The 15 Best Psychological Thrillers Of All Time, Ranked

There’s nothing movie audiences love more than poking around in a character’s brain, especially when said character is, well, not particularly well-adjusted. Since the birth of film, movies have been unpacking what makes people tick, using the psychological thriller genre — which often verges on horror — to delve into the inner workings of fascinating yet unsettling characters. Whether it’s a serial killer, an abusive husband, or an obsessive housekeeper, these cinematic figures give our protagonists plenty to be dealing with as they unleash chaos on all who surround them. 

Dark, twisted, and often disturbing, the psychological thriller keeps audiences on the edge of their seats and constantly wrongfooted, as they attempt to parse the complexity of what they’re seeing. This type of movie isn’t the best choice to have playing on in the background while you’re absentmindedly folding laundry or making dinner, but for the viewer who’s willing to give it their full attention, they’ll be amply rewarded. These are the best psychological thrillers the world of film has to offer.

The 1970s were full of movies dealing with the alienation of the young white Vietnam War veteran, but “Taxi Driver” is one of the most iconic and influential. Starring Robert De Niro as Travis Bickle, a New York City taxi driver who feels almost like a proto-incel in his self-inflicted isolation, its gritty violence and psychological musings struck a chord with audiences who found something to relate to in its anti-social lead character. The more he struggles with insomnia amidst endless night shifts, the more his mental health deteriorates — and his obsession with the 12-year-old prostitute Iris (Jodie Foster) grows. 

Although it was met with controversy upon its initial release, it’s now widely considered one of the best films of the 20th century, and De Niro’s “You Talkin’ to Me?” scene has fully entered the cultural zeitgeist. “Taxi Driver” was nominated for four Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Actor for Robert De Niro, and Best Supporting Actress for Jodie Foster.

There’s something unfathomably dark about Fritz Lang’s “M,” the story of a serial killer terrorizing Berlin by targeting its children. Some of this undoubtedly lies in the unhinged performance from Peter Lorre as Hans Beckert, but it’s also because of how artfully Lang builds tension and a growing sense of horror without showing much of anything. 

A young girl’s disappearance is marked, not by us actually seeing her picked up off the streets by Beckert and ultimately murdered, but by watching her anxious mother at home, as a montage of the household clock shows us exactly how late she is coming home from school. Beckert’s presence is frequently indicated by an ominous whistling of “In the Hall of the Mountain King,” which becomes a chilling harbinger of death within the film. 

Although “M” focuses on the unstable mental state of Beckert as the source of its drama, it’s also easy to read into the film a level of social criticism that casts an accusatory eye on the culture surrounding its characters — namely, a 1931 Germany where Nazism was quickly taking over.

How long can you eavesdrop on a conversation on the subway before you become emotionally invested? “The Lives of Others” takes this to the extreme, as loyal Stasi officer Gerd Wiesler (Ulrich Mühe) is tasked with monitoring the actions and private conversations of a prominent playwright (Sebastian Koch) to determine whether or not he’s expressing views that run counter to East German political talking points.

But the more Wiesler listens to his target, the more he sympathizes with him, understands him and his girlfriend as human beings, and, in a strange way, feels as though he’s a part of their lives, even though they’ve never met. Basically, this is voyeurism with a conscience. As Wiesler transitions from an observer to an active participant in their lives, things become more complicated, both emotionally and within the highly restrictive East German surveillance state. An understated yet deeply moving psychological drama, “The Lives of Others” won the Best Foreign Language Film Academy Award in 2007, and is one of the best movies to capture the complexities of the Cold War.

Directed by French New Wave filmmaker Claude Chabrol, “Le Boucher” (or “The Butcher,” as it’s known amongst anglophone audiences) is a spellbinding thriller about a teacher named Helene (Stéphane Audran, who was married to Chabrol at the time) trying to determine whether or not the man she’s been seeing, a local butcher named Popaul (Jean Yanne) is actually a murderer. 

Over the course of the film, Chabrol masterfully manages our own perceptions as well as Helene’s — every time she’s convinced of his guilt or innocence, something happens to completely flip everything she thinks she knows on its head. It’s notable for how thoroughly it wrong-foots us at every turn, making us wonder if he’s actually the murderer or if it’s all in Helene’s head. Achingly suspenseful and tightly written with a touch of melancholy, this is France’s answer to the thrillers of Alfred Hitchcock.

There aren’t many films with the honor of coining a term that becomes ubiquitous in popular culture, but “Gaslight” is certainly one of them. The 1944 drama stars Ingrid Bergman as Paula, a young woman who falls in love with the handsome and charming Gregory Anton (Charles Boyer) while studying in Italy. At first, he seems like a great catch, but after they get married, things begin to go amiss. 

Paula begins to notice things changing within their shared home, such as gaslights dimming of their own accord, although her husband is insistent that it’s all in her imagination. Is her mind playing tricks on her, or is her husband working overtime to manufacture scenarios that make her question her own perceptions of reality? (Spoiler: He’s obviously gaslighting her.) “Gaslight” was a major critical success, earning Oscar nominations for Best Picture, Best Writing, Best Actor (Charles Boyer), and Best Supporting Actress (Angela Lansbury, playing Paula’s maid in her on-screen debut).

In the early 1960s, when the Cold War was a hair trigger away from becoming a decidedly not-so-cold war, one of the biggest political fears was the idea of someone high up in the American establishment being turned by the Soviets, thereby destabilizing democracy. Enter the concept of “The Manchurian Candidate,” where Korean War vet Raymond Shaw (Laurence Harvey), scion of a prominent political family, is brainwashed by his captors during his time as a prisoner-of-war, turning him into a sleeper agent and the perfect assassin. It’s up to Captain Ben Marco (Frank Sinatra) to uncover the truth and deprogram his fellow soldier before he can be used against the United States. 

A taut political thriller complete with abstract, wildly unsettling dream sequences, “The Manchurian Candidate” is both a product of its time and strikingly modern in its cinematic techniques. It was nominated for two Academy Awards (one for Angela Lansbury’s disturbing supporting performance, and one for the film’s inventive editing style) and it was still relevant enough 40 years later to generate a 2004 remake starring Denzel Washington, Liev Schrieber, and Meryl Streep.

It’s hard to imagine anyone out there in the year of our lord 2025 who hasn’t had an anxiety attack, but just in case you haven’t and want to know what it feels like, it’s pretty similar to the experience of watching “Uncut Gems.” A relentlessly panic-inducing drama, “Uncut Gems” stars Adam Sandler as Howard Ratner, a jewelry store owner whose addiction to gambling draws him into some pretty dire circumstances. After getting in way over his head by purchasing an expensive black opal from an Ethiopian mine, Howard has to race against time to capitalize on his investment or risk not just financial ruin, but the very real possibility of winding up with a bullet in his brain. 

Sandler, in a far cry from his more comedic roles, puts in a wild-eyed, frenetic performance that only serves to raise the emotional stakes of the film, showcasing exactly how far he has gone in sabotaging his own life. Despite all this, “Uncut Gems” was locked out of the Academy Awards, with Sandler’s performance remaining one of the most egregious Oscar snubs in recent memory.

No film in recent years has effectively depicted the horrors of late-stage capitalism and the conflict it generates between the haves and the have-nots as Bong Joon-Ho’s “Parasite.” In it, the poor Kim family, surviving primarily on temporary gigs and low-level scams, finds an in with the wealthy Parks when their son Ki-woo (Choi Woo-shik) is hired as an English tutor for the Parks’ teenage daughter. 

Before long, the entire family has insinuated themselves into the lives of the Parks: The father (Song Kang-ho) as the family chauffeur, the mother (Jang Hye-jin) as the housekeeper, and the daughter (Park So-dam) as the Park son’s art therapist. Although they acquire these jobs by questionable means, we’re meant to ask ourselves which of these families is really the parasite in the relationship? Sometimes poignant, often funny, and occasionally downright terrifying, “Parasite” struck a powerful chord with international audiences, making it the first non-English language film to ever win Best Picture at the Academy Awards.

So sue us, we decided to include both versions of “Cape Fear” on this list. We’re not monsters, after all, and leaving one of them off just felt disrespectful. When it comes to the lead performance of the malevolent, wildly unstable Max Cady, Robert Mitchum and Robert De Niro are evenly matched in the violent energy they bring to the role. In both versions of “Cape Fear,” the recently released convict Max Cady seeks revenge against the public defender Sam Bowden (Gregory Peck in the 1962 version, Nick Nolte in the 1991 version), taunting him and his family and circling like a shark ever closer until he finally strikes. 

We’ve seen echoes of “Cape Fear” throughout pop culture — for millennials, perhaps most memorably in the character of Sideshow Bob on “The Simpsons” — and the disturbing slow burn tale of vengeance has captivated audiences for generations. The 1991 version earned Oscar nominations for De Niro and Juliette Lewis, who played the teenage daughter of Sam Bowden. But which one’s better? Honestly, you might as well flip a coin.

“The Silence of the Lambs” is one of those films that’s so omnipresent in our culture that even if you haven’t seen it, you feel at least somewhat familiar with its characters and premises. It stars Jodie Foster as Clarice Starling, an FBI agent who is sent to interview famed serial killer and cannibal Hannibal Lector, in the hopes that he will be able to shed some light on a recent string of murders courtesy of Buffalo Bill (Ted Levine). Lector is happy to help — after all, he’s behind bars, so what other demands on his time does he has? But it quickly becomes clear that he’s fascinated by Starling and relishes the opportunity to play a little cat-and-mouse with her, getting Starling to reveal details about her childhood in exchange for help with the case. 

With an eerie and penetrating performance from Anthony Hopkins, Hannibal Lecter has become one of the most recognizable villains in film history. Despite courting controversy, the success of “Silence of the Lambs” led it to become only the third film in history to win the Big Five at the Academy Awards: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress, and Best Screenplay. Lecter has continued to fascinate audiences, with spinoff films and TV series that include “Red Dragon,” “Hannibal” (the 2001 film), “Hannibal Rising,” “Clarice,” and “Hannibal” (the 2013 television show starring Hugh Dancy and Mads Mikkelsen).

There’s so much to parse through in “Se7en.” What are the motivations of John Doe (Kevin Spacey)? What’s in the box? Why isn’t the film title pronounced “Se-seven-en?” Much to ponder.

“Se7en” stars Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman as a pair of detectives investigating the gruesome murders of John Doe, all of which have been staged to mimic each of the seven deadly sins (greed, lust, wrath, gluttony, pride, envy, and sloth) that the killer saw their victims as embodying. (And when we say gruesome, we mean gruesome — director David Fincher goes hard in each of these sequences.) But as much as they’re chasing Doe, it steadily becomes apparent that he’s also watching them, and he’s perhaps leading them exactly where he wants them to go. With a slow burn that ends in an explosive finale burned into the memory of 1990s audiences, “Se7en” is a tantalizing thrill ride from start to finish. Like many of David Fincher’s films, it’s only grown in critical esteem and relevance in the years since its release.

Imagine you’re a quiet, middle-class girl who meets the man of her dreams while working as a companion for a demanding old lady. You marry him, move into his intimidating and extremely haunted manor, where you’re all of a sudden expected to step into the role of lady of the house without skipping a beat. To make matters worse, the specter of your predecessor — Rebecca, the first Mrs. De Winter — looms large over the entire place, especially in the eyes of the housekeeper Mrs. Danvers, who you’re lowkey pretty confident had a raging crush on Rebecca and hates your guts for taking her place. That’s basically “Rebecca” in a nutshell — even the title is named for the house’s previous mistress, while our heroine is relegated to being called “the second Mrs. de Winter.”

As the second Mrs. de Winter (Joan Fontaine) attempts to acclimate herself to her new life, she also struggles to understand the complicated relationship between her new husband (Laurence Olivier) and his late wife — a marriage that Maxim De Winter is reluctant to discuss, making it all the more mysterious. She’s tormented by the seriously toxic energy of the foreboding manor house, until truths are revealed, and they can finally be at peace.

Jake Gyllenhaal has had starring roles in a variety of genres, but it’s undeniable that he’s at his very best when he’s allowed to go into full sicko mode. This is the case in “Nightcrawler,” where he stars as Louis Bloom, a miscreant who stumbles into a career as a cameraman. After learning that news channels will pay top dollar for footage from crime scenes so that they can be the first to get the grisly details on the air, Bloom, predictably, takes his new freelance gig way too far, breaking every rule of journalistic ethics to get the best shot possible. 

“Nightcrawler” is part an exploration of how the camera can create a sense of distance, an emotional barrier between the photographer and its subject that allows the former to abandon any pretense of morality in its voyeurism — a conversation that’s particularly relevant within modern social media. But it’s also a powerful character study driven by the intensity of Gyllenhaal’s thoroughly unhinged performance, one that disappointingly didn’t get its due at the Oscars.

“The Night of the Hunter” is as heartbreakingly haunting as it is suspenseful, and we have Charles Laughton, the accomplished actor making his directorial debut, to thank for that. He infuses German expressionism into his Southern gothic tale, creating stark imagery that lingers in the mind of viewers long after they’ve finished watching the film. 

The film stars Robert Mitchum as an escaped convict and serial murderer posing as a too-good-to-be-true man of God who marries his former cellmate’s widow in a bid to find his hidden fortune. But when his new bride’s young son John (Billy Harper) becomes suspicious of his motives, the mask drops, and his chillingly malevolent true persona emerges to the forefront.

 Mitchum puts in a career-best performance as the vicious and manipulative Harry Powell, while silent film star Lillian Gish comes out of retirement to play the steely, God-fearing protector of child who stands in his way, reminding the world exactly how captivating she can be on screen. The end result is quietly horrifying character study of a true sociopath, filmed with incredible vision by Charles Laughton.

One of the landmark — and wildly controversial — thrillers of the 1960s, “Peeping Tom” stars Carl Boehm as Mark Lewis, an amateur filmmaker who has a compulsion to record women as he murders them, captivated by the visual representation of fear on their faces. But when he begins a relationship with his neighbor Helen, his perversions come into the conflict with the person that he desperately wants to be for her. “Peeping Tom” was helmed by Michael Powell, who was better known for his lush, stylish collaborations with Emeric Pressberger at the time — but here, he goes in a much more raw, pared down direction. 

The use of a handheld camera and extended POV shots creates an uncomfortable intimacy with the subject, almost as though we the audience are being made complicit in Mark’s disturbing actions. “Peeping Tom” is a psychological thriller in the purest sense of the word, as one could write an entire novel trying to wrap their mind around the inner-workings of Mark’s brain, and how his childhood experiences as a test subject for his scientist father influenced his adult perversions. But most importantly for our purposes, it’s a mesmerizing piece of film, serving as a harbinger of the psychologically-driven horror films that would become much more prevalent throughout the 1960s and 1970s.