This article is updated frequently as titles leave and enter HBO and HBO Max. *New additions are indicated with an asterisk.
Everyone loves a good thriller. We love to turn off the world and give ourselves over to a filmmaker who knows exactly where to take us next. Whether we’re predicting an upcoming twist or just going along for the ride, there’s something about a great thriller that almost feels interactive. And HBO Max has become one of the best homes for thrillers, including exclusive, original productions from one of the modern kings of the genre, Steven Soderbergh. His work, along with that of a ton of others, made the list below. Have some fun with one of them tonight.
The 39 Steps
Year: 1935
Runtime: 1h 27m
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Oscar nominee Ramin Bahrani recently called Hitchcock’s 1935 classic “the origin.†Watching it now, you can see not only how it would shape so many future Hitch works but the many thrillers who tried to copy his formula. Robert Donat plays a man who gets caught up in an espionage caper when a strange woman ends up dead in his apartment, and he’s the main suspect.
American Psycho
Year: 2000
Runtime: 1h 44m
Director: Mary Harron
Mary Harron’s adaptation of the Bret Easton Ellis novel was instantly controversial but instantly iconic. Christian Bale stepped into the role of the serial killer that had caused an uproar in the literary world and redefined the way we see psychopaths in cinema. His performance has been mimicked so many times just in the two decades since Harron’s unforgettable film was released.
Blood Simple
Year: 1984
Runtime: 1h 39m
Directors: Joel and Ethan Coen
Two brothers began one of the most important film careers of the modern era with the grisly 1984 noir starring Dan Hedaya and Frances McDormand. See where Joel and Ethan Coen got their start in a clever riff on noir tropes like double crosses and femme fatales but with their dark sense of humor and understanding of human nature. It’s one of the most impressive debuts of the ‘80s.
Breakdown
Year: 1997
Runtime: 1h 33m
Director: Jonathan Mostow
If you’re looking for a good, underrated thriller, look no further than the 1997 thriller about a road trip gone horribly awry. Jonathan Mostow directs the always-great Kurt Russell as a man who has some words with a truck driver and learns that road rage is never the answer. A mix of modern fears with a noir sensibility, Breakdown is a tight, effective little movie, one that doesn’t really make it to theaters all that often anymore.
Bug
Year: 2006
Runtime: 1h 42m
Director: William Friedkin
William Friedkin (The Exorcist) adapted the play of the same name by Tracy Letts and delivered one of the most unsettling projects of his career. Ashley Judd stars as a woman who becomes attached to a soldier (Michael Shannon) and spirals into damaging paranoia with him. Both actors are phenomenal and fearless in a film that will get under your skin.
Chinatown
Year: 1974
Runtime: 2h 11m
Director: Roman Polanski
Forget it Jake, it’s Chinatown. One of the best movies of the ‘70s, this Best Picture nominee (and Best Screenplay winner) tells the story of Jake Gittes, played unforgettably by Jack Nicholson, as he investigates an adulterer and finds something much more insidious under the surface of Los Angeles. It’s a must-see, as important as almost any film from its era.
Diabolique
Year: 1955
Runtime: 1h 57m
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Alfred Hitchcock reportedly made Psycho because he wanted to make a movie that scared him as much as Diabolique. Don’t you owe it to yourself to see a movie that can boast that trivia? The final act of Diabolique is a beauty, anchored by a wonderful horror movie twist that no one saw coming when it was released but has been copied dozens of times since, even by the masters of the form.
Fatal Attraction
Year: 1987
Runtime: 1h 59m
Director: Adrian Lyne
Adrian Lyne’s thriller was more than just a movie, it was a cultural phenomenon. The story of a woman who basically stalks and terrorizes her weekend affair became a cautionary tale for an era dealing with changing views on sexuality and infidelity. Michael Douglas and Glenn Close were perfectly cast in a movie that doesn’t exactly hold up today in terms of its gender politics, but does serve as a fascinating snapshot of where these issues were in the mid-‘80s. And Close is phenomenal here.
The Firm
Year: 1993
Runtime: 2h 34m
Director: Sydney Pollack
Sydney Pollack directed an adaptation of the hit 1991 novel by John Grisham and delivered one of the most beloved legal dramas of all time. Tom Cruise plays Mitch McDeere, a Harvard Law School grad who gets offered a job at an exclusive law firm, discovering the toxic culture of evil that it not only protects but engages in. The Firm has held up much better than most mid-‘90s blockbusters, in part because of the way it confronts a corruption that has only flourished in the time since its release.
Inside Man
Year: 2006
Runtime: 2h 9m
Director: Spike Lee
Yes, Spike Lee once made a great action movie. The director of Do the Right Thing and Da 5 Bloods put his spin on the heist film with the great 2006 Denzel Washington vehicle. The regular collaborator plays an NYPD hostage negotiator, called in when a bank heist goes down on Wall Street. Tight and effective, Inside Man is just further evidence that Spike Lee can nail any kind of movie he chooses to make.
Insomnia
Year: 2002
Runtime: 1h 58m
Director: Christopher Nolan
Before he made only blockbusters, Christopher Nolan directed an adaptation of the 1997 Norwegian film of the same name. Al Pacino stars as a Los Angeles police detective who investigates a murder in Alaska during a time of year when the sun doesn’t set. A cat-and-mouse mystery with a twisted killer, Insomnia is a stylish film featuring one of the best dramatic acting turns from the late, great Robin Williams.
Kimi
Year: 2022
Runtime: 1h 29m
Director: Steven Soderbergh
Steven Soderbergh quietly delivered another banger in early 2022 with an HBO Max original about an agoraphobic employee of a company like Alexa that offers virtual home assistance. Zoe Kravitz rocks as a woman who listens to errors on the service KIMI and thinks she may have heard a murder. With echoes of Blow Out, Rear Window, and Panic Room, this is a taut, fantastic thriller.
M
Year: 1931
Runtime: 1h 39m
Director: Fritz Lang
Fritz Lang’s masterpiece has lost none of its shocking power, influencing generations of thriller directors for nearly a century of moviemaking. Peter Lorre gives one of his most iconic performances as a serial killer targeting children in Lang’s first sound film, one that blends the director’s incredible sense of visual language and tension with heart-racing storytelling. In the ‘90s, a group of film journalists around the world voted it the best German film of all time.
The Maltese Falcon
Year: 1941
Runtime: 1h 41m
Director: John Huston
The classic adaptation of the Dashiell Hammett novel was actually the third attempt, but it’s the one everyone remembers. It’s John Huston’s directorial debut, tackling the tale of Sam Spade and Mary Astor with style. Of course, Humphrey Bogrt plays Spade, drawn into a competition to obtain a rare statue by a femme fatale played by Mary Astor. Here’s some good trivia about how important this movie is to film history: In 1989, the Library of Congress started selecting films for the National Film Registry. The Maltese Falcon was in the first wave of 25 films included.
Memento
Year: 2000
Runtime: 1h 53m
Director: Christopher Nolan
Christopher Nolan announced himself to the world with a Sundance thriller that really reshaped the indie and eventually the blockbuster landscape. Guy Pearce gives one of his best performances as a man with such severe memory loss that he has to use his body to remind himself of the details he needs to solve a mystery. It’s still so clever and riveting.
Mona Lisa
Year: 1986
Runtime: 1h 44m
Director: Neil Jordan
Bob Hoskins gave one of his best performances in the 1986 crime thriller from the great Neil Jordan. Hoskins plays an ex-convict who becomes attached to a call girl (Cathy Tyson) and gets dragged into her dangerous life. Michael Caine co-stars in a film that landed Hoskins his only Oscar nomination (and the actor won the Golden Globe and BAFTA for this genuinely phenomenal performance).
*Misery
Year: 1990
Runtime: 1h 47m
Director: Rob Reiner
Kathy Bates gave one of the most memorable horror performances of all time as Annie Wilkes, the #1 fan of a writer named Paul Sheldon (James Caan). When her favorite horror scribe gets into an accident near her home, Wilkes ends up kidnapping Sheldon, and the rest is movie history. Bates won a well-deserved Oscar for her work in a film that’s held up remarkably well.
No Country for Old Men
Year: 2007
Runtime: 2h 2m
Directors: Joel and Ethan Coen
Joel and Ethan Coen’s adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s crime novel is one of their best movies, and won them three Oscars — Directing, Writing, and Best Picture of arguably the best year of the ‘00s. If you haven’t seen it since 2007, you may be surprised at how well it’s held up. The exact same film could be released today and it would have the same cultural impact.
North by Northwest
Year: 1959
Runtime: 2h 16m
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Movies simply don’t get much better than Alfred Hitchcock’s thriller starring Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint, James Mason, and Martin Landau. Like so many Hitchcock classics, it’s a tale of mistaken identity, as Grant’s protagonist is chased across the country. The set pieces — like the infamous crop duster sequence — are well-known, but check out the complete picture, a perfectly paced and executed piece of refined filmmaking.
The Player
Year: 1992
Runtime: 2h 4m
Director: Robert Altman
After a rough patch in the ‘80s, Robert Altman came roaring back with a scathing Hollywood satire from the book by Michael Tolkin. Tim Robbins does his best film work as a studio executive who can’t decide if his biggest problem is at work or the writer sending him death threats. Altman’s skill with improvisational comedy and knowledge of the Hollywood machine blend to make a simply perfect movie, one of the best of the ‘90s.
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