The 8 Most Fun Thriller Movies of All Time, Ranked
A New York native, Joe graduated from an avant-garde theater school upstate, where he was obsessed with sketch comedy. There, he and his lunatic friends founded The Sketchies — which still lives on at Skidmore College today. Living in New York City, a screenwriter friend of his then taught him how to write for film. This awakened a new passion in Joe. Since then his scripts have garnered over 200 festival selections, nominations, and wins all over the globe (including the BlueCat Best Feature award). Several of his screenplays have been made into feature films — some of them not that bad! Overall, he loves to create unique, hilarious, touching, and bizarre stories.
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As a member of an audience, we all love to laugh, to be scared, and most of all, to be thrilled. Many films over the last one hundred+ years of cinema have sought to solicit wonder from their viewers, and many have succeeded, in striking spades. Certain movies, though, have not only thrilled audiences but have also provided such a fun atmosphere while doing so that they are considered pure filmic joyrides (even if there’s a murder or two in the plot).
Here at the most fun thriller films of all time. Since the term “thriller” encompasses a plethora of thrilling sub-genres, like action-thrillers (Heat, Léon: The Professional) and supernatural thrillers (The Sixth Sense, The Others), this list will mostly cover straight thrillers for the sake of brevity — which is, of course, the soul of wit — which is, of course, the essence of fun.
8 'The Last Seduction' (1994)
1994 was a very fun year for movies. True Lies, Speed, and The Mask are just a few of the winners that were released. The most fun one, though, is director John Dahl’s neo-noir female empowerment morality tale The Last Seduction. In a role that seems tailor-made for her snarky skill set, Linda Fiorentino shines as the femme fatale who finally gets to be the protagonist in her own story.
Fiorentino is Bridget Gregory, a cunning woman with a supremely silver tongue. When her scheming husband, Clay Gregory (an uncharacteristically unlikable Bill Pullman) gives her a solid backhand while discussing a recent scam, Bridget decides she’s had enough. She then makes off with Clay’s pilfered loot and ingratiates herself into a small town upstate. Here she plays a local dude, Mike Swale (Peter Berg), like a bespoke, extremely naive violin and further concocts an even more elaborate criminal scheme. Everything about Bridget’s character is highly entertaining to watch play out, as her pithy zingers are cutting and her cut-throat actions cut even deeper.
7 'The Talented Mr. Ripley' (1999)
Rooting for a murderous con man can be all sorts of fun. Such is the case in the Patricia Highsmith novel, The Talented Mr. Ripley, turned major motion picture. Matt Damon is just so innocently charming and compelling in the titular role, that it’s almost impossible not to want him to get away with his escalating felonies. Director Anthony Minghella drops his morally-compromised protagonist on to the sun-drenched Amalfi Coast of Italy for most of the film, which adds to the sumptuous eye candy, while simultaneously plunging things into decidedly dark territory, theme-wise. The end result is a film that forces the viewer to hope that this killer is able to untangle himself from the wild web he’s gotten himself ensnared in. This is a wicked brand of fun, indeed.
The story focuses, of course, on Tom Ripley (Damon), a young man gifted at playing people like fawning fiddles. Tom is sent on a job to Italy to procure a rich lothario, Dickie Greenleaf (Jude Law, at his smarmy, condescending, infuriatingly annoying best), and bring him back to the good old U. S. of A. Of course, Dickie is reluctant to return to his homeland, and in the course of wining and dining Tom, Tom becomes enamored with Dick’s decadent lifestyle and, oops, murks him and steals his identity. The main reason that we want Tom to succeed in his deceitful endeavors is that he seems like a sweet guy, and the majority of the privileged people in his orbit are such colossal douches. Namely, the aforementioned rich boy Dicky, and his bombastically crude buddy, Freddie Miles (Philip Seymour Hoffman, once again dipping into his vast bag of acting riches). All things considered, this at times stressful flick is a molto divertente thrill ride of aesthetic and philosophical joys.
6 'Gone Girl' (2014)
The shifting narratives of Gone Girl alone are pretty darn fun. It’s a mystery where dramatic irony is only teased at until way late in the story. The master of dark (thematically, and color palette-wise), David Fincher, serves up one of his best with this mind-bending thriller that dazzles with sick glee at every turn. Also, there’s a supporting turn by Neil Patrick Harris (as Desi Collings) that provides one of the cooler, most satisfyingly shocking moments of any 2000s thriller.
Nick Dunne (a perfectly cast Ben Affleck) is a frat boy turned writing teacher; a regular dude who just happened to marry a charming, elegant, and wealthy woman, Amy Dunne (Rosamund Pike, at her wry, unpredictable best). Their life together seems ideal…that is, until she goes missing and Nick is the prime suspect. After the audience learns that Nick has been a wee bit unfaithful with a student of his, it’s not looking so great for him. Then the real humdinger is dropped, that Amy is alive and well, and — brilliant (yet somewhat psychotic) tactician that she is — she orchestrated the whole whodunit disappearance herself. The real fun of this movie is just how mischievous it all is. It’s the kind of winking enjoyment one gets out of watching a rival squirm under pressure. As an audience member, it’s hard to really know who to root for in this multi-layered mystery — but at the end of the day, we know we just had a heck of a time watching the sneakily sly fun unfold.
5 'Strangers on a Train' (1951)
The first of numerous adaptations (this one was simply the “novel to film” entry), Alfred Hitchcock’s utterly captivating Strangers on a Train takes the exceedingly fun premise of the novel source material by Patricia Highsmith and twists it into an even more dynamic film. With slick, captivating performances matched with Hitchcock’s signature stylistic flares (that consistently highlight his characters’ motivations with pointed angles and shadowy positioning), this is the classic fun thriller.
The story is centered on, well, two people who don’t know each other that meet while traveling on a train; strangers, if you will. There’s the somewhat naive tennis professional Guy Haines (Farley Granger) and the deliciously manipulative, unctuous con man Bruno Antony (Robert Walker). After striking up a conversation, it’s revealed that Guy wants to break up with his unfaithful wife and Bruno simply wants his well-to-do father in the ground. Bruno devises a plan; they kill the other person’s tormentor, thus providing a hard to identify, motive-less crime for each of them. While Guy laughs it off, Bruno actually does eliminate Guy’s wife, putting Guy in quite the bind to deliver the cardinal sin goods in meeting his end of the deal — but that’s just the jumping off point for the lethal frivolity. This cleverly devised, deviously fun film has inspired a ton of movies and shows, most notably the biting dark comedy Throw Momma From the Train. Hitchcock subverted the standard mystery format with this movie, as he let the audience in on the identity of the killer right out the gate, thus shifting the tension to the “how” rather than the “who.” It’s a dastardly fun romp all around, forever cementing the term “criss-cross” into the vocabulary of cinema.
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 'Wild Things' (1998)
The aptly named title lets you know just what you’re in for with this steamy, thoroughly fun thriller. Wealthy towns are always great settings for juicy scandals, and that’s exactly what director John McNaughton banked on with Wild Things. A cast of complex and highly compelling characters really bring this bizarre love/scam triangle to life. Nothing is what it seems in this terrifically twisty, persistently percolating and pulsating movie, and that’s all part of the thoughtfully engineered fun.
Handsome guidance counselor Sam Lombardo (Matt Dillon) appears to be very close with his students. Too close, some suspect. When rich girl Kelly Van Ryan (Denise Richards) accuses Sam of some highly inappropriate behavior, and then Suzie Toller (Neve Campbell), another student — this one from the wrong side of the tracks — makes a similar claim, Sam is in real hot water. Determined detective Ray Duquette (Kevin Bacon) is on the case, and ready to secure the evidence needed to toss Sam in jail and throw away the key. Yet, as the story oozes out (coaxed by the Floridian heat), the audience learns that the scandalous allegations were all part of a long con enacted by the lead characters. It’s hot, it’s mind-rattling, it’s all in good (morally depraved) fun.
3 'Run Lola Run' (1998)
What’s more fun than running like a lunatic through the streets of Berlin? How about doing that in three separate timelines? Writer-director Tom Tykwer’s luminescent and iridescent innovative thriller, the heart-racing Run Lola Run, packs as much adrenaline-releasing, high-octane fun as possible into its 80-minute run-time.
Lola (Franka Potente) is just your ordinary, fire engine-red-dyed-haired girl living life in Europe’s most fabulously frenetic city. When her boyfriend, the low-level drug pusher Manni (Moritz Bleibtreu) loses a bag of purloined Deutschmarks on the “U-bahn” (that’s German for Berlin’s most rickety subway line), Lola’s got twenty minutes to somehow come up with the loot in order to save the blundering Manni’s life. She dashes to and fro, avoiding calamities at nearly every turn. This alone is a dynamite premise that provides huge amounts of cinematic flare and fun. Things really kick up a notch when Lola is seemingly provided with two other chances at securing the cash, in two separate segments where she makes different decisions in the same limited timeframe. Everything about this punk rock movie is a blast, bestowing upon the viewing public ample opportunities to shriek “Ich lieben Lola!”
2 'Memento' (2000)
Essentially, having no short-term memory doesn’t sound like a ton of fun, but watching the way Guy Pearce circumnavigates this quandary (with tattooed notes, for example) is a real delight to behold. The high-tension-wire mystery-thriller that is Christopher Nolan’s early, insanely inventive Memento, is a masterclass in teasing just the right amount of info for the viewer, spinning things in a totally new direction, and then leaving the audience head-spun — in the most pleasantly confounding way possible.
Leonard (Pearce) is a dude with anterior retrograde amnesia, a condition ostensibly caused by a robbery attempt gone wrong that also left him with a deceased wife. So, Lenny has a one-track mind now; his raison d’être is to find his wife’s killer and end him. He employs a variety of ingenious tricks to retain new memories (the body ink) and read people who could be taking advantage of his condition. The film is pretty much told through his exclusive perspective, as things repeatedly revert to previous moments where Len has lost the memory. It’s a very amusing and brain-stimulating way to tell a tale. With the blisteringly savage femme fatale Natalie (the striking Carrie-Anne Moss) and the beguiling yet duplicitous Teddy (the always amusing Joe Pantoliano) in the mix, this movie is almost too fun for its own good. If anything, it’s unforgettable…
1 'The Usual Suspects' (1995)
Is there anything more fun than having your mind completely blown to smithereens? Some may argue that a roller-coaster ride or a bungee jump is peak fun, but for the thriller film fanatic, watching an intriguing story come to a close with a jaw-dropping finale is as fun as it gets. Welcome to Bryan Singer’s action-mystery-thriller, The Usual Suspects. As a cinematic work of art, this film really encapsulates everything that makes a movie outstanding and memorable (from dark humor to wild boat-blowing-up sequences, to ingenious plot construction — both by the writer, Christopher McQuarrie, and the characters). As a vessel of pure, brain-exploding fun, it’s not the usual by any means.
Who exactly is Keyser Söze? That’s the driving question behind many of the main characters’ psyches; their true motivation, more so than even the promise of copious cash. They need to figure this out, not just for their personal safety and well-being, but for their own piece of mind. The story is framed by an interrogation scene, where the detective Dave Kujan (the delightful scenery chewer Chazz Palminteri) pokes and prods Verbal (peak Kevin Spacey, in his heyday) into coughing up information about the attempted boat heist that he and his criminal cohorts (unsuccessfully) tried to execute. The fun quotient is ramped up here by the other members of the heist squad, with Benicio Del Toro as the mumbling Fenster, Stephen Baldwin as the wild man McManus, and Kevin Pollak as the snark master Hockney, all really standing out. No spoiling here, but if you don’t know how this one turns out by now, you’ve done an amazing job of shielding yourself from one of the best endings in film history — and, undeniably, one of the most fun ones, too.
The Usual Suspects
- Release Date
- July 19, 1995
- Runtime
- 106 minutes
- Director
- Bryan Singer
- Writers
- Christopher McQuarrie
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