Best Thrillers of All Time

Thriller has been a popular genre of films. Thrillers keep you glued to your seats, increasing curiosity about what next. Directors like Alfred Hitchcock, M. Night Shyamalan, Christopher Nolan, etc. have made great thrillers. Here are carefully selected movies categorized into the best English and foreign language thrillers and other best thrillers.

This Alfred Hitchcock film is arguably the best thriller movie ever made. This movie is based on Robert Bloch's novel and tells the story of a woman Marion Crane, who steals a big sum of money from her employer, and wants to start a new life with the stolen money.

This is the best film made by director M. Night Shyamalan. This movie is about a child psychologist (Bruce Willis) who is treating a boy (Haley Joel Osment), who can see dead people.

This masterpiece is based on a book by Thomas Harris. It tells the story about Dr. Hannibal Lecter (a serial killer himself) (played by Anthony Hopkins) and a young FBI officer (Jodie Foster) who are trying to find a serial killer, 'Buffalo Bill'.

This movie is based on a novella 'Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption' by Stephen King. This movie tells the story of two men who bond in prison while serving their sentence and find comfort and the eventual redemption with each others help.

This movie stars Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman as homicide detectives', who are hunting a serial killer, 'John Doe', who justifies his crimes as absolution for the world's ignorance of the seven sins. Here, Gwyneth Paltrow plays the wife of the detective David Mills (Brad Pitt), while Kevin Spacey plays the serial killer.

This is a very unique thriller about a man who is trying to find the man who killed his wife, by using notes, pictures and tattoos to compensate for his short term memory loss condition. This film is directed by Christopher Nolan.

Directed by Roman Polanski, Chinatown is one of the best crime-thriller, which is about a private detective who is trying to investigate an adultery case, when he stumbles upon a scheme of murder that has to do with water.

This movie is one of the best drama-thriller movie directed by David Fincher which stars Brad Pitt as Tyler Durden and Edward Norton as The Narrator. These two form a fight club, that helps to vent male aggression. This movie has an amazing climax, watch!

This classic movie by Alfred Hitchcock, tells the story of an advertising executive who is mistaken for a government agent by foreign spies, and is chased across the country.

The French Connection, directed by Willian Friedkin has won 5 Oscars. It is about a pair of NYC cops who stumble onto a drug smuggling job that has a French connection.

Made by Akira Kurosawa, this is one of the unique film ever made and arguably the best thrillers ever made in a foreign language. This movie shows four amazing point of views. The story is set in ancient Japan, where a woman is raped and her husband is killed by a bandit.

The woman and the bandit both tell different versions of the story. So a psychic is called to get the story from the dead husband, who tells yet another story. And finally the fourth version comes from a woodcutter who says he witnessed the whole thing.

This movie is known as Pan's Labyrinth in English, and won 3 Oscars, out of which one is for Best Achievement in Art Direction. The movie has a very visual appeal, and is based in 1944s Spanish revolution, and tells the story of a young girl's mystical adventure.

This is one of the most popular foreign films, which has a great climax. This movie is about a man who is imprisoned for 15 years in a shabby cell, without any explanation. When he is released, he seeks revenge, but he finds out that the kidnapper has more plans for him.

Les diaboliques, is one of the best French suspense movies, directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot, tells the story about the wife of a cruel headmaster and his mistress, who together conspire to kill him. After the murder, the body disappears and scary events begin to occur.

In this movie, North Korea's 8th Special Forces have hijacked a potent liquid explosive, CTX and they threaten South Korea to use it to re-unify the two countries.

This German movie directed by Fritz Lang is about a psychotic serial killer who keeps killing girls, the search for him is so intense, that even local criminals and local hoods help the police to find the murderer as quickly as possible.

This French film is also known as The Wages of Fear. In this movie a convoy of trucks are transporting very dangerous nitroglycerin to try to quell an oil well fire. The ride is rough due to the bad roads, and the cargo threatens to explode at every jolt and jar.

Popularly known as Run Lola Run, this german movie is about a young woman, who has twenty minutes to find a big sum of money to her boyfriend, before he robs a supermarket.

This is another great French thriller directed by Jean-Pierre Melville, is about a hitman who is a perfectionist who never gets caught, due to his carefully planned murders.

Cidade de Deus, also known as 'City of God' is a Brazilian film was nominated for 4 Oscars. It is about two boys who grow up in a violent neighborhood of Rio de Janeiro, who take a two different path, one becomes a photographer while other becomes a drug dealer.

28 Days Later, director by Danny Boyle is one of the best zombie-action-thriller movies. After 28 days, Jim wakes up to realize that the city is full of zombies, who are humans infected by a virus.

This horror movie stars Nicole Kidman, who lives in a dark old house with her two photosensitive children who become convinced that the house is haunted. This film also stars Fionnula Flanagan, Elaine Cassidy, Eric Sykes in the supporting roles and is directed by Alejandro Amenábar.

This musical-thriller stars Johnny Depp, and is directed by Tim Burton. This movie is about Sweeney Todd who sets up a barber shop in London, killing his customers. What proceeds and why does Sweeney Todd murder is a great story to know. A must watch.

This Oscar nominated film is about a Russian teenager who dies during childbirth. She leaves clues in her journal regarding her child, which connects the child to a violent Russian mob family. this film is directed by David Cronenberg.

The Ring, directed by Gore Verbinski is one of the best thriller movies, which is about a mysterious video tape after watching which a person dies within seven days.

This is a remake of the old film by the same name, which is about a soldiers being kidnapped during a Gulf War, who are brainwashed for sinister purposes.

No Country for Old Men directed collaboratively by Ethan Coen, Joel Coen has won 4 Academy Awards (Oscars). It tells the story of a man who finds a large amount of money and now is being chased by a silent killer. This film has won more than 70 awards out of 109 nominations in various award functions.

The Bourne Ultimatum, directed by Paul Greengrass, is a movie about Jason Bourne played by Matt Damon, who keeps dodging a ruthless CIA official and agents while searching for his own identity.

This is one of the best horror movies, that is inspired by a true story, which is about a group of friends who are hunted down by a deformed killer with a chainsaw, so that he can sustain his poor family who can only afford to eat what they can kill.

This is a modern-day masterpiece movie that has great direction by Christopher Nolan and acting by Christian Bale as the batman and Heath Ledger as the Joker. Joker is spreading chaos in the city and Batman is trying to control the situation. Heath Ledger bagged an Academy Award in the category, 'Best Supporting Actor' for this film.

So, watch the unseen thriller movies mentioned here and know what is so thrilling about them.