The best thrillers of the year so far

It’s been a busy year for thrillers so far, with all manner of small-town crime going down, serial killers on the prowl, and more. But no matter the subgenre or setting, there have been plenty of excellent thrillers to keep us entertained.

Here’s a list of all the best thrillers in 2024 so far. They’re sorted in order of release from the most recent to the most distant, so while some of the picks at the top of the list will only be available in theaters, most of the options further down should be available on one streaming service or another.

Rebel Ridge

Where to watch: Netflix

Green Room director Jeremy Saulnier might be one of the best thriller directors working today, and his latest movie, Rebel Ridge, is no exception to his brilliance. The movie follows Terry Richmond (Aaron Pierre), a Marine who gets assaulted by police and has his cousin’s bail money seized through civil asset forfeiture. With his family member’s life on the line, Terry sets out to get his money back and ends up uncovering a police corruption scandal in the process.

Few things are as important to a thriller as its pacing, and Rebel Ridge shows off why Saulnier is a master of the genre. Every character feels tightly wound, like springs contracting on themselves for an inevitable release of energy and collision. Even those moments of release come at exactly the right moments. The script, which Saulnier also wrote, feels economically precise, without a single wasted word as it builds toward its inevitable showdown.

Add all of this together and the result is a movie that feels like the perfect balance of tension, action, and barely concealed rage, which, it turns out, makes for a pretty excellent thriller. —Austen Goslin

Red Rooms

Where to watch: Theaters

Red Rooms rivals Longlegs as one of the sicker serial killer tales of the year, but it charts an entirely different path to get there. The thriller opens in a Canadian courtroom during the opening remarks in a case against Ludovic Chevalier, who is accused of kidnapping and slaying three young women during a livestream on the dark web. The horrors of the crime are elaborated on in long, uncut takes that will make even the steeliest stomach squirm. As it goes on, director Pascal Plante slowly drifts past the lawyers, the jurors, and the chilling Chevalier himself to home in on the movie’s actual lead character: fashion model/hacker hobbyist Kelly-Anne (Juliette Gariépy), who sits in the back of the spectator seats, mesmerized by it all. 

Combining the precision and punk ambience of David Fincher’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo with the melodramatic bursts of Brian De Palma, Plante delivers a heart-palpitating commentary on internet life, true crime, and parasocial relationships that rarely relies on gore to make its disturbing points. Enveloped by Dominique Plante’s score, which hums then explodes at all the right horrific moments, Gariépy’s performance is a remarkable feat of emotional distance and unraveling. So much has been said about the transformative power of the computer screen, but few movies take that conversation to its strangest, bleakest endpoints. Red Rooms doesn’t skip a beat. —Matt Patches

Strange Darling

Where to watch: Theaters

One of the most underrated, underseen thrillers of 2024 gets better the longer you stick with it — and the less you know about it going in. Suffice to say that two people (played by Willa Fitzgerald and Kyle Gallner, styled in the credits as “The Lady” and “The Demon”) meet for a hotel tryst, and they each get a lot more than they bargained for. Strange Darling is a bloody, intense tête-à-tête, beautifully shot and with plenty of surprises and two tremendous performances. It’s a hell of an unpredictable roller coaster, right up to the extended, memorable final shot. —Tasha Robinson

Trap

Where to watch: For digital rental or purchase on Amazon and Apple TV

We finally got a great Hitman movie.

M. Night Shyamalan has been on fire recently, with Old, Knock at the Cabin, and now Trap reminding audiences why he’s a master of the thriller genre. While he’s popularly known for his plot twists, he’s a formal master, carefully constructing every image and moment in his movies for maximum efficiency, and an expert at plot constructions with mass appeal.

Trap is perhaps the best of his latest period, with a great premise (a concert set up to trap a serial killer), one of the best leading performances this year, and constant flexes from Shyamalan in his image construction, including his signature uncomfortable straight-on close-up shots of actors talking to the camera. It’s also just a goofy fun time, building a tense environment out of its zany premise, then dissipating it with funny gags or clever solutions to the problems the narrative presents for its evil protagonist.

Josh Hartnett is a revelation as Cooper, a devoted dad whose only greater devotion in life is to his serial killer side hustle. Hartnett’s Cooper is loving but off-putting, charming but insincere. Shyamalan adds to the effect by occasionally placing Hartnett on the edges of the frame, making his face only half visible and therefore his expression only half discernible.

Like many of Shyamalan’s movies, Trap has received mixed reviews and some pans from critics. As a culture, we don’t know what to do with deeply silly movies executed at a high formal and technical level. But I’ll tell you what I did: enjoyed the hell out of it. —Pete Volk

The Bikeriders

Where to watch: Peacock

Writer-director Jeff Nichols excels at small, intimate portraits of people with close emotional ties and deep conflict (Mud, Take Shelter, Midnight Special), and The Bikeriders does all that while also offering a historical portrait of a very specific, insular scene. Based on Danny Lyon’s book of the same name, The Bikeriders follows various members of a Chicago motorcycle club in the 1960s, primarily two men played by Austin Butler (Elvis, Dune: Part Two) and Tom Hardy. As the culture around motorcycle clubs changes, they both fight to not change with it, which puts them in conflict with other bikers and the people closest to them. It’s a nostalgic, sometimes joyous, sometimes thrilling movie, but mostly, it’s a hell of a vibe. —TR

Property

Where to watch: For digital rental or purchase on Amazon and Apple TV

In yet another year marked by prominent eat-the-rich movies, Daniel Bandeira’s Brazilian thriller Property stands out, both because of its shifting sympathies and because of its unpredictable, tense cat-and-mouse action. Tereza (Malu Galli) is the wife of a rich landowner who’s decided to sell his rural estate for development, in the process casually booting off all the residents, some of whom have worked the land their whole lives and most of whom are in debt due to low wages and predatory practices. The film’s sympathies might be with them as they fight back, but when they trap Tereza in her car and try to kill her, the movie becomes a gripping standoff where no one’s really the hero. The ending will stay with you for a long time. —TR

The Last Stop in Yuma County

Where to watch: For digital rental or purchase on Amazon and Apple TV

A down-and-dirty, lean thriller mostly set in one location, The Last Stop in Yuma County flew under a lot of people’s radars when it came out in May. It’s a small project made on a budget of around $1 million without any A-list stars — but if you’re a fan of small-budget genre fare, you owe it to yourself to catch up with this one.

Yuma County has an attractively simple premise: A group of people are stuck together at a restaurant in the middle of nowhere, and at least one of them just robbed a bank. While the movie spends less time than you might expect on the whodunit element, the premise lends itself to a tense pressure-cooker environment inside the restaurant, ably communicated by first-time feature director Francis Galluppi. (Next up for him: an untitled seventh movie in the Evil Dead series.)

While there were some narrative choices I wasn’t fully on board with, Yuma County is an effective “Coen bros. lite” filled with game character actors, like frequent Rob Zombie collaborator and Game of Thrones’ Night King Richard Brake. —PV

Civil War

Where to watch: Max

Alex Garland’s portrait of an imagined future American civil war, seen through the eyes of the journalists covering it, has been one of 2024’s biggest non-blockbuster hits, and one of its most-debated movies, thanks to its notably measured approach to the politics that led to its violently divided America. Kirsten Dunst stars as Lee, a drained, jaded photojournalist who winds up reluctantly mentoring eager up-and-comer Jessie (Priscilla star Cailee Spaeny) on a cross-country road trip to interview the embattled president (Nick Offerman). Whether or not you agree with its politics (overt or otherwise), it’s a rich visual experience with plenty of intense moments — and a subtler message than “this side of the American divide is good, and this one is bad.” —TR

Love Lies Bleeding

Where to watch: Max

Kristen Stewart continues her streak of interesting projects with this romantic crime thriller from director Rose Glass (Saint Maud), which would make a great double feature with the Wachowskis’ classic Bound. Love Lies Bleeding follows a thorny romance between an outcast gym manager (Stewart) and a nomadic bodybuilder (Katy O’Brian). The two fall hard for each other, but when that passion results in one of them committing a serious crime, the pair have to scramble to cover their tracks, all while avoiding the watchful eye of the gym manager’s criminal father (Ed Harris).

Stewart is great, as always, playing the reclusive Lou as a deeply inward person, isolated from the people who are supposed to love her. She’s distrustful of others after years of betrayal and loneliness, and Stewart is able to bring history to the character through her mannerisms and posture alone. But it’s O’Brian who shines brightest, giving the kind of breakout star performance that makes you wonder why she’s been long relegated to supporting parts. Ed Harris also adds to his collection of excellent villainous performances, and the supporting cast features strong turns from Jena Malone, Dave Franco, and Anna Baryshnikov.

Love Lies Bleeding is a modern version of the kind of thorny erotic thrillers that used to thrive in theaters regularly, delving into addiction, regret, and cycles of violence. But the main idea I took away from it? Love is the strongest drug of all. —PV