The 6 Best Mystery Movies Released Since 2000, Ranked

Image via Universal Pictures Published Sep 15, 2026, 11:59 PM EDT Diego Pineda has been a devout storyteller his whole life. He has self-published a fantasy novel and a book of short stories, and is actively working on publishing his second novel. A lifelong fan of watching movies and talking about them endlessly, he writes reviews and analyses on his Instagram page dedicated to cinema, and occasionally on his blog. His favorite filmmakers are Andrei Tarkovsky and Charlie Chaplin. He loves modern Mexican cinema and thinks it's tragically underappreciated. Other interests of Diego's include reading, gaming, roller coasters, writing reviews on his Letterboxd account (username: DPP_reviews), and going down rabbit holes of whatever topic he's interested in at any given point. Sign in to your Collider account From the year 2000 until the present, the big screen has been treated to several of the greatest mystery movies that the world has ever seen. From fascinating legal dramas like Anatomy of a Fall to enrapturing thrillers like Oldboy to surreal arthouse masterpieces like Mulholland Drive, the best mystery films since the beginning of the 2000s are all delightfully diverse in all manner of ways, though they all have something vital in common: a perfect understanding of everything that makes fans of these sorts of movies tick. After all, the mystery genre has remained one of cinema's most popular throughout the decades for a reason. As the years have passed, so too has the mystery genre evolved, and from that evolution have come these quintessentially modern masterpieces filled with suspense, tension, and looming questions begging to be answered in some cathartic way. The last 26 years have seen mystery cinema subvert traditional tropes and formulas, bring a stronger emphasis on psychological realism and non-linear story structures, and dare to dive deeper into taboo subjects that may not have been seen with nearly the same frequency just a few decades ago. Anyone who loves a good mystery film ought to check out the six biggest masterpieces that the genre has delivered since right before the turn of the century. 6 'Anatomy of a Fall' (2023) Image via NEON The last six years have seen the release of many exceptional mystery movies, but the question of which one is the best of the bunch isn't really much of a question. It has to be Justine Triet's Palme d'Or-winning Anatomy of a Fall, a masterpiece whose twist on the legal drama genre is unlike anything else it has seen in recent memory. All courtroom dramas are, at their core, about the nature of Truth as a philosophical concept; but few get into the subjectivity and ambiguity of justice with quite as much scathing depth as Triet's magnum opus does. Devised by Triet and co-writer Arthur Harari as a Hitchcockian sort of procedural thriller, Anatomy of a Fall didn't only live up to that mission, but rather surpassed it and delivered a thought-provoking experience all of its own. Anchored by Sandra Hüller's Oscar-nominated powerhouse performances, the whole film is a meditation on truth, gender, relationships, and the intricacies of the legal system which only grows all the more complex on re-watch. Triet's direction is absolutely stellar, and her and Harari's screenplay is one of the best of the 2020s so far. 5 'Oldboy' (2003) Image via Show East Park Chan-wook, one of the greatest masters in the history of Korean cinema, has delivered several of the greatest thrillers of the 21st century. Typically regarded as his very best, Oldboy is a loose adaptation of the Japanese manga Old Boy by Garon Tsuchiya and Nobuaki Minegishi, recipient of the 2004 Cannes Film Festival Grand Prix and of the utmost critical and audience acclaim. Seeing as it's one of the most disturbing non-horror movies of all time, it's definitely not an action thriller fit for all cinephilic palates. Those with the stomach for an absolutely harrowing, unabashedly brutal mystery flick, however, will likely find it absolutely riveting. What's not to praise when watching Oldboy? The action sequences are creatively shot and of the most enthralling narrative significance; the plot twists are as jaw-dropping as they are boldly shocking; and Choi Min-sik's lead performance is one of the best of any mystery film from the 2000s. Those looking for visceral action will be every bit as satisfied as those looking for a psychological puzzle that subverts the typical tropes of the mystery genre in all sorts of razor-sharp ways. It's true that Oldboy isn't for everyone, but it's also undeniable that it's one of the best international movies of the 21st century to date. 4 'Incendies' (2010) Image via Entertainment One Before he became a Hollywood legend making some of the greatest sci-fi films and genre-defining blockbusters that the American film industry has seen in years, Denis Villeneuve was an up-and-coming Canadian filmmaker already making masterpieces of the stature of Incendies. Still deemed by many as Villeneuve's true magnum opus, this entirely unconventional war drama is based on Wajdi Mouawad's play of the same name, itself based on parts of the life of Lebanese communist militant Souha Bechara. This is yet another instance of a film so brutally gut-wrenching that it's definitely not for everyone, but nonetheless remains an absolute must-see for those who can bear its ferocity. It is, after all, one of the best Canadian movies of all time, a testament to the tremendous quality of what the country has had to offer over the course of the last 26 years. The performances are all absolutely exceptional, particularly Lubna Azabal's flooring turn; Villenueve's direction is as powerfully subtle as it is uproariously devastating; and the screenplay penned by him and Valérie Beaugrand-Champagne is one of the best of the last couple of decades. Part political war drama, part modern Greek tragedy, this is a mystery film that pivots around one of the most brutal plot twists that modern cinema has thus far seen. Collider Exclusive · Villain Personality Quiz Which Criminal Mastermind Would Be Your Nemesis? Lecter · Joker · Moriarty · Chigurh Four of the finest criminal minds ever put on screen. One of them would look at you and see something worth their time. Eight questions decide which one comes for you, why they picked you, and what they would want when they arrived. 🍷Lecter 🃏Joker ♟️Moriarty 🪙Chigurh MEET YOUR NEMESIS → 01 What would a criminal mastermind notice about you first? Great villains choose their opponents carefully. Something about you got their attention. AMy manners, and everything I am careful not to say. BThat I still believe people are basically decent. CThat I am clever, and quietly enjoy proving it. DThat I handle things myself, and always have. NEXT QUESTION → 02 How do they make first contact? The introduction tells you everything about what is coming next. AA polite letter. Beautiful handwriting. Quietly wrong. BSomething on fire, with a message left beside it. CA puzzle, left where only I would look. DNo contact. Just the aftermath, and a coin. NEXT QUESTION → 03 What do you actually believe about right and wrong? Every nemesis is really an argument about the thing you believe most. AThere are lines. Mine are private and absolute. BRules are the only thing keeping us from being animals. CMorality is a system, and systems can be solved. DThings happen. Most of it was never up to me. NEXT QUESTION → 04 What finally gets under your skin? Everybody has a pressure point. Finding yours is the whole plan. ABeing seen clearly by somebody I cannot read. BWatching good people do something ugly. CLosing to someone who was simply better prepared. DHaving no move left that changes anything. NEXT QUESTION → 05 They have made their move. How do you fight back? This is the part of the film where the audience finds out who you are. ACarefully, and never where they expect to be touched. BLoudly. I would rather lose than play their game. CWith a better plan. I can out-think this. DDirectly, once, with whatever is closest to hand. NEXT QUESTION → 06 What would they use against you? A good villain never brings a weapon you have not already handed them. AMy privacy. I have kept far too much to myself. BMy conscience. I will not cross the line they want. CMy ego. I cannot resist a worthy opponent. DMy certainty that I can handle it alone. NEXT QUESTION → 07 What do they actually want from you? The money is never the point. Something else always is. ATo understand me better than anyone ever has. BTo prove I am no better than they are. CTo finally be beaten by someone worth the trouble. DNothing at all. I stepped into the wrong path. NEXT QUESTION → 08 How does it end between the two of you? Eight questions in, this is the one that decides who comes for you. AA conversation I will be replaying for years. BA choice forced on me that has no clean answer. COne final move, and the better mind wins. DA coin in the air, and nothing I can say. REVEAL MY NEMESIS → The Case File Is Complete Your Nemesis Is…Four criminal masterminds. One of them was always going to be yours. Here is who comes for you, why they picked you out of everyone available, and what they want from the encounter. Hannibal LecterYour nemesis does not want to beat you. He wants to know you completely, and he is patient enough to wait for it. The frightening part is how good the conversation is. Lecter is the most dangerous kind of opponent: the one who finds you interesting. He never raises his voice, because he has never needed to. You keep a great deal to yourself and you are careful about what you show. That reserve is exactly the door he would knock on. The films understood something other thrillers missed. The horror is not the violence. It is being perfectly understood by the wrong person. He would be unfailingly polite about all of it. That is the worst part. The JokerYour nemesis is not after money, territory or revenge. He is after a demonstration, and you are the person he has chosen to prove his point on. The Joker only picks opponents who believe in something. Your decency is not a defence against him. It is the entire reason he showed up. He has no plan you can predict and nothing you can take away, which removes every tool you would normally reach for. His whole argument is that you are one bad day away from being him, and you would spend the rest of your life proving him wrong. He would call it a magic trick. You would call it the worst night of your life. MoriartyYour nemesis respects you, which sounds flattering until you work out what it means. He chose you because nobody else was worth his time. Moriarty is the original criminal mastermind, the template every later one borrows from: a mind the equal of the hero's, pointed the wrong way. You enjoy being the cleverest person in the room. He is counting on exactly that, and he has already built the room. This is the rare nemesis who would be genuinely disappointed if you lost badly. He needs the game to be worth playing. It ends the way these things always end. Two people, one problem, and only one way down. Anton ChigurhYour nemesis has no personal interest in you whatsoever, and that is precisely what makes him unsurvivable. You are not a rival. You are a stop on the way. Chigurh does not negotiate, gloat or explain. He arrives, he asks one question, and the answer was decided long before you opened your mouth. You trust yourself to handle things. He is the one problem in the world that has no interest in how capable you are. No Country for Old Men rewrote the screen villain by removing the thing audiences quietly rely on: the sense that talking might work. Call it. He will wait. ↻ RETAKE THE QUIZ 3 'Get Out' (2017) Who could have possibly predicted that a comedian as hysterical and immensely talented as Jordan Peele would also end up being one of the freshest, most exciting new voices in horror cinema? It's hard to imagine how anyone could have. After all, Get Out is one of the most surprisingly high-quality directing debuts that Hollywood has had to offer in years, and can already be counted among the best psychological thrillers of the last 90 years. Though it's by no means devoid of the dark humor that Peele fans would expect, it's also an undeniably scary horror flick that's among the best that the genre has seen on the big screen throughout the last 26 years. Anchored by Daniel Kaluuya's masterful lead performance and Peele's career-defining turn as a writer-director, Get Out is proof of how far modern horror and mystery movies can go in delivering hard-hitting and timely social critiques while remaining irresistibly entertaining throughout the whole thing. Indeed, what makes Get Out so special is how masterfully it balances scathing satirical humor, thematic explorations of the horrors of modern racism and racial exploitation, and character-driven drama. Incredibly re-watchable and impeccably written, it's a must-see masterpiece for anyone who enjoys mystery horror. 2 'Mulholland Drive' (2001) Image via Studiocanal There has never been a cinematic auteur quite like David Lynch, and there never will again. A director so special that people had to come up with a term, "Lynchian," in order to explain the unique feeling that his works inevitably elicit, he made contributions to surrealist cinema as foundational as those made by the artists who defined the genre itself back in the early 20th century. But though he made masterpiece after masterpiece over the course of his career, Lynch made one movie that's often deemed his very best, and that's Mulholland Drive. One of the most beloved thriller movies of the 21st century, Mulholland Drive is the ultimate Lynchian masterwork; a study of identity, gender, and the dark side of the Hollywood Dream which somehow only keeps getting better with age. Is it the amazing cast, featuring career-best performances by Naomi Watts and Laura Harring? Is it Lynch's luscious yet potently mysterious and bizarre direction? Is it the many moments of head-scratching surrealism that anyone who loves weird cinema should absolutely cherish? Whatever it is that makes Mulholland Drive a masterpiece, it's one that anyone who loves mystery cinema should check out at least once in their lives. 1 'Memento' (2000) Image via Summit Entertainment Before he became one of the undisputed kings of modern Hollywood blockbuster filmmaking, Christopher Nolan was an indie filmmaker like any other—except that his work was far more exciting and indicative that he would become a total legend than most of his peers' work. Case in point: his sophomore feature, Memento, which became an immediate critical darling the moment it premiered at the Venice Film Festival. However, its journey to mainstream success was a slow uphill battle, one marked by Hollywood's rejection and a slow-burn box office rollout. It should come as no surprise, considering that it's perhaps the single most notorious example of a movie structured in reverse chronological order. As the years have passed, though, many have come to retroactively see Memento as Nolan's true best film to date, and certainly one of the most suspenseful thrillers you'll ever watch. Led by Guy Pearce, who delivers one of the most underappreciated performances of Nolan's whole filmography; and bolstered by one of the most genius screenplays that Hollywood has seen at any point during the last 26 years, Memento is an enthralling example of just how close mystery cinema can truly come to genuine perfection. Memento Release Date October 11, 2000 Runtime 113 minutes