Thrillers are abundant on Netflix, but that doesn’t mean the streamer always has something new to show off for its subscribers. August is an unusually quiet month on that front, since only the 1997 Harrison Ford and Brad Pitt film The Devil’s Own and a more recent thriller, Arkansas, are worthwhile additions to this list. There are some other new films that are thrillers in name only, but those are better off ignored.
Thankfully, our roundup of the best thrillers on Netflix has plenty of older flicks that you can look in on throughout the month. Netflix has made quite a few original thrillers of its own, which is a good thing when the pipeline from other studios doesn’t offer anything comparable. We’ll just have to wait until September to see if some better options come along in this category.
We’ve also rounded up the best thrillers on Amazon Prime Video and the best thrillers on Hulu if Netflix doesn’t have what you’re looking for.
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The Devil's Own1997 -
Arkansas2020
The Devil's Own (1997)
53%
6.2/10The Devil’s Own featured a young Brad Pitt (Wolfs) as Frankie McGuire, an IRA operative who has come to America to buy stinger missiles. In order to protect his cover, Frankie pretends that he’s an Irish immigrant who needs a place to stay. NYPD Sergeant Tom O’Meara (Harrison Ford) and his family generously take Frankie in.
Over time, Frankie and Tom bond even though the former is keeping deadly secrets from the latter. Frankie has picked a very volatile place to hide, and his sins will catch up to him before he’s ready to confront Tom with the truth.
Arkansas (2020)
55%
6.0/10Clark Duke co-wrote, directed, and co-stars in Arkansas as Swin Horn, a low-level drug smuggler who is working with Kyle Ribb (Liam Hemsworth) for Frog (Vince Vaughn), a man they’ve never met. When their first assignment together gets a loyal operative, Bright (John Malkovich), killed, Swin and Kyle decide to cover up his fate to escape the blame.
The perspective changes a few times in this story, and the characters will keep you on your toes as they reveal who they really are. Kyle and Swin don’t realize how much trouble they’re in, but they’re going to find out quickly.
Vanished into the Night (2024)
5.2/10Vanished Into the Night is an Italian thriller about a couple on the outs with each other. Pietro (Riccardo Scamarcio) and Elena (Annabelle Wallis), who are facing the impending end of their marriage, share two children, Giovanni (Lorenzo Ferrante) and Bianca (Gaia Coletti), whom they adore.
Although Pietro is trying to turn his life around, his shady past comes back to haunt him when his children are kidnapped and held for ransom. To get his kids back, Pietro has to turn to another morally questionable guy, Nico (Massimiliano Gallo). And Nico is all too eager to help … if Pietro handles a dangerous delivery for him.
American Psycho (2000)
64%
7.6/10One of the ironic things about American Psycho is that Christian Bale’s Patrick Bateman absolutely hates Jared Leto’s Paul Allen. So a future Batman actor went up against a future Joker actor with their roles reversed. In this film, Bale is the one who plays a psychotic killer, while Leto’s character is Patrick’s clueless and affluent co-worker.
Once Paul goes to that big Arkham Asylum in the sky, Patrick’s killer hobby starts drawing the attention of private investigator Donald Kimbal (Nosferatu‘s Willem Dafoe). Patrick could keep the heat off of himself if he could stop murdering people and just enjoy the wealth and life of privilege that he has. But Patrick can’t stop, because this is his calling.
Captain Phillips (2013)
83%
7.8/10Tom Hanks has a history of playing real-life people in extraordinary circumstances, as he does once again in Captain Phillips. Hanks portrays the title character, Richard Phillips, the captain of a cargo ship called the MV Maersk Alabama. In 2009, off the coast of Africa, the Alabama is attacked by pirates.
Phillips’ first officer, Shane Murphy (Michael Chernus), is able to protect himself and the rest of the crew by locking themselves in the engine room. But that leaves Phillips alone to face the pirates, including their leader, Abduwali Muse (Barkhad Abdi). And they won’t let Phillips go without ransoming his life.
Patriots Day (2016)
69%
7.3/10The Boston Marathon bombing took place just over a decade ago, and the events surrounding that attack and the subsequent investigation are dramatized in Patriots Day. The main character, Sergeant Tommy Saunders (Mark Wahlberg), isn’t real because there wasn’t one person involved with so many aspects of the case. If you’re looking for a history lesson, this isn’t it.
What Patriots Day does have to offer is an increasingly intense manhunt for the two bombers, Dzhokhar (Alex Wolff) and Tamerlan Tsarnaev (Themo Melikidze). And as law enforcement officials get closer to the suspects, the Tsarnaev brothers prove to be more erratic and dangerous than expected.
A Simple Favor (2018)
67%
6.8/10Anna Kendrick stars in A Simple Favor as Stephanie Smothers, a single mother who befriends the glamorous Emily Nelson (Blake Lively). Since Emily’s son, Nicky (Ian Ho), is friends with Stephanie’s son, Stephanie agrees to look after him while Emily is in Miami.
When Emily goes missing and is feared dead, Stephanie is forced to wonder what happened to her friend. She also starts an affair with Stephanie’s husband, Sean Townsend (Henry Golding). But there’s more to this murder than meets the eye, and Emily’s secrets will come back to haunt both Stephanie and Sean.
Wild Things (1998)
59%
6.6/10Wild Things is an ol- school erotic thriller starring Neve Campbell and Denise Richards as high school students Suzie Toller and Kelly Lanier Van Ryan, respectively. Suzie and Kelly have accused their teacher, Sam Lombardo (Matt Dillon), of sexually assaulting them. But in court, their accusations fall apart.
Sergeant Ray Duquette (Kevin Bacon) goes against orders to continue his investigation into Sam and the two girls. As the scrutiny of the case grows, bodies start piling up. And the last person standing may walk away with a lot of money.
Miller's Girl (2024)
41%
5.2/10The majority of the online discourse around Miller’s Girl centers on the large age gap between Martin Freeman and Wednesday’s Jenna Ortega, and the power imbalance of their respective characters, Jonathan Albert Miller and Cairo Sweet. And that’s kind of the point of the whole film.
Jonathan knows that Cairo is much too young for him, and so does she. Cairo is Jonathan’s student, and pursuing anything romantic with her would be career suicide. However, Cairo just can’t resist pushing Jonathan’s buttons to provoke a response. When Jonathan doesn’t give her the answer she hoped for, Cairo’s revenge may burn his entire life to ashes.
Shot Caller (2017)
59%
7.3/10Former Game of Thrones star Nikolaj Coster-Waldau has multiple thrillers on Netflix, but Shot Caller is the best one. Coster-Waldau plays Jacob Harlan, an ordinary stockbroker who accidentally got one of his friends killed while driving under the influence. Even a plea deal means Jacob has to go to prison. In order to survive behind bars, Jacob allows himself to become a hardened killer even though it adds years to his sentence.
When Jacob is finally released, he attempts to keep his distance from his wife, Kate Harlan (Lake Bell), and their son. But when Jacob’s criminal associates demand that he continue to work for them outside of prison, he’ll have to take matters into his own hands to protect his family.
Dark Waters (2019)
73%
7.6/10Dark Waters is a legal thriller with a cast to die for, including Mark Ruffalo, Anne Hathaway, Tim Robbins, Bill Pullman, Victor Garber, and William Jackson Harper. It’s also based on the true story of Robert Bilott (Ruffalo), a lawyer who is hired by farmer Wilbur Tennant (Bill Camp) to discover why his animals are dying of unusual causes.
Bilott’s investigation leads back to DuPont, the chemical manufacturer that is also one of the largest employers in Parkersburg, West Virginia. Bilott realizes that DuPont is dumping unregulated chemicals that may be making the town sick. But proving that case in court is going to be difficult, and DuPont pushes back every step of the way.
The Little Things (2021)
54%
6.4/10The Little Things is a more modern Denzel Washington thriller, and he brings his usual intensity to the part of Joe “Deke” Deacon. Years ago, Deacon was a LAPD homicide detective who couldn’t break the case of a serial killer in Los Angeles. Deacon’s inability to let that go proved to be very costly both personally and professionally.
In the present, the killer apparently begins going after new victims. This time, Deacon meets Detective Jim Baxter (Rami Malek), a man whose drive to close this case may be as deep as Deacon’s. Former Joker Jared Leto co-stars as Albert Sparma, the man who Deacon and Baxter are convinced is behind the murders. Sparma even loves taunting them about whether he’s the killer, and there’s very little they can do within the law to stop him from killing again. But their mutual urge to take the law in their hands may come back to haunt them both.
Your Lucky Day (2023)
64%
5.8/10It’s the American dream to get rich without really trying. But the thriller Your Lucky Day is going to make Sterling (Angus Cloud) work for it. After hearing someone discover that he’s got a winning lottery ticket worth millions, Sterling kills the owner of the ticket and a cop who was at the scene. The big problem is that there are witnesses to Sterling’s crime: Amir (Mousa Hussein Kraish), Abraham (Elliot Knight), and his girlfriend, Ana-Marlene (Jessica Garza).
Sterling offers the survivors a share of his winnings if they help him cover up his murders. Unfortunately, it was never going to be that simple, and the money on the line is simply too enticing. There’s going to be more blood spilled before this story is over, but who will emerge with the lucky ticket?
Unthinkable (2010)
7.0/10Unthinkable puts FBI Special Agent Helen Brody (Carrie-Anne Moss) in a very tough situation. A former Delta Force operator, Yusuf Atta Mohammed (Michael Sheen), has planted three nuclear devices around the country and is demanding that the U.S. completely pull out of the Middle East. Desperate times call for desperate measures, so H (Secret Invasion star Samuel L. Jackson) is summoned to employ some enhanced interrogation techniques on Yusuf.
H wastes no time moving right along to torture, which Yusuf anticipated. Although Brody is horrified by H’s actions, the clock is ticking to save lives and even H may not be brutal enough to make Yusuf break in time.
Oldboy (2003)
78%
8.4/10There is an American remake of Oldboy by Spike Lee, but the South Korean original is the one that deserves all of the attention. Park Chan-wook directed and co-wrote this manga adaption, which follows the story of Oh Dae-su (Choi Min-sik), a businessman who is arrested for being drunk in public. But Dae-su’s problems really begin after being released by the cops when he is kidnapped and imprisoned in a sealed hotel room.
Dae-su soon learns that his wife has been murdered, and the police think he killed her. This also means that their four-year-old daughter will grow up without him. For the next 15 years, Dae-su remains trapped by his captors until he is mysteriously released. Now, Dae-su has to discover who did this to him and why. One of the best thrillers with a twist ever, Old Boy is just as shocking and enthralling as it was 20 years ago.
Leave the World Behind (2023)
70%
6.7/10Amanda Sandford (Julia Roberts) and her husband, Clay (Ethan Hawke), just wanted to take a vacation in Leave the World Behind. But their kids, Rose (Farrah Mackenzie)and Archie (Charlie Evans) were the first to notice that their smartphones can’t connect to the internet.
The vacation continues uninterrupted until G.H. Scott (Mahershala Ali) and his daughter, Ruth (Myha’la), show up at the rental house and claim that it’s theirs. From there, things start to get super weird, and both families are left to question what happened to the rest of the world while they were in the woods and whether they can trust each other.
The Killer (2023)
73%
6.8/10Michael Fassbender’s unnamed assassin talks to the audience throughout The Killer, and he tells viewers all about his life except who he is. Perhaps he truly has no identity outside of meticulously planning and long stretches of waiting for his opportunity to kill. Yet before our eyes, the Killer botches a hit and kills the wrong person.
If the Killer thought he could slink away without consequences then he’s sadly mistaken. For his failure, the Killer’s lawyer, Hodges (Charles Parnell), has him marked for death. Two other assassins, The Expert (Tilda Swinton) and The Brute (Sala Baker), are sent to hunt down the Killer…if the Killer doesn’t hunt them down first.
Locked In (2023)
5.1/10Locked In apparently starts in the aftermath of an attempted murder, and only gets more twisted from there. Someone tried to kill Katherine (Famke Janssen), and they must have come pretty close to succeeding because she’s become trapped in her own body and left unable to move or properly communicate, with the exception of her eyes.
Suspicion immediately falls on Lina (Rose Williams), a young woman who is both Katherine’s adoptive daughter and her daughter-in-law. Nurse Mackenzie (Anna Friel) is determined to get to the bottom of this mystery, but she may be kicking the proverbial hornet’s nest by asking questions that shouldn’t be asked.
Fair Play (2023)
74%
6.8/10Netflix’s new thriller, Fair Play, follows a couple, Luke (Alden Ehrenreich) and Emily (Phoebe Dynevor), when their relationship is challenged by their mutual ambition. The pair keep their romance a secret from their co-workers at One Crest Capital. That only works for them until a promotion comes up, and Emily gets the job instead of Luke.
Although Luke initially takes the news well, he soon becomes obsessed with the idea that Emily’s success came at his own expense. This puts a lot of intense pressure on their relationship, especially when Emily discovers that Luke may be fired. And if Emily isn’t careful, she may lose more than just her romance.
Reptile (2023)
52%
6.9/10The brutal murder of Summer Elswick (Matilda Lutz) is the beginning of the mystery in Reptile, a thriller starring Benicio del Toro as Detective Tom Nichols (del Toro), the man in charge of the murder investigation. Summer’s body was found by her boyfriend, Will Grady (Justin Timberlake), but there are suspicious details that may draw suspicion to all of the men in Summer’s life.
Nichols is able to share some of the details with his wife, Judy (Alicia Silverstone), who acts as a sounding board for him. Regardless, the unfolding case forces Nichols to more closely examine his own life as well. However, he may not like what he finds.
River Wild (2023)
5.4/10Nearly three decades ago, Meryl Streep and Kevin Bacon headlined a white-water thriller called The River Wild. And while River Wild isn’t quite a remake, it’s not really a sequel either. Leighton Meester stars as Joey, a woman who has trust issues with her brother, Gray (Taran Killam). Much to Joey’s chagrin, Gary invites one of their childhood friends, Trevor (Adam Brody), on a white-water trip with two other people.
When one of their party is attacked, Joey realizes that the only option to save them is by braving the waters to get help. But there may be a killer among the group, and Joey isn’t sure who she can trust.
Run Rabbit Run (2023)
51%
5.1/10Sarah Snook (Succession) headlines Run Rabbit Run, a thriller that takes some horrific turns. Sarah (Snook) is a single mother with a contentious relationship with her ex-husband, Peter (Damon Herriman). But Sarah’s real problem is with her daughter, Mia (Lily LaTorre). Inexplicably, Mia has taken on a new persona and declared that she is someone named Alice.
While Sarah doesn’t believe her daughter at first, the evidence mounts that Mia’s behavior somehow is tied to a dark episode in Sarah’s past. Something unnatural is happening with Mia, and Sarah may pay the price for keeping her secrets for so many years.
God's Crooked Lines (2022)
7.0/10You might want to watch God’s Crooked Lines with subtitles, otherwise, you may miss some critical details in this Spanish thriller. Bárbara Lennie stars as Alice Gould, a woman who has herself institutionalized by her husband, Heliodoro (David Selvas), in the late ‘70s and she finds herself under the care of Doctor Teodoro Ruipérez (Federico Aguado). However, Alice has her own hidden agenda as she tries to solve a murder while feigning mental illness.
Some of the creeps that Alice encounters, including the Gnome (Luis Sacristán), the Elephant Man (Francisco Javier Pastor), and the twins Romulo and Remo (both played by Samuel Soler). The scary part is that the staff at the institute pick apart Alice’s story and raise questions about whether she is an investigator or if she is simply paranoid and delusional.
Missing (2023)
66%
7.1/10Could you solve a mystery from the safety of your computer? That’s the challenge facing Grace Allen (Storm Reid) in Missing when her mother, Grace Allen (Nia Long), and her new boyfriend, Kevin (Ken Leung), disappear during their vacation to Columbia. While scrambling for answers, Grace finds evidence that Kevin may have hidden some suspicious details about his past.
With Grace stuck in the U.S., she has to turn to a man named Javier (Joaquim de Almeida) to act as her proxy in Columbia. But there’s only so much Grace can do before she has to head into danger herself.
The Pale Blue Eye (2022)
56%
6.6/10Given its extremely short stay in theaters in late 2022, you probably missed seeing The Pale Blue Eye when it was on the big screen. But the cast is too good for this movie to simply disappear among the other streaming thrillers. Christian Bale headlines the film as Augustus Landor, a former detective who has fallen on hard times following the death of his wife.
When Leroy Fry (Steven Maier), a cadet at West Point, is found ritualistically murdered, Landor is coaxed out of retirement to solve the mystery. But Landor can’t do it alone, which is why he turns to one of Fry’s classmates to act as his partner on the case: Cadet Edgar Allan Poe (Harry Melling).
The Snowman (2017)
23%
5.1/10It’s very appropriate that Michael Fassbender’s character in The Snowman is a detective named Harry Hole, because his life is in a deep hole when the story opens. Harry has broken up with the woman he loves, Rakel Fauke (Charlotte Gainsbourg), while struggling with his sobriety. Unfortunately for Harry, a serial killer has already started sending him enigmatic messages.
Harry’s new partner, Katrine Bratt (Silo‘s Rebecca Ferguson), is convinced that the killer is somehow linked to a case that was once investigated by Gert Rafto (Val Kilmer), an alcoholic former detective who was very much like Harry himself. But as the mystery intensifies, Harry realizes that Katrine has a personal connection that fuels her obsession with the case.
47 Meters Down: Uncaged (2019)
A sequel to 47 Meters Down (2017), 47 Meters Down: Uncaged brings a whole new cast of characters to the mix, but keeps the threat of shark bite death alive. When four teenagers dive down to the remains of a sunken Mayan city, what begins as a life-changing discovery quickly becomes a harrowing fight for survival when the group discovers that the ancient place is a magnet for man-eating sharks.
While not straying too far from classic “shark movie” tropes, Uncaged instead ups the ante in the shocks department, delivering plenty of bone-chilling sequences that will have us all thinking twice about taking a plunge into any body of water.
All Quiet on the Western Front (2022)
I Came By (2022)
Circle (2015)
The Good Nurse (2022)
Adapted from the true-crime novel of the same name, The Good Nurse stars Jessica Chastain as Amy Loughren, a single mother and ICU nurse. When a series of untimely patient deaths start cropping up around the hospital, Amy begins to suspect that new hire Charles Cullen (Eddie Redmayne) is the man responsible. Both Chastain and Redmayne are the kind of talents we expect greatness from, and truly, both actors go out of their way to foster a sort of surreal pathos for their characters, especially the latter. It’s a solid thriller and a tragic and haunting reminder that we don’t have to dig into fiction to tell some of the most grueling stories imaginable.
Lou (2022)
If you’re in the mood for something a little more on the action-heavy side, director Anna Foerster’s Lou will likely satiate. It stars Allison Janney as the titular protagonist, a reclusive woman living on Orcas Island, Washington. When a wicked storm threatens the Pacific Northwest, a single mother named Hannah (Jurnee Smollet) begs Lou for help when her young daughter is kidnapped by a vicious ex-pat (Logan Marshall-Green). But as the two women set off on their rescue mission, Hannah soon learns that there’s far more to Lou than meets the eye. A grim gut-punch of an action-thriller, Lou is a big win for the genre.
The Stranger (2022)
74%
6.6/10Inheritance (2020)
31%
5.5/10A Walk Among the Tombstones (2014)
57%
6.5/10Munich: The Edge of War (2022)
53%
6.8/10The Platform (2019)
73%
7/10Have you ever seen or heard of famed French-Canadian Denis Villeneuve’s short film Next Floor? If not, here’s a quick summary: A baroquely-costumed set of aristocrats gorge on a handsome feast, with their increasingly accrued weight plummeting them (and their table, chairs, and food) through the floor, where they resume said gorging. Galder Gaztelu-Urrutia’s The Platform plays with some of the same narrative bits, albeit in the form of a more realized social commentary.
The story follows the imprisoned residents of a Vertical Self-Management Center, a dystopian vessel that delivers food to its captives by way of an elevator system. In order of randomized hierarchy, those at the top get the most food, while those at the bottom get the scraps. Inevitably, this leads to an uprising of horrific proportions. The Platform is a satirical production that grapples with Darwinism in some bizarre and all-consuming ways. One thing is for sure: It’s a flick you don’t want to miss.
Spiderhead (2022)
54%
5.4/10Triple Frontier (2019)
61%
6.4/10Lost Bullet (2020)
78%
6.3/10The Devil All the Time (2020)
55%
7.1/10Windfall (2022)
52%
5.7/10The Weekend Away (2022)
51%
5.6/10Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile (2019)
52%
NaN/10Fever Dream (2021)
75%
5.4/10Extraction (2020)
56%
6.7/10The Ice Road (2021)
42%
5.6/10Forgotten (2017)
7.4/10Coming Home in the Dark (2021)
64%Sentinelle (2021)
4.7/10Army of Thieves (2021)
49%
6.4/10The Guilty (2021)
63%
6.3/10In the Shadow of the Moon (2019)
48%
6.2/10Creep (2014)
74%
6.4/10Gunpowder Milkshake (2021)
47%
6.0/10The Vault (2021)
50%
6.4/10Hold the Dark (2018)
63%
5.6/10The Call (2020)
7.1/10Red Dot (2021)
Velvet Buzzsaw (2019)
61%
5.7/10Calibre (2018)
El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie (2019)
72%
7.3/10
