6 Upcoming Thriller Films, Ranked by Hype
Diego Pineda has been a devout storyteller his whole life. He has self-published a fantasy novel and a book of short stories, and is actively working on publishing his second novel.
A lifelong fan of watching movies and talking about them endlessly, he writes reviews and analyses on his Instagram page dedicated to cinema, and occasionally on his blog. His favorite filmmakers are Andrei Tarkovsky and Charlie Chaplin. He loves modern Mexican cinema and thinks it's tragically underappreciated.
Other interests of Diego's include reading, gaming, roller coasters, writing reviews on his Letterboxd account (username: DPP_reviews), and going down rabbit holes of whatever topic he's interested in at any given point.
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Plenty of genres have delivered the greatest masterpieces in film history, but there's one particular genre that has delivered a remarkable number of the most exciting and engrossing movies the world has ever seen. It is, of course, the thriller genre. Over the decades, many of the most legendary and admired movies of all time have just so happened to be adrenaline-pumping thrillers, films which have been absolute masterclasses in how to build tension and suspense in a motion picture. This year has thus far delivered thrillers as incredible as Obsession and Primetime, and there is still much to look forward to.
Indeed, over the course of the coming months and years, many thrillers scheduled to come out are bound to be, at the very least, incredibly exciting. These are projects surrounded by such buzz and anticipation that they're worthy of not just excitement, but full-on hype. From a fresh new interpretation of American Psycho to Martin Scorsese's first-ever true horror film, fans of thriller cinema have plenty to be hyped about when thinking about what the future awaits.
6 'American Psycho' (TBD)
Back in 1991, Bret Easton Ellis published American Psycho, a transgressive postmodern novel told in first person by Patrick Bateman, a wealthy and narcissistic investment banker from Manhattan who lives a double life as a serial killer. Where some critics found it to be an absolutely brilliant horror satire, the book depicted scenes of violence in such graphic detail that original publisher Simon & Schuster dropped it before release, and public outrage once it finally did get published was immediate. When it came out, Mary Harron's 2000 thriller film adaptation was every bit as controversial, and has since become the biggest cult classic of Christian Bale's entire filmography. In 2024, Lionsgate announced that Luca Guadagnino would be directing a new movie adaptation of the book with Scott Z. Burns writing.
American Psycho will actually be another take on the novel rather than a direct remake of Harron's cult classic.
Tragically, Guadagnino has given concerning updates regarding the project's future—which is the only reason why it's not even more hype-worthy—, but since it very much does still seem like it will be happening at some point, it's hard to see this as anything less than one of the most widely hyped upcoming movie remakes. More accurately, this American Psycho will actually be another take on the novel rather than a direct remake of Harron's cult classic. With The Bourne Ultimatum and Rogue One's Burns penning the script and the incredible Guadagnino directing, what could go wrong?
5 'The Thomas Crown Affair' (2027)
Directed by the legendary Norman Jewison, 1968's The Thomas Crown Affair is one of the greatest heist movies of all time. Released in 1999, the remake directed by John McTiernan of Die Hard and Predator fame is every bit as much of a widely beloved classic. Next year, the world will be treated to yet another interpretation of this romantic action story: The Thomas Crown Affair, starring Michael B. Jordan and Adria Arjona. It will be Jordan's long-awaited return to the director's chair after he made his incredible debut in 2023 with Creed III, and it's definitely one to look forward to.
It was Jordan's own idea to remake the film, a project that he pitched to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer all the way back in 2016, so it should be an absolute delight to watch the realization of a passion project that has been brewing for so long. A star-studded cast, a Jon Batiste score, a fresh and unmistakably modern reimagining of the story, and visuals shot for IMAX on a scale unprecedented for the franchise should be more than enough to make the price of admission for The Thomas Crown Affair instantly worth it.
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.
4 'The Further Mis-Adventures of Cliff Booth' (2026)
Quentin Tarantino is one of those filmmakers so exceptional that he made himself a household name in Hollywood pretty much right off the bat. His first project made without Bob and Harvey Weinstein was Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, which many still remember as one of his most special and entertaining projects to date. "A love letter to cinema" is a title often thrown around for films that don't always deserve it, but Once Upon a Time in Hollywood absolutely does. Later this year, the world will be treated to the first sequel that Tarantino has ever written: The Further Mis-Adventures of Cliff Booth, a sequel and spin-off to Once Upon a Time in Hollywood directed by David Fincher.
Tarantino and Fincher's names are pretty much always seals of guaranteed quality, and as such, it feels like there's currently not nearly enough hype around Cliff Booth as it absolutely deserves. With Brad Pitt producing and reprising his Oscar-winning role as the titular stuntman, this promises to be one of the most special titles in both its writer and its director's filmographies. With the backing of such a powerhouse creative team and a much darker, more noir-ish '70s setting than the '60s backdrop of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, there should be nothing but excitement for The Further Mis-Adventures of Cliff Booth.
3 'Heat 2' (TBD)
There aren't very many filmmakers who choose to remake their own movies, and Heat is perhaps the only mainstream instance of a director making a theatrical remake of a made-for-television movie they themselves directed. L.A. Takedown is still worth seeking out as a piece of Michael Mann history, but there is absolutely no denying that Heat, which reunited Al Pacino and Robert De Niro 21 years after The Godfather Part II, has no equal. It's perhaps the best heist film ever made and easily one of the best crime dramas in history, and in 2022, Michael Mann made Heat 2 (both a prequel and a sequel to Heat, co-written by Meg Gardiner) his debut novel.
Mann soon enough announced that he was working on a feature film adaptation of the book starring Christian Bale, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Adam Driver.
It's probably not all that surprising that Mann soon enough announced that he was working on a feature film adaptation of the book starring Christian Bale, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Adam Driver. For one, that stacked cast is already more than enough to make Heat 2 a must-see even before we learn anything more about it. But as if that weren't enough, the book is such a phenomenal thriller that we already know pretty much for a fact that the film's story will be more than up to the gold standard set by the original, delivering a sweeping crime epic that will hopefully be just as exhilarating.
2 'What Happens at Night' (TBD)
Peter Cameron's 2020 Gothic mystery novel What Happens at Night is one of the best contemporary thriller novels of the 2020s so far, which makes it all the more exciting that Patrick Marber will be penning the film adaptation that Martin Scorsese will direct. Scorsese is far and away one of the most versatile auteurs in the modern history of Hollywood, a director who's never afraid to dip his toes into different genres and subgenres. What Happens at Night will reportedly be his first true psychological horror thriller, and that's already more than enough to make fans think that it will likely be one of the most entertaining Martin Scorsese movies to date.
As if the mere fact that the greatest filmmaker currently working is making his debut in the horror genre weren't already enough, What Happens at Night also counts with a cast of incredible talent, including Leonardo DiCaprio (in his eighth collaboration with Scorsese), Jennifer Lawrence, Mads Mikkelsen, and Charlie XCX. The film will tell the story of a married American couple who travel to a small European town to adopt a baby, and come to find that they know less about each other than they thought as they struggle to claim the baby as their own. The creative pedigree behind What Happens at Night is already enough to be hyped, and the fascinating premise only adds more weight to the buzz and anticipation.
1 'The Batman: Part II' (2028)
When DC announced that yet another reimagining of the Caped Crusader's story, fans were skeptical. But in the end, not only did Matt Reeves' The Batman end up living up to the hype, it became many fans' favorite live-action take on the Dark Knight to date. Robert Pattinson's interpretation of the character felt fresh and exciting, and Reeves' version of Gotham was one that fans couldn't wait to explore further. While The Batman: Part II was originally scheduled for release in late 2025, multiple delays have pushed the film all the way to 2028. But when it comes to superhero movies that fans are hyped about, the hype doesn't get any higher than this.
With James Gunn and Peter Safran's firing from DC Studios, the future of all current DC projects—certainly including this one—remains somewhat uncertain, but one thing remains undeniably true, and that is that there's currently no thriller film more universally anticipated or hyped-about than The Batman: Part II. With The Batman having proving that there's still plenty of room for creative interpretations of the vigilante, and that Reeves and his team clearly understand this world and these characters perfectly, how could anyone feel anything but excitement about the release of this long-awaited sequel?
The Batman Part II
- Release Date
- February 18, 2028
- Director
- Matt Reeves
- Writers
- Matt Reeves, Mattson Tomlin
- Producers
- Dylan Clark, James Gunn, Peter Safran
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Bruce Wayne / The Batman
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James Gordon
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Alfred Pennyworth
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Oz Cobb
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