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Is there any more terrifying terrain than the human mind? That’s the sensibility that dominates the psychological thriller genre, and quite effectively. Nothing quite sets an audience on edge like having a main character who doesn’t quite know what’s going on, and that’s the bread and butter of a psychological thriller. Sometimes — as is the case with the new Netflix original film Clinical — these are movies specifically about psychologists who get caught up in their patients’ cases. Other times, these are movies about mind games between increasingly antagonistic characters. Sometimes we’re not meant to know how unhinged a character is until it’s too late.
The following ten movies are available to stream on a variety of platforms right now. They’re all among the more underrated movie offerings currently out there. And they will send your mind on a bender.
'Manhunter' (1986)
Directed by: Michael Mann
Starring: William Peterson, Brian Cox, Tom Noonan
Streaming on: HBO GO
Manhunter is best known as the movie that launched the Hannibal Lecter Cinematic Universe long before The Silence of the Lambs. This would later be remade as the inferior, Brett Ratner-directed Red Dragon, but it couldn’t beat William Peterson trying to track down serial killer Tom Noonan amid a series of mind-games. Brian Cox’s brief appearance as Lecter leaves one hell of an impact, too.
'Basic Instinct' (1992)
Directed by: Paul Verhoeven
Starring: Sharon Stone, Michael Douglas, Jeanne Tripplehorn
Streaming on: Netflix
What’s so underrated about one of the most publicized movies of the 1990s? You couldn’t go anywhere in 1992 without hearing about Basic Instinct‘s sex scenes or Sharon Stone’s nudity or the psychosexual violence that was so scandalous to so many. But what got lost in the shuffle was that Basic Instinct is a fantastic psychological thriller, featuring a Sharon Stone performance that is so much more than bared skin.
'Primal Fear' (1996)
Directed by: Gregory Hoblit
Starring: Richard Gere, Edward Norton, Laura Linney
Streaming on: Prime Video
Perhaps the quintessential 1990s legal thriller, what set Primal Fear apart in 1996 was Edward Norton’s Oscar-nominated performance as an accused killer whose mind is in crisis. But there’s so much else at play here, from Richard Gere at his smarmiest to Laura Linney (making a meal out of some pretty rote material), Frances McDormand, and Alfre Woodard in supporting roles.
'The Machinist' (2004)
Directed by: Brad Anderson
Starring: Christian Bale, Jennifer Jason Leigh
Streaming on: Netflix
This is the movie that Christian Bale famously shed 62 pounds for, in his role as a factory worker with crippling insomnia who becomes paranoid and certain that something is after him. Director Brad Anderson is one of the most underrated directors in the business, having made this, The Call, and the phenomenally unsettling Session 9.
'Hard Candy' (2006)
Directed by: David Slade
Starring: Ellen Page, Patrick Wilson
Streaming on: Netflix
A pre-Juno Ellen Page turned heads at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival with her performance here as a teenage girl who is seemingly falling into the clutches of an internet predator (Wilson). But all is certainly not what it seems, and the film becomes a kind of psychological warfare where Page’s character has all the weapons.
'Bug' (2007)
Directed by: William Friedkin
Starring: Ashley Judd, Michael Shannon
Streaming on: Prime Video
It’s always nice when you can get a master like William Friedkin to helm your psychological thriller, and he does wonders with this adaptation of Tracy Letts’s claustrophobic thriller. Ashley Judd falls for Michael Shannon and gets sucked into his paranoid belief that he’s been implanted with bugs by some malevolent force (the government? aliens?), and watching them both drive each other deeper down the rabbit hole.
'Funny Games' (2008)
Directed by: Michael Haneke
Starring: Michael Pitt, Brady Corbett, Naomi Watts, Tim Roth
Streaming on: HBO GO
Michael Haneke directed his own American remake of his supremely unsettling 1990s movie about a home invasion in an idyllic lake house that turns into a commentary on cinema violence. Which is why said remake is such an unmerciful, pitch-dark, pitiless rollercoaster ride. The mind games the film is most concerned with are the ones it plays with the audience.
'The Double' (2014)
Directed by: Richard Ayoade
Starring: Jesse Eisenberg, Mia Wasikowska
Streaming on: Netflix
Eisenberg was critically acclaimed for his dual performance in Richard Ayoade’s dark Dostoyevsky adaptation. Ultimately, there is no one who will fuck your mind up more than yourself, and Eisenberg learns that lesson via a series of humiliations and torments.
'Queen of Earth' (2015)
Directed by: Alex Ross Perry
Starring: Elisabeth Moss, Katherine Waterston
Streaming on: Netflix
No one was expecting Alex Ross Perry’s follow-up to the navel-gazing Listen Up Phillip to be such a committed, stylized, often terrifying film that took the trappings of indie dramady and turned them inward. What if these characters who we so often watch in these light indies ever took their neuroses and insecurities and tormented themselves/each other with them. Moss and Wasterston as stellar as a pair of friends whose resentments and recriminations end up warping them.
'The Gift' (2015)
Directed by: Joel Edgerton
Starring: Jason Bateman, Joel Edgerton, Rebecca Hall
Streaming on: Showtime
Edgerton’s directorial debut was this remarkably assured and darkly punishing film about a married man (Bateman) who encounters someone from his past (Edgerton) and begins to feel that he and his wife are being stalked. The mind games go far deeper than that, however, and the pitch-black conclusion to the film is so cruel you almost can’t believe it.
