10 Greatest Serial Killer Thrillers Of The 21st Century, Ranked

Published Oct 13, 2026, 8:00 PM EDT Shawn S. Lealos is an entertainment writer who is a voting member of the Oklahoma Film Critics Circle. He has written for Screen Rant, CBR, ComicBook, The Direct, The Sportster, Chud, 411mania, Renegade Cinema, Yahoo Movies, and many more. Shawn has a bachelor's degree in professional writing and a minor in film studies from the University of Oklahoma. He also has won numerous awards, including several Columbia Gold Circle Awards and an SPJ honor. He also wrote Dollar Deal: The Story of the Stephen King Dollar Baby Filmmakers, the first official book about the Dollar Baby film program. Shawn is also currently writing his first fiction novel under a pen name, based in the fantasy genre. To learn more, visit his website at shawnlealos.net. Serial killer movies are some of the most intense and intriguing crime movies in the genre. The best of these films offer a sense of dread over gore, and often the serial killers themselves are as interesting as the law enforcement officers trying to stop them. In the old days, these often took place in horror movies, whether classic releases like The Night of the Hunter or the slasher movies of the 1980s. However, the 21st century has been a golden age for the serial killer subgenre, with big names like David Fincher, Denis Villeneuve, Bong Joon-ho, and Kim Jee-woon taking on the films. That gives them a lot more prestige than the genre used to contain, with many of them moving more toward procedural obsession rather than focusing on slasher-style violence. The 21st-century serial killer movies also focus a great deal on real-life murderers, and the high-quality directors often focus on craft and re-watchability over shock value, giving these movies a longer lifespan than past films in the genre. These movies also span language barriers, with one of the best of the 21st century exploring the first serial killer case in South Korea's history. 10 The Snowman (2017) Image via Universal Tomas Alfredson, the director behind Let the Right One In, helmed the serial killer movie The Snowman, based on Jo Nesbø's 2007 novel. Michael Fassbender stars as detective Harry Hole as he hunts down a serial killer who targets young mothers and builds a snowman as his calling card. Hole works this cold case that has spanned decades and various cities, with no suspect in sight. The movie is completely fictional and is based on the best-selling Harry Hole novel series by Nesbø. Sadly, the movie isn't as good as it could have been thanks to the poor weather conditions in the Norwegian winter cutting all the shooting short. However, this is a movie with a quality director and a great cast who made do with what they had and still passed off a decent thriller. 9 Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil And Vile (2019) Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile is a serial killer movie that also plays out as a courtroom drama, as it follows the trial of Ted Bundy as he stands trial for his various murders. Directed by Joe Berlinger and based on Elizabeth Kendall's memoir The Phantom Prince, the movie stars Zac Efron as Ted Bundy and Lily Collins as his girlfriend Liz Kendall. The movie mostly follows Kendall throughout this entire ordeal. The film follows his arrests, jailbreaks, and televised Florida murder trial, and it keeps his guilt ambiguous to mirror how he deceived those close to him. In real life, Bundy confessed to 30 murders he committed in the 1970s, and the film is a true-crime biopic that remains highly accurate when it comes to his escapes and his self-representation in court. Much of the dialogue even comes straight from court transcripts. 8 Red Dragon (2002) Red Dragon is the second adaptation of the same book in the Thomas Harris series about the serial-killing cannibal Hannibal Lecter. The first movie was called Manhunter, and it was one of Michael Mann's earliest directorial efforts. This movie had a much larger budget and a less distinguished director, with Brett Ratner taking on the role behind the camera. However, what resulted was a great adaptation, with Anthony Hopkins returning as Hannibal Lecter and Edward Norton playing FBI agent Will Graham in this prequel to The Silence of the Lambs. The serial killer in this case was a man named Francis Dolarhyde, played by Ralph Fiennes, and while it was not as good as The Silence of the Lambs, Hopkins was still on top of his game as the evil Lecter. 7 Longlegs (2024) Released in 2024, Longlegs is a horror movie written and directed by Osgood Perkins, one of the most unusual filmmakers working today. This movie is set in the 1990s and stars Maika Monroe as an FBI agent named Lee Harker, who is hunting down an occult-obsessed serial killer who is tied to a string of family murder-suicides across Oregon. This is important to Harker, as the case remains linked to her past. What is most shocking about this movie is that Nicolas Cage stars as the serial killer known as Longlegs, and he barely appears in the movie in any recognizable form. The movie has a creepy doll motif, which Perkins said was influenced by the JonBenét Ramsey case, and he based the satanic-leaning killings on the themes from Se7en. It was a surprise box office and critical success. 6 The Black Phone (2022) The Black Phone takes the serial killer genre back to its horror roots, and there is a good reason it does so in such a thrilling fashion. The movie is directed by Scott Derrickson, who has strong roots in the horror genre, and is based on the story by Joe Hill, the son of Stephen King. The movie follows a teenage boy who is abducted by a masked child-killer and kept trapped in a soundproof basement. Ethan Hawke plays the masked serial killer who barely shows his face, but the real selling point is the supernatural alement of the story. The Grabber has been killing kids for years, and there is a phone in the basement that is not connected to anything, but when it rings, the teenager finds the past victims of the killer willing to help him escape if he can end the man's reign of terror. 5 The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (2011) The original Swedish trilogy for The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo was incredible, but when David Fincher adapted the American version for a 2011 release, he used his visual flair to make it even better. Based on Stieg Larsson's 2005 novel, the movie stars Rooney Mara as hacker Lisbeth Salander and Daniel Craig as a journalist named Mikael Blomkvist, as two people trying to crack a decades-long cold case. The movie is a well-paced mystery story, with Blomkvist as a disgraced reporter and Salander as the true star of the story, as they try to solve the 40-year-old disappearance of an industrialist's niece. The two then discover the family's history of serial murder. The movie received a great Rotten Tomatoes score and had a decent box office, but not enough for the studio to greenlight Fincher's sequels. 4 I Saw The Devil (2010) I Saw the Devil ​​​​​​is a 2010 South Korean serial killer thriller directed by Kim Jee-woon. The movie follows an intelligence agent named Kim Soo-hyun (Lee Byung-hun) whose fiancée is murdered. After this happens, he finds the murderer, a serial killer named Jang Kyung-chul, played by Choi Min-sik. However, the twist comes when the agent refuses to arrest him and send him to trial and instead tortures him. The agent then repeatedly releases and re-catches him, implanting a tracker to torment him, in an escalating game that destroys the officer. It is a great look at how obsession and grief can turn a good man into a monster that is not that dissimilar from the serial killer himself. While the movie is extremely violent, it is one of the most brutal and morally probing serial killer movies of the 21st century. 3 Memories Of Murder (2003) Years before he won an Oscar for directing Parasite, director Bong Joon-ho directed a movie about the first serial killer case in South Korea. Song Kang-ho stars as detective Park Doo-man and Kim Sang-kyung as detective Seo Tae-yoon, two men who are trying to find a mysterious serial killer of women. What makes this movie stand out is that the serial killer was never discovered in real life until after the movie was released. The movie ends with the question remaining about who the killer was, and the story was more about how it affected these two detectives and the country as a whole. However, once the movie was released, the case was reopened, and the real killer was discovered in 2019. But thanks to the statute of limitations, he couldn't be tried for the murders in this movie, although he admitted to 14 murders. 2 Prisoners (2013) Denis Villeneuve has become best known for his sci-fi movies, including the brilliant Arrival, Blade Runner 2049, and the Dune trilogy. However, his next movie is a James Bond feature, and he is no stranger to the crime genre, as he directed the brilliant serial killer movie Prisoners. This movie follows the case of the abduction of two young girls and its effects on the father of one of them. Jake Gyllenhaal stars as the detective investigating the case, while Hugh Jackman stars as the father who decides to take matters into his own hands. While the police try to find the person who abducted the girls, the father seeks vigilante justice against the man he believes was responsible. It is a tragic story of grief and how it can destroy the people left behind. 1 Zodiac (2007) Zodiac is a serial killer movie based on a true story of a case that has still never been solved. The Zodiac Killer was murdering people in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and the police never found out who it was or ever brought a killer to justice. However, one newspaper cartoonist who covers the case becomes obsessed and believes he knows the truth, and this movie is based on his true-crime books about the case. Jake Gyllenhaal plays a newspaper cartoonist named Robert Graysmith who becomes obsessed with the Zodiac Killer once he cracks the secret code the killer was taunting the police with. This movie follows his investigation, which causes problems for the police and costs Graysmith his family in the process. Directed by David Fincher, Zodiac remains one of the best serial killer movies of all time.