Movies in the Thriller genre
When artistic and marketing impulses collide, you end up with an unwieldy title like Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans. Director Werner Herzog's preferred name, Port of Call New Orleans, was deemed unsuitable by producer Edward R. Pressman,...
U.S. Release Date: 2009-11-20
MPAA Rating: "R" (Violence, Profanity, Sexual Situations, Nudity, Drugs)
Genre: DRAMA/THRILLER
Director: Werner Herzog
Cast: Nicolas Cage, Eva Mendes, Val Kilmer, ...
Spoilers: This review contains “non-specific” spoilers. Some readers may feel this reveals too much about the ending.For roughly two-thirds of its running length, Bad Samaritan shows potential as a nicely twisty thriller replete with Hitch...
U.S. Release Date: 2018-05-04
MPAA Rating: "R" (Violence, Profanity, Sexual Content, Brief Nudity)
Genre: Thriller
Director: Dean Devlin
Cast: Robert Sheehan, David Tennant, Kerry Condon, ...
More than twenty years after the deaths of director Akira Kurosawa and actor Toshiro Mifune, the names remain entwined. For nearly two decades, the pair combined to make some of the best Japanese movies to hit the world stage. And, although Ku...
U.S. Release Date: -
MPAA Rating: "NR"
Genre: Thriller
Director: Akira Kurosawa
Cast: Toshiro Mifune, Masayuki Mori, Kyoko Kagawa, ...
There was a time back in the 1990s when everyone wanted to be Tarantino. As we learned at the time, however, there’s only one Tarantino and all the attempts to mimic his style and approach felt like third generation VHS dubs. Now, some 25 ye...
U.S. Release Date: 2018-10-12
MPAA Rating: "R" (Violence, Profanity)
Genre: Thriller/Comedy
Director: Drew Goddard
Cast: Jeff Bridges, Cynthia Erivo, Dakota Johnson, ...
The title may make it sound like a horror film but The Bag Man is actually a neo-noir thriller. The movie is relentlessly dark with the majority of it transpiring in and around a seedy motel at night. Despite the participation of a couple of well-kno...
U.S. Release Date: 2014-02-28
MPAA Rating: "R" (Violence, Profanity, Sexual Content)
Genre: THRILLER
Director: John Grovic
Cast: John Cusack, Robert De Niro, Rebecca Da Costa, ...
In a bygone era, something like Bandit would have been a TV movie of the week. All these years later, it retains the look and feel of something not quite “theatrical” in its ambitions. If it has any future as a streaming rental, such hopes lik...
U.S. Release Date: 2022-09-23
MPAA Rating: "R" (Profanity, Sexual Content, Brief Nudity)
Genre: Thriller
Director: Allan Ungar
Cast: Josh Duhamel, Elisha Cuthbert, Mel Gibson, ...
The Bank Job is a heist movie in the classic tradition - it details every aspect of the caper, from its genesis to its aftermath. The fact that there's political intrigue and espionage swirling around the edges only makes it more fascinating. Dir...
U.S. Release Date: 2008-03-07
MPAA Rating: "R" (Violence, Profanity, Nudity, Sexual Situations)
Genre: THRILLER
Director: Roger Donaldson
Cast: Jason Statham, Keeley Hawes, Richard Lintern, ...
It could be argued that The Banshees of Inisherin works better as an allegory than a straightforward narrative. There’s power in the message conveyed by writer/director Martin McDonagh’s screenplay; it’s less a drama and more a rumination ab...
U.S. Home Release Date: 2022-12-20
MPAA Rating: "R" (Profanity, Violence, Gore, Nudity)
Genre: Drama/Thriller
Director: Martin McDonagh
Cast: Colin Farrell, Brendan Gleeson, Kerry Condon, ...
Barbarians starts out as a tense psychological thriller unfolding against the tableau of a not-so-friendly dinner before morphing into something decidedly physical and creepy. Yet the home invasion that flips the movie at the halfway point doesn...
U.S. Home Release Date: 2022-10-11
MPAA Rating: "R" (Violence, Profanity)
Genre: Horror/Thriller
Director: Charles Dorfman
Cast: Catalina Sandino Moreno, Tom Cullen, Iwan Rheon, ...
In my original, unpublished review of Basic Instinct (dated March 21, 1992), I wrote the following: "There's a fine line between eroticism and exploitation, and Basic Instinct treads it, using nudity, sex, and violence to cover up the limitations o...
U.S. Release Date: 1992-03-20
MPAA Rating: "R" (Sexual Situations, Violence, Nudity, Profanity, Drugs)
Genre: THRILLER
Director: Paul Verhoeven
Cast: Michael Douglas, Sharon Stone, George Dzundza, ...