Time Out’s The 100 Best Thrillers

North by Northwest is one of Alfred Hitchcock’s greatest works. The master of suspense is at it again as we follow the protagonist Roger Thornhill from Manhattan to Mount Rushmore Memorial Park.

M is German director Fritz Lang’s masterpiece that illustrates the portrait of a child murderer that has caused an entire city to begin rioting. The film is based on actual events.

Chinatown is a classic US American film from 1974 Directed by Roman Polanski and starring Jack Nicholson. A plot about a conspiracy of the water and land use in the state of California.

An American pulp writer arrives in post-WWII Vienna only to find that the friend who waited for him is killed under mysterious circumstances. The ensuing mystery entangles him in his friend's involvement in the black market, with the multinational police, and with his Czech girlfriend.

Reservoir Dogs is wonder-kid director Quentin Tarantino’s debut film that made him into the big time director he is today. This independent production is a star studded gangster mix wherein a bag of very valuable diamonds is stolen and possibly by a traitor in their own gang.

Stark, perverse story of murder, kidnapping, and police corruption in Mexican border town.

Clarice Starling is a top student at the FBI's training academy. Jack Crawford wants Clarice to interview Dr. Hannibal Lecter, a brilliant psychiatrist who is also a violent psychopath, serving life behind bars for various acts of murder and cannibalism. Crawford believes that Lecter may have insight into a case and that Starling, as an attracti...

The 39 Steps is one of Alfred Hitchcock’s masterpieces. A romantic thriller that revolves around a Canadian tourist visiting London who gets caught in the middle of a murder plot that has police and the secret service after him. A classic Hitchcock of romance mixed with adventure and picturesque scenes.

The Maltese Falcon is a mystery thriller detective film from John Huston starring Humphrey Bogart. The film is regarded as a landmark in the film-noir movement.

Les Diaboliques is a Horror mystery thriller from French director Henri-Georges Clouzot about a triangle relationship that leads to murder.

Double Indemnity is a film noir thriller from directory Billy Wilder from 1944 in which the protagonist sets up an insurance fraud.

A San Francisco cartoonist becomes an amateur detective obsessed with tracking down the Zodiac killer.

One evening, Hammer gives a ride to Christina, an attractive hitchhiker on a lonely country road, who has escaped from the nearby lunatic asylum. Thugs waylay them and force his car to crash. When Hammer returns to semi-consciousness, he hears Christina being tortured until she dies. Hammer, both for vengeance and in hopes that "something big" i...

Dr. Richard Kimble, unjustly accused of killing his wife, must find the real one-armed killer while avoiding Marshal Sam Gerard.

An ex-police officer is asked to follow an old friends wife who thinks she is being followed by ghosts. A classic Hitchcock about a man who’s afraid of heights and a woman he must unfortunately follow to great heights.

After a car wreck on the winding Mulholland Drive renders a woman amnesic, she and a perky Hollywood-hopeful search for clues and answers across Los Angeles in a twisting venture beyond dreams and reality.

Robert De Niro stars as Travis Bickle in this oppressive psychodrama about a Vietnam veteran who rebels against the decadence and immorality of big city life in New York while working the nightshift as a taxi driver.

Just before retiring from the force a disillusioned detective, along with his successor, must solve one last case. They are hunting down a psychotic serial killer who chooses his victims according to the seven deadly sins. A masterpiece from director David Fincher that set new standards for the thriller genre.

The Manchurian Candidate is a political thriller from American director John Frankenheimer. An American soldier is brainwashed into being a killer for the communist Russians during the Korean War.

Three detectives in the corrupt and brutal L.A. police force of the 1950s use differing methods to uncover a conspiracy behind the shotgun slayings of the patrons at an all-night diner in this lush tribute to tough film noir crime films. Based on the multi-layered James Ellroy novel.

The Conversation is a Francis Ford Coppola thriller from 1974 about a professional surveillance man who is hired to record the conversations between two workers. Yet it looks like he’s gotten into more than he’s getting paid for as information about a murder may have been recorded.

The Killing was Stanley Kubrick’s first film with a professional cast and the first time he achieved public recognition as the unconventional director he’s now know for. The story is of ex-prisoners who plan to set up a racetrack so they can live a life without monetary worries. One of the more exceptional films of the 1950’s.

Rififi is a classic film noir with a famous 20 minute long break-in in absolute silence. A classic film noir.

The Big Sleep is a film noir based on the novel of the same name by Raymond Chandler. Directed by Howard Hawks and starring Humphrey Boogart and Lauren Becall.

Blue Velvet is a thriller from David Lynch that depicts the contrariness of two worlds that Jeffery is a part of - and torn apart from. The film is very ambivalent in the style that Lynch fans have come to love.

Jefferies has had his leg in a cast for weeks and has nothing to do but watch his neighbors from his window. His voyeurism leads him to think that he’s witnessed a murder. Together with his girlfriend Lisa and his nurse Stella they try to solve the mystery and possibly a murder.

A charismatic New York City jeweler always on the lookout for the next big score makes a series of high-stakes bets that could lead to the windfall of a lifetime. Howard must perform a precarious high-wire act, balancing business, family, and encroaching adversaries on all sides in his relentless pursuit of the ultimate win.

Dog Day Afternoon is a film based on true events and directed by Sidney Lumet. The film stars Al Pacino as a robber who held a bank hostage in Brooklyn, New York.

The mysterious scientist Dr. No sabotages the American space program from his secret base in Jamaica. The Secret Service sends it’s best agent after this him. Dr. No is the first film of legendary James Bond series starring Sean Connery in the role of a British super agent.

BLOW-UP is the story of a successful fashion photographer, Thomas (David Hemmings), who, whilst scouting for fresh subjects in a park one afternoon, photographs a mysterious couple in 'flagrante delicto.' Upon returning to his studio loft later that day, he develops the pictures and discovers that he has inadvertently stumbled upon a murder.

The Wages of Fear / Le Salaire de la Peur – is a black and white French classic by Clouzot about a South American village in the 1950’s where men who are paid to transporting extremely dangerous nitroglycerine. The story is about the rivalry that grows between the two groups of drivers. An art road genre movie.

Oldboy is the revenge drama from Director Park Chan-wook. Based on a Manga comic it depicts the suffering path of a man who must deal with the never ending torment of having unknowingly made someone his enemy.

A boat has been destroyed, criminals are dead, and the key to this mystery lies with the only survivor and his twisted, convoluted story beginning with five career crooks in a seemingly random police lineup.

Rex and Saskia, a young couple in love, are on vacation. They stop at a busy service station and Saskia is abducted. After three years and no sign of Saskia, Rex begins receiving letters from the abductor.

Released shortly after the war, this classic Hitchcock film illustrates the battle between German Nazis and American spies and the trafficking of drugs.

A religious fanatic marries a gullible widow whose young children are reluctant to tell him where their real daddy hid $10,000 he'd stolen in a robbery.

Detective Philip Marlowe tries to help a friend who is accused of murdering his wife.

Obsessive master thief McCauley leads a crack crew on various military-style heists across L.A. while equally obsessive detective Hanna tracks him. Each man recognizes and respects the other's ability and dedication, even as they express the willingness to kill each other, if necessary.

Walker (Lee Marvin) works together with his friend, Mal Reese (John Vernon), to steal a large amount of cash from a courier transporting funds for a major gambling operation, with the deserted Alcatraz island as a drop point.

An English pianist living in Rome witnesses the brutal murder of his psychic neighbor. With the help of a tenacious young reporter, he tries to discover the killer using very unconventional methods. The two are soon drawn into a shocking web of dementia and violence.

A self-assured business man murders his employer, the husband of his adulterer, which unintentionally provokes an ill-fated chain of events.

In sleepy Santa Rosa, restless young Charlie’s world brightens when her sophisticated Uncle Charlie arrives for a long visit. But as his behavior grows increasingly strange, she begins to suspect that her beloved uncle may be hiding a terrible secret—and that danger has quietly entered her home.

A rich but jealous man hires a private investigator to kill his cheating wife and her new man. But, when blood is involved, nothing is simple.

Based on the pulp novel by Jim Thompson, this neo-noir film tells the story of Lilly Dillon, a long-time female con artist who begins to rethink her life when her son Roy, also a grifter, suffers an almost-fatal injury when he is beaten after a failed scam.

A couple pick up a hitchhiker on the way to their yacht. The husband invites the young man to come along for their day's sailing. As the voyage progresses, the antagonism between the two men grows. A violent confrontation is inevitable.

A pair of NYC cops in the Narcotics Bureau stumble onto a drug smuggling job with a French connection.

A soundman accidentally records the evidence that proves a car "accident" was murder, and consequently finds himself in danger.

Hitman Jef Costello is a perfectionist who always carefully plans his murders and who never gets caught...

Big city crime comes to a small Arkansas town.

A mother lives quietly with her twenty-eight-year-old son, Do-joon, providing herbs and acupuncture to neighbors. One day, a girl is brutally murdered, and Do-joon is charged with the killing. Now, it's his mother's call whether to prove him innocent or to leave him imprisoned.