The 25 Best, Most Suspenseful Thrillers on Netflix Right Now

If you’re looking to watch some seriously gripping entertainment in late 2021, we’ve got you covered. Many of us go to the movies (or these days, watch from the couch) because we want to feel something. Few pictures get you to react quite like a suspenseful white-knuckler.

Netflix is host to a virtual library of first-rate suspense thrillers. We’ve rounded up the very best. On this list, we’ve included everything from suspenseful political yarns to thrilling action pics to thrillers with elements of horror.

Get ready for a heart-pounding experience. Here are our picks of the best, most suspenseful thriller films you can watch right now on Netflix. We’ve even included some honorable mentions.

This list is regularly updated as films come and go from Netflix’s library.

Best thrillers on Netflix right now

(Picturehouse)

1. The Guest (2014)

Writer/director team Simon Barrett and Adam Wingard won over critics and audiences with this ripper of a mystery, centered on a handsome stranger who shows up on a family’s doorstep. Neon-hued, techno-accented nostalgic fever dream The Guest also was breakthrough for stars Maika Monroe and Dan Stevens.

2. Under the Shadow (2016)

An exquisitely crafted and thoroughly unnerving chiller, writer/director Babak Anvari‘s feature debut blurs the line between supernatural terror and the horrors of the real world like few films you’ll ever see. Set in 1980’s Tehran during The War of the Cities–the backdrop of Anvari’s own fear-ridden childhood–Narges Rashidi stars as medical student Shideh who is barred from her studies because of her involvement in revolutionary politics. When her husband departs for the front, Shideh is tasked with protecting their young daughter Dorsa (Avin Manshadi) as the fighting and bombings escalate around them. It doesn’t look like things can get any bleaker, and that’s when Shideh and Dorsa are hpaunted by an evil genie.

The performances are powerful, and the filmmaking here is impeccable, evoking a war-torn Iran that is almost suffocating to watch. Anvari grew up in a culture where VCR’s and VHS tapes were illegal, and his debut is made with the kind of passion for film that you can’t put a price tag on. The supernatural scares work, but they’re never quite as frightening as Shideh’s reality, which seems to be Anvari’s point. Esteemed British film critic Mark Kermode named this small-scale powerhouse the best film of 2016, and it is not to be missed.

3. Cam (2018)

Directed by Daniel Goldhaber, this Netflix original is about an adult webcam performer who discovers a sinister presence has taken her place on the internet. Cam has some truly frightening moments, and it examines the subject matter of sex work with appropriate care and thought. Most notably, it showcases a head-turning lead performance by The Handmaid‘s Tale‘s Madeline Brewer, often playing multiple entities on-screen at the same time. Thanks to a perceptive script by real-life former cam girl Isa Mazzei, Cam is often an examination of fractured identity, something that’s definitely not limited to the world of adult entertainment. Cam stumbles a bit at the ending, but it’s full of provocative ideas, and Brewer just floors you.

4. I’m Thinking of Ending Things (2020)

A year after she, frankly, stunned us with her turn as a Scottish bad girl-turned country singer in Wild Rose, Jessie Buckley starred in Charlie Kaufman‘s darkly comic, psychological thriller. Based on a 2016 novel of the same name, I’m Thinking of Ending Things follows a young couple on a road trip, a seemingly unrelated The film is arguably a little too smart for its own good, but it’s an intriguing puzzle film that’s well worth a watch.

5. Gerald’s Game (2017)

A career-high performance from the always-good Carla Gugino is front-and-center in Mike Flanagan’s Netflix original, a Stephen King adaptation about a woman who ends up handcuffed to a bed in the middle of nowhere when her husband drops dead. This is pure, high-concept psychological terror, not spooky, but gripping—and the ick factor is high.

HUSH (Netflix)

6. Hush (2016)

A Netflix original film, Hush is a surprisingly suspenseful and effective slasher about a deaf author (Kate Siegel) who is terrorized by a masked home intruder (John Gallagher Jr.). Hush owes a great deal to John Carpenter‘s Halloween [so many of the best horror films these days do] and even more to the 1967 Audrey Hepburn-starrer Wait Until Dark, but Mike Flanagan‘s taut direction and knack for suspense are enough to make Hush stand on its own. It’s a nail-biting thriller that really delivers what you’re hoping for in a movie like this.

Following well-received mirror-themed horror flick Oculus and the way-better-than-anyone-expected Ouija: Origin of Evil, Flanagan gained attention as a force in popular horror.

(Aidan Monaghan/NETFLIX)

7. His House (2020)

Remi Weekes’ acclaimed supernatural horror debut follows South Sudanese refugees adjusting to a perilous life in small-town Europe. Like The Babadook or Under the Shadow, this is horror as dramatic art rather than a series of things that jump out and go boo. The real-world subject matter is twisted and devastating, all strikingly performed by leads Wunmi Mosaku and Sope Dirisu.

Review: Mandy Is Nicolas Cage at His Very Best

8. The Game (1997)

Michael Douglas and Sean Penn star in David Fincher‘s stylish thriller about an obsessive banker whose brother uproots his life via a strange birthday gift: a personalized, increasingly perilous real-life game. The Game is thrilling, mind-bending and well-acted, with provocative messages about the illusion of control.

9. Uncut Gems (2019)

Adam Sandler was, frankly, robbed of an Academy Award nomination for this. Hell, he should have won. The oft-critically-maligned megastar delivers his best performance to date in Ben Safdie and Josh Safdie‘s riveting crime caper about a jeweler who bets the farm on the gamble of a lifetime. Adele Da-no, wait, Idina Menzel delivers a killer supporting turn. Masterful Uncut Gems is so thrilling it might give you a little nervous breakdown. At its heart, this is a picture about an addiction.

10. Rust Creek (2020)

Hermione Corfield and Jay Paulson star in Jen McGowan‘s stripped-down thriller about a young student who finds herself stranded and hunted in meth country. It’s sort of Winter’s Bone lite (certainly not on the same level as that flat-out masterwork), but it’s a twisty, diverting 105-minute watch all the same. Paulson is by far the best thing about the film, bringing layers to a character who’d usually just be the short straw, a tragic unrounded background character.

11-12. The Conjuring (2013) and The Conjuring 2 (2016)

Before Annabelle and The Nun, there was James Wan’s hair-raising, superbly acted thriller about a witch who terrorizes a Rhode Island family in 1971. By summer 2013, horror had earned a bad rap. The torture films like Saw had dominated for a decade, and if there ever even was a point to those it had long fizzled out. The Conjuring was marketed as “based on the true case files of” Ed and Lorraine Warren, prominent paranormal investigators, played here by Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga. This box office behemoth brought back the classy, high-production-values terror of thrillers like The Exorcist and Poltergeist. Its success spawned the first highly successful cinematic universe outside of the MCU.

Fun fact: Wan and producers were hoping for a more commercial PG-13 rating (The Conjuring is pretty much gore-free), but the MPAA slapped it with an R. Wan says the ratings board told him, “It’s just so scary. [There are] no specific scenes or tone you could take out to get it PG-13.” Enjoy!

13. It Comes at Night (2017)

Hollywood wunderkind Trey Edward Shults‘ follow-up to his knockout debut Krisha received high praise from critics but didn’t fare as well with audiences, doing only so-so at the box office. This is mostly because of the horror pic’s misguided marketing.

Starring the ever-reliable Joel Edgerton, Carmen Ejogo and Riley Keough, It Comes at Night is an unnervingly quiet, contained and claustrophobic drama about an escalating war of fear and suspicions between two families stranded together in a cabin after an outbreak has ravaged the world. So of course some audiences were let down when the trailers clearly promoted a jump-scares-heavy rollercoaster in the vein of Insidious and The Conjuring about a monster in the woods (or something like that).

It Comes at Night was one of the best horror films in a year filled with—well, ruled by strong horror. It’s important to go into It Comes at Night with some idea of what to expect: this isn’t horror that goes boo! a lot; Shults is far more concerned with exploring the horrors of the human heart and mind.

(Universal)

14. Unfriended (2014)

Universal’s trashy, undeniably frightening and ingenious found-footage thriller—centered on teens haunted by a vengeful spirit as they chat over Skype—was hugely profitable, grossing $64 million against a $1 million budget. The screen-based form of found-footage storytelling, also used in Open Windows, has been polished in years since, with Searching and Host receiving critical acclaim. In 2018, Unfriended was followed by a darker, arguably superior sequel Unfriended: Dark Web.

15. Cop Car (2015)

Kevin Bacon stars in this barebones, meat-and-potatoes action thriller about two young boys who steal a police cruiser, incidentally becoming entangled in a hostage situation. Minimalist and effective, Cop Car impressed critics and audiences. Watts went on to direct the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s standalone Spider-Man films.

16. Shutter Island (2010)

Leonardo DiCaprio, Mark Ruffalo, Ben Kingsley, Michelle Williams and Max Von Sydow star in Martin Scorsese‘s thriller about a U.S. Marshal investigating the disappearance of a murderess on a fortress-like island.

17. Good Time (2017)

This electrifying and fresh crime drama from brothers Ben Safdie and Josh Safdie can be enjoyed as pure escapism thanks to dazzling neon cinematography, a pulsing techno soundtrack and remarkable non-stop, forward-moving momentum. Good Time also succeeds as a pointed satire of a contemporary culture some say is becoming more and more self-centered.

Robert Pattinson gives a career-best performance as failed bank robber Connie, and it’s hard to think of another actor who could have played this character’s surface charms thinly veiling a twitchy, bug-eyed, desperate and entitled narcissist.

Good Time received mostly positive reviews, though some critics were turned off by the toxicity of its characters, singling out morally bankrupt Connie as a flaw of the movie. This doesn’t hold water because the Safdies know he’s a sleaze, and though it’s a lot of fun watching his darkly humorous misadventures unfold, we’re hardly rooting for him. If you look just below the flashy surface, the filmmakers’ worldview is actually quite humane.

Teresa Palmer and Max Riemelt in ‘Berlin Syndrome’ (eOne, Netflix)

18. Berlin Syndrome (2017)

You might think you’ve seen enough women-in-captivity movies for at least one or two lifetimes. And who could blame you?

So abundant we might as well make them their own genre, movies about kidnapped females generally go one of two ways: It’s either all about the suspense, figuring out how and if she will get out—or there’s the nastier route, when some movies focus on a woman’s torture and humiliation, turning it into spectacle.

Though Australian director Cate Shortland‘s adaptation of Melanie Joosten‘s novel about a tourist imprisoned by a handsome teacher after a passionate one-night-stand is a thriller (quite heart-pounding at times), and much of the woman’s mistreatment is extremely hard to watch, this highly absorbing psychological drama stands out because it’s all about the characters and what’s going on in their heads.

Aussie-born Teresa Palmer of Hacksaw Ridge fame delivers a ripper of a performance as a victim suffering in stages not unlike the stages of grieving. German Max Riemelt (Sense8) keeps up every step of the way as her chilling and multifaceted captor, but this is Palmer’s film, and it gave the dynamite actress long-relegated to playing love-interest side characters a serious calling-card in Hollywood. As for Shortland, she directed upcoming Marvel tentpole Black Widow.

(a24)

19. The Killing of a Sacred Deer (2017)

Before his stunning Oscar winner The Favourite, The Lobster helmer Yorgos Lanthimos directed this highly stylized, brutal and darkly hilarious suspense fable about a family curse. Starring Nicole Kidman, Colin Farrell and Barry Keoghan.

20. El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie (2019)

One of the greatest television shows in history recently got a worthy coda, when three-time Emmy winner Aaron Paul returned as interminably suffering drug kingpin Jesse Pinkman in El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie. The highly anticipated follow-up to Vince Gilligan‘s crime saga Breaking Bad is a Netflix original.

On one hand, there’s undeniably fan service at play here. Also, this is fan service from masters of the medium. It’s hard to imagine any Breaking Bad fans not being satisfied with this suspenseful, raw, even darkly hilarious follow-up. Paul is, of course, a million shades of riveting.

(XYZ/Netflix)

21. Apostle (2018)

The Raid director Gareth Evans‘ horror/action freakout rewards a deliberate buildup with some stomach-turning violence and gore in the final act. The turn-of-the-20th-century period piece stars Dan Stevens as an Englishman who infiltrates a remote cult to rescue his sister.

22-23. Creep (2014) and Creep 2 (2017)

One of the best found footage films that followed in the wake of Paranormal Activity‘s enormous success, Patrick Brice‘s psychological thriller follows a videographer assigned to record an eccentric, probably insane client (Mark Duplass). Following a hit premiere at South by Southwest and a theatrical run, Creep found success on streaming. A sequel arrived in 2017, and a third installment is in the works.

24. Nocturnal Animals (2016)

As brutal as it is sad—and it’s both—Tom Ford‘s second feature twists the blade in the corpse of a toxic, failed relationship. Amy Adams, Jake Gyllenhaal, Aaron Taylor-Johnson (Golden Globe winner for his work here) and Michael Shannon (Oscar nominee for his work here) are uniformly sensational in dark, sumptuously realized parallel storylines (about half of the film is a fictional book within the narrative). Gobsmacking visually and disturbing thematically, Nocturnal Animals is something like a masterpiece.

(Netflix)

25. The Guilty (2021)

Shot during lockdown in 11 days, Antoine Fuqua‘s remake of the acclaimed 2018 thriller of the same name stars Jake Gyllenhaal as a 911 dispatcher faced with a distressing call. Co-starring Riley Keough, Ethan Hawke, Paul Dano, Peter Sarsgaard and Bill Burr.

(Netflix)

Thrilling honorable mention on Netflix: Sandra Bullock mega-hit Bird Box (2018)

Looking for big laughs from the sofa right now? We’ve got you covered! Let’s be real; we all need a good laugh sometimes. Fortunately, Netflix is host to a virtual library of hilarious comedy movies from all over the world. We’ve selected the very best to help you make your next streaming selection.For this list, … Continue reading