15 Best Thriller Movies of the Last 25 Years, Ranked

Image via 20th Century Studios Updated Jul 20, 2026, 7:38 AM EDT Sara Resende is a Portuguese list writer for Collider, specializing in comedy shows and biopic movies, which she loves for their entertaining take on historical events. She also has a passion for horror thriller films with outstanding plots, such as Us (2019) and Talk to Me (2022). In addition to her work for Collider, Sara has worked as a film critic for two Portuguese movie blogs. Her achievements include winning a trip to the Cannes Film Festival in 2019 and being a guest of Fox Channels on the Oscars red carpet in 2020. Currently based in Porto, Sara lives with her pet ferret, Jay, who loves to hide food around the house. Sign in to your Collider account Thriller movies keep us on edge, blending suspense, tension, and unexpected twists. From psychological puzzles to action-packed mysteries, thrillers come in all shapes and sizes, but they share a common goal: to keep hearts racing. The past 25 years have brought some truly memorable films that redefine how stories can grip and surprise us. Whether it’s a dark drama or an undercover cop chase, thrillers offer something for everyone. In recent years, many thrillers have gained both critical acclaim and a lasting place in film history. With strong performances and smart storytelling, these movies keep us questioning what’s real, who to trust, and how it all might end. From Gone Girl to The Dark Knight, here are the best thrillers of the last 25 years. 15 'Conclave' (2024) Image via Focus Featues Bringing an allure of tension, infighting, and overwhelming drama to the decision-making of the papacy, Conclave is an exceptionally impactful dramatic thriller that soars thanks to the strength of its cast and the compelling nature of its pacing and directing. The film follows every cardinal and bishop in the world coming together to elect a new Pope following his unexpected death. With clashing ideologies ablaze, the man tasked with leading and managing the ritual, Cardinal Lawrence (Ralph Fiennes), finds himself in a web of lies and conspiracy as he uncovers more and more dirt on potential candidates. While Conclave certainly doesn't shy away from the gravitas and weight behind the lofty decision at hand, the continued strength and impact of the film come from just how toxic and messy the proceedings end up being. With shady pasts and lies around every corner, it quickly becomes a genuine concern if a single worthy cardinal remains. Amplified by a great supporting cast, the film became one of the standout thrillers of the 2020s and only grows more celebrated with each passing year. —Robert Lee 14 'Gone Girl' (2014) Image via 20th Century Studios Gone Girl, directed by David Fincher, is an unforgettable psychological thriller that unravels the twisted dynamics of a seemingly perfect marriage. When Amy Dunne (Rosamund Pike) vanishes under mysterious circumstances, her husband Nick (Ben Affleck) becomes the prime suspect, scrutinized by both the police and an unforgiving media. As the investigation deepens, shocking revelations surface, exposing secrets that shatter the façade of their so-called perfect relationship. The film’s success hinges on standout performances. Affleck portrays Nick as a husband struggling under intense pressure, but it is Pike’s chilling portrayal of Amy that is the real highlight, turning this movie into one of the best psychological thrillers with great acting. Gone Girl is more than a thriller — it's a biting satire on modern relationships and public perception. 13 'It Was Just an Accident' (2025) Image via Neon A powerful piece of renegade filmmaking from legendary Iranian director Jafar Panahi, It Was Just an Accident delves into the painful psychological effects that the Iranian government's torture of political enemies continues to have on citizens of Iran. With all of this underlying pain close to its heart, the film asks a powerful moral question of whether a group of former victims would be in the right to enact revenge on a man whom they believe to be their torturer. It's a powerful and exceptionally tense story of raw emotional responses and the complicated mental hurdles that come from the psychological wounds caused by torture. With its filming being done without permission and with its story directly aiming at the crimes committed by the Iranian government, It Was Just an Accident is a film whose very existence is worthy of respect and notoriety. —Robert Lee 12 'Shutter Island' (2010) Image via Paramount Pictures Shutter Island follows U.S. Marshal Teddy Daniels (Leonardo DiCaprio) as he investigates a patient’s disappearance from a remote asylum. The deeper Teddy digs, the more he uncovers disturbing secrets about the institution and his own troubled past. The chilling atmosphere, paired with Robert Richardson’s striking cinematography, enhances every twist and turn. DiCaprio’s intense performance, supported by Mark Ruffalo and Ben Kingsley, keeps you hooked as the mystery unfolds. Shutter Island is one of those movies that should be watched a second time. The shocking twist flips the entire story, revealing new layers every time. Scorsese masterfully weaves suspense and emotion, leaving viewers questioning what’s real. It’s an unforgettable thriller that challenges audiences to think, but unfortunately, it did not score any Oscar nominations. 11 'Prisoners' (2013) Image via Warner Bros. Prisoners is a thriller by Denis Villeneuve that dives deep into every parent’s nightmare. The story follows Keller Dover (Hugh Jackman), a desperate father whose young daughter goes missing alongside her friend. As Detective Loki (Jake Gyllenhaal) leads the investigation, Keller takes matters into his own hands, crossing moral lines in his frantic search for answers. The performances from Jackman and Gyllenhaal are intense and emotionally layered, with Paul Dano delivering a haunting portrayal as the prime suspect. Villeneuve masterfully weaves a story that challenges viewers to consider how far they’d go to protect their loved ones. The film blurs the lines between right and wrong, immersing the audience in its moral complexity. Despite its lengthy runtime, Prisoners keeps you glued with its twists, powerful performances, and chilling tone. In this unforgettable exploration of desperation and guilt, Prisoners is a modern-day thriller that will be remembered as a classic. 10 'One Battle After Another' (2025) Image via Warner Bros. Pictures Last year's massively acclaimed Best Picture winner and one of the absolute best balances of action, thrills, and comedy in recent memory, One Battle After Another is a triumphant achievement that has already proven to be one of the must-watch experiences of the modern era. The film follows a former revolutionary (Leonardo DiCaprio) being lured out of his retirement when a ruthless enemy from his past returns with a vengeance, sending him on a quest to rescue his daughter. With masterfully constructed action sequences, enthralling tension that keeps the audience engaged from beginning to end, and a nice heaping dose of comedy for good measure, it's incredibly difficult to have a bad time watching One Battle After Another. It's a film whose filmmaking, in the hands of Paul Thomas Anderson, is so precise and well-made that it continuously surprises and delights, even for those who don't align with its political messaging. —Robert Lee 9 'Oldboy' (2003) Image via Show East Oldboy is a South Korean masterpiece by Park Chan-wook that redefined the revenge genre. The story follows Oh Dae-su (Choi Min-sik), a man mysteriously imprisoned for 15 years and then abruptly released. Driven by rage and confusion, he embarks on a relentless quest for answers, crossing paths with Mi-do (Kang Hye-jung), a young sushi chef who becomes his partner on this journey. As the mystery unfolds, shocking twists and harrowing revelations keep viewers on edge, culminating in one of the most unforgettable endings in cinema. What sets Oldboy apart is its great storytelling, stunning visuals, and incredible performances. Min-sik’s portrayal of Dae-su is raw and intense, capturing a descent into madness and despair with chilling authenticity. The film’s iconic hallway fight sequence - a single, continuous take - shows Chan-wook’s skill at choreographing great action. Dark, violent, and emotionally charged, Oldboy isn’t just a revenge story; it’s a haunting exploration of pain, memory, and the lengths to which one man will go for answers. Collider Exclusive · Oscar Best Picture Quiz Which Oscar Best PictureIs Your Perfect Movie? Parasite · Everything Everywhere · Oppenheimer · Birdman · No Country Five Oscar Best Picture winners. Five completely different visions of what cinema can be — and what it can do to you. One of them is the film that was made for the way your mind works. Ten questions will figure out which one. 🪜Parasite 🌀Everything Everywhere ☢️Oppenheimer 🐦Birdman 🪙No Country for Old Men FIND YOUR FILM → 01 What kind of film experience do you actually want? The best movies don't just entertain — they leave something behind. ASomething that pulls the rug out — that makes me think I'm watching one kind of film and then reveals I'm watching another entirely. BSomething overwhelming — funny, sad, absurd, and genuinely moving, all at once. CSomething grand and weighty — a film that makes me feel the full scale of what I'm watching. DSomething formally daring — a film that pushes what cinema can even do. ESomething lean and relentless — pure tension with no wasted frame. NEXT QUESTION → 02 Which idea grabs you most in a film? Great films are driven by a central obsession. What's yours? AClass, inequality, and what people are willing to do when desperation meets opportunity. BIdentity, family, and the chaos of trying to hold your life together when everything is falling apart. CGenius, moral responsibility, and the catastrophic weight of a decision you can never take back. DEgo, legacy, and the terror of becoming irrelevant while you're still alive to watch it happen. EEvil, chance, and whether moral order actually exists or if we just tell ourselves it does. NEXT QUESTION → 03 How do you like your story told? Form is content. The way a story is shaped changes what it means. AGenre-twisting — I want it to start in one lane and migrate into something completely different. BMaximalist and genre-blending — comedy, action, drama, sci-fi, all in one ride. CEpic and non-linear — cutting between timelines, building a mosaic of cause and consequence. DA single unbroken flow — I want to feel like I'm living it in real time, no cuts to safety. ESpare and precise — every scene doing exactly what it needs to do and nothing more. NEXT QUESTION → 04 What makes a truly great antagonist? The opposition defines the protagonist. What kind of opposition fascinates you? AA system — invisible, structural, and almost impossible to fight because it has no single face. BThe self — the ways we sabotage, abandon, and fail the people we love most. CHistory — the unstoppable momentum of events that no single person can stop or redirect. DThe industry — the machinery of culture that chews up talent and spits out irrelevance. EPure, implacable evil — a force so certain of itself it becomes almost philosophical. NEXT QUESTION → 05 What do you want from a film's ending? The final note is the one that lingers. What do you want it to sound like? AShock and inevitability — a conclusion that recontextualises everything that came before it. BEarned emotion — I want to cry, laugh, and feel genuinely hopeful, even if the world is a mess. CDevastation and grandeur — an ending that makes me sit in silence for a few minutes after. DAmbiguity — something that leaves enough open that I'm still thinking about it days later. EBleakness — an honest refusal to pretend the world is tidier than it actually is. NEXT QUESTION → 06 Which setting pulls you in most? Where a film takes place shapes everything — mood, stakes, what's even possible. AA gleaming modern city with a hidden underside — beauty masking rot, wealth masking desperation. BA collapsing suburban life that opens onto something infinite — the multiverse of a single ordinary person. CThe corridors of power and science at a world-historical turning point — where decisions echo for decades. DThe grimy, alive chaos of New York and Hollywood — fame as both destination and trap. EVast, indifferent landscape — desert and highway where violence arrives without warning or reason. NEXT QUESTION → 07 What cinematic craft impresses you most? Every great film has a signature — a technical or artistic element that makes it unmistakable. AProduction design and mise-en-scène — every frame composed to carry meaning beneath the surface. BEditing and tonal control — the ability to move between registers without losing the audience. CScore and sound design — music that becomes inseparable from the dread and awe of what you're watching. DCinematography as performance — the camera not recording events but participating in them. ESilence and restraint — what's left unsaid and unshown doing more work than any dialogue could. NEXT QUESTION → 08 What kind of main character do you root for? The protagonist is the lens. Who you choose to follow says something about you. ASomeone smart and resourceful who makes increasingly dangerous decisions under pressure. BSomeone overwhelmed and ordinary who turns out to be capable of something extraordinary. CA brilliant, tortured figure whose gifts and flaws are inseparable from each other. DA self-destructive artist whose ego is both their superpower and their undoing. EA quiet, principled person trying to make sense of a world that has stopped making sense. NEXT QUESTION → 09 How do you feel about a film that takes its time? Pace is a choice. Some films sprint; others let tension accumulate slowly, deliberately. AI love a slow build when I know the payoff is going to be seismic — patience for a devastating reveal. BGive me relentless momentum — I want to feel breathless and emotionally spent by the end. CEpic runtime doesn't scare me — if the material demands three hours, give me three hours. DI want it to feel propulsive even when nothing is technically happening — restless energy throughout. EDeliberate and unhurried — I want dread to accumulate in the spaces between the action. NEXT QUESTION → 10 What do you want to feel walking out of the cinema? The best films leave a mark. What kind of mark do you want? AUnsettled — like I've just seen something I can't fully explain but can't stop thinking about. BMoved and energised — like the film reminded me what actually matters and gave me something to hold onto. CHumbled — like I've been in the presence of something genuinely important and overwhelming. DExhilarated — like I've just seen cinema doing something it's never quite done before. EHaunted — like a cold, quiet dread that stays with me for days. REVEAL MY FILM → The Academy Has Decided Your Perfect Film Is…Your answers have pointed to one Oscar Best Picture winner above all others. This is the film that was made for the way your mind works. ParasiteYou are drawn to films that operate on multiple levels simultaneously — that begin in one genre and quietly, brilliantly migrate into another. Bong Joon-ho's Parasite is a film about class, desire, and the architecture of inequality that manages to be darkly funny, deeply suspenseful, and genuinely shocking across a single extraordinary running time. Your instinct is for cinema that hides its true intentions until the moment it's ready to reveal them. Parasite is exactly that — a film that rewards close attention and punishes assumptions, right up to its devastating final image. Everything Everywhere All at OnceYou want it all — and this film gives you all of it. The Daniels' Everything Everywhere All at Once is one of the most maximalist films ever made: action comedy, multiverse sci-fi, family drama, existential crisis, and a genuinely earned emotional core that sneaks up on you amid the chaos. You are someone who responds to ambition, who doesn't want cinema to choose between being entertaining and being meaningful. This film refuses that choice entirely. It is overwhelming by design, and its overwhelming nature is precisely the point — because the feeling of being crushed by infinite possibility is exactly what it's about. OppenheimerYou are drawn to cinema on a grand scale — films that understand history not as a backdrop but as a force, and that place their characters inside that force and watch what happens. Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer is a film about the terrifying gap between what we can do and what we should do, told with the full weight of one of the most consequential moments in human history behind it. You want your films to feel important without feeling self-important — to earn their ambition through sheer craft and the gravity of their subject. Oppenheimer does exactly that. It is enormous, complicated, and refuses easy comfort. BirdmanYou are drawn to films that foreground their own construction — that make the how of the filmmaking part of the what it's about. Alejandro González Iñárritu's Birdman, shot to appear as a single continuous take, is cinema examining itself through the cracked mirror of a fading actor's ego. You respond to formal daring, to the feeling that a film is doing something that probably shouldn't be possible. Michael Keaton's performance and Emmanuel Lubezki's restless camera create something genuinely unlike anything else — a film that is simultaneously about creativity, relevance, self-destruction, and the impossibility of ever truly knowing if your work means anything at all. No Country for Old MenYou are drawn to cinema that trusts silence, that refuses to explain itself, and that treats dread as a form of meaning. The Coen Brothers' No Country for Old Men is a film about the arrival of a new kind of evil — implacable, arbitrary, and utterly indifferent to the moral frameworks we use to make sense of the world. It is one of the most formally controlled films ever made, and its controlled restraint is what makes it so terrifying. You want your films to haunt you, not comfort you. You are not interested in resolution if resolution would be dishonest. No Country for Old Men is honest in a way that most cinema never dares to be. ↻ RETAKE THE QUIZ 8 'The Lives of Others' (2006) Image via Buena Vista International The Lives of Others is one of the best international thrillers. Set in 1984 East Berlin, during the height of Stasi surveillance, Captain Gerd Wiesler (Ulrich Mühe), a secret police agent, is assigned to monitor playwright Georg Dreyman (Sebastian Koch) and his lover, actress Christa-Maria Sieland (Martina Gedeck). Initially loyal to the regime, Wiesler becomes deeply affected by the couple’s lives, leading him to question his beliefs. As he grapples with the oppressive system he serves, Wiesler’s quiet transformation creates a compelling story of humanity, resistance, and redemption. What makes this film unforgettable is its emotional depth and moral complexity. Mühe delivers a haunting performance as Wiesler, capturing his gradual awakening with nuance and restraint. The Lives of Others is an extraordinary exploration of loyalty, love, and the courage to stand against oppression. Its devastating final act cements it as one of the most profound and impactful films of its time. 7 'Parasite' (2019) Image via NEON Parasite is a groundbreaking thriller by Bong Joon-ho that delivers one of the most shocking mid-movie plot twists ever. It tells the story of the Kim family, who infiltrate the lives of the wealthy Park family by posing as skilled workers. What begins as a clever con quickly spirals into chaos, revealing the stark divide between the rich and poor. The film’s brilliance lies in its ability to blend humor, suspense, and tragedy seamlessly, keeping viewers on edge while exposing harsh societal truths. Each scene is meticulously crafted, and the performances, especially by Song Kang-ho and Choi Woo-sik, make the characters unforgettable. More than just a story about survival, Parasite is a commentary on systemic inequities and the illusion of meritocracy. Joon-ho masterfully uses symbolism, from the Park family’s sunlit mansion to the Kims’ dark, flood-prone basement home, to highlight the vast disparity between social classes. Winning the Academy Award for Best Picture, Parasite broke barriers as the first non-English film to claim the honor, cementing its legacy as one of the most impactful films of all time. 6 'The Departed' (2006) Image via Warner Bros. The Departed, one of the best gangster thrillers of all time, is all about loyalty, deception, and survival. The story follows two men leading double lives - an undercover cop (Leonardo DiCaprio) infiltrating a ruthless gang and a mole (Matt Damon) planted within the police force by mob boss Frank Costello, played with menacing charisma by Jack Nicholson. Their cat-and-mouse game builds relentless tension, punctuated by shocking twists and raw performances. Scorsese’s masterful direction and a powerhouse cast, including Mark Wahlberg and Martin Sheen, bring authenticity and grit to this suspense-filled thriller. Adapted from the Hong Kong classic Infernal Affairs, The Departed not only honors its source material but also elevates it to new heights. With its unrelenting pace, morally complex characters, and an unforgettable third act, the film keeps audiences hooked. The result was a resounding success, earning Scorsese his long-awaited Best Director Oscar and winning Best Picture at the Academy Awards. The Departed stands as Scorsese's masterpiece and showcases his unparalleled ability to craft stories that are both emotionally charged and entertaining.