Are your palms sweating? Good. The test of a truly great thriller is both physical and mental – a level of tension that sets your heart racing and a predicament that you can't see a way out of without doing something unthinkable.
Thrillers are currently on a glorious run of form thanks to works which push the stress levels to maximum while still focusing on compelling characters who you root for and stories that transport you to places you hope you'll never have to see. We're thinking of Jake Gyllenhaal's crazed turn in Nightcrawler, or the frenzied Safdie brothers films Good Time and Uncut Gems.
We're living in stressful times, and these thrillers are an excellent way to test your adrenal system.
Se7en (1995)
David Fincher's 1995 movie, featuring a particularly good performance from Brad Pitt, is an edge of your seat tale that has stood the test of time, hitting all of the dramatic beats that a thriller should. The dark plot follows two detectives (Pitt and Morgan Freeman) who investigate a string of murders in which the victims are killed in gruesomely creative forms, each linked to one of the seven sins. It also features the best cardboard box scene in cinematic history, not that we imagine there's much competition for that particular trophy.
10 Cloverfield Lane (2016)
Produced by J J Abrams and co-written by Damien Chazelle, this 2016 film is a spiritual successor to the 2008 film Cloverfield which actually holds up to the original. In the psychological thriller, a woman finds herself in a bunker with a stranger who warns her against the dangerous world outside, but (obvs!) still decides to try and escape. Look out for a post-The Hangover, pre-A Star is Born Bradley Cooper too, as well as John Goodman giving a stone cold classic John Goodman performance.
Inside Man (2006)
Wonderful as Spike Lee's second golden run of films has been to witness, it's slightly gutting that Inside Man stands as his last big-budget mainstream success. The heist itself comes early, and it's a complex one involving thieves dressed as decorators, an elaborate hostage-shuffling system and recordings of the dead Albanian dictator Enver Hoxha. As such, it quickly turns from a howdunnit into a whydunnit, with Denzel Washington and Chiwetel Ejiofor bearing down on Clive Owen's criminal ringleader. As you'd expect of Lee, it's a superior, intelligent blockbuster of a thriller, and nobody shoots New York with the energy and wit that he does.
The Handmaiden (2016)
Sarah Waters' novel Fingersmith is transplanted from Victorian England to Korea under Japanese colonial rule in Oldboy and Thirst director Park Chan-wook's artful psychological thriller. A con man has designs on seducing a Japanese heiress with a view to shipping her off to an asylum and claiming her money. Key to the plan is his sidekick Sook-hee, who gets a job as the heiress's handmaiden. But rather than helping to smooth the con man's advances, Sook-hee starts to fall for the heiress instead. It's sultry, patiently paced and erotically charged.
Bridge of Spies (2015)
Steven Spielberg's second mission into spycraft is more of a stylish noir feel compared to the gritty paranoia of Munich, and a lot of that is down to the unexpected warmth at its heart. Tom Hanks and Mark Rylance form an odd couple friendship across the Iron Curtain when Hanks' small-town insurance lawyer James B Donovan is roped in to notionally defend Rylance's Rudolf Abel on spying charges. Rather than rolling over for the CIA, Donovan saves Abel from a death sentence, though his principles make him a hate figure. Then when American spy Gary Powers is captured by the Soviet Union, Donovan is tapped up as an unlikely saviour.
Zodiac (2007)
David Fincher certainly knows one end of a serial killer thriller from the other, and given both the acting talent he had to play with here – Robert Downey Jr, Brian Cox, Jake Gyllenhaal, Mark Ruffalo – along with the mythos of the San Francisco Bay Zodiac murders you'd have thought this was a sure thing all the way. But there are a lot of risks taken here. Zodiac is a slow-burn crime epic and a minutely observed post-Woodstock burnout period piece more than it is a who-slash-it.
Falling Down (1993)
You can read Falling Down any number of ways: a withering, cathartic take-down of late 20th century consumer capitalism; an update of Network's mad-as-hell, not-taking-it-anymore Howard Beale with a shotgun; a blackly comic lark; a slightly more unhinged portent of the 'da' played by Limmy, wailing that she's turned the weans against him. However much intellectual heft you want to ascribe to it, it's an extremely effective thriller. Michael Douglas is recently divorced William Foster, who's not allowed to see his daughter and has just been sacked. Then his air conditioning breaks. Stomping across LA, he goes on a one-man rampage, trading up from a baseball bat to a knife to, eventually, a rocket launcher.
The Prestige (2006)
Hugh Jackman and an extremely cock-er-ney Christian Bale face off as two rival magicians endlessly trying to one-up each other with their tricks in Christopher Nolan's tricksy yarn about professional jealousy and revenge. This, for our money, is Michael Caine's best turn as Nolan's all-purpose voice of reason and warm narrative guide, while David Bowie drapes his own mystique around a suitably ethereal turn as Nikola Tesla. As impressive as the two conjurors' tricks are, the biggest flourish is Nolan's own prestige moment, a final few seconds which reveal a sleight of hand that was staring you in the face the whole time.
Velvet Buzzsaw (2019)
A satirical thriller set in the art scene of Los Angeles, Velvet Buzzsaw satisfyingly skewers the critics and collectors of this underworld and sees Jake Gyllenhaal reunited with Nightcrawler director Dan Gilroy. Here pretentious installations and vapid art enthusiasts are the primary target, think "Kindergarten go-pro" exhibitions and people asking "are those the new Persols?" in response to somebody wearing optician-issue light sensitivity glasses.
American Psycho (2000)
Christian Bale plays the athletic, well-dressed, suave, successful serial killer Patrick Bateman in this stylish and grim adaptation of Brett Easton Ellis' novel of the same name. The film takes a deep dive into the recesses of a psychopath's mind, imbuing the story with a jet-black humour which is carried perfectly by Bale's maniacal grin.
The Fury of a Patient Man (2016)
This arthouse Spanish thriller has bloody vengeance at its core, telling the story of a man imprisoned in Madrid after robbing a jewellery store. After eight years of serving time he leaves hoping to start his life afresh, but when his path unexpectedly crosses with an alluring stranger named Jose, he sees his mistakes have not been left in the past.
Nightcrawler (2014)
Jake Gyllenhaal is at his most unhinged as Lou Bloom, a smalltime LA cameraman who realises he can make money photographing criminal activities to sell to TV networks, his discovery pushing him to go to extreme lengths. Gyllenhaal is hollow-cheeked and with a truly unsettling glint in his eye as director Dan Gilroy zooms in on the violence-obsessed news and underbelly of crime in this gripping story.
Inception (2010)
Christopher Nolan's visually overwhelming and smart blockbuster bent time and viewers' minds on its release 10 years ago. The film's follows protagonist Cobb (a surly Leonardo DiCaprio) who steals information from his targets by entering their dreams, a hustle he wants to leave behind but must complete one last mission in exchange for having his slate wiped clean.
Good Time (2017)
Robert Pattinson's second act has seen him show up in zany arthouse numbers such as High Life and The Lighthouse, playing against his good looks to bring an intimidating level of intensity to the men he embodies. This 2017 film from directors the Safdie brothers sees him play Connie Nikas, a Greek-American criminal from Queens who has to come up with bail for his brother after they run into trouble. A nail-biter which takes you on one exhausting night in New York City and some of Pattinson's finest work.
Shutter Island (2010)
"Which would be worse – to live as a monster? Or to die as a good man?" asks Leonardo DiCaprio as Teddy Daniels, a as US Marshal sent to investigate the disappearance of a patient on a remote island in this mystery-steeped Scorsese film from 2010. DiCaprio's Daniels serves as our anxiety-ridden guide through the island: a maze of red herrings laid like traps as the tension mounts.
Prisoners (2013)
Before Arrival and Sicario, director Denis Villeneuve made a name for himself with this bleak 2013 thriller about a man whose daughter and her friend go missing from their garden while playing outside. The father's obsessive search is aided by the hard-working Detective Loki – played brilliantly by Jake Gyllenhaal – and leads them down dark avenues, including to the door of an unsettling suspect brought to life by Paul Dano.
Uncut Gems (2020)
Josh and Benny Safdie follow Good Time with a (somehow) even more panic-inducing, against-the-clock crime thriller, dropping you into the diamond district of New York City and its nefarious characters. Criminally overlooked for an Oscar nomination, Adam Sandler is transfixing as Howard Ratner, a diamond dealer who can't help putting other people's money where his big mouth is, a habit which puts him in more and more danger as the stakes go keep going up.
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