The 10 Worst Psychological Thrillers in Film History
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I have a terrible habit when watching a bad thriller. I start rewriting it in my head while it's still playing. Give me an interesting character and a reasonably suspicious neighbor, and I'll spend the next hour inventing a better movie around them. Sometimes the solution seems painfully obvious. Give the characters an intelligent conversation. Allow the villain to behave like an actual human being. Perhaps stop assuming everyone watching has suffered a catastrophic memory lapse.
And for ridiculous thrillers, I have considerably more admiration than respectable, boring ones. An outrageous villain can be wonderful. A completely unhinged revelation can rescue an otherwise ordinary movie. I'll forgive practically anything if the filmmakers are having fun and remember that I'm supposed to be having fun too. What I struggle to forgive is wasted potential, especially when the screenplay mistakes withholding information for genuine psychological complexity. These 10 psychological thrillers are hands down the worst ones in film history.
10 'The Woman in the Window' (2021)
The Woman in the Window has a delicious premise and an extraordinary cast. Unfortunately, the movie becomes increasingly determined to convince us that Anna's (Amy Adams) account cannot be trusted, practically advertising its own narrative machinery. She’s an agoraphobic child psychologist living alone in Manhattan, spends her days observing her neighbors through the windows of her brownstone. After apparently witnessing a woman being murdered across the street, she contacts the police, only to discover that the family insists nobody has died. Anna's isolation, medication, drinking, and traumatic history provide several possibilities for an intelligent mystery about perception.
Joe Wright directed it, and his elaborate camerawork occasionally captures the atmosphere of a genuinely disturbing domestic nightmare. Amy Adams is wonderful whenever she gets the opportunity to make Anna feel like an actual person. Then the convoluted payoffs arrive, followed by an especially underwhelming final confrontation. I desperately wanted the psychological drama promised by those early scenes. What I received was a collection of twists that kept interrupting it.
9 'Secret Obsession' (2019)
Imagine waking up in a hospital with no memory of your marriage and discovering that the man patiently waiting beside your bed might be dangerous. That is Jennifer's (Brenda Song) predicament in Secret Obsession. After suffering a traumatic accident, she returns home with Russell (Mike Vogel), the man claiming to be her husband, while Detective Frank Page (Dennis Haysbert) investigates the circumstances surrounding her injuries.
I genuinely wish the film had trusted that premise. Instead, Russell behaves suspiciously almost immediately, leaving Jennifer to uncover a mystery the audience has barely been encouraged to question. The manipulated photographs are particularly frustrating because they could have supported an interesting examination of how somebody reconstructs their identity through other people's accounts. The film favors an increasingly familiar sequence of suspicious behavior, convenient discoveries, and attempted escapes. Jennifer’s character is vulnerable and has enough vulnerability to make us care about her predicament. Unfortunately, the movie is considerably less interested in what she thinks than in how long it can keep her trapped. The film was directed by Peter Sullivan.
8 'Fatal Affair' (2020)
Successful attorney Ellie Warren (Nia Long) encounters David Hammond (Omar Epps), an old college acquaintance, while navigating a difficult period in her marriage. An evening together nearly becomes an affair, but Ellie withdraws before things progress further. David, however, develops a dangerous obsession, gradually inserting himself into her professional and personal life. Fatal Affair has two charismatic leads and a relationship that could have supported an interesting exploration of entitlement, jealousy, and the consequences of a momentary mistake.
Epps is clearly trying to give David something unsettling beneath his outward charm. I particularly wanted the movie to explore his ability to present himself as reasonable while gradually violating Ellie's boundaries. Instead, every subsequent development feels borrowed from another domestic thriller. David becomes more threatening with remarkable predictability, while Ellie's otherwise comfortable life starts generating exactly the obstacles the plot requires. Peter Sullivan directed this one as well, and the frustrating thing is how little personality the production develops around its central conflict. There is a potentially disturbing character somewhere inside David. I wish the screenplay had bothered to find him.
7 'Obsessed' (2009)
Derek Charles (Idris Elba) is a successful businessman with a loving wife, Sharon (Beyoncé Knowles), when temporary employee Lisa Sheridan (Ali Larter) becomes increasingly determined to pursue him. Derek rejects her advances, but Lisa continues interfering with his life, threatening his marriage and eventually creating situations that make his innocence increasingly difficult to establish. Obsessed could have examined the uncomfortable consequences of workplace harassment, especially when a victim struggles to convince others that the harassment is happening.
Instead, I spent much of the movie waiting for Beyoncé to confront somebody. Steve Shill, the director, devotes so much attention to Lisa's escalating behavior that the marriage at the center of the story never becomes sufficiently interesting. Sharon and Derek's arguments should have been emotionally devastating, given the deliberate manipulation involved. They frequently feel like preparation for the inevitable physical confrontation. Admittedly, that climactic fight has considerable entertainment value. Beyoncé and Larter commit enthusiastically to the madness. It's simply unfortunate that the movie needs its final confrontation to compensate for everything preceding it.
6 'The Boy Next Door' (2015)
Claire Peterson (Jennifer Lopez) is a high-school literature teacher whose marriage is deteriorating when she becomes involved with Noah Sandborn (Ryan Guzman), the attractive young man who has recently moved next door. After their encounter, Claire immediately regrets her decision. Noah responds by becoming dangerously possessive, using his proximity to her family and school to threaten practically every part of her life. The Boy Next Door should be an uncomfortable thriller about vulnerability, manipulation, and a relationship that rapidly becomes impossible to control. But it just failed.
Unfortunately, the screenplay keeps escalating through increasingly outrageous developments. I would happily recommend this as an accidental comedy. Convincing psychological suspense is another matter entirely. There is one extraordinary moment though, when Noah gives Claire what he describes as a first edition of Homer's The Iliad. I remember laughing because the dialogue treats this supposedly extraordinary literary discovery with complete seriousness. That scene captures the film's peculiar charm and its greatest weakness. Director Rob Cohen seems determined to generate erotic tension regardless of whether the surrounding circumstances make any sense. Lopez deserves credit for keeping Claire relatively sympathetic, particularly as Noah's threats escalate still.
5 'The Number 23' (2007)
Walter Sparrow (Jim Carrey) is an ordinary animal-control officer whose wife gives him a mysterious novel that appears to contain disturbing similarities to his own life. As he reads, Walter develops an obsession with the number 23, discovering increasingly elaborate connections between the number, seemingly unrelated events, and a murder described in the book. The Number 23 could have been an entertaining descent into obsession, particularly with Carrey playing somebody whose everyday existence gradually becomes dominated by an irrational conviction.
The problem is that virtually anything becomes significant once Walter starts manipulating numbers until they produce the desired result. Joel Schumacher directed the film with an exaggerated noir aesthetic that makes Walter's imagined experiences look considerably more interesting than his actual investigation. Carrey certainly commits to the character's deterioration. I just wish the movie had provided more convincing reasons for us to share his anxiety. Eventually, the mystery starts depending upon increasingly improbable connections and a revelation that attempts to explain practically everything. Watching somebody descend into an obsession can be fascinating. Watching the screenplay manufacture evidence to justify that obsession becomes exhausting. Alongside Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, this too was one of those 8-10 serious movies Carrey has been in.
4 'Basic Instinct 2' (2006)
Catherine Tramell (Sharon Stone) returns in Basic Instinct 2, this time living in London and attracting police attention after a car accident kills her companion. Psychiatrist Michael Glass (David Morrissey) is asked to evaluate her, only to become personally entangled with Catherine as suspicious deaths begin occurring around him. The premise offers an intriguing opportunity to examine a professional psychologist becoming the subject of somebody else's extraordinarily calculated psychological manipulation.
I struggle to remember another sequel so determined to reproduce the provocative reputation of its predecessor while misunderstanding its most effective qualities. Michael is supposed to be an intelligent professional, yet his increasingly questionable decisions rarely suggest somebody worth Catherine's considerable attention. Director Michael Caton-Jones surrounds their encounters with expensive-looking interiors and calculated sexual tension, but the relationship lacks the unsettling chemistry that made the original memorable. Stone occasionally appears to be enjoying herself enormously, particularly when Catherine treats everybody around her as potential material for another novel. I wish the rest of the film shared her enthusiasm.
Collider Exclusive · Villain Personality Quiz Which Criminal Mastermind Would Be Your Nemesis? Lecter · Joker · Moriarty · Chigurh
Four of the finest criminal minds ever put on screen. One of them would look at you and see something worth their time. Eight questions decide which one comes for you, why they picked you, and what they would want when they arrived.
🍷Lecter
🃏Joker
♟️Moriarty
🪙Chigurh
01
What would a criminal mastermind notice about you first? Great villains choose their opponents carefully. Something about you got their attention.
02
How do they make first contact? The introduction tells you everything about what is coming next.
03
What do you actually believe about right and wrong? Every nemesis is really an argument about the thing you believe most.
04
What finally gets under your skin? Everybody has a pressure point. Finding yours is the whole plan.
05
They have made their move. How do you fight back? This is the part of the film where the audience finds out who you are.
06
What would they use against you? A good villain never brings a weapon you have not already handed them.
07
What do they actually want from you? The money is never the point. Something else always is.
08
How does it end between the two of you? Eight questions in, this is the one that decides who comes for you.
The Case File Is Complete Your Nemesis Is…
Four criminal masterminds. One of them was always going to be yours. Here is who comes for you, why they picked you out of everyone available, and what they want from the encounter.
Hannibal Lecter
Your nemesis does not want to beat you. He wants to know you completely, and he is patient enough to wait for it. The frightening part is how good the conversation is.
- Lecter is the most dangerous kind of opponent: the one who finds you interesting. He never raises his voice, because he has never needed to.
- You keep a great deal to yourself and you are careful about what you show. That reserve is exactly the door he would knock on.
- The films understood something other thrillers missed. The horror is not the violence. It is being perfectly understood by the wrong person.
- He would be unfailingly polite about all of it. That is the worst part.
The Joker
Your nemesis is not after money, territory or revenge. He is after a demonstration, and you are the person he has chosen to prove his point on.
- The Joker only picks opponents who believe in something. Your decency is not a defence against him. It is the entire reason he showed up.
- He has no plan you can predict and nothing you can take away, which removes every tool you would normally reach for.
- His whole argument is that you are one bad day away from being him, and you would spend the rest of your life proving him wrong.
- He would call it a magic trick. You would call it the worst night of your life.
Moriarty
Your nemesis respects you, which sounds flattering until you work out what it means. He chose you because nobody else was worth his time.
- Moriarty is the original criminal mastermind, the template every later one borrows from: a mind the equal of the hero's, pointed the wrong way.
- You enjoy being the cleverest person in the room. He is counting on exactly that, and he has already built the room.
- This is the rare nemesis who would be genuinely disappointed if you lost badly. He needs the game to be worth playing.
- It ends the way these things always end. Two people, one problem, and only one way down.
Anton Chigurh
Your nemesis has no personal interest in you whatsoever, and that is precisely what makes him unsurvivable. You are not a rival. You are a stop on the way.
- Chigurh does not negotiate, gloat or explain. He arrives, he asks one question, and the answer was decided long before you opened your mouth.
- You trust yourself to handle things. He is the one problem in the world that has no interest in how capable you are.
- No Country for Old Men rewrote the screen villain by removing the thing audiences quietly rely on: the sense that talking might work.
- Call it. He will wait.
3 'The Roommate' (2011)
Sara Matthews (Minka Kelly) arrives at college hoping to establish a new life and quickly befriends her roommate Rebecca Evans (Leighton Meester). Their friendship becomes increasingly uncomfortable when Rebecca starts interfering with Sara's other relationships and demonstrating a dangerous determination to monopolize her attention. The Roommate essentially relocates the possessive friendship thriller to a college dormitory, where forced proximity and the excitement of starting university should have made Rebecca's behavior genuinely unsettling.
Rebeca is easily the film's greatest asset. She has this unnerving intensity, particularly when her friendliness turns into resentment whenever Sara shows affection toward somebody else. But the film never develops their relationship sufficiently for Rebecca's increasingly extreme actions to become dramatically convincing. The screenplay also leans heavily on familiar associations between psychiatric treatment and dangerous behavior instead of developing a persuasive individual character. Sara's ordinary college experiences should gradually acquire disturbing new meanings. Instead, the movie delivers precisely the developments anyone familiar with this kind of thriller will already be expecting.
2 'The In Crowd' (2000)
After receiving psychiatric treatment, Adrien Williams (Lori Heuring) takes a job at an exclusive country club, hoping to rebuild her life. She attracts the attention of Brittany Foster (Susan Ward), an influential young woman who welcomes Adrien into her privileged social circle. Their friendship gradually becomes dangerous as jealousy, manipulation, and disturbing secrets involving Brittany's family emerge. The In Crowd has the foundations of a deliciously nasty thriller about social status, psychological vulnerability, and the terrifying possibility of being manipulated by somebody everybody else considers trustworthy.
I wanted to enjoy this one considerably more than I did. Its wealthy characters are practically begging to be exposed as horrible people, and Adrien's history creates a believable reason for others to dismiss her suspicions. Unfortunately, director Mary Lambert allows the mystery to move at an astonishingly sluggish pace. The increasingly obvious danger surrounding Brittany never develops enough psychological complexity to justify the prolonged revelations. Even the climactic confrontation, involving Adrien impersonating Brittany's missing sister, feels like a desperate attempt to produce excitement after the movie has exhausted its suspense.
1 'Twisted' (2004)
I cannot believe how much acting talent Twisted wastes. Let me explain. Newly promoted homicide detective Jessica Shepard (Ashley Judd) begins investigating a series of murders in San Francisco, only to discover that the victims are men with whom she previously had relationships. Jessica has a disturbing family history, struggles with alcohol, and experiences unexplained periods of unconsciousness that make her increasingly suspicious of her own involvement. Meanwhile, her investigative partner Mike Delmarco (Andy Garcia) and longtime mentor John Mills (Samuel L. Jackson) become important figures in her attempts to uncover the killer.
Judd has exactly the intensity required to portray a detective terrified that she might be investigating her own crimes. The setting is atmospheric, and the premise could have supported a genuinely disturbing character study. Yet Philip Kaufman, who directed the film, is working with a screenplay that increasingly treats psychological uncertainty as permission to abandon credible behavior. Jessica's investigation becomes a procession of convenient developments leading toward an elaborate revelation that requires an extraordinary amount of explanation. The movie eventually seems more interested in demonstrating how thoroughly its characters have deceived one another than in making their deception believable. I finished it wishing somebody had trusted Judd with a proper psychological thriller instead.
Twisted
- Release Date
- February 27, 2004
- Runtime
- 97 minutes
- Director
- Philip Kaufman
- Writers
- Sarah Thorp
-
Jessica Shepard
-
John Mills
-
Andy García
Mike Delmarco
-
Dr. Melvin Frank
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