Paranoid thrillers are like regular thrillers with the added terror of the walls closing in. Marvel made its own homage to the genre with Captain America: The Winter Soldier, which even cast Robert Redford – one of the genre’s most prized stars – in a major role as a villain.
This genre was particularly prevalent in the 1970s on the heels of the Watergate scandal. The Nixon administration’s shady dealings had resulted in a lack of trust in the government, which filmmakers like Alan J. Pakula and Oliver Stone channeled into thrillers. According to IMDb, these are the greatest paranoid thrillers ever made.
JFK (8.0)
Unsurprisingly, considering his politically charged filmmaking style, Oliver Stone has made three movies about U.S. presidents: JFK, about the assassination of John F. Kennedy; Nixon, about the downfall of Richard Nixon’s career; and W., a satire of the Bush administration.
The former is easily Stone’s most popular presidential movie. Despite being three hours long, JFK made blockbuster numbers back in 1991. Audiences were entranced by its intriguing study of the various conspiracies surrounding Kennedy’s death.
All The President’s Men (8.0)
Of all the paranoid thrillers to come along in the immediate aftermath of the Watergate scandal, the most closely linked with the true events is All the President’s Men, which chronicles how Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein – played by Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman, respectively – broke the story.
Director Alan J. Pakula helmed All the President’s Men as the third and final installment in his “paranoia trilogy.” The previous two movies, Klute and The Parallax View, are also classic thrillers.
Le Samouraï (8.1)
From Le Cercle Rouge to Army of Shadows, Jean-Pierre Melville made a name for himself as one of the greatest directors of thrillers. Arguably his most renowned and influential film is Le Samouraï.
Alain Delon stars as professional hitman Jef Costello, who is caught in the act by various witnesses. As the law closes in, he desperately tries to come up with an alibi that will stick.
Shutter Island (8.2)
Adapted from the Dennis Lehane novel of the same name, Martin Scorsese’s Shutter Island is one of the most shocking and mind-bending psychological thrillers in recent memory.
Leonardo DiCaprio stars as a U.S. Marshal who’s sent to a mental institution on a remote island to investigate the disappearance of a patient. As his harrowing backstory is unraveled, the Marshal learns that all is not as it seems.
Chinatown (8.2)
Chinatown has some truly stomach-churning plot twists, but its script by Robert Towne is one of the greatest ever written. Jack Nicholson stars as a private eye whose simple adultery case turns into something much more sinister.
This was one of several post-Watergate masterpieces that helped to define the neo-noir genre that captured the contemporary zeitgeist and gave a second life to the film noir.
Vertigo (8.3)
Since Alfred Hitchcock has over a dozen bona fide masterpieces to his name, it’s tough to choose just one movie as his best. But Vertigo is a common pick.
James Stewart stars as a detective who suffers from acrophobia (which isn’t quite the same thing as vertigo) and gets hired by an old friend to spy on his wife. After she appears to take her own life, the movie goes from an intriguing psychological thriller to a shocking string of plot twists.
North By Northwest (8.3)
Another Hitchcockian masterpiece, North by Northwest plays like a Hitchcock-helmed Bond movie. Cary Grant stars as a New York advertising executive who’s mistaken for a government agent by some overseas spies, which gets him swept up in a widespread conspiracy.
The movie has a handful of iconic set pieces, like the crop duster chase in rural Indiana and the action-packed finale set atop Mount Rushmore.
M (8.3)
Fritz Lang’s M pushed the boundaries of what was acceptable in popular cinema back in 1931. Peter Lorre stars as a serial killer as his shocking crime spree captivates Berlin, and when the police manhunt gets nowhere, other criminals join in the search.
Although it was initially dismissed by contemporary critics, M is now remembered as one of the greatest movies ever made. It even has a rare 100% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
Memento (8.4)
The movie that put Christopher Nolan on the map, Memento is a low-budget thriller starring Guy Pearce as an insurance investigator with short-term memory loss whose wife has been murdered.
In trying to track down his wife’s killer, he has to tattoo all the clues on his body so he doesn’t forget them. It’s no wonder this movie put Nolan on Hollywood’s radar – it’s a brilliant thriller.
The Dark Knight (9.0)
After exploring the Bat’s origin story in more depth than ever before in Batman Begins, Christopher Nolan followed it up with an even greater sequel, The Dark Knight. The movie’s M.V.P. is Heath Ledger’s Joker, whose reign of terror over Gotham perfectly encapsulates modern security and surveillance fears.
Nolan was heavily influenced by Michael Mann’s Heat in crafting The Dark Knight’s study of crime, corruption, and the moral gray areas of law and order in a sprawling American city.