Movies in the Thriller genre

Guilt and paranoia - two powerful cornerstones of the human psyche. In his latest, award-winning drama (it has captured about a dozen significant international citations), writer/director Michael Haneke explores both, although the manner in which ...

Note: This review contains spoilers. It isn't possible to discuss the full breadth of The Call's stupidity without providing some specifics. Labeling The Call as "relentlessly dumb" would be an overestimation of its intelligence. This is as br...

The Canyons opens with still photographs of crumbling, disused movie theaters - multiplexes that, as recently as a decade ago, might have been bustling sites of human congress on weekends and holidays. These images have little to do with the story ...

Movies like Captain Phillips - taut, white-knuckle thrillers that feature ordinary guys instead of bona fide action heroes - are something of an endangered species. In today's risk-averse movie industry, making an "action" film without an establish...

The scenario presented in Captive State would almost certainly have worked better in a mini-series format. The filmmakers’ low-budget approach of minimizing special effects might have allowed for an expansion of the narrative over a six or ei...

Writer/director Paul Schrader makes moody, low-budget movies about isolated people. While his highly regarded reputation as a screenwriter is deserved (he wrote, among other titles, Raging Bull and Taxi Driver), his directorial resume is checke...

With Carter & June, director/co-writer Nicholas Kalikow is aiming for a post-Tarantino thriller that incorporates violence and humor into a story about lowlifes, gangsters, and other assorted bottom-feeders, some of whom wear badges and c...

It's probably no stretch to say that Casablanca, arguably America's best-loved movie, has had more words written about it than any other motion picture. Over the years since its 1943 release, the legends and rumors surrounding the making of the ...

After viewing Casino, you may never look at Las Vegas in quite the same way. While this film, adapted from Nicholas Pileggi's nonfiction book, Casino: Love and Honor in Las Vegas, doesn't offer much in the way of startling revelations, it presents...

When Pierce Brosnan took over the role of James Bond for Goldeneye, much was made about how the franchise was being "modernized." In reality, the only apparent changes were cosmetic. Brosnan's 007 was easily connected to the character previously p...