No one wants to feel helpless. Even with watching movies, people aren't always a fan of being frightened and pushed to their emotional limits. This is chiefly why a lot of them steer away from horror movies.
While it's true horror has a monopoly on blood-rushing scares and suspense, cineastes and risk takers alike can find their excitement elsewhere without the fear of monsters, gratuitous gore, and violence. There's always something to watch in the wide and diverse thriller genre.
Kalifornia (1993): Pluto TV
Dominic Sena's Kalifornia wasn't a financial success considering it raked in a measly $2.4 million against an $8 million budget. However, the early-'90s thriller helped position Brad Pitt as a serious actor; Juliette Lewis is also notable as his equally colorful partner in crime. David Duchovny and Michelle Forbes are overshadowed by their co-stars, but they complement them, nonetheless.
This road-trip movie sees Duchovny's character, a grad student studying serial killers, getting an up-close-and-personal look at the very thing he's consumed with when he and his girlfriend (Forbes) ride-share with Pitt and Lewis' characters to California. There's something not quite right about their fellow passengers, but the protagonists don't find that out until it's too late.
Blue Ruin (2013): Tubi
Revenge is a common theme in thrillers. Vengeance spawns from dark places; often from trauma people would rather forget, if they could. Yet a film like Blue Ruin shows retribution has no expiration date. This crowd-funded movie is directed by Jeremy Saulnier, who achieved more mainstream success with Green Room several years later.
In Blue Ruin, a man takes it upon himself to avenge his parents' murder by hunting down their killer after hearing he's set to be released from prison. Violence begets violence, though, as now the main character has inadvertently put a target on his own head.
The Night of the Hunter (1955): Tubi
The slasher movie didn't come up with its tropes and traditions overnight. There is a considerable laundry list of films that helped inspire the popular horror subgenre. Charles Laughton's 1955 masterpiece The Night of the Hunter is just one of those cinematic muses from Old Hollywood. It may not be overtly horror, but upon watching, it's easy to see where slasher filmmakers got their ideas from.
Robert Mitchum plays a jailed reverend who learns of his cellmate's hidden fortune. Once he gets out of prison, the man of the cloth looks for the loot. However, it's guarded by his former cellmate's children, who will go to great stakes to keep it safe.
Super Dark Times (2013): Tubi
High school can seem like a warzone where teenagers' only means of survival is having a best friend who'll stay by their side no matter what. This is the case for Super Dark Times' protagonists Zach and Josh, who aren't exactly popular, yet that doesn't entirely matter so long as they have each other. Things change, though, when a terrible accident leads to a cover-up that eats away at Zach. The person he thought he could count on forever, is not himself — or worse, this is who's he always been.
Super Dark Times is almost too apt of a name for this horrifying coming-of-age thriller. The performances are authentic, and the violence is necessarily shocking. It's a movie people will have a hard time not thinking about even after it ends.
Running Scared (2006): Tubi
The late Paul Walker starred in this highly underrated and concussive action-thriller. He and co-star Vera Farmiga knock their roles out of the park. Wayne Kramer's Running Scared didn't fare too well at the box office, but in retrospect, people are coming around to this frenetic gem.
Walker plays a cop whose gun goes missing; he knows exactly where it is, though. The neighbor's kid used it to commit a crime and is now on the run. As Walker and Farmiga's characters each and individually search for the child before the police get to him and the gun first, they come across an assortment of unsavory criminals.
Mother's Day (2012): Tubi
Darren Lynn Bousman's semi-remake of the 1980 Troma movie Mother's Day premiered in 2010 at Fantastic Fest before seeing distribution two years later. The wait was worth it as this home-invasion thriller is startlingly good. It's also surprisingly not talked about enough despite it being so gripping. Rebecca De Mornay is an absolute force to be reckoned with here.
In this Mother's Day, three brothers, also criminals, take the residents of their foreclosed childhood home hostage. They summon their mother to then come and deal with the situation in her own way.
Them (2006): Vudu
David Moreau and Xavier Palud's Them (originally Ils) falls in between the categories of horror and thriller, but there's always some overlap with those two genres. While 2000s French horror is often characterized by its undue violence, Them is relatively sparse when it comes to that element. Rather, it relies more on building mood and anxiety.
One night, a couple hears a strange noise outside their remote home in Romania. This is when a pack of hooded intruders break in and terrorize them.
Tightrope (1984): Tubi
Set in New Orleans, Tightrope is both a compelling character study and a riveting serial-killer thriller. This Clint Eastwood movie isn't always brought up when discussing the seasoned actor's performances, but it's not because he doesn't deliver. Quite the opposite, Eastwood shines in this ambitious police drama.
As Eastwood's detective character hunts down a serial killer who preys on sex workers in the French Quarter of New Orleans, he has to confront his own inner demons.
The Guest (2014): Tubi
Adam Wingard's The Guest changed Dan Stevens' career for the better; in return, Stevens gives one of his finest performances to date. This entrancing mystery and action-thriller is essentially a non-comic-book adaptation of Marvel's Weapon X's origin story. It's set around Halloween for even more effect.
A family is surprised to meet one of their late son's fellow soldiers (Stevens) from the army. As they allow him to stay with them in the meantime, every one of the family falls under his charismatic spell. Little do they know, their guest has a deep, dark secret that's itching to come out with the right trigger.
Bacurau (2019): Kanopy
Viewers will need a university login or a public library card to use the free service Kanopy. This caveat aside, though, the effort is worthwhile seeing as Bacurau is a buried treasure in need of more attention. The critically-acclaimed film won accolades at both the Cannes Film Festival and Toronto International Film Festival.
The movie is like a Western except it's set in a very small town in rural Brazil. As a woman returns home for a funeral, her people are picked off by foreign mercenaries. To their surprise, however, the enemies didn't expect their victims to fight back.