Selecting the best thriller from each decade of the past 100 years is almost as nerve-racking as watching them. Alongside action movies or Westerns, thrillers are one of cinema’s oldest genres. The best thriller movies merge great direction, writing and performances, where audiences care as much about the story as they do the setpieces.
It’s a very flexible genre too, and it’s just as easy to have a funny thriller as a hard-edged one. There have been many classic thrillers in the 2000s alone, where filmmakers like David Fincher always find fresh spins on familiar tales. The sign of a true great is if, despite its age, it still holds up as a nerve-shredder.
1920s: The Cabinet Of Dr. Caligari
This psychological horror thriller remains one of the most influential movies ever made. Its German Expressionist style is practically responsible for every Tim Burton film, and it even features one of the first twist endings in cinema. The story involves the titular Doctor, a hypnotist who uses the somnambulist Cesare to commit a string of murders.
Even a century after it was produced, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari remains a stylish visual feast. The nightmarish atmosphere gives it a suitably suffocating feeling, and the fact that it’s a silent movie only adds to that. Naturally, it’s dated in many ways, but the influence it has had on the thriller and horror genres is immeasurable.
1930s: Freaks
Like The Cabinet Of Dr. Caligari, Freaks might lean more toward horror than thriller, but boy does it deliver on both fronts. This Tod Browning classic sees a trapeze artist working alongside a group of sideshow performers, and deciding to seduce and murder the group’s leader to gain his inheritance.
Once the other deformed “freaks” learn her scheme, the story ends badly for her. Freaks was incredibly controversial upon release and is in many ways, still shocking today, especially the fate of its central femme fatale. In many ways, Freaks feels like an early stab at a film noir, and once seen, it’s never forgotten.
1940s: Double Indemnity
If cinephiles only ever see one film noir, then Double Indemnity is a must. This Billy Wilder thriller finds an insurance salesman called Neff (Fred MacMurray) helping a woman kill her husband for his life insurance payout. It’s a classic setup, and many of the film noirs that came later copied its blueprint.
Double Indemnity is considered one of the best thrillers ever, and that’s a difficult claim to dispute. Barbara Stanwyck is one of cinema’s greatest femme fatales, while Edward G. Robinson is mesmerizing as Neff’s boss/best friend. Its ending is inevitable, but it’s nice that it closes on such an oddly sweet note.
1950s: The Wages Of Fear
Henri-Georges Clouzot’s thriller has an incredible premise, where a group of men are tasked with driving unstable dynamite to put out an oil fire. Needless to say, this makes every bump or obstacle they face along their journey an exercise in pure suspense. In short, the film is an existential road trip from Hell.
Wages of Fear has been remade many times (including as William Friedkin’s incredible Sorcerer), but the original is unbeatable. There’s a sweaty intensity to the whole thing that still unnerves, and the central metaphor is underlined by its dark end, where the sole survivor earns his paycheck but decides to push his luck one last time.
1960s: Psycho
Psycho was a low-budget experiment by Alfred Hitchcock, and he accidentally created the slasher subgenre as a result. Sadly, most of the big shocks of this 1960 thriller have been spoiled for newcomers, but it’s still a gripping black-and-white mystery. From the shower scene to Bernard Herrmann’s score, Psycho is required viewing for thriller fans.
There’s a stark simplicity to the story, where Janet Leigh’s secretary steals some money and makes the mistake of fleeing to the ominous Bates Motel. With this movie, Hitchcock delighted in wrongfooting viewers and breaking taboos (including the shot of a toilet flushing), and that rule-breaking spirit gives the movie a timeless quality.
1970s: Dirty Harry
The thriller that launched an endless cycle of rogue cop rip-offs, there’s still something very potent about the first of the Dirty Harry movies. This stars Clint Eastwood as the titular, .44 Magnum-wielding detective, who becomes increasingly disillusioned as he’s tasked with bringing a vicious serial killer to justice.
This 1971 outing is more nuanced and complex than many of its critics gave it credit, and there’s a reason it made Eastwood the biggest star of his era. Dirty Harry might feature some superb action sequences, but it’s ultimately a dark character study that offers no easy answers.
1980s: Dressed To Kill
Brian De Palma is a disciple of Hitchcock, and any number of his thrillers (like Blow Out) could have made this list. Dressed to Kill inches above them all, being De Palma’s most stylish and provocative work. The story follows Angie Dickinson as an unhappily married woman whose adulterous activities kick off a cycle of murders.
De Palma has one of the great cinematic eyes of any living filmmaker, and Dressed to Kill is incredibly lush. It could be argued that the story is slight (and the central twist absolutely would not fly today), but that doesn’t stop it from being the director’s crowning achievement. The dialogue-free art gallery meeting might just be his best setpiece too.
1990s: Heat
While any number of fantastic thrillers arrived during the 1990s (Seven, The Usual Suspects, etc), there’s no beating Heat. This Michael Mann movie is an epic of the genre, where audiences root for both the cop (Al Pacino) and the criminal (Robert De Niro) as the story leads to their inevitable showdown. The film itself is an embarrassment of riches.
The bank heist is the best shootout of the decade, it’s filled with incredible performances, and it set a thriller template that’s still being copied. Heat also makes L.A. a character, and the city has never been used so well. The movie was shamefully overlooked for major awards upon release, but is now recognized as a true masterpiece.
2000s: No Country For Old Men
The Coen Brothers have directed any number of classics, but No Country for Old Men could be their greatest work. This tells the story of Josh Brolin’s Moss, who finds a briefcase full of drug money, and finds himself pursued by Javier Bardem’s demonic assassin as a result.
The film is about as close as the Coens ever came to a straight action movie, but it’s so much more than that. It combines stomach-churning tension with welcome doses of dry humor – courtesy of Tommy Lee Jones’ sheriff – but it’s ultimately a haunting little morality tale about the indifference of the universe.
2010s: Sicario
Screenwriter Taylor Sheridan and director Denis Villeneuve became stars in their own right with Sicario, where Emily Blunt’s FBI agent goes on a nightmarish journey working with Josh Brolin’s shady CIA task force. The movie subverts a lot of tropes, and while Blunt’s Kate might be the main character, it’s ultimately not her story.
Despite being a bleak thriller looking at the war on drugs and the murky morals involved in fighting it, Sicario is also extremely watchable. Villeneuve stages some masterful sequences (such as the famous freeway standoff), while Blunt, Brolin and Benicio Del Toro do incredible work. Sadly, the 2018 sequel couldn’t match the first movie’s intensity.