I'm not sure if it's some kind of morbid curiosity we have an irrepressible urge to quench, but sometimes, there's just nothing like a good old adrenaline-inducing thriller.
With M. Night Shyamalan's Knock at the Cabin hitting theaters recently and Scream VI right around the corner, it's safe to say we're in the mood for something that gets our hearts racing.
1. Knock at the Cabin
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Eric (Jonathan Groff), Andrew (Ben Aldridge), and their daughter, Wen (Kristen Cui), head to a beautiful cabin in the countryside for a family vacation. The forest is beautiful, the cabin is cozy, the water's great — oh, and they're in the absolute middle of nowhere with no cell reception. What could go wrong, right?
When the hulking figure of Leonard (Dave Bautista) looms over Wen, it's not long before she and her family are given a bleak choice: choose one of them to sacrifice, or the world will end.
A psychological thriller that makes you really question what you'd do in their shoes, Knock at the Cabin boasts emotive performances all around and a great debut from newcomer, Kristen Cui, as the small but determined Wen.
2. Us (2019)
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Imagine going on a peaceful beach vacay with your family and suddenly a bunch of red jumpsuit-wearing doppelgangers show up with weapons?
A truly unique premise for a horror movie, and one that has many more threads than I'm letting on here, this 2019 Jordan Peele movie has become a fast fave in the world of horror — and for good reason.
3. Hush (2016)
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It's a common nightmare, being stranded alone in the middle of nowhere when someone with sinister intentions shows up.
In Hush, that's exactly what happens to Maddie (Kate Siegel), a deaf writer who has retreated to the depths of the woods to concentrate on her work. Clad in a hockey mask, the stranger makes his intent known — and Maddie must fight for her life in absolute silence.
A tense cat-and-mouse game with a steady drip of adrenaline throughout, this thriller is directed by Mike Flanagan, the man behind The Haunting of Hill House, The Haunting of Bly Manor, Midnight Mass, Oculus, Doctor Sleep, and more.
4. The Cabin in the Woods (2011)
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Not to be confused with Knock At The Cabin, The Cabin in the Woods is a very meta horror following a bunch of friends who go away to a secluded cabin for some downtime.
This horror/comedy inevitably doesn't end too well for the friends, but it's not quite as simple as your standard slasher. Chock-full of self-aware tropes, it very much plays up to the well-worn horror stereotypes — but it's very clever in how it utilizes them.
Designed to draw in audiences by looking like the average teen slasher, The Cabin in the Woods will surprise you with the way it packs a punch through its innovative storyline.
(And hey, after this, Knock at the Cabin, Us, and Hush, you couldn't pay me to go and hang out in a cabin for a weekend...)
5. Panic Room (2002)
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Featuring the legendary Jodie Foster and a young K-Stew (are we still calling her that?), Panic Room is a classic home invasion thriller.
Directed by psychological/thriller movie veteran David Fincher (whose filmography I could basically just decant onto this list), you know the tension's gonna be taut for the whole of the film's run.
The story follows Meg, a newly divorced woman, as she moves into her new home with her young daughter, Sarah. It's not long before their idyllic new home becomes a nightmare, as three men break in on the hunt for a missing fortune inside the house.
Trapped in the home's panic room, Meg and Sarah must find a way to outsmart all the traps the robbers set and escape — without actually leaving the room.
6. Parasite (2019)
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A film that cleverly weaves social commentary into the threads of the story, Parasite follows the Kim family, who band together to exploit the rich Park family after their son, Ki-woo (Choi Woo-shik), tricks his way into their lives.
Directed by Bong Joon-ho, the film has his trademark tightly coiled tension throughout — and of course, the storyline isn't quite as simple as a basic fraud scheme gone awry.
Hugely successful, it became the first South Korean film to receive any Academy Award recognition and became one of only three movies to win both the Palme d'Or and the Academy Award for Best Picture. It won four Academy Awards in total, as well as a Golden Globe, a BAFTA, and a Screen Actors Guild Award.
7. Don't Breathe (2016)
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Three thieves with dreams of getting out of their dead-end town decide to break into the house of Norman (Stephen Lang), a Gulf War veteran.
With plans to steal the blind man's money, the trio gets an absolutely terrifying surprise when it turns out Norman is not quite the defenseless old man they had assumed him to be.
Don't Breathe is a great title because I barely did the whole time the movie ran!
8. Get Out (2017)
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Another Jordan Peele movie to make the list, Get Out follows Chris (Daniel Kaluuya), a young Black man, as he goes to meet the family of Rose, his white girlfriend (Allison Williams), for the first time.
Chris soon begins to notice that there's something distinctively off at Rose's homestead, and it's not long before we're transported into a nightmarish dystopia.
Cleverly intertwining important messages about race, society, and more, with an ever-growing sense of growing terror, Get Out is a ground-breaking psychological thriller that's worth all the hype it got.
9. A Quiet Place (2018)
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Oh man, the tension in this film is POWERFUL.
Following a family in a world where a single sound brings on certain death at the hands of a terrifying sci-fi creature, A Quiet Place is tremendously clever in the way it builds its world, tells the story, and creates a real sense of dread around the monsters we rarely actually see.
When I saw this in theaters, the audience barely breathed the whole time — so just imagine the stress created by the fact that Emily Blunt's character in the movie is heavily pregnant and has to give birth in that terror-laced world.
The tension is masterfully wrought, and that constant undercurrent together with emotive characters that you root for ultimately packs one hell of a punch — both to your heart rate and your heartstrings.
10. Prisoners (2013)
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When Keller's daughter and her friend go missing, the desperate father goes rogue as the police flounder to find track down the perpetrators, and bring the girls home.
Featuring a strong ensemble cast including Hugh Jackman, Jake Gyllenhaal, Viola Davia, Maria Bello, Terence Howard, Melissa Leo, and Paul Dano, Prisoners is powerful in the way it paints not in black and white, but exclusively in shades of gray.
As the ever-growing pressure to find the girls lead Keller down paths he's never trodden before, it has the audience questioning who the real villain of the story is, and asking how far is too far when it comes to getting a loved one back home safely.
11. The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
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A real prototype for what a good psychological thriller should be, The Silence of the Lambs follows FBI agent Clarice Starling (Jodie Foster) on a quest to stop a serial killer targeting female victims to live out his grotesque fantasies.
In order to apprehend the killer, Clarice seeks help from Hannibal Lecter (Anthony Hopkins), a notorious former psychiatrist and psychopathic serial killer in his own right. Together, the two work together, but it's not quite your standard colleague relationship.
Clever, cunning, and laced with tension, The Silence of the Lambs has stood the test of time for a good reason.
12. Room (2015)
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What would you do if everything you knew about the world was shattered? In Room, that's exactly what happens to five-year-old Jack (Jacob Tremblay), a young boy born to Joy (Brie Larson), who has been held captive in a single room for seven years.
To Jack, the whole world is Room, but one day, Joy decides to break them out. What happens when Jack realizes the world is infinitely bigger than he thought? What happens to Joy as she tries to pick up the pieces of her life where she left off seven years prior?
The film peppers tense moments throughout in all different forms, from interactions with the kidnapper all the way to the stresses of the outside world and dealing with the aftermath of such a traumatic situation. Weaving together drama and thriller, this movie has a lot of heart to go with the tension.
13. Oldboy (2003)
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Imprisoned in a cell that resembles a hotel room for 15 years, with no idea why he's there or who put him there, Oh Dae-su (Choi Min-sik) is suddenly set free. From there, he has five days to get the answers he's been searching for — and seek his revenge.
Not for the faint-hearted, Oldboy has an impressive 40 awards wins and 21 nominations, appearing at No. 70 in the IMDb Top 250 Movies.
14. Speed (1994)
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When a bomber's scheme to extort $3 million in ransom money is thwarted by two LAPD SWAT bomb disposal officers, it's not long before he sets out on a revenge mission to get his cash and seek revenge on the officers who stood in his way.
Rigging a bus with a bomb that will activate when the bus reaches 50 miles per hour and detonates if it drops below that speed, the bomber sets officer Jack Traven (Keanu Reeves) on a dangerous path as he attempts to stop the bomb and save the passengers trapped onboard.
15. The Platform (2019)
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A prison thriller like no other, The Platform draws us into a vertical detainment facility, where there are two people per cell and a hole in the floor leading to the next cell on the floor below.
Every day, a food platform descends from the top, and the people in the cells have two minutes to feast before the platform drops to the next level. They can't keep any of the food — they must consume everything within that two minutes and throw anything left down the hole, or their cells will begin to slow-cook them to death.
The catch? The lower levels are lucky to get any food at all — and the prisoners wake up on a different level every month. This month-long stretch could be a death sentence for those in the lower levels, and it's not long before protagonist Goreng (Ivan Massagué) begins to start a revolution.
A twisted metaphor for the way society works, The Platform is a dark thriller that's not for the faint of heart.
16. Nightcrawler (2014)
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Louis Bloom (Jake Gyllenhaal), a con man and thief, gets a foot in the door of the LA crime journalism scene.
Tailing photojournalists at the scenes of accidents and crimes, Louis manages to sell footage to a news station, whose morning news director tells him they're especially interested in graphic footage of violent crime and accidents in affluent, white areas.
Before long, Bloom begins to blur the line between reality and fiction, creating a crime drama of his own.
Nominated for an Oscar, Nightcrawler also won 42 awards and was nominated for 124 in total. With a creeping sense of unease that permeates the film from start to finish, it's easy to see why.
17. I Saw The Devil (2010)
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When a pregnant Joo-yeon gets a flat tire one night, a school bus driver named Jang Kyung-chul (Choi Min-sik) pulls over and offers to fix it for her. However, he's not the kindly Samaritan he's posing as.
When Joo-yeon's ear is found, her devastated fiancé, NIS officer Kim Soo-hyon (Lee Byung-hun), vows to exact his revenge on the murderer.
However, it's not as simple as your standard "catch the killer, exact your revenge" arc. Nuh-uh. Soo-hyun doesn't think a quick and easy death is something Jang Kyung-chul deserves, so he begins a twisted game of cat and mouse where the killer, for once, is the mouse floundering in a trap.
Warning: it's a pretty grisly watch.
18. Se7en (1995)
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When a serial killer leaves a trail of grisly murders inspired by the seven deadly sins, a rookie (Brad Pitt) and a detective cop (Morgan Freeman) are tasked with apprehending the criminal before he strikes again.
The crime scenes in Se7en are pretty gruesome — so much so that the film wasn't expected to perform well. However, it went on to become one of the highest-performing films of the year, raking in a huge $327.3 million.
Its dark themes and aesthetics are often praised, and it's become utterly synonymous with director David Fincher. A great crime thriller that will keep you on your toes, Se7en has a unique premise that will hold you captive until the credits roll.
19. Train to Busan (2016)
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If you're sick of zombie movies and think they're all the same, watch Train to Busan for a refreshing change.
When a zombie virus breaks out in South Korea, passengers on a train heading from Seoul to Busan must try to stay alive while trapped inside a moving vehicle with some of the infected onboard.
With a large cast, it's impressive to flesh out the characters and give their stories as much attention to detail as this film manages to. The emotional connection we feel to the characters makes the impossible situation they're put in right before our eyes that much more stressful.
Trust me when I say you'll oscillate between forgetting how to breathe from the tension to grabbing the tissues as the film plays out.
20. Inception (2010)
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Imagine being trapped, not in a physical place, but inside someone's subconscious.
Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Arthur (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) work as extractors. They steal corporate secrets from their targets by infiltrating their subconscious using experimental dream-sharing technology.
When Saito (Ken Watanabe) approaches Cobb with an offer to clear his criminal record for doing the exact opposite — implanting an idea instead of stealing one — the extractor must band together a team who can layer dreams to successfully implant the idea in the target's (Cillian Murphy) subconscious.
The only question is: in a world of subconscious projections, how can they be sure what's truly a reality?