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Thrillers & Suspense

Thriller and Suspense Films promote intense excitement, suspense, a high level of anticipation, ultra-heightened expectation, uncertainty, anxiety, and nerve-wracking tension. A genuine thriller is a film that relentlessly pursues a single-minded goal, to provide thrills and keep the audience cliff-hanging on the 'edge of their seats' as the plot builds towards a climax. Plots of thrillers often involve characters which come into conflict with each other or with outside forces - the menace is sometimes abstract or shadowy. Below is a grand line-up of the best in contemporary Thrillers & Suspense made since 1965. Following a similar theme, with generally a darker look is the "Film Noir" feature, well worth checking out. The exploits of "James Bond 007" may also be accessed stage left. Right: Frances McDormand makes an arrest in the Coen Bros "Fargo".

Dead Ringers (1988)

7.3/10
Director: David Cronenberg
Starring: Jeremy Irons, Genevieve Bujold, Heidi Von Palleske

David Cronenberg does it again in this psychological horror film starring Jeremy Irons as a pair of disturbed, identical twin gynaecologists. A techni... Read more

Rear Window (1954)

8.5/10
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Starring: Grace Kelly, James Stewart, Raymond Burr, Thelma Ritter, Wendell Corey

An injured magazine photographer, confined to his apartment because of a broken leg, suspects a murder has been committed in a neighbouring flat. Conf... Read more

Rendition (2007)

6.8/10
Director: Gavin Hood
Starring: Jake Gyllenhaal, Reese Witherspoon, Peter Sarsgaard, Alan Arkin, Meryl Streep

When an Egyptian terrorism suspect 'disappears' on a flight from Africa to Washington DC, his American wife and a CIA analyst find themselves caught u... Read more

In the Valley of Elah (2007)

7.2/10
Director: Paul Haggis
Starring: Tommy Lee Jones, Charlize Theron, Jason Patric, Susan Sarandon, James Franco, Ba...

An engrossing anti-war mystery from writer/director Paul Haggis ('Crash') with Tommy Lee Jones as the father of a recently returned Iraq vet who seems... Read more

The Absent One (2014)

7.1/10
Director: Mikkel Norgaard
Starring: Fares Fares, Nikolaj Lie Kaas, Pilou Asbaek

In 1994 two young twins are found brutally murdered. A number of clues point in the direction of young upper class students from a nearby boarding sch... Read more

The Hunt For Red October (1990)

7.6/10
Director: John McTiernan
Starring: Sean Connery, Alec Baldwin, Scott Glenn, Sam Neill

An exciting, complex tale about a Soviet submarine captain who may (or may not) be planning to defect to the U.S. during the maiden voyage of a super... Read more

From Hell (2001)

6.8/10
Director: Albert Hughes, Allen Hughes
Starring: Johnny Depp, Heather Graham, Robbie Coltrane, Ian Holm, Ian Richardson

London, 1888: the grimy streets of the city's poorest neighbourhood are the stalking grounds of a vicious killer unlike any before him, where a police... Read more

Night Train to Lisbon (2013)

6.8/10
Director: Bille August
Starring: Bruno Ganz, Charlotte Rampling, Christopher Lee, Jeremy Irons, Lena Olin, Martin...

Jeremy Irons stars in this contemplative and mysterious drama based on the Pascal Mercier novel, playing a Swiss professor whose rescue of a young wom... Read more

Shutter Island (2010)

8.1/10
Director: Martin Scorsese
Starring: Ben Kingsley, Elias Koteas, Leonardo DiCaprio, Mark Ruffalo, Max von Sydow, Mich...

In 1954, US Marshall Teddy Daniels (Leonardo DiCaprio in superb form) has come to Shutter Island, home of Ashecliffe Hospital for the Criminally Insan... Read more

Klute (1971)

7.2/10
Director: Alan J Pakula
Starring: Jane Fonda, Donald Sutherland, Charles Cioffi, Nathan George, Dorothy Tristan, R...

Jane Fonda deservedly won the Academy Award as the high priced call girl used as bait to lure a killer in this astutely written and powerfully directe... Read more