Everyone loves a good thriller, but not everyone can define what a thriller is. There’s a lot of overlap with action and horror movies, since thrillers often feature threats and/or acts of violence and murder, but in action movies the emphasis is on the physical conflict, and in horror movies the emphasis is on the death. Thriller movies are, generally, movies about desperately trying to stay alive and safe amidst dangerous situations, where your problems can’t be solved by just fighting somebody, and where the villains typically want more than to simply kill you.
In an age where the government is literally out to get a lot of us, big corporations are taking part of that exploitation (if not outright taking point), and the so-called “authorities” can’t be trusted, thrillers are a particularly relatable poignant genre. 2025 was a great year for films about paranoia, murder and kidnapping, from filmmakers who have something to say about the troubles we all currently face, who also know how to keep those struggles exciting, as opposed to just sad.
These are the best thriller movies of 2025!
‘Black Bag’
Steven Soderbergh’s icy, sexy spy thriller “Black Bag” stars Michael Fassbender as a British intelligence agent, assigned with rooting out a mole in the organization. The problem is that the prime suspects are his wife and only friends. The other problem is that in this insular world, where nobody trusts anyone and every topic of conversation is highly classified, they’re not just co-workers. Everyone is sleeping with everyone else, or at least trying to, complicating their work dynamics, their love lives and his investigation.
“Black Bag” is an incredibly smart espionage thriller, eschewing the typical aggrandizing rah-rah patriotic action we often associate with the genre, and goosing even the more serious takes on the spy game with slick, rich character work and sensual, subversive psychology. It’s one of the best thrillers of its ilk in a very, very long time.
‘Dangerous Animals’
Sean Byrne’s “Dangerous Animals” rides the sometimes hazy, sometimes irrelevant line between thrillers and horror movies, but it would satisfy fans of either genre. Jai Courtney plays a tour guide, offering his customers shark cage experiences with the ocean’s deadliest creatures. The problem is, he’s also a serial killer who likes to film his victims getting eaten by sharks. Hassie Harrison plays his latest victim, but she’s a survivor, and she’s got the instincts of a predator herself, so our homicidal villain has his work cut out for him.
“Dangerous Animals” has a great hook (no fishing pun intended), overwhelming dramatic tension, and a great cast anchored (no fishing pun intended) by Courtney, who gives a deliriously great performance as a monster in his element, unimpeded by the social expectations of sanity.
‘Dead of Winter’
Criminally overlooked but absolutely captivating, Brian Kirk’s “Dead of Winter” stars Emma Thompson as a Minnesotan widow on a snow fishing trip, who stumbles across a shocking kidnapping. She’s no hero, but she’s a moral person and a smart cookie, so she gets involved and becomes — just by knowing all about northern, midwestern winters — to be a major thorn in the criminals’ sides. Lots of movie heroes would try to shoot the bad guys. Barb messes with their cabin’s heating and dunks all their clothes in water, which will have the same effect as all those bullets, it’ll just take longer.
Providing the perfect counterpoint, Judy Greer plays the lead kidnapper, a desperate woman whose motives are shockingly understandable, even though her moral code is inhuman. She’s the perfect, self-centered foil to Thompson’s empathetic, self-sacrificing hero, transforming a solid, modest crime thriller into an epic battle of wills.
‘Drop’
Christopher Landon’s punchy high-concept thriller “Drop” stars Meghann Fahy as a single mother on her first date in years, with a hunky, patient, kindhearted guy played by Brandon Sklenar (we’ll see more of him later). They take their seat in a fancy high-rise restaurant, and suddenly she starts getting airdropped messages from an anonymous sender, and those messages threaten to kill her child unless she does exactly what she’s told, murders her date.
“Drop” is built on a wobbly, extremely contrived foundation, and it sometimes has to bend over backwards just to reach feature-length. But Christopher Landon is such a deft showman that “Drop” works in spite of itself. He’s pulling Hitchcockian camera tricks to turn the seemingly banal act of getting a phone message into an overwhelming text from hell. Ironically, in the end, it’s kind of the perfect date movie. Just serious enough to get invested in it, but fundamentally ridiculous enough that you’re allowed, and even encouraged to laugh with it.
‘Highest 2 Lowest’
Akira Kurosawa’s 1963 kidnapping drama “High and Low” is, to this day, one of the best and smartest thrillers ever filmed. Remaking it is a bold and risky idea for any filmmaker, but Spike Lee dives into the material headfirst, transforming it into a fascinating addition to his own, very specific filmography.
“Highest 2 Lowest” stars Denzel Washington as a self-made millionaire record executive whose son is kidnapped, and agrees to pay out anything to get him back. The twist is, it turns out his son was safe all along, the chauffeur’s son was kidnapped instead, and the kidnapper still expects Washington to pay. Now that it’s not technically his problem, however, he’s at a moral crossroads. Does he sacrifice his family’s future for someone else’s child? And if he doesn’t, will his family ever forgive him? For that matter, since he’s a celebrity, will the world ever let him live that decision down?
Spike Lee’s film smartly updates the original story to the modern day, acknowledging how public our ethical failings have become, but also how the concerns and responsibilities a Black businessman, responsible for elevating hardworking artists onto the world stage, are different than those of any other millionaire. As the storyline evolves, and culminating in an epic climactic confrontation between Denzel Washington and A$AP Rocky — not just holding his own, but challenging Washington to raise his own game — it becomes clear that Lee isn’t just revisiting this material, he’s expanding on it, challenging it, and making it something new.
‘The Housemaid’
Paul Feig’s greatest film, the comedy-thriller “A Simple Favor,” had a sequel this year, and it was a lot of fun. (It even made our list of The Best Sequel Movies of 2025.) But “The Housemaid” is his big winner this year, an absorbing and enigmatic and hilarious and frightening, soap operatic melodrama about the working class vs. the bourgeois, and the role women are forced to play in both structures.
Sydney Sweeney plays Millie, an ex-con who needs a job and a roof over her head or else her parole will be revoked. She gets a job working for the wealthy Nina and Andrew Winchester, played by Amanda Seyfried and Brandon Sklenar (again), but Nina quickly becomes paranoid, controlling and threatening. Millie will put up with almost anything to stay out of prison, but the pressure is mounting, and Nina’s handsome, patient husband is looking better and better every day.
“The Housemaid” has wicked twists, some of which are predictable, some of which are amusingly outlandish, and a dynamite performance from Seyfried, playing the camp to the nines. But in the end, when all is finally revealed, Feig’s film reveals itself to an intelligent — funny, granted, but undeniably intelligent — send-up of the horrors women endure, and how they fight back.
‘No Other Choice’
Park Chan-wook does thrillers like nobody’s business, except of course that it’s literally his business. Speaking of business, his latest corker “No Other Choice” is all about the perils of unemployment, and the dangers of making one’s job the center of their self-worth. Lee Byung-hun stars Yoo Man-su, a husband and father and employee at a failing paper company. When he’s laid off, he spends months searching for a new career in a dwindling market, until he decides to make his own opportunity by killing a man and creating a new employment opportunity.
That’s disturbing enough, but our antihero also knows that he’d have to compete with several other recently fired businessmen. So before he kills his primary target, he has to kill all his potential competition too. And since he’s just a regular guy, he doesn’t know how to do any of that, leading to bizarre mix-ups and uncomfortably funny failed murder attempts, all while his family gradually picks up that something sinister is going on with dad.
A vicious, biting social satire wrapped up in a pulse-pounding, unpredictable thriller, “No Other Choice” is yet another instant classic from the director of “Oldboy,” “The Handmaiden” and “Decision to Leave.”
‘Influencers’
If you’ve never seen Kurtis David Harder’s “Influencer,” you’re missing out on one of the fiercest thrillers of the 2020s, a modern day Patricia Highsmith riff, pulled off with Hitchcockian flare, set against the backdrop of high end social media influencers. It’s a great movie. The sequel isn’t quite as good, but it comes close enough to satisfy.
That villain, CW, played by Cassandra Naud, is back in “Influencers,” which adds more depth to her enigmatic character, and makes her the hunted, not the hunter. One of CW’s would be victims, played by Emily Tennant, is tracking her across the world, so to fight back CW ingratiates herself with a wealthy manosphere misogynist and his ultraconservative girlfriend, cunningly pitting everyone against each other, destroying many lives in the process. It’s another harsh take on modern internet culture, another clever and character-driven thrill ride, but this time with a finale that veers into total, glorious, cackle-worthy camp.
‘Relay’
Lots of thrillers end with the protagonist taking all the clandestine information about the villains and threatening to go public. That’s where David Mackenzie’s incredibly smart “Relay” begins. Riz Ahmed plays a specialist who helps whistleblowers close Pandora’s Box, exchanging his clients’ safety for their silence, and ensuring the billionaire criminals keep their word. To do that, Ahmed’s character employs a relay service, which allows deaf individuals to use the phone by way of a third party who is legally sworn to secrecy, preventing his enemies from ever learning who he really is, and also keeping his emotional distance from the people he helps.
“Relay” tells the story of a client who breaks down his walls, forcing him to get personally involved and jeopardizing his whole operation. Lily James plays the client, and she convincingly connects with our antihero despite never really talking. Sam Worthington plays the corporate goon trying to find and put the screws on everybody, and he’s better than he ever gets to be in those “Avatar” movies.
David Mackenzie films “Relay” with a matter-of-fact eye for detail, and consistently escalates the tension. What’s more, he also interrogates the shaky morality of his protagonist’s whole profession, making the film more than just an exciting thrill ride, but an insightful look at how billion dollar companies corrupt us all, even as we try to fight them.
‘She Rides Shotgun’
Released in the middle of the summer to zero fanfare and an unremarkable box office, Nick Rowland’s “She Rides Shotgun” is an impressive nail-biter which deserves a bigger audience. Taron Egerton plays Nate, an ex-con who picks his daughter up after school, won’t take her home, won’t let her call her mom, and takes her on a mysterious road trip. His daughter is played by Ana Sophia Heger, and she’s smart enough to figure out this whole thing is wrong, so eventually she calls the cops. Big mistake.
It turns out Nate is on the run from white supremacists he pissed off in prison, they already killed his ex-wife, and his daughter is next. So they’re on the run from every criminal in the state and, since the police are on the take, all the cops are willing to kill them too. There’s an increasingly tight noose around their necks, and Rowland keeps that suspense ratcheted high, getting impressive performances out of Egerton and, in particular, Heger, who steals the movie with her nuanced, extremely believable performance. “She Rides Shotgun” is one of the most underappreciated films of 2025, and certainly one of the very best thrillers.
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