The 10 Most Promising Thrillers to Be Released in 2025 

Anchored by two great performers, Eiza Gonzalez and Aaron Paul, Ash follows a woman on a space station far from Earth. She finds her crewmates killed violently and begins an investigation into what happened.

When Paul’s character shows up to help, Ash looks to promise us everything we love from a good old murder investigation with two detectives looking for clues.

This investigation is set on an unknown planet and features some of the most vibrant colors, terrifying visuals, and the thrilling element of the unknown. 

Alex Garland’s follow-up to 2024’s Civil War, Warfare gives us an account of co-director, Ray Mendoza’s experience in the Iraq war in the 2000’s.

Mendoza also served as Garland’s military advisor on Civil War. There are quite a few things that make this movie so exciting.

For starters, the cast is absolutely stacked with names like Joseph Quinn, fresh off his great performance in Gladiator II, Will Poulter, and Charles Melton.

The film follows Mendoza and his fellow soldiers and is based solely on their memories from this experience. We know Garland likes to take big swings.

Combined with Mendoza’s firsthand experiences in the war, Garland’s no-holds-barred approach can take a story like this and make it an incredible film.

Everybody loves an underdog. In James Hawes’s The Amateur, Rami Malek is exactly that. Malek plays a decoder in the CIA. He’s much more brains than brawn.

However, when a terrorist attack kills his wife and he’s not happy with the powers that be for their lack of investigation, he becomes much more than that.

The trailer for this film is electric. It hints at plenty of great action set pieces, plot twists, and witty dialogue. 

It contains all of the necessary ingredients for a great action/thriller.

Nine years ago, Ben Affleck’s turn as a neurodivergent forensic accountant with a psycho assassin for a brother took us all by storm. 

While the script for The Accountant was awesome, some striking visuals have stayed with me for almost a decade since.

With Affleck and Bernthal both reprising their roles as these two highly lethal brothers, The Accountant 2 promises to be one of the most exciting thrillers of the year.

The fact that Gavin O’Connor is returning and we’ve added Danielle Pineda is just icing on the cake.

For fans of The Raid: Redemption, Havoc is a must-see.

Even if you aren’t familiar with Gareth Evans’s classic action thriller, Havoc still promises to deliver a great experience to anyone who loves an action thriller.

Tom Hardy stars as a detective who must rescue a politician's son from a dark criminal underworld. If that sentence alone isn’t enough to make you order your tickets now, then the trailer surely will.

This is one Netflix original I’ll be setting a reminder for. 

On Christmas Day, we will be getting a movie that seems anything but joyful. Sydney Sweeney stars as a woman who is struggling in life.

She gets a fresh start when she begins working as a maid for a wealthy couple, played by Amanda Seyfried and Brandon Sklenar.

The rest of the details about this movie are pretty scarce, but what makes it so exciting is that Director Paul Feig, while mostly known for comedies (The Heat, Bridesmaids, Spy), is trying his hand at a thriller again.

His last foray outside of comedy (A Simple Favor) was really enjoyable. When comedians apply their skills to dark subject matter, the results can often be pretty twisted but also pretty fun.

In a year full of big horror releases, 2021’s The Black Phone was the best of the year. The sequel looks to be even crazier.

Ethan Hawke’s physicality and surprisingly menacing air as “The Grabber” have all the makings of an absolutely classic villain.

While the original was focused almost exclusively on the main character escaping the basement where The Grabber was holding him, I’m hoping we get to see more of The Grabber in part two.

Jason Statham beating up bad guys, performing insane stunts, and saving the day has proven to be a pretty successful formula for a fun thriller.

Those bad guys can be humans, sharks, or almost anything else. Some of these movies are better than others and A Working Man seems to be one of those films.

The reason for this is partly because action legend Sylvester Stallone co-wrote the script and partly because of the cast. 

How this franchise is so many movies in and still churning out hit after hit is beyond me. Mission: Impossible —Dead Reckoning Pt I was one of my favorite movies in the entire series.

The Final Reckoning is going to be one of the biggest films of the year.

Even though director Christopher McQuarrie and star Tom Cruise said this will not be the last Mission: Impossible film, the fact that they dropped the subtitle “Dead Reckoning Pt 2” and opted for “The Final Reckoning” makes it feel like it will be the last, at least for a while.

Even if it simply concludes a chapter of this story, the $400M budget combined with how much fun most of the films in this franchise are, especially the recent ones, this is bound to be one of the best action thrillers of the year.

Last but not least, eighteen years after 28 Weeks Later and twenty-three years after 28 Days Later, we are getting the thriller I’m most excited about this year. 

With a $75M budget and Danny Boyle returning to lead the film, 28 Years Later will give us a look at what the world is like nearly three decades after the vicious virus forever altered life on Earth.

Alex Garland is also back as a co-writer on the script for this film. Hopefully, this means Years will recapture the grit and darkness that made Days such a captivating and memorable movie experience.

They’ve also brought in some heavy hitters like Jodie Comer, Ralph Fiennes, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, and Jack O’Connell.

June 20th is already circled on my calendar!

Featured still from “Mission: Impossible- The Final Reckoning” via Paramount Pictures