The best thrillers to watch on Netflix

But what is a thriller?

It’s a genre that lacks the typical signifiers that something like horror, comedy, or romance might, but you know it when you feel it. Thrillers are exciting — it’s right there in the name — whether they come from the world of crime, sci-fi, or something else entirely.

We’ve already put together a list of the best thrillers you can watch at home, but here’s the best of the best on Netflix. Check out these top Netflix movies: comedy, horror, action, and more.

Apostle

Image by Netflix

This thriller is darker than the rest, but it does have a horror element. Raid director Gareth Evans goes full Grand Guignol in the film’s latter half, he builds up a mesmerizing period thriller about a man who’s in way over his head in a place where he doesn’t belong. Dan Stevens stars as Thomas, a traumatized and formerly institutionalized man who initially appears to be playing out a variation on Robin Hardy’s 1973 classic The Wicker Man. Thomas, in the year 1905, is trying to get into a remote island in Wales run by an obscure religious cult that appears to have abducted his sister. He doesn’t know much about their beliefs, but he has to pose as one of them and investigate the island while keeping his own considerable demons at bay just long enough to save his sister’s life. And the more he learns about the place where he’s landed, the darker and eerier the film gets. This one’s perfect Halloween-month viewing: bloody as hell and startling right up to the final shot. But it’s also a crackerjack investigative thriller, an unraveling grim mystery that probably would have been better left unsolved. —Tasha Robinson

Athena

Image by Netflix

It’s hard to think of a scene more singularly electrifying and incredible than the one that opens Athena. This movie, about a police raid on a fictional French neighborhood, opens with a group of teens raiding a police station, starting a small riot, and stealing the cops’ guns, and it only grows bigger and more intense from there. Technically the scene is a oner, but rather than showy, the scene’s lack of visible cuts feels like a necessity, as if a single break from this one camera angle that’s deftly following the group’s leader might cause us to miss something critical. This single scene is almost as striking as it looks. Athena The movie’s momentum, nervy, and furious energy is maintained throughout as police and rebels battle with equal operatic intensity. —Austen Goslin

Casino Royale

Image: Sony Pictures

James Bond movies are time capsules of the times they were made. You can find out more about James Bond movies here. Casino Royale (technically the third adaptation of Ian Fleming’s first James Bond book, but the first serious one), it is also a glimpse back at the beginning of a new era for the iconic character.

Daniel Craig’s James Bond is unlike any of the others that came before him. He’s tired and worn down, cynical and bitter, but Craig’s unique screen presence means the character never loses his signature charm. Perhaps the most important element of Craig as Bond is his physicality — he’s an underrated screen fighter who did more than a few of his own stunts throughout the franchise, and Bond as a fighter has never looked quite so good as in his movies.

Craig is just one reason why Craig is so popular Casino Royale — Mads Mikkelsen was basically created in a lab to play a Bond villain, and Jeffrey Wright’s Felix Leiter has electric buddy chemistry with Craig’s Bond. It revived a tired franchise, was the first in a series of stellar films with Craig under the 007 banner. —Pete Volk

Collateral

Image: Paramount Pictures/DreamWorks Pictures

Many ways. Collateral It’s a scary movie about slashers, with Tom Cruise at his scariest.

CollateralCruise portrays Vincent, a hitman who commits a number of murders in Los Angeles on one night. Jamie Foxx is Max, a cab driver who drew the unlucky straw of being Vincent’s unwitting accomplice for the night. Michael Mann’s camera evokes the feeling of LA at night, filled with cool tones against the city lights. Foxx is pitch-perfect as a man stuck in a situation he does not want to be in, and whose encounter with a man who may as well be the devil himself helps him realize he’s not living the life he wants to. Cruise is the one who makes this a terrifying thriller.

Cruise’s Vincent is cold and calculating, but also effortlessly charming. He’s able to wear different masks to meet the situations of the night, but never loses his ruthlessness. Mann’s skill with building tension both in his camera placement and music choices heightens this atmosphere, leading to a showstopping finale straight out of a more classical slasher. —PV

Croupier

Image: Channel Four Films

Clive Owen has made an entire film career out of being dapper, suave, smug, and just a wee bit condescending — basically being a James Bond type without ever actually getting to play Bond. But he’s never been all of the above things better or more intently than in the underseen 1998 gem CroupierA crime thriller, “The Killing”, features Owen as the head of a small casino table, and mentally telling his story while politely and coldly judging everyone. That includes his fellow croupiers, who all seem to be on the take or on the make, breaking the casino’s rules and looking for an edge. Eventually, he’s drawn into a complicated heist scheme that proves he isn’t quite as in control of the world as he imagines, but much of Croupier isn’t about the criminal plot — it’s about all the effort that goes into what seems like effortless cool. —TR

Den of Thieves

Universal Pictures Home Entertainment

You like crime thrillers about bank robbery? Heat? Director Christan Gudegast’s feature debut is best described as “dirtbag Heat.” If that sounds like your jam you’re in for a great time.

Gerard Butler plays a Pepto Bismol-chugging dirty cop who is chasing a team of ex-military bank robbers, led by Pablo Schreiber and including O’Shea Jackson Jr. and 50 Cent. They are aiming to complete their most difficult job: Robbery of the Federal Reserve.

It’s got a great score from former Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Cliff Martinez (I often use it for background music while I write and edit), terrifically sleazy performances from the ensemble cast, and electrifying action sequences when the heists take place. —PV

Keep your eyes closed

Warner Bros. Pictures

Stanley Kubrick’s last film, and one of his most exacting, precise, and claustrophobic. Keep your eyes closed follows a young doctor named Bill Harford (Tom Cruise) who slowly drifts into the chaos of New York’s highest and most secretive society after fears that his wife, played by Nicole Kidman, is falling out of love with him. But as Bill glimpses higher into the clouds of the truly powerful people in the world, he also slips further from his wife, as if knowing the secret movers of the world and knowing the true depths of a single person’s heart are both impossible dreams. That the movie was filmed amidst the fraying of Kidman and Cruise’s real-life marriage just adds another layer to Kubrick’s fascinating, dreamlike, and eerily beautiful labyrinth of feelings and mystery. —AG

The Hateful Eight

Photo: Andrew Cooper/The Weinstein Company

Quentin Tarantino’s shaggy Western bottle episode of a movie has its notable flaws, which have been debated ad infinitum. It may come down to a simple case of “Tarantino is not for all tastes, particularly for people who don’t enjoy gleeful pile-on violence against women, or watching a white director stage provocative, deliberately button-pushing racial conflict.” All of which is entirely legitimate. (The same people who don’t enjoy those things don’t much enjoy Tarantino’s tone-deaf defenses of them, either.) But leaving aside how exactly a given viewer responds to Tarantino’s lifelong deliberate, conscious transgressiveness, it’s hard to deny that The Hateful Eight It is an incredibly lush and beautiful film, filled with powerful performances and a lot of tension. Eight violent men with hidden connections get trapped in a tiny cabin, complete with face-offs and fights. It’s some of Tarantino’s most classic-Hollywood filmmaking, the profanity and gore aside: The characters’ personalities and passions shine through in every verbal sparring session, and the tension builds steadily up to the blowout ending. The all-star cast — Samuel L. Jackson, Kurt Russell, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Walton Goggins, Demián Bichir, Tim Roth, Michael Madsen, and Bruce Dern — is a tremendous overflow of talent in one tight, taut space, and Tarantino makes the most of it. —TR

Hell or High Water

Lionsgate Image

Taylor Sheridan, a TV Western star, has been very popular in recent years. Yellowstone Its spinoff prequel 1883. He also wrote the excellent neo Western crime thriller Hell or High Water.

Nominated for four Oscars (including Best Picture and for Sheridan’s screenplay), the movie follows two bank-robbing brothers and the Texas Rangers sent to hunt them down. The brothers, played with perfectly antagonistic sibling chemistry by Chris Pine and Ben Foster, are perfect foils for each other — Pine’s Toby is calm and collected, while Foster’s Tanner is out of control (a perfect fit for Foster’s natural intensity). Jeff Bridges, who was nominated for an Oscar in this category; Gil Birmingham, who reunited onscreen with Sheridan. YellowstoneHe was recently also one of the key cast members. Unter dem Banner of HeavenAs the Texas Rangers’ ageing star, he is also a co-star. Watch out for future appearances by the Texas Rangers. Prey star Amber Midthunder, too. —PV

Wilderpeople: Hunt

Photo by Piki Films

Sorry, Thor: Ragnarok, Wilderpeople: Hunt is still Taika Waititi’s best and funniest film. It sprawls across a lot of genres — it’s arguably a family drama, a coming-of-age film, or just a straight-up comedy. The second act, however, is pure horror. It stars Julian Dennison as an orphan, and he went on to become one of the most beloved parts of this film. Deadpool 2He and Sam Neill, his cranky foster dad (are they? ), end up running wild in New Zealand’s bush. The third act is full of surprising explosive action, especially considering the film’s wry humor. This film is one of the big reasons Waititi got the Marvel Cinematic Universe nod in the first place — it’s a weird, silly, highly specific character piece that mixes tension and conflict with real hilarity. (Note Waititi’s cameo as a preacher who fumbles badly over metaphors about life and the afterlife.) It’s the rare family film that’s actually great viewing for all ages, whether they’re in it for the heartwarming sincerity, the Tupac jokes, or just to see Waititi’s longtime comedy partner (and Our Flag Means DeathRhys Darby, romantic partner in crime, gets into some serious sex. —TR

Lost Bullet

Image by Netflix

The French crime thriller is a masterpiece of simplicity. Lino, a former stuntman Alban Lenoir is an expert mechanic who has to work as a mechanic for the dirty cops. When he’s framed for a murder he did not commit, he has to find the one thing that can prove his innocence: a lost bullet in a missing car. This is an action-packed 92 minute thrill ride that features great car stunts and high-octane sequences. —PV

Mersal

Sri Thenandal Films

This one’s a revenge story about the cruelties of for-profit health care. It features an unforgettable performance from one of the world’s most charismatic leading men in Vijay (playing multiple characters, and I’ll leave it at that), colorful dance sequences, and a searing (and all-too-relevant) political message. —PV

Monster

Media 8 Entertainment

Where? Wonder WomanPatty Jenkins was the director who made her big-screen screen debut. Monster in 2003, the cultural conversation revolved so much around Charlize Theron’s transformation for the role (and her Best Actress Oscar win for it) that it almost drowned out the side chatter about how this is a really terrific movie. Yes, it’s still somehow considered “brave” for a pretty lady to de-glam herself for a movie and risk looking unattractive on screen, but Monster really isn’t about Theron daring to be unappealing. It’s much more about the queasy places self-justification can lead, especially when a longtime victim finds a way to make other people the victims instead. We’re in the middle of a weird, weird cultural place around serial killers right now, with true-crime explorations of the world’s Jeffrey Dahmers and John Wayne Gacys cropping up all over streaming services, but while Monster finds the human side of real-life serial killer Aileen Wuornos, Jenkins doesn’t shy away from the ways she turns misogynistic violence into an excuse to justify a lifestyle of premeditated murder. It’s a startling, graphically violent, deeply uncomfortable story, but it’s told compellingly and in ways designed to get audiences arguing. Theron wins the Oscar for complexity and verve. Not just because of her transformational makeup. —TR

We are all awake for the night

Photo: Eriekn Juragan/Netflix

Timo Tjahjanto will be responsible for the remake of the hit zombie movie. Busan to TrainAnd his gritty crime thriller in martial arts We are all awake for the night It is a wonderful example of how he is the ideal man for the job. Brutal and visceral, the movie features unforgettable characters (I’m still waiting on a spinoff focused on Julie Estelle’s The Operator), incredible martial arts (it doesn’t get better than Iko Uwais vs. Joe Taslim), and a wicked sense of humor. —PV