Everyone loves a good thriller, and everyone hates a bad one. Case in point: Taken 3 totally sucked. Watching a movie that tries desperately to excite you and fails at every turn is the kind of massive disappointment that sends you screaming back home to watch something better instead, but what if you’ve already seen all of the classic thriller movies? What’s left?
Fortunately, the history of motion picture cinema is riddled with impressive, entertaining thriller movies. Unfortunately, many of them aren’t quite famous enough to have found a large audience, or have been somewhat forgotten in the years since their successful original release. But that just means they will surprise you all the more when you discover or re-discover them now.
Related: Nacho Vigalondo’s Favorite Thrillers (Guest Editorial)
So here are 15 Underrated Thriller Movies, all of which come highly recommended from the hallowed halls of CraveOnline. We think you’ll get a kick out of every single one of them.
How many have you seen…?
15 Underrated Thriller Movies:
William Bibbiani is the editor of CraveOnline’s Film Channel and the host of The B-Movies Podcast and The Blue Movies Podcast. Follow him on Twitter at @WilliamBibbiani.
15 Underrated Thriller Movies
-
Charley Varrick (1973)
There was a time when Walter Matthau was a total badass, and not just a grumpy old man. In Don Siegel's engrossing thriller Charley Varrick, he plays a bank robber who accidentally steals $750,000 from the mob, and spends most of the film on the run from Joe Don Baker (who, no joke, turns in an impressively threatening performance). It all ends with an amazing battle between a crop-dusting plane and a car, a killer stunt sequence if ever there was one.
-
Cold Fish (2010)
One of the darkest thrillers of the new century, Cold Fish is the story of a man who owns a tropical fish store, and another man who owns a much more successful tropical fish store. Thrilled yet? You will be: the more outwardly successful man is revealed to be a homicidal monster whose "take what you want" attitude seduces the hero's wife, and threatens to push the good guy into total moral collapse as well. Shocking, suspenseful and deeply disturbed.
-
Fear (1996)
Back when they were young heartthrobs, Reese Witherspoon and Mark Wahlberg starred in the erotic thriller Fear, and it's way more fucked up than you've heard, or - if you saw Fear when it came out - than you probably remember. Mark Wahlberg turns in a psychotic performance as Witherspoon's boyfriend-turned-stalker, doing unspeakable things to her best friend Alyssa Milano and finally laying siege to her family's house in a gruesomely violent climax.
-
French Connection II (1975)
The French Connection won the Academy Award for Best Picture. The sequel... not so much, but French Connection II is more than a typical Hollywood cash-in. Directed by John Frankenheimer (The Manchurian Candidate), Gene Hackman travels to Europe to track down a loose end from the original film, only to get kidnapped by the bad guys and forcibly hooked on heroin. Hackman gives an impressive performance as he fights his way through withdrawals, and the breathless climactic foot chase is almost as exciting as The French Connection's iconic car chase.
-
Frenzy (1972)
There are some who believe that Alfred Hitchcock stopped making great movies after 1963's The Birds. They are wrong. Many of Hitchcock's final films are still corking good thrillers (Family Plot in particular gets a bum rap, and so does Torn Curtain), but Frenzy may be his last truly great suspense yarn. This R-rated serial killer story divides its time between a wrongly accused jerk (Jon Finch) and the real madman, who is desperately trying to cover up his crimes. Hitchcock was the master of suspense, but Frenzy stands out amongst his other films with seedy atmosphere and extreme violence.
-
F/X (1986)
It was cable mainstay in the 1980s, but the fantastically clever F/X has fallen out of the pop culture consciousness in the last few decades. That's a shame, because it's a wonderful thriller. Bryan Brown (Cocktails) stars as a visual effects artist hired by the FBI to stage the death of a mob informant. When the witness dies for real, our hero is framed and goes on the run with only his extensive bag of movie tricks to save him. The inventive action sequences, which use all the behind the scenes fakery right in front of the camera, are truly exciting, as is the unforgettable, one-of-a-kind car chase.
-
Malice (1993)
Unexpected twists abound in Malice, a dastardly thriller starring Bill Pullman and Nicole Kidman as a married couple trying to have a child, and Alec Baldwin as the doctor whose God Complex gets in their way. Meanwhile, a serial killer is murdering the students of Pullman's college campus. Howard Becker's thriller (co-written by Aaron Sorkin) is a masterpiece of misdirection, with the most important clues often hidden in plain sight. And Alec Baldwin turns in arguably his greatest performance.
-
Premium Rush (2012)
Premium Rush may be a little cheesy, but it's all in the name of good fun. Joseph Gordon-Levitt stars as a bike messenger whose latest delivery absolutely must be delivered in an hour and a half, and Michael Shannon plays the corrupt cop who must steal it at any cost. Director David Koepp imagines the streets of New York City as an ever-shifting labyrinth of deadly obstacles, and keeps the action moving at all times. Michael Shannon is deliciously over the top as the villain with impulse control issues, who repeatedly impersonates cult icon film scholar Forrest J. Ackerman.
-
Raising Cain (1992)
Brian De Palma has directed lots of brilliant thrillers (Blow Out, Sisters, Dressed to Kill are but a few), and yet for some reason Raising Cain isn't considered one of them. It should be. John Lithgow gives his most impressively unhinged performance as a family man who seems to be suffering from multiple personality disorder, one of whom is a terrifying serial killer. The twists are so surreal, you'd swear you were losing your mind too, and De Palma films it with exemplary, operatic showmanship.
-
Ripley's Game (2002)
Patricia Highsmith's talented Mr. Ripley returned in this little-seen 2002 thriller, which stars a slithery John Malkovich as the title character, who manipulates his hapless neighbor into committing murder. And why? Because the poor schmuck was a little rude at a party. Watching Malkovich navigate the elusive morality of Ripley is a real treat, and the relationship the hero and villain develop over the course of Ripley's Game makes for great suspense and some satisfying surprises.
-
Run (1991)
All young Patrick Dempsey had to do was deliver a car. But when he makes a pit stop to go gambling, a fight breaks out and he winds up accidentally killing the son of a powerful mobster. From that point on, Run earns its name, sending Dempsey sprinting from one suspenseful sequence to another, unable to trust anyone in a corrupt town where everyone would rather collect the reward than give him a hand. Breathless and enjoyable, although the ending may strike some audiences as a little abrupt.
-
Silent Fall (1994)
An autistic child was the only witness to his parents' murder, and now it's up to therapist Richard Dreyfuss to unlock the mystery of the boy's mind and solve the case. Bruce Beresford's mature, intelligent thriller features remarkable performances (including one from Liv Tyler, making her big screen debut), classy direction and a creepy mystery.
-
Spartan (2004)
Director David Mamet may be best known for his mind-blowing plot twists, but Spartan doesn't save its big reversal for the end, keeping his die hard fans on their toes. It's a cunning kidnapping thriller starring Val Kilmer as a special operative trying to rescue the president's daughter (Kristen Bell) before her kidnapping can be reported. The ticking clock, attention to detail and a shocking reversal make it a mature, absorbing film.
-
The Stranger (1946)
The only box office hit that Orson Welles ever directed, The Stranger is nevertheless the black sheep in his filmography, having been disowned by the director even though it's truly clever, and absolutely exciting. Welles stars as a Nazi fugitive hiding out in America, and Edward G. Robinson stars as the federal agent trying to track him down. Robinson's scheme is to instill doubt in Welles' innocent American wife, Loretta Young, and catch the villain in the act of trying to silence her. Young gives an amazing performance as a woman torn apart by suspicion, Welles is a singular delight as the crafty bad guy, and he directs the hell out of this underseen thriller as well.
-
Uno Bianca (2001)
Michele Soavi's cop thriller Uno Bianca was originally released as a TV movie in Italy, but you'd never know it to watch this sprawling, impressive suspense epic. Two cops are trying to solve a string of mysterious heists, drawing them deeper and deeper into obsession, corruption and eventually into a dangerous, off the books undercover sting operation. Uno Bianca is the best Michael Mann movie Michael Mann never made, with strong characters, confident direction and a keen attention to detail that sets it apart, and makes it worthy of a much bigger audience.
