seeking a quick execution, Soo-hyun decides to become a monster to catch a monster, engaging in a relentless game of catch-and-release torture that spans the entire country. The violence of I Saw the Devil is extreme, yet every act of brutality serves the narrative purpose of stripping away the protagonist’s humanity piece by piece. Choi Min-sik delivers a performance that is devoid of any redeeming qualities, making the hero’s descent to his level a tragedy rather than a triumph.
2) Burning
Haruki Murakami is a difficult author to adapt, yet Burning captures the surreal atmosphere of his work perfectly. The movie revolves around Lee Jong-su (Yoo Ah-in), an aspiring writer struggling with economic hardship, who reconnects with a childhood friend, Shin Hae-mi (Jeon Jong-seo), before she leaves for a trip to Africa. When she returns, she brings along Ben (Steven Yeun), a wealthy and enigmatic man with a strange hobby of burning down abandoned greenhouses. The brilliance of Burning lies in its refusal to provide concrete answers, building an atmosphere of suffocating dread through class resentment and the stark contrast between the characters’ lives. In addition, Yeun gives a career-defining performance as a villain who is terrifying precisely because he is so bored with the world around him, a feeling that it’s easy to relate to.
1) The Vanishing
While many thrillers rely on a chase of some sort, the original Dutch version of The Vanishing (or Spoorloos) is simply a waiting game. The story kicks off when Rex Hofman (Gene Bervoets) and his girlfriend, Saskia Wagter (Johanna ter Steege), stop at a gas station during a holiday trip. Saskia enters the store and never returns. Rex spends the next three years obsessively searching for her, eventually making contact with her abductor, Raymond Lemorne (Bernard-Pierre Donnadieu). The Vanishing revolutionized the genre by revealing the kidnapper’s identity early on, focusing on his banal, domestic life rather than treating him like a movie monster. The ending is widely considered one of the most shocking conclusions in film history, delivering a final answer to the mystery that is far worse than death.
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