Whether you’re looking for a legal thriller, a dramatic thriller, or perhaps a thriller combined with horror, Hulu has plenty of movies from which to choose. There are exciting new titles, some Hulu originals, as well as older library titles that are worth rewatching, or watching for the first time, even decades later. Right now, for example, you can check out a gripping legal thriller adapted from a John Grisham novel, or a fabulous biographical action thriller starring Tom Hanks.
When it comes to the best thrillers on Hulu right now, you have your pick of the litter. Turn the lights down, grab some popcorn, prep your killer home theatre system, and get ready for thrilling action, drama, and/or horror with any of these exciting movies.
Also, be sure to give the Disney Bundle a look — it’ll get you Hulu, Disney+, and ESPN+ for just $14 a month. That way, you’ll get thrillers and more from Hulu, plus tons of other great content. Hulu isn’t the only streaming platform around. We’ve also put together guides to the best thrillers on Netflix, the best thrillers on Amazon Prime Video, and the best horror movies on Netflix if you want to crank up the terror!
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Captain Phillips2013
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Sexy Beast2001
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Runaway Jury2003
Captain Phillips (2013) new
Tom Hanks is electrifying as always in this biographical action thriller about the real-life Captain Richard Phillips, a merchant mariner who was taken hostage by Somali pirates in 2009. Based on Philips’ own book, A Captain’s Duty: Somali Pirates, Navy SEALs, and Dangerous Days at Sea, the movie follows his terrifying story of sailing through Kenya when pirates made their way onto the vessel. The harrowing experience as Phillips and his crew try to stay alive and take down the enemies is tense and nail-biting.
Hanks is always engaging and fully encapsulates this role, making you believe every last moment of panic, terror, and even calm. Captain Phillips was a critical and box office success and earned six Academy Award nominations, including one for Best Picture. Barkhad Abdi (Castle Rock, The Curse) was also nominated for Best Supporting Actor for his role as pirate leader Abduwali Muse, an impressive accomplishment for what was the actor’s first film role.
Sexy Beast (2001) new
In this black comedy crime thriller from Jonathan Glazer (The Zone of Interest), Gary “Gal” Dove (Ray Winstone) is an ex-criminal who has left his old life behind, retiring in Costa Rica with his wife, best friend, and friend’s wife. When Don Logan (Ben Kingsley), an old criminal associate, tries to draw him back in to partake in a massive heist in London, Gal refuses to participate. The situation becomes violent, and a fight leads to Don’s death. With Don now gone, Gal steps in to complete the heist for crime lord Teddy Bass (Ian McShane), all while trying to hide what really happened to his old friend.
Kingsley, in particular, has been singled out for his incredible performance in Sexy Beast as a sociopathic criminal who becomes aggressive and unhinged when he doesn’t get what he wants. If you love Sexy Beast after watching, check out the new eight-episode prequel series of the same name streaming on Paramount+.
Runaway Jury (2003) new
John Cusack plays Nicholas Easter, a juror on a gun-related case in this 2003 legal thriller. Nicholas has a knack for influencing the jury and swaying the case in any way necessary, and he proves his ability to do so. The high-stakes game flies between lawyer Wendell Rohr (Dustin Hoffman), jury consultant Rankin Fitch (Gene Hackman), and a mysterious woman named Marlee (Dead Ringers‘ Rachel Weisz), who offers a verdict to the highest bidder. Even though the jury is already intentionally stacked with people sympathetic to the defendant, a firearms manufacturer, Nicholas has the gift of persuasion and knows he can change minds if he wants to do so. The situation escalates in Runaway Jury when both sides take measures into their own hands. Jurors are being removed and blackmailed until Fitch, who has ties to the defendant, is backed into the corner.
Once you’re invested in the story, you can’t wait to find out what happens, Nicholas’ motivations, and which way he’ll sway the jury by the end and, more importantly, why. Runaway Jury is a gripping, edge-of-your-seat story. It’s adapted from the John Grisham novel The Runaway Jury, one of many movies adapted from his captivating writing, like The Firm, The Client, and The Pelican Brief. Topping off the top-notch cast are some other well-known names like Luis Guzmán, Jeremy Piven, and Jennifer Beals.
A Haunting in Venice (2023)
Kenneth Branagh (Oppenheimer) is behind this mystery film that serves as a sequel to Death on the Nile. In the same vein as movies like Knives Out and inspired by Agatha Christie’s novel Hallowe’en Party, there’s an ensemble cast of characters all caught up in a mysterious death. Branagh himself stars as detective Hercule Poirot, who has decided to retire just as he attends a Halloween party where someone is murdered.
Poirot uses his incredible perceptive abilities, interview techniques, and strategy of deduction to figure out what happened to the brutally departed. A Haunting in Venice is spookier and darker than other films that feature the same central character, but it has the same whodunit flavor you’ve come to expect and love from these types of movies.
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.
Nightmare Alley (2021)
Combine the forces of Guillermo del Toro and Bradley Cooper and it’s a recipe for a fabulous neo-noir psychological thriller. In Nightmare Alley, based on the William Lindsay Gresham novel of the same name, Cooper is Stan, a man who stumbles upon a job with a traveling carnival. It doesn’t take long for Stan to create a convincing psychic act of his own. When he is asked by someone in the audience to help connect him to his dead son, Stan’s partner, Molly (Rooney Mara), thinks he might be taking it too far. Stan tries to pay off Dr. Lilith (Cate Blanchett) to help. But she suggests he come to therapy instead, and discovers some very disturbing facts about him.
Nightmare Alley is a chilling, emotionally heart-wrenching movie that’s exactly what you’d expect from a Del Toro film. The cast, which also includes Toni Collette, Willem Dafoe, Ron Perlman, and Mary Steenburgen, nail their roles. There are twists, turns, and morally repugnant decisions that will make your skin crawl.
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.
Escaping the Madhouse: The Nellie Bly Story (2019)
A hidden gem of a thriller, Escaping the Mad House: The Nellie Bly Story stars Christina Ricci and Judith Light. A young journalist decides to look into the goings-on at a local mental hospital. But what she discovers shocks her to her very core. Desperate to expose the asylum for what it does to its female patients, Nellie (Ricci) decides to fake having a mental illness so she can go deep undercover.
What’s most fascinating about this movie is that while a fictional account, it’s based on a real story and real person. Bly went undercover for the New York World and her book about the brutality and neglect helped spark real change in the handling of the care of the mentally ill.
Rogue Agent (2022)
The story in Rogue Agent is based on the real-life one of Robert Hendy-Freegard, who pretended to be an MI5 agent, successfully fooling many people. He went so far into the con, in fact, that he convinced several people to fear a fake assassination by the IRA. James Norton stars as the titular character in this British mystery drama thriller, while Gemma Arterton is Alice Archer, the woman who finally uncovered and revealed the truth.
Rogue Agent is so filled with plenty of twists, turns, and suspense that you’ll have a hard time believing something like it really happened.
Swallow (2020)
Hunter Conrad (Haley Bennett) seemingly has it all, with a wealthy husband and a lavish home in New York. But she feels emotionally stifled and isolated, often ignored by those around her. She develops a strange desire to consume inedible objects to deal with her emotions. She starts with a marble, but her desires become increasingly dangerous as she graduates to eating things like thumbtacks and batteries. It’s a psychological disorder called pica, and when her secret habits are discovered during a routine pregnancy checkup, Hunter is sent to therapy, where she’s diagnosed.
The psychological thriller delves deep into the psyche of a troubled woman whose disorder becomes more and more concerning: Hunter seemingly can’t stop and thrives on the control it affords her. Swallow is a subtle, though unsettling look at a woman’s struggle to control her own body that manifests in a way that no one could ever have imagined.
The Hummingbird Project (2019)
Jesse Eisenberg, Alexander Skarsgård (Infinity Pool), Michael Mando, and Salma Hayek star in this thriller-drama about the inside lives of stockbrokers and the ever-moving stock exchange. When stockbroker Vincent (Eisenberg) convinces Bryan (Frank Schorpion) to order a new high-frequency trading (HFT) operation to invest in fiberoptic cable, the situation gets hairy at his company, particularly when he decides to leave.
The Hummingbird Project follows Vincent’s attempt to build a cable tunnel with his cousin, Anton (Skarsgård), so they can program trading software that will be faster than any other. The pair compete with their former employer, Eva (Hayek), in a high-stakes fight for market domination.
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.
Escape from Pretoria (2020)
Down (2019)
Pig (2021)
Fear of Rain (2021)
Silk Road (2021)
The Secrets We Keep (2020)
Run (2020)
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