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The best Netflix thrillers will plonk you in the not-so-near future, take you on a high-speed car chase, or see you fight for your life in the wilderness. The streaming service is so full of white-knuckle watches, though, there are almost too many to get through. Fortunately for you, that’s where we come in. We’ve scoured the platform to find a list of 25 great thriller movies that you can watch right now.
We’ve got everything from action-packed movies like Kate and The Gray Man to crime-based nail-biters like I Came By and The Guilty. Then there are the sci-fi thrillers like They Cloned Tyrone and Synchronic, which will have you scratching your head. The likes of Army of Thieves and Spiderhead have both made their way onto our list as well.
Below, we’ve narrowed down a list of the best Netflix thrillers so that your next movie night needn’t have to be a hair-raising experience – what’s more, each of our picks is streaming in the UK and the US. Use our guide as inspiration, pick what to press play on with ease, and leave the stressing to the characters on screen.
The best Netflix thrillers out now
Synchronic
Non-Netflix Original available in the UK/US
Year released: 2020
Director(s): Justin Benson, Austin Moorhead
Starring Fifty Shades star Jamie Dornan and Marvel’s Anthony Mackie, Synchronic is another eerie mindbender from The Endless directors Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead. In it, the actors play Dennis and Steve, two paramedics who stumble across a connection between a psychedelic designer drug and a series of grisly, mysterious deaths.
As they start to investigate the substance, the pairs’ personal and professional lives are turned upside down, as they start to experience its otherworldly effects, the line between fiction and reality starts to blur, and Dennis’s daughter disappears.
Initially released in 2019, the flick is currently rated 79% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes, which highlights how worth a watch it is.
I Came By
Year released: 2022
Director: Babak Anvari
I Came By is one of Netflix’s best new thrillers to hit the platform – and one of the few British originals from the streamer. The movie follows a pair of graffiti artists who target the homes of the wealthy and leave the tag “I Came By” on their walls. However, things start to go badly wrong when Toby (George MacKay) goes rogue with his latest target. High Court Judge Sir Hector Blake (Hugh Bonneville) is keeping a terrifying secret – one which Toby soon finds himself in the middle of. Alongside McKay and Bonneville, the movie also stars Line of Duty’s Kelly Macdonald and Doctor Who’s Percelle Ascott.
And if all that isn’t enough to win you over, Stephen King is even a fan. “Want a tight little thriller that will remind you of Ruth Rendell and Patricia Highsmith?,” he told his Twitter followers. “Try I CAME BY (Netflix). It does the job.”
The Gray Man
Year released: 2022
Director(s): Anthony Russo, Joe Russo
Based on the best-selling book series by Mark Greaney, The Gray Man stars Ryan Gosling as Sierra Six, a highly-skilled CIA black ops mercenary. When Six stumbles upon some diabolical secrets about Agent Lloyd Hanson (Chris Evans), his former colleague with psychopathic tendencies, Hanson puts a bounty on his head and launches a global manhunt led by international assassins. The film, which made headlines for being Netflix’s most expensive film to date, has been positively received by viewers with many calling it the “best action-packed film of the year.”
Spiderhead
Year released: 2022
Director: Joseph Kosinksi
Chris Hemsworth stars in this Netflix original as a brilliant scientist named Steve Abnesti, who takes penitentiary prisoners to an island named Spiderhead – then experiments on them with some seriously mind-altering drugs. Miles Teller and Jurnee Smollett co-star, and the film is based on George Saunders’ New Yorker short story ‘Escape from Spiderhead,’ with a script from Deadpool and Zombieland writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernicke.
The Guilty
Year released: 2021
Director: Antoine Fuqua
This film follows Jake Gyllenhaal’s Joe Baylor, an LAPD officer working at a 911 call center. He answers a call from an abducted woman, and must unravel what exactly is going on – and who is in danger. If that wasn’t enough, Joe is also awaiting a hearing for something he did on duty months earlier. Gyllenhaal reunites with his Southpaw director Fuqua for the flick, which was penned by True Detective’s Nic Pizzolatto. The voice cast includes Paul Dano, Ethan Hawke, and Peter Sarsgaard. The film is a remake of the Danish film of the same name, which was released in 2018.
Army of Thieves
Year released: 2021
Director: Matthias Schweighöfer
Army of Thieves may be a prequel to Army of the Dead, but you can dive right in to this heist movie without having seen the zombie flick. The film focuses on Matthias Schweighöfer’s Dieter, a highly skilled safecracker who finds himself joining a group of international criminals to break into some elaborate, mysterious, and nigh-uncrackable safes. Game of Thrones’ Nathalie Emmanuel co-stars as the group’s leader Gwen, and Zack Snyder produces.
I Am Mother
Year released: 2019
Director: Grant Sputore
This post-apocalyptic film focuses on a robot named Mother (Rose Byrne), who grows a human embryo into a child named Daughter (Clara Rugaard) in a bunker that’s completely protected from the outside world. Everything changes when an injured woman (Hilary Swank) finds the bunker, and the truth about what’s outside – and Mother – is thrown into question as Daughter learns more from the woman. Expect big reveals and great performances in this thought-provoking, twisty thriller.
Stowaway
Year released: 2021
Director: Joe Penna
Stowaway follows a crew on a mission to Mars, which sees disaster strike when the titular inadvertent passenger is found on the ship after launch, and has accidentally broken a device needed to remove carbon dioxide from the air. The situation is dire, and solutions are hard to come by – without a fix, the crew will suffocate before they can reach Mars. Toni Collette, Anna Kendrick, Shamier Anderson, and Daniel Dae Kim star.
I Don’t Feel at Home in This World Anymore
Year released: 2017
Director: Macon Blair
We’ve all thought it when we hear of someone’s misfortune: I wouldn’t let that happen to me. That’s precisely what spurs Ruth into action in this darkly comic thriller that’s in a world of its own. Melanie Lynskey tackles the main role as a nursing assistant whose life gets upended after her home is burglarised. Dissatisfied with how the police handle her case, she steps in to rectify the problem herself, along with the help of her oddball neighbor Tony (Elijah Wood.)
Lynskey and Wood are perfect as a mismatched pair of pals who veer into some crazy territory, all in the name of friendship. A seriously unique movie, that bends back and forward into various genre tropes, it riffs on typical thriller moments and injects them with shots of black comedy. Lynskey’s constant barfing during one scene will make you nod, and go: ‘Yep, that’s totally what I would do.’
I’m Thinking of Ending Things
Year released: 2020
Director: Charlie Kaufman
Charlie Kaufman’s oeuvre tends to venture into the stranger, less obvious parts of the human experience. I’m Thinking of Ending Things, his first Netflix Original, continues that trend. Based on the acclaimed novel by Ian Reid, the movie follows largely the same story. Jessie Buckley plays a young woman whose interest in her partner Jake (Jesse Plemons) is currently waning – as evidenced by the title – yet she reluctantly agrees to a visit to meet his parents (Toni Collette and David Thewlis).
As you might expect from Kaufman, this isn’t even remotely like… well, Meet The Parents. A head trip that refuses to adhere to any semblance of normality, this 130-minute mind-boggler must be seen to be believed.
The Devil All The Time
Year released: 2020
Director: Antonio Campos
The cast is what draws you into this sprawling two-and-a-half-hour adaptation of Donald Ray Pollock’s brooding tale. Tom Holland, Robert Pattinson, Bill Skarsgard, Riley Keough, Sebastian Stan, Jason Clarke, and Haley Bennett are but a few of the topliners lurking in this Appalachian mystery which on the surface draws inevitable comparisons to Fargo, yet its telling is entirely fresh.
While primarily concerned with the grimy comings-and-goings in two small towns in late 1950s Ohio, the film takes its time in unravelling its various threads. The plot bounces through time periods at a leisurely pace, kicking off with Skarsgard’s World War II vet Willard Russell returning home to wed Haley Bennett’s Charlotte. From there The Devil all the Time is led primarily by Holland’s youngster, yet still leans heavily on its batty roster of characters to tell a dark, uncompromising tale.
Hold the Dark
Year released: 2018
Director: Jeremy Saulnier
For his fourth feature, Green Room’s Jeremy Saulnier continues to disarm his fans by way of the unflinching darkness at the heart of human nature. Not exactly cheery, this time the action unravels in the cold, wintry Alaskan wilderness. Westworld’s Jeffrey Wright plays retired wolf expert Russell Core, who is lured back out into the cold by a young mother (Riley Keough) whose son was slaughtered by wolves.
Core’s role to help locate the wolves responsible for his death, along with those of two other children, soon expands to greater mysteries out in the Alaskan winter. Isolation is the key ingredient that works to make the tale all the more haunting. Saulnier directs from a script by long-time collaborator Macon Blair, who succeeds in making you feel alone in your own skin.
Message from the King
Year released: 2016
Director: Fabrice Du Welz
Fabrice Du Welz, the French filmmaker behind the blistering Calvaire, swings into action mode for this Netflix thriller. He enlists the late Chadwick Boseman, stepping outside of the Marvel Cinematic Universe as its triumphant Black Panther, as Jacob King, a South African who flies to Los Angeles at the behest of his sister, Bianca. When she informs him that she and her family are in trouble, he thinks nothing of flying out to check on her.
Arguably one of Netflix’s less showy Originals, Message From the King nevertheless boasts a solid cast (including Alfred Molina and Teresa Palmer) who elevate this above movie-of-the-week material. It certainly makes the most of its leading man.
Kate
Year released: 2021
Director: Cedric Nicolas-Troyan
Joined by Woody Harrelson and Game of Thrones’ Michiel Huisman, Winstead plays Kate, an assassin who finds out she only has 24 hours to live after being poisoned. She decides to spend her last moments going on a manhunt through Tokyo and befriends the daughter (Miku Martineau) of a past target in the process.
Ignore the naysayers who say this one’s simply another knock-off of Keanu Reeves’ action franchise John Wick – Kate strikes out on her own, making for an engaging romp that’s well worth a watch.
CAM
Year released: 2018
Director: Daniel Goldhaber
Imagine if you tried to log in to your digital presence one day, to find that not only were you locked out, but someone else, an impostor, had taken over your online identity. CAM revolves around that scenario, following the life of a camgirl named Lola (Madeline Brewer) who makes a living as a webcam model on a popular live girls site, racking up tokens and likes from her devout followers. Her hopes of hitting the site’s top ten are dashed when she wakes one morning to discover her profile has been taken over… by an exact copy of herself.
CAM is the extended Black Mirror episode you never knew you wanted. Brewer, who you’ll recognize from Orange is the New Black – or mistake for Anna Faris – is terrific as the terrified Lola, aware that something is drastically wrong and keen to uncover the truth. And this has some killer twists and turns as she delves deeper into the site’s seedy backstory.
Rogue Agent
Year released: 2022
Director(s): Adam Patterson, Declan Lawn
Based on the unpublished article ‘Chasing Agent Freegard’ by Michael Bronner, Rogue Agent sees James Norton play Robert Hendy-Freegard, a conman who tricks several people into believing he is an MI5 agent. On the flip side, Gemma Arterton stars as Alice Archer, the woman who winds up bringing his lies to light.
It currently boasts a respectable 73% on Rotten Tomatoes and while some critics claim as engaging as the real-life story that inspired it, Rogue Agent “remains a well-acted and appealingly twisty suspense thriller.”
Oxygen
Year released: 2021
Director: Alexandre Aja
Oxygen – or Oxygène, to give this French-language Netflix movie its original title – is a puzzle-box sci-fi thriller that finds an amnesiac woman (Inglourious Basterds’ Mélanie Laurent) awaking in a cramped cryogenic chamber with no memory of how she got there, or even who she even is. It’s a compelling elevator pitch that recalls Ryan Reynolds’ trapped-in-a-box antics in 2010’s Buried.
The concept requires a strong lead and Laurent is more than up for the task, as convincing in Liz’s distress as she is with her resourcefulness. Almaric’s soothing tones make for a welcome foil: his MILO (medical interface liaison officer) is able to confer crucial clues, as well as acting as a web browser to the outside world. With films in this subgenre, it’s always harder to nail the landing than the set-up, and Oxygen’s denouement manages to avoid disappointing
They Cloned Tyrone
Year released: 2023
Director: Juel Taylor
“You’s a ho, I’m an entrepreneur, and he’s a goddamn drug dealer,” Jamie Foxx exclaims when his character Slick Charles finds himself in a sticky situation alongside Teyonah Parris’s Yo-Yo and John Boyega’s Fontaine. On paper, granted, they’re the most unlikely of detectives, but that doesn’t stop the trio from searching for answers when they stumble across a wild conspiracy.
Turns out, the government are experimenting on Black folks, and cloning some of ’em too, so that they can control their Frankenstein-esque creations with certain songs and visual stimulation.
It’s super stylish, set in a grainy, neon-dripped retrofuturistic world full of ’70s-costumes and ’90s-esque hip-hop. You’ll want to stick around for the ending on this one, it’s a corker.
Calibre
Year released: 2018
Director: Matt Palmer
Who doesn’t love an “Oh no that seemingly-normal scenario has now turned utterly horrible within five minutes!” sort of movie? They’re perfect for wandering down all sorts of hazy moral roads, and Calibre sets out to do just that. Out in the Scottish Highlands for a hunting weekend, Vaughn and Marcus, two childhood friends plan to cut loose and enjoy themselves. Taking in the sights, and boozing it up with the locals for their first evening, early the next day the pair set out for the woods to try and bag themselves a deer. Yeah, it doesn’t quite work out that way.
Through your fingers or from behind a cushion – you’ll watch it one of these ways. Taut, well-paced, and tense as hell, the real payoff for Calibre is when you realize you’ve been holding your breath. Many of the major moments here are recognizable, yet this is so well-crafted, and with SUCH an effective sound design, you’ll be wracked by the weight of it all by the time the credits roll.
The Decline
Year released: 2020
Director: Patrice Laliberté
A Quebecois survivalist thriller that’s stacked to the rafters with knuckle-biting moments, no mean feat considering its brisk 83-minute runtime. This thing moves. It’s as lean as the stiff, icy rabbits skinned and gutted by its doomsday internet star, Alain. A prepper readying for the apocalypse, Alain maintains his own 500-acre compound out in the snowy Canadian wilderness which is where he regularly runs workshops for those seeking the same lifestyle. Well, civilization is on… the decline.
While the movie’s soft open introduces us to one of the workshoppers, Antoine, running through a series of preparation techniques with his wife and daughter, the movie belongs to its solid ensemble who aren’t afraid to get their hands messy and beards frost-bitten. This is an impressive debut by Laliberte, whose bloodlust finds gallons spilled long before the film’s explosive ending. You’re barely given time to register the film’s more shocking moments before you’re onto the next. Ambitious and fresh, this is one of the best thrillers of recent years.
Circle
Non-Netflix original available in US/UK
Year released: 2015
Director(s): Aaron Hann, Mario Miscione
50 strangers wake in a giant circle. Each person stands in their own smaller circle which they cannot leave or a machine will kill them. Every two minutes, the machine kills one of them depending on who the group designates to die. If they pick no-one? The machine chooses at random. A hellish premise, certainly, that’s loaded with cunning as every inhabitant slowly succumbs.
On paper, Circle plays like a Saw sequel that got sidetracked with less emphasis on the gory traps set by Jigsaw and more on the moral trappings of its sprawling ensemble. Its short runtime adds to the briskness of the proceedings that vary from the hideous vulgarity of human existence to its best kindness, and back again. At one point, characters debate the rest of the group for their chance to survive and plot together to outsmart (i.e. kill) others.
Bird Box
Year released: 2018
Director: Susanne Bier
Also known as the Sandra Bullock Netflix movie everyone watched that one Christmas. Five years on and Bird Box remains a solid thriller that packs a novel premise; unless you cover your eyes a supernatural entity will show you something that drives you insane. The kicker is that everyone is apparently shown a specific, bespoke image that causes them to immediately commit suicide.
Strange that this was a “holiday must-see” but it nevertheless scored big for Netflix. Bullock’s dedicated performance as Malorie serves as the backbone of the movie, which leaps back and forth between the present-day where she leads two children downriver on a boat and five years earlier when the apocalypse begins. It’s those earlier scenes that stuff in the real gasp-inducing moments as the regular world is beset by otherworldly nasties.
In the Shadow of the Moon
Year released: 2019
Director: Jim Mickle
On their own, time travel and serial killers are two enticing concepts embraced so tightly by Hollywood over the years it’s hard to imagine a way to invigorate either. Mickle (Cold in July, We Are What We Are) mashes the two into one plot-heavy thriller that runs circles around the audience and its weary detective. As a result, In The Shadow of The Moon plays like a mix of Time Traveler’s Wife, Seven, and Terminator.
The story opens with a young beat cop Thomas Lockhart (Boyd Holbrook) and his partner Maddox (Bokeem Woodbine) as they visit a string of bizarre crime scenes across the city one night. Lockhart makes it his mission to find the person responsible, no matter the cost, with the movie continuing to check in with him every nine years.
Gerald’s Game
Year released: 2017
Director: Mike Flanagan
A horror that’s very much thrilling, this Stephen King book was once said to be unfilmable. Mike Flanagan’s film, however, proves those naysayers wrong. This is perhaps the most loyal King adaptation yet, bringing a tome shuddering to life that consists mostly of a woman chained to a bed, alone, in the middle of nowhere. That woman is Jesse (Carla Gugino), whose husband, Gerald (Bruce Greenwood), drives her to a peaceful retreat for a weekend of nookie and $200 steak.
His ticker gives up and she’s left handcuffed to the bedposts with a strange dog for company… oh, and a creeping demon with red eyes that lurks in the shadows when night falls. Carla Gugino’s stunning performance piles on the layers of horror from throughout Jesse’s past, until the sting in the tail you won’t see coming.
The Irishman
Year released: 2019
Director: Martin Scorsese
Scorsese’s adaptation of I Heard You Paint Houses, Charles Brandt’s book chronicling the life of mob underling Frank Sheeran, is LONG. Packed with a show-stopping cast, Robert DeNiro leads the show as the former truck driver who falls in with a Pennsylvania crime family led by Joe Pesci’s Russell Bufalino. This is a classic Scorsese pic, bringing in Al Pacino as Teamster leader Jimmy Hoffa, alongside stalwarts Pesci and De Niro who shine in two of their best roles to date.
This is quintessential Scorsese with a twist: more people get shot in the face than you can count, and yet, it’s less concerned with the bravura of its mobsters. Unlike Goodfellas and Casino, The Irishman ruminates on the consequences of a lifelong dance with casual crime, how Sheeran’s commitment to violence not only destroyed the lives of his enemies but his own as well.
For more, check out our guides to the best Netflix horror movies, the best Netflix documentaries and, if you’re in the mood for lighter fate, best Netflix comedies.
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