10 Serial Killer Thrillers That Are Way Better Than The Whisper Man

Published Sep 9, 2026, 10:52 AM EDT Senior Music Editor at Screen Rant, Sarah's love of sound and story drive the beat. A globetrotting brand whisperer and award-winning journalist, she’s built cross-cultural narratives around the world—but music has always been her true north. She launched DJ Mag North America, successfully introducing the iconic UK brand to the U.S. market. Previously, she carved a space for EDM inside the pages of VIBE, blending electronic and hip-hop culture long before it was trendy. The Whisper Man should be a slam dunk. Netflix's new serial killer thriller is adapted from Alex North's bestselling novel and boasts a cast led by Robert De Niro, Adam Scott, and Michelle Monaghan. Audiences certainly showed up: after debuting with 23.2 million views, the movie jumped to 33.4 million and became Netflix's No. 1 English-language film worldwide. The frustrating part is how much potential never makes it to the screen. The setup is creepy enough. Widowed crime writer Tom Kennedy (Scott) turns to his estranged father, retired detective Pete Willis (De Niro), after Tom's 8-year-old son is abducted. The disappearance appears connected to a notorious serial killer Pete caught decades earlier. There is plenty here to explore about fathers and sons, unresolved resentment, and what happens when an old nightmare starts repeating itself. Instead, The Whisper Man too often settles for familiar serial killer beats and predictable reveals. The relationship between Scott and De Niro should give the movie its emotional backbone, but it never feels as developed as it needs to be. Meanwhile, hints of something supernatural create another promising idea that does not entirely pay off. Critics have noticed the missed opportunity as well, with the movie currently holding 46% on Rotten Tomatoes. Fortunately, this is a genre with no shortage of stronger options, including plenty of overlooked serial killer thrillers beyond the obvious classics. Whether through genuinely frightening villains, better mysteries, or characters whose obsession with a case becomes the real story, these 10 movies deliver what The Whisper Man only occasionally manages. Se7en (1995) David Fincher's Se7en remains one of the easiest recommendations for anyone disappointed by The Whisper Man. Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman play detectives David Mills and William Somerset, who investigate a murderer staging elaborate killings around the seven deadly sins. Where The Whisper Man sometimes struggles to make its investigation feel urgent, Se7en makes every new discovery more disturbing than the last. Some great thrillers reveal their biggest secrets in the opening scene, but Fincher does the opposite here, tightening the screws until one of the most infamous endings in thriller history. The result transforms an already excellent procedural into something devastating. The Silence Of The Lambs (1991) If The Whisper Man wants to explore what happens when investigators have to understand one killer to stop another, The Silence of the Lambs remains the gold standard. Jodie Foster's FBI trainee Clarice Starling seeks help from imprisoned murderer Hannibal Lecter while hunting another serial killer known as Buffalo Bill. The difference is depth. Every conversation between Clarice and Lecter reveals something about both characters, turning what could have been simple exposition into a psychological battle. Anthony Hopkins is terrifying without needing constant screen time, while Foster gives the movie its emotional center. There is a reason The Silence of the Lambs continues to appear among the best serial killer movies from any decade: very few have matched it since. Zodiac (2007) David Fincher returned to serial killers with a movie completely different from Se7en. Zodiac follows journalists and investigators trying to identify the real-life killer who terrorized Northern California, but the mystery gradually becomes less important than what the hunt does to the people pursuing it. Instead of racing toward another twist, Fincher lets uncertainty become corrosive. Jake Gyllenhaal, Robert Downey Jr., and Mark Ruffalo lead a story that refuses to manufacture easy closure from an investigation that did not provide it. That's precisely why Zodiac works so well. Instead of racing toward another twist, Fincher lets uncertainty become corrosive. Years pass, lives change, and the need for an answer becomes an obsession almost impossible to escape. The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (2011) Fincher earns a third spot because The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo takes another familiar thriller setup—a decades-old disappearance—and makes the people investigating it every bit as compelling as the mystery. Daniel Craig plays journalist Mikael Blomkvist, who teams with Rooney Mara's brilliant hacker Lisbeth Salander to investigate the disappearance of Harriet Vanger. The case eventually exposes a history of serial murder hidden inside one of Sweden's wealthiest families. But the movie never treats its victims as mere clues leading to the next revelation. Lisbeth's own experience with violence gives the investigation added weight, while Mara's Oscar-nominated performance makes her one of the most unforgettable characters in modern crime cinema. Memories Of Murder (2003) Long before Parasite, Bong Joon Ho made one of the greatest serial killer movies ever with Memories of Murder. Based on South Korea's Hwaseong serial murders, the movie follows detectives attempting to identify a murderer at a time when their investigative methods are woefully inadequate for the case in front of them. Bong does something especially difficult: the investigation can be frustrating, frightening, and even darkly funny without losing sight of the victims. His detectives make terrible mistakes and grow increasingly desperate as every apparent breakthrough collapses. The absence of a neat resolution only makes the final moments more haunting. Memories of Murder understands that sometimes the inability to solve a crime becomes its own kind of horror. Manhunter (1986) Before Anthony Hopkins played Hannibal Lecter, Michael Mann brought Thomas Harris' Red Dragon to the screen as Manhunter. Brian Cox plays Hannibal Lecktor, while William Petersen stars as FBI profiler Will Graham, who reluctantly returns to investigative work to hunt a serial killer known as the Tooth Fairy. The movie looks unlike almost any other serial killer thriller of its era... The psychological angle is what makes Manhunter especially effective. Graham is good at finding killers because he can place himself inside their thought processes, but doing so comes at a price. Mann turns profiling into something genuinely unsettling rather than a convenient superpower. The movie also looks unlike almost any other serial killer thriller of its era, replacing familiar grim visual clichés with Mann's unmistakable style. Copycat (1995) Released the same year as Se7en, Copycat has never received quite the same level of attention, which explains why it still turns up among the underrated serial killer movies of the 1990s. Sigourney Weaver plays criminal psychologist Helen Hudson, who survives an attack by a serial killer and subsequently develops severe agoraphobia. When another murderer begins recreating infamous serial killings, San Francisco detective M.J. Monahan (Holly Hunter) needs Helen's expertise. The movie makes Helen's knowledge both an advantage and a source of terror. Once the threat closes in, parts of Copycat even take on the trapped, nowhere-is-safe tension found in the best survival thrillers. Weaver and Hunter also give the film something The Whisper Man needed more of: a central relationship strong enough to carry the story between murders. The Bone Collector (1999) The Bone Collector is unapologetically a late-'90s serial killer thriller, complete with elaborate crime scenes and a murderer who seems determined to turn the investigation into a puzzle. Denzel Washington plays forensic expert Lincoln Rhyme, who is left quadriplegic after an accident, while Angelina Jolie's patrol officer Amelia Donaghy becomes his partner on the ground. The mystery itself is entertaining, but Washington and Jolie are the reason the movie still works. Their partnership develops through the investigation rather than sitting beside it, with Rhyme teaching Amelia how to read a crime scene while she challenges his increasingly isolated existence. Even when The Bone Collector embraces familiar genre conventions, its leads make the material feel considerably less disposable. Longlegs (2024) Oz Perkins pushes the serial killer procedural almost completely into horror with Longlegs. Maika Monroe stars as FBI agent Lee Harker, who investigates a series of apparent family murder-suicides connected by mysterious letters from someone calling himself Longlegs. This is one area where The Whisper Man particularly leaves something on the table. Both movies flirt with the supernatural, but Longlegs commits to creating an atmosphere where something feels wrong long before the explanation arrives. Nicolas Cage's deeply unsettling performance certainly helps, and the character proved memorable enough that Cage and Perkins are already reuniting for another movie set in the Longlegs universe. Whether the first movie's ultimate explanation works for every viewer is debatable, but it certainly does not lack conviction. The Clovehitch Killer (2018) The Clovehitch Killer begins with an especially uncomfortable question: what would you do if you started to suspect your own father was a serial killer? Charlie Plummer plays teenager Tyler Burnside, whose seemingly normal family life begins unraveling after he discovers disturbing evidence connected to a series of unsolved murders in his Kentucky town. Dylan McDermott is excellent as Tyler's father, Don, because the performance never depends on turning him into an obvious movie monster. Much of the suspense comes from Tyler trying to reconcile the man he knows with what the evidence appears to suggest. That family element is exactly where The Whisper Man had an opportunity to be more affecting. The Clovehitch Killer understands that the scariest discovery may not be that a killer exists, but that he could be someone you thought you knew.