The 40 Best Thriller Movies of All Time

It’s hard to say exactly what a thriller is, except that it’s something you feel in your bones. They make us jump and give us goosebumps. Technology has helped them along, but the best thrillers have always been the ones that pare things down: always gripping, not too scary or explosive. They’re, in a word, tense.

Every movie on this list, spanning tried-and-true classics and underrated gems, feels like a high-wire act. From Hitchcock’s finest to the origins of John McClane to French kids executing a terror plot, these are movies that keep us bolted in our seats until the end. Steven Spielberg wooed us with family-friendly fare like Jaws that had its jolts, but it was his Munich that really made us aware of the human cost lurking below the blood in the water. Viggo Mortensen defending his family with skills we weren’t supposed to know he had causes our stomachs to churn during A History of Violence. The image of a teenager who suddenly understands the consequences of his criminal actions in Nocturama makes us fear for him, and ourselves. That confrontation with violence—less the end of it than staring down the trigger—is where a thriller lives.

These movies are also visually stunning, frequently morally nuanced, and occasionally quite bloody. Because there’s only so much space, movies that can easily be called horror are excluded (sorry, Silence of the Lambs), but action is fine if it’s adequately propelled by mystery or suspense (hey, Heat!). And one entry per director only (Hitch can’t hog everything). Below, a list of the best thriller movies of all time: