With a content library as deep and varied as Netflix‘s, it’s easy for quality films to go unnoticed, especially in the thriller department. It’s a wide-ranging genre that often melds with a slew of other types of films — crime, action, horror, and even romance — though always with a hearty dose of tension and suspense. Lucky for us, the streamer has strong offerings in every thriller sub-category, some Netflix originals, other cinematic classics, ensuring that your next movie night will be full of nail-biting and spine-tingling moments, no matter which one you choose. Here are our top five thrillers to stream on Netflix:
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5) Fair Play
Starring Solo: A Star Wars Story‘s Alden Ehrenreich and Bridgerton‘s Phoebe Dynevor, Fair Play is a sleek, sexy two-hander of an erotic thriller. The pair play Luke and Emily, a couple working in the vicious world of Manhattan finance and secretly dating each other. Their engagement coincides with Emily getting promoted over Luke at their competitive, cutthroat firm, it threatens to not only undo their relationship, but both of their professional lives as well. The feature directorial debut of filmmaker Chloe Domont, Fair Play is a fascinating, raw study of gender and power dynamics in the boardroom and in the bedroom, especially in a world that claims to gesture toward equity between the sexes, but rarely means it.
4) Carry-On
One of Netflix’s highest performing films of all-time, this is your sign to watch Carry-On if you haven’t already. The action thriller turns one of the most tedious, mundane aspects of traveling, airport security, into a riveting movie experience. Taron Egerton plays a TSA agent who finds himself being blackmailed on Christmas Eve by Jason Bateman’s Traveler, who is smuggling a dangerous Russian chemical weapon internationally.
Carry-On is a satisfying action thriller which features two world class actors in a high-octane version game of cat and mouse. Its Christmas setting harkens back to classic Die Hard and it given that it currently sits as the platform’s third most-watched movie ever, we wouldn’t be surprised if viewers made Carry-On a yearly tradition like the former.
3) The Departed
If crime thrillers are more your thing, there few finer in existence than The Departed. Iconic filmmaker Martin Scorsese directs an all-star ensemble in the battle between the South Boston police force and Irish American organized crime. Matt Damon and Leonardo DiCaprio both play young cops, albeit on different sides of the law. One is striving to bring down crime kingpin Frank Costello (Jack Nicholson), while the other is an informant for Costello’s syndicate infiltrating the police. Tension permeates every second of The Departed as the two young adversaries learn of each other’s existence and try to out the other, and the stacked supporting cast which includes Martin Sheen, Mark Wahlberg, and Vera Farmiga makes the movie a must-watch for every thriller-lover.
2) Red Eye
In Red Eye, a cross-country flight becomes a terrifying struggle for survival. Rachel McAdams plays hotel manager Lisa who befriends another traveler, Jack Rippner (Cillian Murphy) on a flight from Dallas to Miami. Their meeting and chemistry is rom-com worthy, yet it becomes anything but when Jack reveals that he’s on the plane to assassinate the United States Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security, and if Lisa does anything to stop him, he’ll kill her father. Horror auteur Wes Craven deftly makes use of the contained, damn-near claustrophobic setting in Red Eye to up the film’s stakes and tension, while Murphy’s shift from charming to terrifyingly creepy is a marvel to behold on screen.
1) Jaws
Few films have ever captured a feeling of dread as effectively as Jaws did fifty years ago. In one of his early cinematic triumphs, Steven Speilberg adapted the novel about a shark terrorizing a small East Coast town into an unforgettable horror-thriller that all made us think twice about a carefree ocean swim. When the greedy mayor of Amity Island refuses to close down the town’s beaches after a suspected shark attack, its police chief, a marine biologist and expert shark killer hunt down the beast. In addition to Spielberg’s skillful storytelling, Jaws makes its tension palpable thanks to John Williams’s iconic, instantly foreboding score.
Tell us your favorite thrillers below in the comments!
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