If you’re in the mood for a thriller, this guide has you covered. The best thrillers on Hulu right now range from thought-provoking psychological thrillers to terrifying horror thrillers and everything in between. That’s the beauty of the genre: you can pick and choose the slant for a thriller that suits your mood and interests.
There are tons of great thrillers on Hulu, dating back to Alien, a classic from the 1970s. It is even joined by all of its many sequels in the franchise, so you can have a movie marathon. If that isn’t your flavor, consider other notable titles like Fight Club, Black Swan, and Fresh starring Sebastian Stan.
Need more recommendations? Then check out the best new movies to stream this week, the best movies on Netflix, the best movies on Hulu, the best movies on Amazon Prime Video, the best movies on Max, and the best movies on Disney+.
Also, be sure to give the Disney Bundle a look — it’ll get you Hulu, Disney+, and ESPN+ for one price. That way, you’ll get thrillers and more from Hulu, plus tons of other great content.
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Alien1979 -
Notes on a Scandal2006
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Fight Club1999
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Black Swan2010
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Gone Girl2014
Alien (1979)
With a new Alien TV series launching in 2025 on FX on Hulu, it’s the perfect time to rewatch all these classics. Travel through the decades, right up to the latest 2024 flick, Alien: Romulus, to gear up for a new interpretation of the story. Nothing will ever compare to the original, however, which solidified Weaver as a badass female lead and the concept as one of the most enduring in the genre.
Notes on a Scandal (2006)
It’s no surprise Notes on a Scandal earned Oscar recognition with Dame Judi Dench, Cate Blanchett, and Bill Nighy heading up the cast. A British psychological drama thriller, the central story is that of Barbara (Dench), a lonely, disliked teacher who discovers that fellow teacher Sheba (Blanchett), whom she has grown infatuated with, has been having an affair with an underage student. Now, Barbara has found an intriguing purpose as she keeps herself busy and Sheba on edge.
Keep an eye out for other recognizable faces among the cast, including Juno Temple (Ted Lasso, Fargo) and Anne-Marie Duff (Bad Sisters).
Fight Club (1999)
Even those who have never seen this movie know that the first rule of Fight Club is that you never talk about Fight Club. The psychological thriller with one of the best, most shocking endings puts Brad Pitt and Edward Norton’s incredible acting on full display. Norton’s character, who doesn’t actually have a name, forms a fight club in a basement with the mysterious Tyler Durden (Pitt), a soap salesman whom he comes across and befriends.
Using this club as a way to deal with dissatisfaction with his job and his severe insomnia, the man is soon at odds with Tyler as they grow the club; he starts to feel sidelined. The ending of Fight Club is one you won’t see coming if you have managed to avoid this well-known spoiler for the last 26 years. Even if you know how it ends, though, Fight Club, one of David Fincher’s best movies, is one of those movies that fans love to watch more than once.
Black Swan (2010)
You’ll be deeply disturbed by the events in Black Swan, a psychological horror thriller from Darren Aronofsky that follows a New York City Ballet production of Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake. The White Swan is played by the sweet and innocent Nina (Natalie Portman), and the dark and sensual Black Swan is played by rival Lily (Mila Kunis). But the pressure on Nina to compete for the coveted role becomes too much, and she descends into madness.
Our reviewer cuts Black Swan down to its primary theme, the cost of beauty and desire for perfection. “It is both beautiful and devastating,” he says, “…[with] moments that are difficult to watch.” He even goes so far as to call it one of the best movies of its year of release.
Gone Girl (2014)
Gone Girl made such an impression that the movie title has become part of common vernacular. Typically used to reference a situation whereby a woman has faked an event with blame being placed on her significant other in the process, that’s essentially the premise of this David Fincher film. Amy (Rosamund Pike) goes missing, and instantly, the fingers start to point to her husband, Nick (Ben Affleck). His every word, action, even mannerism or facial expression, is scrutinized and twisted to present as evidence of his guilt.
But, as the plot later confirms in one of the most shocking midpoint twists in movie history, things aren’t always what they seem. Gone Girl is a brilliant film that will get you thinking about perception, media manipulation, and your own inherent biases. Plus, it has a fantastic cast that also includes Neil Patrick Harris, Tyler Perry, and Carrie Coon.
Man on Fire (2004)
If you love some Denzel Washington, Man on Fire is one of his most electrifying films and nuanced action characters. He’s John Creasy, a former marine and CIA officer who has been burying his sorrows in alcohol. When a young girl named Lupita (Fanning), who he was tasked to protect, is kidnapped, however, he forgets all thoughts of suicide and sets out for revenge in the most violent way possible.
Man on Fire is about a man who found a purpose in the face of severe depression. Creasy becomes obsessed with taking down anyone who gets in his way of saving this little girl and bringing justice to those who have captured her. Critics may not have loved the movie, and it isn’t one of Washington’s Oscar-worthy flicks. But as an edge-of-your-seat popcorn movie, it’s perfect.
Taken (2008)
Everyone knows the line about Liam Neeson’s “special set of skills,” but have you ever watched the film from which it originates? Even if you have, how long has it been since you last watched Taken? The action-thriller is one of the actor’s most known movies in which he stars as Bryan Mills, a retired ex-CIA agent who goes on a rampage when his teenage daughter and her best friend are kidnapped by a human trafficking terrorist group while on vacation in France.
Taken is one of those movies with amazing re-watch value and the film that solidified Neeson’s status as one of the greatest action movie stars of his generation. Spawning two movie sequels and a TV series, Taken’s plot doesn’t go deep, but the action, fight scenes, and intensity are off the charts.
Speed (1994)
Celebrating its 30th anniversary in 2024, there’s arguably no other action thriller that sustains the same level of intensity all the way through like Speed. It begins when LAPD SWAT bomb disposal officer Jack Traven (Keanu Reeves) learns that an extortionist has rigged a city bus with a bomb that will explode if the vehicle ever travels below 50 miles per hour. Jack bravely boards the bus to help stop the literal ticking time bomb, but when the driver is accidentally shot, Jack looks to random passenger Annie Porter (Sandra Bullock) to take over. Together, the two work in a frantic state to keep the bus moving, until they can help get the passengers off and defuse the bomb.
Speed is an edge-of-your-seat action movie, with Reeves and Bullock making a formidable pair. The movie has received universal praise as a fantastic popcorn thriller, helping solidify Reeves as a top leading man. It’s exciting no matter how many times you’ve watched it.
Sanctuary (2023)
If you’re looking for something psychological with dark comedic undertones, Sanctuary will satiate your appetite for a thriller that touches on these themes. Margaret Qualley is Rebecca, a dominatrix, and Christopher Abbott is Hal, her client. It’s their final session of welcome degradation and humiliation before Hal reveals that he can no longer see Rebecca. He’s about to take on the demanding role of CEO for his company, and their relationship just isn’t a fit for his new life. Angered by being tossed aside, Rebecca decides to put her own business learnings to use and demands that Hal pay her half his salary. It’s her actions, after all, that turned him from weak man to leader. It’s easy to guess what she threatens him with should he not comply. Now, Hal is being humiliated and shamed for real, without deriving any sexual pleasure from it.
A terrifying tale of a man being challenged by a woman who maintains her power dynamic in a scenario he doesn’t want, Sanctuary follows Hal’s descent as he desperately tries to save his career and reputation. Receiving overwhelmingly positive reviews, Rotten Tomatoes-accredited reviewer Matt Pais of MattPais.com describes Sanctuary as playing “mental pinball and sexual chess and psychological sudoku set to expert.”
How to Blow Up a Pipeline (2023)
Praised for its focus on timely eco-related topics, How to Blow Up a Pipeline is set in West Texas. A group of young residents decide bold steps are needed to get their point across. So, they devise a plan to blow up an oil pipeline, their radical response to the climate crisis. The film examines their actions and the morality of them: Are these young individuals activists or terrorists?
Featuring an ensemble cast that includes Lukas Gage (The White Lotus, Euphoria), Marcus Scribner (Black-ish), Ariela Barer (Runaways), and Kristine Froseth (The Buccaneers), Forbes’ Scott Phillips classifies How to Blow Up a Pipeline both as a “top-notch thriller” and an “examination of our modern political system where the voices of individual citizens seem to carry no weight.”
No One Will Save You (2023)
If you’re looking for a thriller that skews more toward horror, No One Will Save You fits the bill. The movie centers around Brynn (Dopesick’s Kaitlyn Dever), a young woman living as a recluse. She has been shunned by her neighbors, so she spends her days and nights making a model town in her living room and mourning the loss of her best friend and mother. But when there’s a home invasion and Brynn discovers aliens have taken over, her life is turned upside down.
An interestingly quiet movie (there are only five words of dialogue through the entire thing), No One Will Save You is like nothing else you’ve ever seen. It has elements of horror and sci-fi smashed into one, with a commanding performance from Dever that will have you convinced she’s a widely underrated breakout star.
Prey (2022)
If you love Predator, you’ll want to check out Prey. The sci-fi action thriller serves as a prequel to the first four movies. Set in 1719 in the Great Plains, it follows Naru (Amber Midthunder), a young Comanche woman who wants to prove that she’s a good hunter. To do so, she does whatever is necessary to protect her people from a humanoid alien that is attacking them. She also has to fight off French fur traders who are after the buffalo she and her people need to survive.
Nominated for six Primetime Emmy Awards, Prey was also the first in the franchise to win one, for Outstanding Sound Editing for a Limited or Anthology Series, Movie or Special. Critics say Prey stands on its own, so it’s worth watching even for those who have never watched other films in the franchise.
Girl in the Basement (2021)
This Lifetime movie is terrifyingly inspired by the real-life case of Josef Fritzl from Austria and his teenage daughter Elisabeth. In Girl in the Basement, the young girl is Sara (Stefanie Scott) a teen with so much potential who is excited for the arrival of her 18th birthday. She’s anxious for the day to come because finally, as a legal adult, she can escape the clutches of her controlling father Don (Judd Nelson).
However, before Sara can leave, her father does the unthinkable: he kidnaps her, keeping her imprisoned in the basement over what would eventually become a period of 24 harrowing years. Through that time, he rapes and assaults her, resulting in the birth of seven children. While Girl in the Basement is a dramatization of this disturbing true story, knowing the real story behind it makes the movie even more haunting.
Clock (2023)
Dianna Agron (Glee) stars as Ella in this sci-fi horror thriller with a premise that’s all-too-familiar for Millennial women nowadays. Ella is a 37-year-old woman who, despite being constantly pressured by friends and family members to start a family, has no interest in having children. But her journey to living life how she wants eventually takes a twisted, horrifying turn.
When Ella secretly undergoes an experimental treatment to help speed up her biological clock, she starts seeing and doing things she can’t quite control and doesn’t quite understand.
Fresh (2022)
After repeated frustration with dating apps, Noa (Where the Crawdads Sing‘s Daisy Edgar-Jones) decides to pursue things the old-fashioned way when she has a chance meeting with a striking man at the grocery store. Steve (Sebastian Stan) at first appears to be the perfect gentleman, sweeping Noa off her feet. So, she’s not hesitant at all to jump right into his invitation to spend a romantic weekend away.
But upon arrival, Noa discovers that Steve is hiding a dark, ominous secret. Her life is in serious danger and she’s in for a sick and twisted ride. Fresh is described as both upsetting and provocative but also widely praised for putting a modern spin on the traditional horror genre.
Down (2019)
Pig (2021)
82%
6.9/10The Secrets We Keep (2020)
48%
5.8/10Run (2020)
67%
6.7/10
