The 5 best thrillers to watch on Netflix this December

It’s frightful outside, but it is fun to watch thrillers! Netflix has a robust selection of great thrillers to watch, and Polygon’s curation team has cherry-picked five of the best thrillers on Netflix that we feel are a great fit for anyone looking for an alternative to the deluge of sentimental holiday family movies this December.

A great Christmas thriller is what? We’ve got movies about folks trapped with one another in frigid, hostile environments, fugue-like odes to the dangers of fantasy, and films about imperfect people succumbing to their darkest impulses in fits of desperation.

These are some amazing ideas for December viewing enjoyment.

Shut your eyes.

Warner Home Video

Year: 1999
Run time: 2h 39m
Director: Stanley Kubrick
Cast: Tom Cruise, Nicole Kidman, Sydney Pollack

Stanley Kubrick’s 13th and final film is an intricately constructed cipher whose secrets only truly begin to reveal themselves after multiple viewings. Tom Cruise stars in Kubrick’s erotic psychological mystery drama as Dr. William “Bill” Harford, a man who, after learning from his wife, Alice (Nicole Kidman), that she had once contemplated having an affair in a moment of unfulfilled longing, inadvertently embarks on a nightlong odyssey across New York in search of catharsis and sexual release. He instead finds himself falling headfirst into the hands of a group of mysterious, powerful men. They threaten to ruin everything and everyone he loves.

There’s so much going in Shut your eyes., I don’t even know where to start. From Cruise’s and Kidman’s terrific performances alongside Todd Field’s and Sydney Pollack’s excellent supporting roles to the exquisite costume and set design to the utterly hypnotic score by Jocelyn Pook to the layers upon layers of symbolism and hidden meaning densely laden into the surface of damn near every frame of its run time, Kubrick’s film is cumulative work of scrupulous craftsmanship and undaunted artistry that coalesces into an unsettling and morbidly hilarious story that stands the test of time. Shut your eyes. is about so many things: sexual jealousy, the transactional nature of class and power, the loss of innocence, and the perils of pursuing one’s fantasies and unearthing their dark underbellies. It’s a masterpiece that demands to be seen, puzzled over, and debated for decades to come. Fidelio is your password. —Toussaint Egan

The Mist

Image: The Weinstein Company

Year: 2007
Run time: 2h 5m
Director: Frank Darabont
Cast: Thomas Jane, Marcia Gay Harden, Laurie Holden

After Shawshank Redemption The Green Mile, writer and director Frank Darabont decided that his next Stephen King adaptation should be something a little darker, and that’s exactly what we get with The Mist. A small group of residents in their town seek refuge at a grocery store when an unusual mist envelopes them. Every detail that follows is carefully planned and leads to tension highs, interpersonal fighting and one of best movie endings since the 2000s. —Austen Goslin

Prisoners

Warner Home Video

Year: 2013
Run time: 2h 33m
Director: Denis Villeneuve
Cast: Hugh Jackman and Jake Gyllenhaal. Viola Davis

Almost a decade after its release, it’s a little hard to imagine the director of sci-fi epics like Arrival Dune Making a little thriller such as Prisoners, but it’s clear that Denis Villeneuve is more than capable of succeeding at both ends of the spectrum. The movie stars Terrence Howard and Hugh Jackman as Terrence Howard, who abduct Paul Dano (a man they believe may have kidnapped their children). They lock him up in an abandoned house, and torture him to get a confession. Loki, a quirky detective played by Jake Gyllenhaal searches for them. Prisoners is an always-tense movie that never really lets off the gas, but Villeneuve knows not to go all-out until the third act, where he eventually indulges in the movie’s most effective and disturbing moment. —AG

Shutter Island

Paramount Pictures – Photo

Year: 2010
Run time: 2h 18m
Director: Martin Scorsese
Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Mark Ruffalo, Ben Kingsley

Martin Scorsese’s fantastic thriller casts Leonardo DiCaprio as a clever detective sent to investigate a disappearance on a remote island that acts as a “hospital for the criminally insane.” The movie’s snaking plot is good for a few twists and surprises, but the real strength of Shutter IslandThe creepy, eerie vibe of the film and its extravagant performance as a mystery that is entertaining as it is challenging are its best assets. —AG

The Hateful Eight

Image: The Weinstein Company

Year: 2015
Run time: 2h 48m
Director: Quentin Tarantino
Cast: Samuel L. Jackson, Kurt Russell, Jennifer Jason Leigh

Among Quentin Tarantino’s most polarizing films, the three-hour Reconstruction-era “Western” is a bottled-up, slow-drip thriller prepared to grapple with America’s prickliest politics. Trapped in Minnie’s Haberdashery in the thick of a Wyoming blizzard, a Black bounty hunter (Samuel L. Jackson), a white bounty hunter (Kurt Russell), a fugitive (Jennifer Jason Leigh), a Confederate “lost-causer” (Walton Goggins), a local hangman (Tim Roth), a cowboy (Michael Madsen), and a Southern general (Bruce Dern) all gather to trade stories and unleash violence in true Tarantino fashion. It’s gnarly, it’s prickly, and it’s backed by a screeching original Ennio Morricone score that sends shivers down the spine. The Hateful EightThis isn’t an easy task. Pulp Fiction Or Kill Bill, but it’s one of the most vital films of the 2010s. —Matt Patches