Last Updated: December 26th
A good thriller is an edge-of-your-seat cinematic experience, a film that keeps you guessing, expertly weaves plot twists into larger narratives, and delivers endings you never saw coming. Each of the movies of this list checks those boxes. They might be of different genres and decades, but these gripping films keep the heart racing and the mind whirling. Here are the best thrillers on Amazon Prime right now.
Related: The Best Thrillers On Netflix Right Now
Suspiria (2018)
Run Time: 152 min | IMDb: 6.8/10
Luca Guadagnino’s buzzed-about horror remake is a mind-bending exercise in the cinematic. Dakota Johnson plays Susie, a young dancer who arrives at a prestigious academy where disturbing happenings begin to take place. After one dancer goes missing, another dies, and a third is severely injured, the students begin investigating their instructors to discover they belong to a coven of witches with troubling rituals that rest upon the dancers playing their parts.
A Quiet Place (2018)
Run Time: 90 min | IMDb: 7.6/10
John Krasinski’s breakout horror flick has made its way to Amazon. The film stars Krasinski and his wife, Emily Blunt, as a couple trying their best to raise their family in the middle of an apocalypse where the slightest sound might attract other-worldly creatures intent on hunting them down and killing them. It’s a thrilling turn for both actors, with twists you don’t see coming and a satisfying ending.
The Report (2019)
Run Time: 119 min | IMDb: 7.2/10
Adam Driver and Annette Bening star in this political thriller based on a true story. Driver plays Senate staffer Daniel J. Jones, who’s tasked by his boss, Senator Dianne Feinstein to investigate the CIA’s post 9/11 interrogation tactics. What Jones finds through years of research is a shocking cover-up of inhuman abuses carried out in the name of preventing future terrorist attacks, abuses that cause Jones to question the very ideals that pushed him to work on Capitol Hill in the first place. Driver is magnetic as Jones, a man contending with the heartbreaking disillusionment with his country while also fighting against the system to bring the truth to light.
A Vigilante (2018)
Run Time: 91 min | IMDb: 5.6/10
Olivia Wilde stars in this gritty crime thriller about a woman named Sadie, who (after surviving a domestic abuse situation) becomes a self-taught vigilante helping other women escape violence. Wilde’s Sadie is a stoic, broken woman doing the right thing for heartbreaking reasons, but it’s when she cracks a few skulls and puts some wife-beating a**holes in their place that we really begin to root for her. The action is brutal and unforgiving, scrappy fights that involve makeshift weapons and plenty of blood, but it feels real and, more importantly, vital to telling this story well.
You Were Never Really Here (2017)
Run Time: 89 min | IMDb: 6.8/10
Joaquin Phoenix stars as a troubled hitman with a dark past in this thrilling crime flick from Lynne Ramsay. Phoenix plays Joe, a gun for hire, former military man and FBI agent, who spends most of his time rescuing victims of sex trafficking. He’s recruited to save a Senator’s daughter from a brothel that caters to high-end clientele, but the job thrusts him into the center of a conspiracy that costs him everything and ends in blood and tragedy. It’s a relentless slog to be sure, but it works because Ramsay is more interested in profiling the man, not the hits he makes.
Hereditary (2018)
Run Time: 127 min | IMDb: 7.3/10
Toni Collette stars in this terrifying nightmare by first-time director Ari Aster. The film charts the grief and shared trauma of the Graham family. Annie (Collette) is mourning the loss of her secretive mother, worrying over her inherited mental health issues and her children. When her son Peter accidentally kills his sister, hauntings begin happenings. Malevolent spirits, possessions, a seance gone wrong — this is pure nightmare fuel, people.
Midsommar (2019)
Run Time: 147 min | IMDb: 7.2/10
Nauseating. Disturbing. A total mindf*ck. Those are all fitting descriptions of Ari Aster’s Hereditary follow-up, a sophomore outing that gleefully embraces the very worst of humanity and shines an unforgiving light on those universal flaws. It’s a horror story, sure, but it’s a relationship drama at its core, flavored with pagan rituals, brutal killings, unsettling imagery, and all-consuming grief. Florence Pugh gives a career-defining performance as Dani, a young woman reeling from a terrible familial tragedy who accompanies her distant, disinterested boyfriend Christian (Jack Reynor) and his college bros to a small Swedish village to celebrate the summer solstice.
Cabin in the Woods (2011)
Run Time: 95 min | IMDb: 7/10
Chris Hemsworth stars in this Whedon creation directed by Drew Goddard that’ll make you wary of ever going on a mountain retreat again. Hemsworth plays one of a group of five friends who head to the woods for some R&R. The remote cabin they stay at quickly becomes a hellish prison they struggle to escape from.
Swimfan (2002)
Run Time: 85 min | IMDb: 5/10
Jesse Bradford and Erika Christensen star in this teen thriller that’s basically Fatal Attraction but with swimming pools. Bradford plays Ben, a high school senior with a promising swimming career who hooks up with Christensen’s Madison in a moment of weakness (despite having a girlfriend). Turns out, Madison is the O.G. stan that Eminem always warned us about, and their indiscretion prompts her to begins stalking Ben, his family, and his friends, forcing him to take extreme measures to protect himself, and his reputation.
Three Days Of The Condor (1975)
Run Time: 117 min | IMDb: 7.5/10
Faye Dunaway and Robert Redford play a bookish CIA analyst and the woman he holds hostage in this political thriller. Redford’s Joe Turner returns from lunch to find his co-workers murdered and himself on the run as he tries to find out what happened and why while mysterious forces hunt him down. Dunaway plays Kathy Hale, a woman he kidnaps and holds hostage who soon begins to help him unravel the mystery.
