HBO Max has one of the better movie line-ups of the major streamers, and in its glut of fantastic content there are more than a handful of thrillers, including a few stone-cold classics. Some are horror-thrillers, some are crime thrillers, there are even a few sci-fi films with a thrilling undertone. What follows are 10 of the absolute best thrillers on HBO Max, most of which dip their toes in genres outside of strictly “Thriller.” But they have to be officially labeled a thriller to some degree. So, apologies to excellent films that are typically associated with horror far more than thriller, e.g. Scream and Sinners.
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The same goes to science fiction films like The Martian and crime films like Casino. They certainly have thrilling elements, but they’re not labeled thrillers. The following excellent films are.
10) Love Lies Bleeding
Starring Kristen Stewart and The Mandalorian‘s Katy O’Brian, Love Lies Bleeding is one of the more intriguing and compelling recent films from A24. It’s a pulp thriller not unlike Body Heat and The Postman Always Rings Twice. It has a pretty weird moment in the third act involving an exaggerated version of the effect of steroids, but outside that it’s pretty straightforward.
What really benefits Love Lies Bleeding is that it has a limited cast list. We get to know all of them fairly well, even when they’re characters dispatched midway through. Stewart and O’Brian have terrific chemistry, Jena Malone earns the audience’s empathy without being pitiful, Dave Franco successfully plays against type, and Ed Harris is a true menace as the father of Stewart’s Lou, a soft-spoken gym manager who falls for O’Brian’s Jackie, a bodybuilder who is hoping to break through big in a competition.
9) Greenland
Greenland is a disaster movie like Volcano or Armageddon, but it’s more comfortable fleshing out characters than it is delivering bombastic set-pieces, and it’s all the better for that. Gerard Butler and Morena Baccarin star as John and Allison Garrity, who along with their diabetic son Nathan have been selected by the Department of Homeland Security to take shelter in an emergency shelter now that a fragment of a comet is heading straight towards Earth.
This is a disaster thriller that makes you believe that the Earth is nearing an extinction-level event. The visuals are perpetually coated in a bright shade of orange and the scenes of people panicking (which are frequent) are well-staged. We want the Garrity family to get to safety, but at the same time we know there are any number of people who won’t be so lucky.
8) End of Watch
While policing is a tricky subject these days, End of Watch is an intense and incisive look at the day-to-day for a LAPD officer. The film benefits greatly by David Ayer’s particular gritty style, resulting in one of the best cop movies alongside Colors, starring Sean Penn and Robert Duvall.
The realism displayed in the film helps it seem like a departure from typical Hollywood fare, perhaps even more than other Ayer-scripted police movies like Training Day and Dark Blue. Not to mention, Jake Gyllenhaal and Michael Peña’s chemistry is fantastic, which was integral to this movie working.
7) Companion
Companion is the type of movie where it’s best to go in cold. There are plenty of twists that are best left entirely avoided until you see them unfold for yourself. In other words, if you haven’t seen it, just skip the next paragraph, move onto the next entry of our list, then watch the movie.
One of the best movies of 2025, Companion is a sublime showcase of Sophie Thatcher’s range. As Iris, a robot companion who is just part of her cruel “boyfriend’s” plot, she earns the audience’s love and empathy just as much as she earns their fist pumps when she gets the upper hand.
6) Funny Games
If any movie on this list isn’t for everyone it is Michael Haneke’s Funny Games. This is a work that shows the depravity of some human beings on our planet and it doesn’t hold back.
We follow a family that is held hostage by a pair of young men. These two individuals play mind games of increasing intensity, often trying to pit them against one another. Eventually it gets violent, and no one is safe. Some of the events towards the tail end of Funny Games will undoubtedly turn a portion of HBO Max’s subscribers off, and the same could be said of how the film toys with reality, but it’s a work worth watching, unlike the remake (which, oddly enough, was also directed by Haneke).
5) Fight Club
A late ’90s classic that is still often referenced in more modern media, David Fincher’s Fight Club is a movie that coasts on style and two stellar performances. If there were two actors in 1999 who were more sought by studios than Brad Pitt and Edward Norton it’s hard to imagine who they were, and much to Fight Club‘s benefit they have incredible chemistry.
The most amazing aspect of Fincher’s film is that Chuck Palahniuk’s novel wasn’t exactly the most easily adaptable thing on the planet, and all involved knock it out of the park. Even if you already know the twist, Fight Club is a fun, breezy, unique watch and an integral entry in its director’s filmography.
4) Blood Simple
The Coen brothers’ first film, Blood Simple, is one of the ultimate steamy neo-noirs, in the same league as Basic Instinct, The Last Seduction, and Body Heat. However, while those three movies skewed towards the sex aspect more than the crime, Blood Simple skews more towards the latter.
Frances McDormand and The Fly‘s John Getz star as a couple in love. However, McDormand’s Abby is married…to the boss of Getz’s Ray. Now, her husband, Julian (Dan Hedaya) has hired a private detective to catch them in the act. Unfortunately for Abby and Ray, Loren Visser (M. Emmet Walsh) is a psychopath who guns down his temporary employer and is coming for them next. Beautifully shot, very well scored, and acted with note-perfection (especially by Walsh), Blood Simple remains one of the Coens’ better movies.
3) Dog Day Afternoon
One of the definitive bank robber films, Sidney Lumet’s Dog Day Afternoon is so astoundingly effective because it’s far less concerned with the robbery than it is those committing the crimes.
This is a character-focused piece, one that is based on a true story and is brought to life by the expert performances of Al Pacino, John Cazale, and Chris Sarandon. Toss in airtight pacing, assured direction by Lumet, and a phenomenal script by Frank Pierson and this is one of the best films of the ’70s.
2) Speed
One of those ’90s action movies that really holds up, Speed is an adventure that moves at a breakneck speed. Having the action of a high-octane narrative confined to a bus that cannot go slower than a certain speed will always be one of the most novel concepts in film history.
On one hand we as the audience are forced to feel the danger that surrounds this speeding bus. Even more so, we feel the growing dread of the people within the bus. They know there is a bomb on the vehicle, they know they can’t leave it, and they know that it’s L.A. traffic. There are bound to be obstacles that will stand in the way of this bus maintaining the speed set by a vengeful, mad terrorist. Speaking of that vengeful, mad terrorist, Dennis Hopper has the time of his life in the role of Howard Payne but, as great as he is, this is the movie that displays the white-hot chemistry between Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock. There’s a reason that, even decades later with plenty of other iconic films under their respective belts, this is usually one of the first two (at most three) films that springs to mind when someone is asked to think of one of their works.
1) The Silence of the Lambs
The best horror movie of the 1990s is actually more of a thriller than anything else. Jonathan Demme’s The Silence of the Lambs is a masterclass in character development, powerhouse acting, and tension-building. As far as psychological chillers go, it is unbeatable.
As FBI trainee Clarice Starling, Jodie Foster makes you believe her character’s capability even in the face of some grisly, gruesome stuff. And, as Hannibal Lecter and Buffalo Bill, Anthony Hopkins and Ted Levine, respectively, are skin-crawling individuals with wildly different personas. This is a movie that makes you feel the danger experienced by the protagonist, and it’s unforgettable. HBO Max also has Ridley Scott’s Hannibal, but it pales in comparison to Demme’s masterpiece.
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