- If you want a shot of cinematic adrenaline to keep your eyelids open and your pulse racing, nothing is better than a thriller
- Thriller movies are unpredictable, which is part of what builds the tension that is meant to thrill you
- TheRadar has compiled 10 thriller movies for you that are heart-racing, sweat-inducing, and will completely captivate you.
Every great thriller has one thing in common: you get hooked on it the moment you press play. Whether the story centres on a mystery crime or a dystopian tale of survival, any suspense-filled movie worth watching is guaranteed to bring on anxiety.
From psychological thrillers like The Royal Hotel and Inside to high-stakes action-adventure thrillers like Alone and What Happened to Monday, the most gripping movies in the genre provide a particular type of emotional rollercoaster for their audience.
Below are 10 of the best thriller movies you can watch. Buckle up because each one promises to take you on one hell of a ride.
10 thriller movies that will have you on edge
1. Alone: Alone stars Jules Willcox as a young widow who goes on a road trip alone while trying to cope with her husband's suicide. She ends up running into a deranged and bloodthirsty psychopath who begins to stalk her and later kidnaps her. She manages to escape into the wilderness, where she is forced to battle against the elements as her pursuer closes in on her.
2. You Were Never Really Here: The film was titled “A Beautiful Day” in France and Germany. It is based on the 2013 novella by Jonathan Ames.
In the film, a traumatised mercenary named Joe, who is unafraid of violence, is hired by a politician to rescue his daughter, whom human traffickers kidnapped. When the job spins out of control, Joe's childhood trauma overtakes him as a conspiracy is uncovered, leading to what could be his death trip or his awakening.
3. No Exit: How far can you go for a stranger? The American thriller film is based on a 2017 novel by Taylor Adams. The story follows a college student who breaks out of rehab while recovering from drug addiction to visit her sick mother. She gets stuck with a group of people at a mountain rest stop during a blizzard. Things take a turn for the worse when she discovers a kidnapped child in a car belonging to one of the people inside, putting the group in a terrifying life-or-death situation as they struggle to escape while trying to discover who among them is the kidnapper.
4. Lou: Lovers of crime movies, this one's for you. As a massive storm rages, a young girl is kidnapped. Her mother teams up with the mysterious woman next door, Lou, to save her daughter. The two women risk their lives on a rescue mission that will test their limits and expose dark and shocking secrets from their past.
5. The Weekend Away: A weekend getaway to Croatia that goes away when a woman is accused of killing her best friend. As she attempts to clear her name and uncover the truth with only a fuzzy memory of the previous night before her friend goes missing, her frantic search uncovers devastating secrets closer to home.
6. Inside: How can Nemo escape from inside? Nemo, a high-end art thief, becomes trapped inside a luxurious penthouse in New York's Times Square after his heist doesn't go as planned. Locked inside with nothing but priceless works of art, he must use all his cunning and invention to survive.
7. The Royal Hotel: The Australian thriller film was inspired by the 2016 documentary Hotel Coolgardie by Pete Gleeson. It tells the story of two best friends, Hanna and Liv, who are backpackers in Australia. They take a temporary live-in job behind the bar of a pub called “The Royal Hotel” in a remote Outback mining town. They soon find themselves trapped in an unnerving situation that proliferates out of their control.
8. Locked In: Locked In is generically a modern Gothic story: British, manor, orphans, love affairs, duplicitous characters, plots within plots and many more.
In the film, a kind nurse tries to unlock the secrets of a coma patient's injury, only to discover the butter rivalry, infidelity, betrayal and murder behind them.
9. Shattered: Chris, a divorced tech millionaire, develops a passionate relationship with a charming and sexy lady, Sky. Chris suspects Sky has more sinister intentions when her roommate mysteriously dies. Chris's ex-wife and his child eventually get trapped, and a desperate fight for survival ensues
10. What Happened to Monday: In a world where families are limited to one child due to overpopulation, a set of identical septuplets must avoid being put to a long sleep by the government and dangerous infighting while investigating the disappearance of their missing sister.
As a viewer, glued to the edge of your seat as the movie unfolds might be stressful. Still, there’s a big payoff following the excitement and anticipation when you slowly get some answers about what’s happening on screen. That level of satisfaction is unmatched.
5 exciting TV series dropping in August 2024
Meanwhile, in an earlier report, TheRadar compiled the list of some highly anticipated shows you can look forward to in August as a TV series enthusiast. The report included their release date and where you can watch them.
The titles include: Pachinko: Season 2 (Apple TV+, August 23), Only Murders in the Building: Season 4 (Hulu, August 27), Batman: Caped Crusader: Season 1 (Prime Video, August 1), The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power: Season 2 (Prime Video, August 29), and Rick and Morty: The Anime (Max and Adult Swim, August 16),