The 25 Best Thrillers of the 21st Century (So Far)

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Some genres are easier to define than others. Werewolf movies are movies with werewolves in them. Family movies are intended for all audiences. But “thrillers” can be tougher to nail down. After all, a lot of movies want to thrill you. That doesn’t mean they all have life-or-death situations, serial killers, and kidnappings in them.

But those are the types of intense, suspenseful situations we come to expect from films with the “thriller” label. They are typical stories of seemingly normal people, suddenly thrust by circumstance or their own sins into perilous situations. Will they survive? Will they prove their innocence? Will life ever be the same again? We demand the answers to these questions because, as strange and contrived as situations in a thriller can get, the protagonists closely resemble most of the people in the audience, who don’t seek out danger and worry about what would happen if it befell us anyway.

There’s a lot of overlap, but it’s worth noting that “thrillers” aren’t necessarily “horror movies” either. Horror movies are generally about confronting our fears of death. There’s a reason the body count is usually much higher in a conventional horror movie. Thrillers are generally about confronting our fears of staying alive, the anxieties and paranoias that plague us every day, and the consequences we fear that prevent us from living more exciting, albeit dangerous lives. Horror movies are about dying. Thrillers are about staying alive.

These are our picks for the 25 best thrillers of the 21st century (so far), presented in chronological order.

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Memento (2000)

With a Friend Like Harry... (2000)

Mulholland Drive (2001)

Ripley's Game (2002)

Oldboy (2003)

Runaway Jury (2003)

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