Time Out’s The 100 Best Thrillers
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Everyone has their favourite genre but we can surely all agree that thrillers are the best. And if you don’t believe us, there’s a suspicious figure in that darkened doorway who’d like a word. From the early classics, like Alfred Hitchcock’s The Lodger or Fritz Lang’s M, to the films of David Fincher and Martin Scorsese, they’re rich in nerve-shredding, adrenaline-pumping rides into the darker recesses of the psyche. Thrillers show us horrors and weave in human dramas, but they use those raw materials to forge something particular: a sense of unease and suspense.
With masterful control of those elements, Hitchcock could manipulate his audiences like puppets on a string, delivering shocks that reverberate through cinema history. Fincher’s Seven and Zodiac have carried on the legacy, while films like Pig, Nightmare Alley and The Card Counter show that the thriller is the genre for all eras. Even superhero flicks, like Captain America: Civil War and The Batman, have been borrowing liberally from the crime thriller. It is, unlike many of its ill-fated characters, alive and well.
But what are the very best of them? As we’ve done with science fiction, horror films, romances, comedies, westerns and war films, we’ve dusted cinema for prints and taken a magnifying glass to its finest thrillers to boil them down to a tonne of all-timers. On the list? Murder, political intrigue, espionage, conspiracy, manipulation, gaslighting and, of course, crime. Lots of crime. Enjoy – and hold on tight.
Written by Abbey Bender, Joshua Rothkopf, Phil de Semlyen, Tom Huddleston, Andy Kryza & Tomris Laffly
List created in June 2018 (updated June 2021)
Last Updated: March 23, 2022
Source
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5 -
Reservoir Dogs
1992, in 26 top lists Check -
18 -
Se7en
1995, in 29 top lists Check -
7 -
The Silence of the Lambs
1991, in 36 top lists Check -
59 -1
Memento
2000, in 27 top lists Check -
17 -
Taxi Driver
1976, in 34 top lists Check -
26 -
Rear Window
1954, in 31 top lists Check -
15 -
Vertigo
1958, in 42 top lists Check -
32 -
The Usual Suspects
1995, in 24 top lists Check -
1 -
North by Northwest
1959, in 30 top lists Check -
20 -
L.A. Confidential
1997, in 27 top lists Check -
16 -
Mulholland Dr.
2001 — a.k.a. Mulholland Drive, in 26 top lists Check -
57 -1
Black Swan
2010, in 12 top lists Check -
3 -
Chinatown
1974, in 31 top lists Check -
31 -
Oldeuboi
2003 — a.k.a. Oldboy, in 34 top lists Check -
2 -
M - Eine Stadt sucht einen Mörder
1931 — a.k.a. M, in 35 top lists Check -
4 -
The Third Man
1949, in 37 top lists Check -
37 -
Heat
1995, in 23 top lists Check -
9 -
The Maltese Falcon
1941, in 26 top lists Check -
11 -
Double Indemnity
1944, in 37 top lists Check -
12 -
Zodiac
2007, in 14 top lists Check -
41 -
Shadow of a Doubt
1943, in 15 top lists Check -
25 -
Blue Velvet
1986, in 27 top lists Check -
35 -
The Night of the Hunter
1955, in 34 top lists Check -
6 -
Touch of Evil
1958, in 30 top lists Check -
34 -
Notorious
1946, in 24 top lists Check -
75 -1
Strangers on a Train
1951, in 17 top lists Check -
27 -
Dog Day Afternoon
1975, in 23 top lists Check -
22 -
The Killing
1956, in 15 top lists Check -
24 -
The Big Sleep
1946, in 22 top lists Check -
8 -
The 39 Steps
1935, in 16 top lists Check -
45 -
The French Connection
1971, in 23 top lists Check -
69 -1
Dirty Harry
1971, in 17 top lists Check -
54 -1
The Lady Vanishes
1938, in 15 top lists Check -
10 -
Les diaboliques
1955 — a.k.a. Diabolique, in 21 top lists Check -
30 -
Le salaire de la peur
1953 — a.k.a. The Wages of Fear, in 29 top lists Check -
58 -1
The Untouchables
1987, in 9 top lists Check -
28 -
Dr. No
1962, in 7 top lists Check -
19 -
The Manchurian Candidate
1962, in 15 top lists Check -
42 -
Blood Simple
1984, in 10 top lists Check -
21 -
The Conversation
1974, in 23 top lists Check -
93 -1
Lola rennt
1998 — a.k.a. Run Lola Run, in 9 top lists Check -
94 -
Gone Girl
2014, in 12 top lists Check -
23 -
Du rififi chez les hommes
1955 — a.k.a. Rififi, in 18 top lists Check -
88 -1
The Spy Who Loved Me
1977, in 4 top lists Check -
47 -
Le samouraï
1967 — a.k.a. Le Samouraï, in 20 top lists Check -
13 -
Kiss Me Deadly
1955, in 20 top lists Check -
97 -
Mou gaan dou
2002 — a.k.a. Infernal Affairs, in 13 top lists Check -
82 -1
Caché
2005, in 15 top lists Check -
14 -
The Fugitive
1993, in 8 top lists Check -
46 -
Blow Out
1981, in 8 top lists Check
Last updated on May 21, 2022 by Fergenaprido; source