In the mood for a good thriller? Subscribe to Prime Video? Eliza Janssen has searched through its archives and picked the top 25 thrillers currently available on the streaming platform.
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* All new movies & series on Prime Video
* All new streaming movies & series
Blow Out (1981)
Watch on Prime VideoDirector Brian De Palma was at his voyeuristic best in this loose remake of Antonioni’s Blow Up, this time following a sound effects technician convinced he’s captured audio of something terrible. It’s one of those great, exploitative neo-noirs about how great and exploitative cinema is in itself, and John Travolta weaponises his suave persona well as the nosy lead character.
Blue Velvet (1986)
Watch on Prime VideoThe thrills in David Lynch’s big breakout feature don’t so much make you jump as they sicken you to your stomach: once Dennis Hopper’s monstrous villain Frank Booth is on the scene, we feel we’re in for something much more twisted than any other suburban noir story. Drenched in the dreaminess and repression of 1950s Americana, it’s an enduringly powerful and dark voyage.
The Bourne Identity (2002)
Watch on Prime VideoWith its millennium-era shakycam and Matt Damon as a very likeable Hitchcockian ‘wrong man’, the Bourne franchise gave cinemagoers a grittier alternative to the then-bloated James Bond films. All three of Damon’s original films can be found on Prime, offering the ultimate white-knuckle action-thriller marathon.
Cape Fear (1991)
Watch on Prime VideoIn his seventh collaboration with Scorsese, Robert DeNiro bases his performance as fresh-out-of-prison villain Max Cady on a crab; its creeping movements, its beady gaze. A remake of the 1962 film of the same name, the North Carolina revenge story nicely gifts that film’s original cast cameo parts, cowering alongside Nick Nolte, Jessica Lange and a preternaturally powerful Juliette Lewis. It’s hard to say which scenes are hardest to watch; that thumb-sucking predation, or the nail-biting houseboat climax.
Casino (1995)
Watch on Prime VideoThe eighth collaboration between Scorsese and De Niro follows the mafia’s chokehold over a legendary Vegas casino, fully fleshing out both the glamour and the danger of the consequences of those big bucks. Sharon Stone is fierce and messy and beautiful as the hustler girlfriend to De Niro’s Ace Rothstein, and Joe Pesci does the same, fantastic fed-up wise guy routine he won his Oscar for in Goodfellas.
Emergency (2022)
Watch on Prime VideoSome of the best thriller films know just how to cut their tension with unexpected humour: the original short of this campus-set stress-fest managed to fit some nervous laughs into mere minutes. The film’s Black and Latino characters are plunged into a devious modern dilemma when an unconscious white woman crosses their paths, as can they really be seen as unlucky good samaritans by prejudiced onlookers?
Get Out (2017)
Watch on Prime VideoOne of the finest, most hair-raisingly tense horror films of the last decade. Jordan Peele sparked a new movement of socially conscious thrillers, but none so far have managed the dread and acute political commentary of Get Out, perhaps because Daniel Kaluuya’s emotive lead performance makes us believe the danger he’s in so deeply.
Goodnight Mommy (2022)
Watch on Prime VideoDid 2014’s super-creepy Austrian horror need to be remade? Maybe not, but a bandaged-up Naomi Watts makes the sickening family fable that bit more essential. Her two stoic kids begin to suspect the mummy-like figure recuperating in their home is not their flesh and blood, with their clumsy detective work getting appropriately bloody.
The Hitch-Hiker (1953)
Watch on Prime VideoHere’s the first mainstream Hollywood film directed by a woman, and boy did Ida Lupino knock it out of the park. As the murderous drifter Myers, William Talman perfectly matches the brisk and the melodramatic tone of this noir classic: “you can get anything at the end of a gun”, he brags to his latest hostages.
Jaws (1975)
Watch on Prime VideoThe element that marks Jaws as a brilliant thriller, as opposed to just a nice gnarly creature feature, lies in one of Spielberg’s biggest production limitations. It was so damn difficult to get a convincing shark model working (one ended up at the bottom of the ocean!) that the film barely shows us the man-eating beastie, resulting in one of the very first blockbusters and a tense tale of survival that still terrifies us today.
The Killing (1956)
Watch on Prime VideoOnly Kubrick’s third film, this robust heist picture still shows off much of the cult filmmaker’s budding genius—jarring shifts between documentary-style and experimental, warped-looking shots, nihilistic characters, etc. In plot it’s a pretty conventional crime-noir, following Sterling Hayden’s gang as they attempt a racetrack robbery, but the director’s muscular, obsessive focus and a bulletproof script from hardboiled pulp writer Jim Thompson elevate basic elements into a powerful package.
The Lady Vanishes (1938)
Watch on Prime VideoThe oldest thriller on our list, Hitch’s train-set mystery is devilishly sophisticated and oh-so-British. You’ll be completely absorbed by its Christie-esque plot of an elderly woman who seemingly vanishes from a train carriage into thin air, and also by the eccentric supporting cast helping and hindering the search along the way.
Long Weekend (1978)
Watch on Prime VideoThis is unfortunately our only Aussie thriller on the list, but it’s well-worth your time—especially before you consider taking a road trip into the outback. Gnarly and mean-spirited, the horror flick from our country’s 1970s new wave sees an entitled couple of tourists littering and disrespecting native wildlife. Mother Nature clearly takes this personally, and sics some nasty critters on the stranded duo.
Misery (1990)
Watch on Prime VideoFandom can be terrifying, and James Caan’s grouchy paperback novelist sees this in spades when “rescued” by his number one fan, an unforgettably creepy Kathy Bates. Director Rob Reiner hones in on both characters incisively, urging us to get closer to Bates’ Annie Wilkes even as we need Caan’s Paul to escape. And hey, we’ve all felt like Annie at times, getting a little too invested in the pop culture tripe we’re fed; “he didn’t get out of the cockadoodie car!”
Monster (2003)
Watch on Prime VideoThere’s this boring trope in Hollywood that when gorgeous actresses wear prosthetics to ‘ugly themselves up’ on screen, they automatically win an Oscar. But there’s so much more going on in Charlize Theron’s performance here as Aileen Wuornos, a nervous and disembodied killer. Christina Ricci is captivating, too, playing Wuornos’s accomplice as a totally lost young woman.
My Son (2021)
Watch on Prime VideoJames McAvoy is a tremendous actor, facing an all-new challenge in this Scotland-filmed mystery. Playing the distraught dad of a missing boy, McAvoy was not given a script or dialogue to follow for his performance, organically improvising his character’s decisions as his supporting cast unfold a thriller that hits close to home. A bit of an improv masterclass, we think.
Saw (2004)
Watch on Prime VideoYou might say that this shoestring-budgeted franchise starter is more horror than thriller, but the grisly slew of sequels we’ve had since its release can obscure the compelling detective mystery the series started out as. James Wan and Leigh Whannell get heaps of bang for their buck out of pushing the human body—and will—into new realms of agony, and that final twist still has the power to shock even upon rewatch.
Scarface (1983)
Watch on Prime VideoLurid Florida colours and substance-addled characters breathe new life into Brian De Palma’s adaptation of a 1930s gangster flick, with Al Pacino’s uncontrollable performance still what he’s probably best remembered for. Its dark depiction of the American dream is all the more sordid for the fact that Tony Montana ended up being worshipped on so many teen boy’s walls.
Sicario (2015)
Watch on Prime VideoAn anti-tourism campaign for Mexico. Emily Blunt’s virtuous agent makes the journey down south to the dangers of cartel-run Tijuana in Denis Villeneuve’s celebrated take on a Taylor Sheridan script. The violence of crooked authorities and gangs is shown with equal excitement and savagery. I still can’t forget the discovery of plastic-wrapped bodies within walls.
Thirteen Lives (2022)
Watch on Prime VideoThe Tham Luang cave rescue kept the world on the edge of our seats until those adolescent soccer players were rescued. Ron Howard’s dramatisation of the multi-national rescue effort focuses on the people who could actually reach out and do something to help, starring Viggo Mortenson and Joel Edgerton as some of the heroic divers at its centre.
Twister (1996)
Watch on Prime VideoBefore you check out 2024’s decent-enough remake, the Jan De Bont original is worth another spin. It’s adrenaline-gushing stuntery for the sheer fun of it, starring Bill Paxton and Helen Hunt as stormchasers distracted from their impending divorce by a string of killer tornados. Beyond the thrilling chase sequences and flying cows/Mac trucks/etc,, the cast is packed with memorably weird sidekicks—including a delightful Phillip Seymour Hoffman! And there’s some smooching, too, which Twisters disappointingly left out.
The Voyeurs (2021)
Watch on Prime VideoThe good old-fashioned erotic thriller is not especially in vogue these days, but this laugh-inducingly twisty peep show suggests that there’s still petrol in that horny tank. Sydney Sweeney plays a very inconsistent young lady who becomes fixated on the glamorous neighbours she and her BF can see from their apartment. Ultimately you’ll be left confused—in a great way—as to who’s watching who, and why.
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Titles are added and removed from his page to reflect changes to Prime Video’s catalogue. Reviews no longer available on this page can be read here.
