Living during “interesting” times is thrilling in an upsetting sort of way, so there’s no better time to test the limits of our entertainment consumption and enjoy someone else’s stress in a fun way. For the adventurous among us, that means cranking the tension up to its maximum with the best of the best in heart-wrenching thrillers. (And FYI, best horror movies is a different list). From psychological scares to dystopian hellscapes, any movie on this list will have you truly on the edge of your seat.
Here are the top 15 best thrillers on Netflix streaming now.
1. El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie
Credit: Ben Rothstein / Netflix
Dear Breaking Bad fans, if you haven’t watched the series’ victory lap yet, what are you doing? Coming right after the events of the finale, El Camino has Jesse (Aaron Paul) setting out on the run from both the law and his troubled history. While this epilogue might be unnecessary, it remains a riveting entry into the Breaking Bad universe. — Alexis Nedd, Senior Entertainment Reporter
How to watch: El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie is streaming on Netflix.
2. Argo
Ben Affleck pulls double-duty, serving as director and leading man of this heralded historical thriller from 2012.
Inspired by a stranger-than-fiction CIA scheme, Argo follows an imaginative agent (Affleck), who goes undercover as a sci-fi movie producer so he might rescue Americans from the Iran hostage crisis of 1979. To make the ruse work, he must collaborate with some real Hollywood types, including a snarky make-up artist (John Goodman) and a surly producer (Alan Arkin), both of whom bring spunk and levity to an otherwise pulse-poundingly tense scenario. Critics cheered Affleck’s riveting balance of drama, suspense, and cheeky Hollywood ribbing, and the Academy followed suit, awarding Argo three Oscars, including Best Picture.* — Kristy Puchko, Deputy Entertainment Editor
How to watch: Argo is streaming on Netflix.
3. Bird Box
Credit: Saeed Adyani / Netflix
Bird Box stars Sandra Bullock as a struggling survivor in a post-apocalyptic world dominated by mysterious entities that cause death upon being seen. Even though, like the survivors, the audience never actually sees the monsters that whittle away at the fantastic cast (Trevonte Rhodes, Sarah Paulson, and John Malkovich, oh my!), their presence looms large over the film’s horror-tinged thrills and twists.
How to watch: Bird Box is streaming on Netflix.
4. Cam
In this haunting Netflix original, Madeline Brewer portrays Alice, an ambitious webcam model working hard to nurture her flourishing career. But when a mysterious doppelgänger takes her place online and begins broadcasting without her, Alice begins to fear for her safety. Immensely intense and fabulously feminist, Cam is the perfect film when you want something closer to a horror movie.
How to watch: Cam is streaming on Netflix.
5. Velvet Buzzsaw
Credit: Claudette Barius / Netflix
From Nightcrawler writer-director Dan Gilroy comes Velvet Buzzsaw, a hugely underrated comedic thriller with just a smidge of horror at its center. Jake Gyllenhaal stars alongside Rene Russo, Toni Collette, John Malkovich, and more in a satirical exploration of the cutthroat Los Angeles art scene. It’s laugh-out-loud funny but still tense and full of fun visuals. Come for the promise of Gyllenhaal playing an art critic convinced museum installations are coming to life; stay for Billy Magnussen playing a gallery worker who gets attacked by a barrel of oil-on-canvas monkeys. Yeah, it’s a fun one.
How to watch: Velvet Buzzsaw is streaming on Netflix.
6. Inception
Christopher Nolan’s soft sci-fi stunner is over a decade old, and it’s safe to say we’ve never recovered from the movie’s ending. (We won’t go into further detail lest you get spoiled or upset!) It’s fair to assume that anyone interested in Inception has seen it by now, but there’s a new generation of moviegoers who haven’t watched Joseph Gordon-Levitt float through a hallway or headbanged to Hans Zimmer’s “Mombasa” with a face full of popcorn. All these years later, Inception still makes a helluva Friday night movie when you’ve got time to kill.
How to watch: Inception is streaming on Netflix.
7. I Care a Lot
Credit: Seacia Pavao / Netflix
J. Blakeson’s film about a legal guardian (Rosamund Pike) who targets the elderly for profit isn’t a flawless movie — but it is a helluva ride. Marla (Pike) finds the perfect mark to send to a care home while dissolving her assets, but she didn’t bargain for her new charge’s crime boss son (Peter Dinklage). Pike delivers a performance as sharp as Marla’s lethal bob, while Dinklage clearly enjoys a role equal parts dangerous and amusing. Everything escalates as the two square off, with Marc Canham’s score dialing the stakes up to 100. If you love the journey regardless of the destination, you need this on your list.
How to watch: I Care a Lot is streaming on Netflix.
8. Good Time
From Josh Safdie and Benny Safdie, the geniuses behind Uncut Gems, Good Time is a panic-inducing nightmare movie that refuses to let up for any moment of its 101-minute runtime. Robert Pattinson stars as Connie, a criminal willing to do anything to get his vulnerable brother (co-director Benny Safdie) bailed out of a New York City jail. Heart-breaking and jaw-dropping, this character study will devastate you.
How to watch: Good Time is streaming on Netflix.
9. Andhadhun
Loosely based on the French short “L’Accordeur,” Andhadhun is a serpentine adventure starring Ayushmann Khurrana as a blind pianist, Aakash. What begins as a romance between Aakash and Sophie (Radhika Apte) takes endless twists before an admittedly deflated ending — but it’s well worth the ride.
Andhadhun will keep you on the edge of your seat with each turn of the plot, never leading where expected.
How to watch: Andhadhun is streaming on Netflix.
10. The Platform
Credit: Netflix
Prison cells stacked one on top of the other, with holes in the floor and ceiling and randomly assigned levels that change each month. And a platform of food that gets slowly lowered from the very top, getting sparser and sparser with each floor it descends.
This is the concept at the centre of Spanish director Galder Gaztelu-Urrutia’s The Platform, a disturbing sci-fi thriller that wears its capitalist analogy plainly on its prison-garb sleeve. It’s one of those rare gems where the execution is as strong as the idea at its core, driven by an excellent screenplay from David Desola and Pedro Rivero that’s dripping with horror and suspense. If you’re a fan of movies like The Cube or Saw, this is well worth checking out. — Sam Haysom, Deputy UK Editor
How to Watch: The Platform is streaming on Netflix.
11. Contagion
Contagion — I mean, duh. No, you don’t have to watch it. But you can!
Steven Soderbergh’s matter-of-fact, star-studded Contagion is just one of the pandemic-themed pieces of entertainment people have embraced since 2020, probably because it’s one of the most relevant films in the genre of disease thrillers.
The disease in this film is far more deadly than we currently know COVID-19 to be, but it’s perversely satisfying to hear newly familiar phrases like “social distancing” and “R-0” thrown around, watch the grim competence at work behind the scenes of this fictional pandemic, and wonder how far off we were (or are) from full-on supermarket looting.
How to watch: Contagion is streaming on Netflix.
12. The Net
This 1995 film is a wonderful and entertaining time capsule about the early days of the internet and Americans’ emerging fears about online spying.
With the intensity and vulnerability that made her an A-lister, Sandra Bullock stars as a reclusive hacker who follows a mysterious glitch down a rabbit hole of conspiracy, identity theft, and a ruthless syndicate that wants to delete her. To best her sinister foes, she’ll have to use her computer savvy, her fast-dwindling friend list, and her wits. Pitching his protagonist out from behind the comfort zone of her computer screen, director Irwin Winkler creates a web that’s worldwide and full of threats, from Cancun beaches to sterile retirement homes to sprawling convention centers and the arms of a handsome stranger (Jeremy Northam).
The look of the old-school internet might cause chuckles, but the chills of this espionage thriller still hold up. —K.P.
How to watch: The Net is streaming on Netflix.
13. The Perfection
Credit: Netflix
From cellos and foreplay to hallucinations and hiking, The Perfection does absolutely whatever it wants. Featuring Allison Williams in her best role since Get Out and Dear White People‘s Logan Browning in her best part ever, this vibrant genre blend will get a reaction out of you. Not necessarily a good reaction, but a reaction nonetheless. It’s body horror meets psychological thriller meets occult drama meets classical music. With bugs. And vomit. I, for one, loved it!
How to watch: The Perfection is streaming on Netflix.
14. Freaks
A secret lurks beneath the surface of this claustrophobic thriller. Written and directed by Zach Lipovsky and Adam B. Stein, Freaks begins with a surly little girl and her harried father hiding in a ramshackle house. Despite paternal warnings, Chloe (Lexy Kolker) is determined to venture outside, befriend the girl across the street, and get a frosty treat from the ice cream truck that’s always just out of reach. But she’s only beginning to understand the dangers beyond her door. Why they must hide hangs on a sci-fi twist that makes this mysterious movie distinctly satisfying and marvelously mind-blowing. — K.P.
How to watch: Freaks is streaming on Netflix.
15. Molly’s Game
History says Jessica Chastain won an Oscar for the titular role in The Eyes of Tammy Faye, but we say she won it — at least in part — due to this slick 2017 drama from Aaron Sorkin. Chastain plays Molly Bloom, whose shattered Olympic dreams lead her on an unlikely path to hosting underground celebrity poker games. Bloom ends up at the top of an empire, feared, respected, and revered by A-listers from Hollywood and more. In Chastain’s hands, she’s smooth as heck, a keen observer, and as calculated in her business as the best poker players. Though not a thriller in the conventional sense, Molly’s Game keeps you hooked with sharp dialogue, pacing, and editing, and that sustained tingly sensation you get when you know you’re doing something wrong. —Proma Khosla, Senior Entertainment Reporter
How to watch: Molly’s Game is streaming on Netflix.
Asterisks (*) indicate the entry write up comes from a previous Mashable list.
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