The Best Thriller Movies of 2025

Companion took the idea of loneliness and gave it a face—a terrifying and beautiful face.

Jack Quaid plays a lonely man who purchases a robot companion, played by the incomparable Sophie Thatcher. Madness ensues, as it always does when we try to blur the lines between technology and humanity.

Caught Stealing felt like one of those movies you’d see in the 90s without knowing anything about it, and then it totally rewards you for taking the chance.

It was fun, sexy, thrilling, and funny in all the right ways. Caught Stealing reminds us that thrillers don’t have to take themselves so seriously.

Austin Butler and Zoe Kravitz carry a star-studded cast in this genre-bending thriller.

Eddington, on the other hand, felt like a punishment that we deserved.

It featured incredible performances, unforgettable dialogue, and brilliant set pieces that all amounted to a slow-build thriller that we’ll be talking about for a while.

Pedro Pascal squaring off against Joaquin Phoenix in a battle of wills over how to handle the COVID-19 pandemic in a small New Mexico town might not sound very thrilling, but buckle up. It’ll have you on the edge of your seat.

Not as many people saw Dangerous Animals as did the other movies on this list, but it was such a taut, spine-tingling thriller that it will probably gain a cult following in years to come.

This is Jai Courtney’s best performance of his career as he taps into some dark and twisted part of his psyche. He plays a boat tour guide who gets his kicks by feeding tourists to sharks and filming it to watch later.

If that doesn’t get your heart racing, nothing will.

The 2020’s might eventually be renamed the Margaret Qualley decade. Her role as private investigator Honey in Honey Don’t was a brilliant take on the detective stories we all love.

The thrilling conclusion will stick with you.

Qualley is joined by Hollywood darling Aubrey Plaza, and the two put on a heavyweight bout for the ages.

When thrillers can find new gimmicks that give their stories some novelty and then weave a compelling plot with real stakes and characters you care about, it’s powerful stuff.

In the case of Relay, they do just that.

Riz Ahmed plays a fixer who uses a relay service, designed to help the hearing impaired make phone calls, to cover his tracks when communicating with clients. Ahmed’s character is your typical risk averse rule-following criminal, until a special case comes along and he makes an exception.

As is always the case when characters like this bend the rules, things go sideways fast, and then it’s a mad dash to the finish.

28 Years Later was a much different type of thriller than 28 Days Later, and frankly, that was a smart decision.

Where Days was fast, loud, and in your face, Years was tired, beat down, and methodical, in the best way possible. When the action kicked off, it packed an even bigger punch because the film really put us in the lives of the survivors.

It was rendered even more exciting by the fact that we're getting the next one in only a few short weeks.

Black Bag was a smart, sexy, and cool spy thriller that gave fans of the genre everything they wanted and more: Fashion, dinner parties, romance, workplace drama, family drama, and everything else you could want.

Michael Fassbender and Cate Blanchett were perfect, as was their surrounding cast.

In most years, this might’ve been the best thriller of the year.

Black Bag is a movie you can watch over and over again and still find new things to love about it.

Speaking of movies that would’ve been the best in almost any other year, One Battle After Another was a classic case.

Paul Thomas Anderson took a big swing and departed from his norm to amazing results. There’s a better than zero chance One Battle takes home the best picture award in March.

It’s messy and chaotic, but it’s also relentless. The march towards doom is what makes it such an exciting watch.

Leonardo di Caprio and Sean Penn give Oscar-worthy performances, but it is Chase Infiniti who is the star of this film. She proves to be a revelation.

Sinners is not just this year’s best thriller, it’s this year’s best movie. It is everything a horror thriller should be, plus so many things that we didn’t know they could be.

It looks great, it flows smoothly, the performances are fantastic, and the writing is masterful. There’s a great chance Michael B. Jordan, Delroy Lindo, and/or Miles Caton get acting nominations.

This year was an incredible year in film overall, but it was a special treat for those of us who love to be thrilled.

The thrillers were as varied in their sub genres and overall vibes as they were deep.

Whether you love a good action comedy or you preferred to be scared half to death, there was a thriller or two for everyone this year.