The Best Thrillers on Hulu Right Now (January 2022)

Panic Room (2002) new

Genre Crime, Drama, Thriller

Stars Jodie Foster, Kristen Stewart, Forest Whitaker

Directed by David Fincher

David Fincher and Jodie Foster team up for this bottled-up thriller about a mother (Foster) and daughter (Kristen Stewart) forced into their New York brownstone’s panic room after three intruders force their way into the home. However, the intruders want what’s in the panic room, and they know more about the house than the occupants have any reason to suspect.

Se7en (1995) new

Genre Crime, Mystery, Thriller

Stars Brad Pitt, Morgan Freeman, Gwyneth Paltrow

Directed by David Fincher

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David Fincher is a modern master of the thrill, and Se7en is some of his best work. Detective William Somerset (Morgan Freeman) is paired with newly transferred David Mills (Brad Pitt) to tackle one more case before retirement. However, the detectives soon find that one case is related to a number of others, indicating they’ve stumbled across a serial killer. And it’s one who has no problem being found. Killing people he believes represent the seven deadly sins, the killer lays a trail inviting the detectives to follow along to see where his deadly game goes. “What’s in the box?”

Pig (2021)

Genre Drama, Thriller

Stars Nicolas Cage, Alex Wolff, Adam Arkin

Directed by Michael Sarnoski

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Pig is collecting a ton of attention lately, by way of both bountiful media mentions and general word-of-mouth exchanges — and for plenty of good reasons. The film follows Rob (Nicholas Cage), a reclusive ex-chef living in the woods of Oregon. Now a truffle hunter, Rob scours the wilderness with his prized foraging pig. After a run-in with a gang of assailants, Rob’s pig is stolen. Connecting with a local contact (Alex Wolff), Rob follows the single lead he has to his swine’s whereabouts, plunging the self-proclaimed hermit into the seedy underbelly of Portland. An astonishing feature debut from writer-director Michael Sarnoski, Pig is a poignant film with an equally-poignant lead performance from Nicholas Cage, reminding us that the actor is capable of much more than camp.

American Animals (2018)

Genre Drama, Crime, Documentary

Stars Evan Peters, Barry Keoghan, Blake Jenner

Directed by Bart Layton

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American Animals is a crime docudrama that playfully bends the boundaries of the crime-thriller and documentary, delivering a memorable mashup of interwoven tropes and structure-styles. After Spencer Reinhard (Barry Keoghan) is given a tour of the Transylvania University library, the young man, with the assistance of three other friends, concocts a scheme to make out with some of the library’s most treasured and valuable art-prints. American Animals doesn’t spend its time trying to get us to root for the main ensemble or the heist they carry out. Instead, we’re treated to a nail-biter that merely wishes to remind us that not every planned-to-a-T endeavor can or should be carried out without myriad consequences.

Ben Is Back (2018)

Genre Drama

Stars Julia Roberts, Lucas Hedges, Courtney B. Vance

Directed by Peter Hedges

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Ben is Back tells the story of Holly (Julia Roberts) and Ben Burns (Lucas Hedges), one of the most powerful mother/son onscreen dynamics in recent memory. After Ben returns home on Christmas Eve, his mother, while pleased to see him, is worried that Ben will fall into a relapse of prescription medication abuse. It turns out that Holly’s apprehension wasn’t ill-founded, as a series of events start unfolding that all lead back to Ben’s tragic past and never-ending web of lies. A perfect blend of thriller and drama elements, Ben is Back features two amazing lead performances that carry the entire film.

Gone Girl (2014)

Genre Mystery, Thriller, Drama

Stars Rosamund Pike, Ben Affleck, Kim Dickens

Directed by David Fincher

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In David Fincher’s atmospheric adaptation of the 2012 Gillian Flynn novel of the same name, Ben Affleck stars as Nick Dunne, a writer, English teacher, and husband of Amy Elliot Dunne (Rosamund Pike). On their fifth wedding anniversary, Amy goes missing, launching a media outcry that points to Nick as a prime suspect. But as the investigation ensues, it quickly becomes clear that the surface-level marital bliss of the Dunne couple was nothing more than a ruse. At the end of the day, Fincher’s vision is a worthy homage to Flynn’s prose, delivering a film with powerful performances, a foreboding tone, and plenty of twists and turns.

Super Dark Times (2017)

Genre Drama, Thriller

Stars Owen Campbell, Charlie Tahan, Elizabeth Cappuccino

Directed by Kevin Phillips

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Zach (Owen Campbell) and Josh (Charlie Tahan) are teens and lifelong best friends that spend their days mulling around the open-air environs of upstate New York. One day, the duo joins up with a schoolmate named Daryl (Max Talisman) and his pal Charlie (Sawyer Barth). What begins as a seemingly innocent outing quickly turns tragic, leading Zach and Josh on a downward spiral, one buttressed by paranoia, distrust, and pain. Kevin Phillips brings auteur lensing to this independent feature debut, tackling a small story with big visuals.

The Guilty (2018)

Genre Drama, Crime, Thriller

Stars Jakob Cedergren, Jessica Dinnage, Omar Shargawi

Directed by Gustav Möller

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Remade as a Netflix film starring Jake Gyllenhaal, the 2018 original is a Danish film starring Jakob Cedergren as Asger Holm, a police officer awaiting trial for the killing of a 19-year-old while on duty. Assigned to emergency dispatch the night before his hearing, Asger takes a call from a woman that claims to be abducted. Doing everything he can to assist the kidnapped caller, Asger soon finds himself embroiled in a thick game of cat-and-mouse with little intel to assist him in his race against the clock. A sparse but brutally effective thriller, The Guilty was co-writer-director Gustav Möller’s debut feature — a great splash of a caper that introduced the international auteur to the cinematic landscape.

Fear of Rain (2021)

Genre Thriller, Horror, Drama

Stars Katherine Heigl, Harry Connick Jr., Madison Iseman

Directed by Castille Landon

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One of the best types of thriller films is one where you can’t even trust the main character. Such is the case with writer-director Castille Landon’s Fear of Rain. Starring Madison Iseman as Rain Burroughs, a teenage girl diagnosed with schizophrenia, Rain begins experiencing a series of disturbing, so-called hallucinations. Fearing something is awry at her neighbor’s house, Rain’s parents don’t believe her. Recruiting the awkward new kid at school (Israel Broussard) to help her investigate, we soon discover that Rain’s horrific visions may be all too real. Fear of Rain is a stone’s throw away from movies like Disturbia and Rear Window, but strong performances and an intriguing narrative keep you invested throughout.

Silk Road (2021)

Genre Crime, Thriller, Drama

Stars Jason Clarke, Nick Robinson, Daniel David Stewart

Directed by Tiller Russell

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Silk Road is based on all-too-disturbing true-life events. Ross Ulbricht (Nick Robinson) creates Silk Road, a Dark Web site that was the first of its kind. But when the hub becomes an illegal trading space for drug traffickers, DEA agent Rick Bowden (Jason Clarke) enters the fold. Bringing the powers of the DEA and U.S. Secret Service down on the platform, Bowden and his cohorts will do everything in their power to put an end to Ulbricht’s unforeseen empire. A sleek cyber-thriller, Silk Road combines great performances with a true-crime narrative that takes a few of its own liberties (some not so great) — but we still dig the end result.

Arrival (2016)

Genre Drama, Science Fiction, Mystery

Stars Amy Adams, Jeremy Renner, Forest Whitaker

Directed by Denis Villeneuve

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Grieving linguistics instructor Louise Banks (Amy Adams) is summoned by the U.S. government for the task of a lifetime: Use every trick available in her repertoire of language skills to make contact with several extraterrestrial spacecrafts that have descended to Earth. While an undeniable sci-fi backbone runs through the core of the film, Arrival‘s thriller elements come to light through the sheer urgency of the planet’s situation. If Louise can’t communicate with the interstellar visitors quickly enough, the world as we know it may come to an end.

Jack Reacher (2012)

Genre Crime, Drama, Thriller, Action

Stars Tom Cruise, Rosamund Pike, Richard Jenkins

Directed by Christopher McQuarrie

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Based on the Lee Child book series, Jack Reacher stars Tom Cruise as the titular protagonist, an ex-Army homicide investigator. When a trained sniper shoots five people dead with no apparent motive, the authorities bring Reacher into the mix to help them determine if the suspect in question is truly their guy. But it seems that the further down the rabbit hole Reacher goes, the more enigmatic the case becomes. Touting several high-adrenaline action sequences that’ll have you glued to the edge of your couch cushions, Jack Reacher still packs in plenty of thrills close to 10 years after it first hit theaters.

Lords of Chaos (2018)

Genre Drama, Music, Horror, Thriller

Stars Rory Culkin, Emory Cohen, Jack Kilmer

Directed by Jonas Åkerlund

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The true story of Norwegian black-metal band Mayhem is packed with enough madness and violence to send anyone’s head spinning. In director Jonas Akerlund’s interpretation of the band’s infamy, Rory Culkin stars as Euronymous, the guitarist of Mayhem. Hoping to get the band into the morbid limelight of the ’90s black-metal scene, all bets are off as Euronymous plunges deep into a world of violence and destruction, fulfilling shades of his sinister hubris. In terms of onscreen carnage, Lords of Chaos isn’t the easiest film to watch, although the story of Mayhem’s evil leanings is hard to pull away from once you’ve invested five minutes or less.

The Conversation (1974)

Genre Crime, Drama, Mystery

Stars Gene Hackman, John Cazale, Allen Garfield

Directed by Francis Ford Coppola

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In Francis Ford Coppola’s The Conversation, Gene Hackman stars as Harry Caul, a surveillance expert and jazz saxophonist. At the beginning of the film, Harry’s security services are enlisted by one Martin Stett, a client who wants Harry to tail and record the conversation of a couple in San Francisco’s Union Square. When Harry puts mics to their private conversation, tragic memories and guilt quickly boil to the surface as Harry begins reliving the consequences of a failed wire-tap job that left three people dead. Will the San Francisco couple face the same fate? Featuring a stellar leading-man performance from Hackman, The Conversation doesn’t collect as much notoriety as Ford Coppola’s larger ’70s outings (The Godfather, especially), but it’s a gem you don’t want to miss.

The Secrets We Keep (2020)

Genre Thriller, History

Stars Noomi Rapace, Joel Kinnaman, Chris Messina

Directed by Yuval Adler

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In the post-World War II suburbs of America, Romanian immigrant Maja (Noomi Rapace) lives with her husband and young son. Still plagued by visions of horrific war crimes committed against her, Maja’s seemingly tranquil surface level is deeply disturbed when she encounters a man walking her streets, a gentleman she recognizes as an ex-SS officer who attacked her years before. What follows is a spiraling story of despair, regret, and past lives resurfacing. While not reinventing the genre, The Secrets We Keep leans successfully on its central talents, particularly Rapace. A Hitchcock-inspired thriller for modern-day audiences, we found it more than fitting for inclusion.

Angel of Mine (2019)

Genre Drama, Thriller, Mystery

Stars Noomi Rapace, Yvonne Strahovski, Luke Evans

Directed by Kim Farrant

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A remake of the 2008 French film Mark of an Angel, Angel of Mine stars Noomi Rapace as Lizzie, a grieving mother who lost her infant daughter in a tragic hospital fire … supposedly. Years later, Lizzie is raising her second child, Thomas (Finn Little), with her ex-husband, Mike (Luke Evans). When a chance encounter with a young girl at a birthday party leads Lizzie to believe the youth is actually her daughter, the distraught parent goes to extreme lengths to form a bond with the child — truly believing her to be the daughter she lost almost a decade before. A gripping domestic thriller from start to finish, Angel of Mine hits all the right dramatic beats, making for a satisfying (albeit slightly predictable) film.

The Nightingale (2018)

Genre Drama, Thriller

Stars Aisling Franciosi, Sam Claflin, Baykali Ganambarr

Directed by Jennifer Kent

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Writer-director Jennifer Kent’s The Nightingale is a pulse-pounding Australian Western set in the rugged Tasmania of 1825. Clare (Aisling Franciosi), an Irish convict working for a Colonial brigade, is tragically besieged by a British officer and a small group of his comrades, men of esteemed ranks within the colony. Swearing revenge for the devastation brought upon her, Clare employs the services of an Aboriginal tracker named Billy to hunt down the man that showed her family no mercy. A brutal thriller built on trauma, loss, and bloodshed, The Nightingale doesn’t take a breath for its two-hour-plus runtime, but it’s a kinetic pace that’s impossible to turn away from.

Alone (2020)

Genre Thriller, Horror, Drama

Stars Jules Willcox, Marc Menchaca, Anthony Heald

Directed by John Hyams

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Alone stars Jules Willcox as Jessica, a widowed woman in the midst of relocating her life. On the car drive from her old stomping grounds to her new home, she encounters a mysterious stranger (Marc Menchaca) — a presence that pops up at several waypoints along Jessica’s route. After an unwelcome confrontation, Jessica awakens in the basement of the man’s home. She’s able to escape, but not without the stranger giving chase. A tense match of humans vs. wilderness, Alone is smartly scripted, passionately acted, and perfectly shot.

12 Hour Shift (2020)

Genre Thriller, Horror, Comedy, Crime

Stars Angela Bettis, David Arquette, Chloe Farnworth

Directed by Brea Grant

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In 12 Hour Shift, Angela Bettis stars as Mandy, a nurse with a drug problem. To fuel her fixes, she and her co-worker, Karen (Nikea Gamby-Turner), have set up an operation to transport patient organs into the hands of black-market men. After bringing her cousin, Regina (Chloe Farnworth), onboard, a mixup with a kidney unfurls a chain of horrific events as Nicholas (Mick Foley), Mandy’s trafficker, demands the organs. Mandy and her team must turn to a deeper kind of diabolical deed to pay up, or risk their very lives if they fail. A powerful siege thriller with an incredible female ensemble, 12 Hour Shift will make you wonder exactly what’s going on behind the scenes at your local hospital or doctor’s office. Hopefully not anything on display in this film.

The Clovehitch Killer (2018)

Genre Mystery, Thriller, Crime, Drama, Horror

Stars Dylan McDermott, Charlie Plummer, Samantha Mathis

Directed by Duncan Skiles

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In The Clovehitch Killer, Dylan McDermott stars as Don. A beloved scoutmaster and endearing father figure, it’s easy for his son, Tyler (Charlie Plummer), to look up to him … that is until Tyler discovers a trove of horrific photographs in his father’s possession. The unearthing of images plants a seed in Tyler’s mind that his dear parent may actually be the infamous “Clovehitch Killer,” a serial murderer who vanished without a trace 10 years prior. In this ultra-compelling slow burn of a feature, director Duncan Skiles brings remarkable tension and hyper-cinematography to a tight script by Christopher Ford.

Rent-A-Pal (2020)

Genre Horror, Thriller

Stars Brian Landis Folkins, Wil Wheaton, Kathleen Brady

Directed by Jon Stevenson

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Rent-A-Pal stars Brian Landis Folkins as David, an ill-dressed loner looking for a companion of any kind. When the recluse comes into possession of a mysterious VHS tape “Rent-A-Pal,” the man takes to the charismatic host on the TV screen, a man named Andy (Wil Wheaton). As David takes to Andy’s onscreen company, the vicarious friendship quickly devolves into something more sinister. Led by incredible performances and an imaginative and poignant story, Rent-A-Pal shows no mercy, neither to its characters or its audience.

She Dies Tomorrow (2020)

Genre Drama

Stars Kate Lyn Sheil, Jane Adams, Kentucker Audley

Directed by Amy Seimetz

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Remember that party you went to where everyone thought they were going to die? Neither do we, but if Amy (Kate Lyn Sheil) from She Dies Tomorrow mentions her own impending death to you, you too will be consumed by her existential doom. Writer/director Amy Seimetz is back with this bizarre and heady feature in which an entire town comes to believe that each denizen will walk the plank to their grave … tomorrow. Funny, moody, and filled with homages to the dark world of David Lynch, She Dies Tomorrow gets a double thumbs-up from us.

Shirley (2020)

Genre Drama, Thriller

Stars Elisabeth Moss, Odessa Young, Michael Stuhlbarg

Directed by Josephine Decker

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Free room and board is never a bad deal, that is unless your proprietors are a psychologically disturbed horror novelist and her domineering college professor husband. In Josephine Decker’s Shirley (an adaptation of the Susan Scarf Merrell novel of the same name) Elisabeth Moss plays the title role of Shirley Jackson, delivering a subtle but deeply disturbing portrait of the challenged author. Rose and Fred Nemser, the young couple that takes up residence at the Jackson home, are soon engulfed in a world of nightmarish proportions and strange sexual undertones. A mind-trip for sure, Shirley is all about the slow descent of all characters into Shirley’s personal hell. Misery loves company, they say.

Run (2020)

Genre Thriller, Horror, Drama

Stars Sarah Paulson, Kiera Allen, Pat Healy

Directed by Aneesh Chaganty

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Sarah Paulson is having a moment — well, she’s always having a moment. The star actress is capping off the year with Run, an intense thriller originally set for theatrical release on Mother’s Day 2020, instead now exclusive to Hulu. Paulson stars as a mother who seems to be harboring a deep secret, as her isolated daughter Chloe is slowly discovering. Kiera Allen, who plays Chloe, matches Paulson scene for scene and advances the conversation about representation in film, as Allen is a wheelchair-bound actress. Run is the highlight of original movies that arrived to the streaming service in November.

Parasite (2019)

Genre Comedy, Thriller, Drama

Stars Song Kang-ho, Lee Sun-kyun, Cho Yeo-jeong, Choi Woo-shik, Park So-dam, Lee Jung-eun, Jang Hye-jin

Directed by Bong Joon-ho

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Arguably the most talked-about movie of 2019, director Bong Joon-ho hit it out of the park with this black comedy thriller about a poor family in South Korea who, in an attempt to improve their dire straits, hatch a seemingly clever plan. They each recommend one another for a job working for a wealthy family when, in reality, not a single one of them is qualified to fill the position they get. Sweeping the Academy Awards with four Oscars, including two of the most coveted ones, Best Picture and Best Director, the film transcends language and culture and gets right to the heart of issues like social inequality and wealth disparity.

Prisoners (2013)

Genre Drama, Thriller, Crime

Stars Hugh Jackman, Jake Gyllenhaal, Maria Bello

Directed by Denis Villeneuve

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Jails aren’t the only prisons. Prisoners stars Hugh Jackman as Keller Dover, a man whose child was kidnapped on Thanksgiving, along with one of the daughter’s friends. Detective Loki (Jake Gyllenhaal) is tasked with finding the girls and bringing the kidnapper to justice. Dover eventually takes things into his own hands and both he and Loki deploy less-than-legal techniques to locate the victims. Jackman and Gyllenhaal both give passionate, stripped-down performances that resonate long after the credits roll, while the movie never drops its thrilling element, leaving audiences in suspense until the end.

Destroyer (2018)

Genre Thriller, Crime, Drama, Action

Stars Nicole Kidman, Sebastian Stan, Tatiana Maslany

Directed by Karyn Kusama

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A former undercover cop seeks revenge on the gang she was once embedded in, more than a decade after a bank robbery the gang committed. If the plot doesn’t drive you to watch Destroyer, the tour de force performance of Nicole Kidman should. Even though the film was a box office flop, Kidman gave it her all, turning in a remarkable performance that sheds any previous notions of limitations she has as an actress. Dark, gritty, and unrelenting, Destroyer is a tremendous trip that should go down as one of Kidman’s greatest cinematic roles, one which earned her a Golden Globe nomination.

Coherence (2013)

Genre Thriller, Science Fiction

Stars Emily Baldoni, Maury Sterling, Nicholas Brendon

Directed by James Ward Byrkit

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If you’re in the mood for a psychological thriller, this one might satisfy your craving. After a comet passes by while friends are enjoying a dinner party, there’s a strange power outage; then, strange things start to happen. The friends discover a box with photos of themselves at a dinner party set for eight in an empty house across the street. It turns out the other house is an alternate, a sort of upside-down, bizarro carbon copy of the world, with identical replicas of each person there, just as confused as they are. It’s like a twisty, mind-bending funhouse come to life, and viewers will enjoy going along for the ride.

Panic Room (2002) new

Se7en (1995) new

Pig (2021)

American Animals (2018)

Ben Is Back (2018)

Gone Girl (2014)

Super Dark Times (2017)

The Guilty (2018)

Fear of Rain (2021)

Silk Road (2021)

Arrival (2016)

Jack Reacher (2012)

Lords of Chaos (2018)

The Conversation (1974)

The Secrets We Keep (2020)

Angel of Mine (2019)

The Nightingale (2018)

Alone (2020)

12 Hour Shift (2020)

The Clovehitch Killer (2018)

Rent-A-Pal (2020)

She Dies Tomorrow (2020)

Shirley (2020)

Run (2020)

Parasite (2019)

Prisoners (2013)

Destroyer (2018)

Coherence (2013)

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