The Best Psychological Thrillers In Movie History, Ranked

As a genre, thrillers often stand alongside horror. While horror films often explore supernatural entities, such as demons and ghosts, thrillers tend to be more down-to-earth, focusing more on creating suspense rather than outright terrifying someone. Within the thriller category exists various subgenres, but arguably the most popular is the psychological thriller. 

In these, we explore a character's often fractured mind, and how it impacts their interactions with the world. There may be an unreliable narrator at the center of the story, and generally, there are themes related to mental illness, crime, and morality. Perhaps the protagonist is driven by their own obsessive nature to pursue a case far beyond where others would go, losing their own sanity in the process, for example.

The Looper team considered several factors in ranking the best psychological thrillers of all time. We looked at Rotten Tomatoes ratings to see what films ranked highly amongst both critics and general audiences, as well as utilizing our own experience with the genre. If you're looking for your next obsession, consider these 13 psychological thrillers the best place to start so that you understand what all the fuss is about.

As far as feature film directorial debuts go, they don't get much stronger than Jordan Peele's "Get Out." While Peele was mostly known for being on the sketch comedy show "Key & Peele" prior to the movie's release, he showed he had a fine acumen for the psychological thriller and horror genres in this film that examines a Black man, Chris (Daniel Kaluuya), visiting his white girlfriend's family for the first time. Throughout their visit, he realizes they have ulterior motives when it comes to inviting Black people into their home. "Get Out" is very much a social satire about race relations between Black people and seemingly well-intentioned liberal white people. Racism isn't necessarily overt, and it can absolutely come from folks who claim they would've voted for Obama a third time if they could. "Get Out" also introduced the concept of the "Sunken Place," a figurative idea Peele has explained symbolizes how white supremacist structures continue to marginalize minorities. "Get Out" demonstrates the need for new voices in the psychological thriller genre to shed light on the racial injustices that permeate society, becoming a must-watch for anyone who wants to get out of their comfort zone. 

• Starring: Daniel Kaluuya, Allison Williams, Bradley Whitford
• Director: Jordan Peele
• Year: 2017
• Runtime: 104 minutes
• Rating: R
• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 98%

Revenge is a key component of many psychological thrillers, forcing us to question how far is reasonable to go for the sake of vengeance. But few films manage to offer as nuanced a take on the subject as 2003's "Oldboy." It offers an unflinching look at the futility of revenge, and how seeking it out will only lead to more pain. Oh Dae-su (Choi Min-sik) trains to fight while he's imprisoned for 15 years so that once he's out, he can exact vengeance on those who unjustly kept him locked up. By the end of the film, he realizes the depths of depravity to which he's descended. "Oldboy" begs the question of how someone can continue living after experiencing immense tragedy. It's hard to find thrillers that go as deep as "Oldboy" in American cinema, with even the 2013 "Oldboy" remake pulling some of its punches. The original "Oldboy" pushes the limits of what's possible in the genre, offering more in the way of realism, where the hero isn't an agent of pure good but instead a flawed individual who must live with the horrific things he's done. 

• Starring: Choi Min-sik, Yoo Ji-tae, Kang Hye-jung
• Director: Park Chan-wook
• Year: 2003
• Runtime: 120 minutes
• Rating: R
• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 83%

To understand modern psychological thrillers, it's critical to go back to a film that influenced numerous others that followed in its wake — 1931's "M." The unsettling German film details the hunt for a serial killer targeting children, making it an early example of the procedural police story. However, "M" innovated numerous filmmaking techniques many likely take for granted these days, such as darker visuals that went on to influence film noir. But at its core, it's an engaging psychological study of a killer who knows he shouldn't kill, and how society responds to such evils. Plus, "M" raises intriguing philosophical questions people continue to grapple with to this day. Are evil individuals random outliers, or does society create such perversion? Modern serial killer media all owes a debt to "M," which continues to stand head and shoulders above many others of its ilk. 

• Starring: Peter Lorre, Otto Wernicke, Gustaf Gründgens 
• Director: Fritz Lang
• Year: 1931
• Runtime: 111 minutes
• Rating: Not Rated
• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 100%

"Rear Window" has been parodied in everything from "The Simpsons" to "Rocko's Modern Life," but at the time it came out, its twist was a genuine revelation. You likely know the set up where L.B. Jefferies (James Stewart) gets into voyeurism by spying on his neighbors following an injury that leaves him stuck in his apartment all day. He then grows to believe his neighbor has murdered his wife, offering subtle and entertaining commentary on the darker side of human nature and our propensity for believing the worst in others. It's a masterclass in filmmaking, taking a claustrophobic environment and using an impeccable score from Franz Waxman to generate suspense. Jefferies may be at the center of the action, but "Rear Window" makes excellent use of Grace Kelly's talents as his girlfriend, Lisa Fremont. It's arguably the best Grace Kelly movie and performance in her storied career, — Lisa would normally be the object of any man's affection, yet she's repeatedly pushed away as Jefferies goes deeper into his paranoia. 

• Starring: James Stewart, Grace Kelly, Wendell Corey
• Director: Alfred Hitchcock
• Year: 1954
• Runtime: 111 minutes
• Rating: PG
• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 98%

"Perfect Blue" is one of the most terrifying anime you can watch, complete with brutal murders and dark themes. Mima (Junko Iwao) quits a girl group to become an actress while discovering there's a stalker in her midst. Soon, she starts questioning what's real, and viewers likely feel the same. Honestly, "Perfect Blue" has only grown more prescient over the years. Despite coming out in 1997, it deals heavily with how the internet blurs the boundaries of acceptable ways for fans to interact with their idols. The way doxxing and overanalyzing celebrity behavior are commonplace on TikTok and X, formerly known as Twitter, proves that this anime still has lessons worth taking to heart. That's to say nothing of the gorgeous animation style that incorporates elements of surrealism to make audiences feel as though they're losing their minds right alongside Mima. 

• Starring: Junko Iwao, Rica Matsumoto, Yōsuke Akimoto
• Director: Satoshi Kon
• Year: 1997
• Runtime: 81 minutes
• Rating: R
• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 84%

In today's age, it feels like we've all surrendered any right to privacy. Pretty much everyone has smartphones, and people keep Alexa devices in their living rooms they can activate at whim. Influencers record others without their consent to upload to social media for clout. All of this makes a film like "The Conversation" all the more essential to watch. Harry Caul (Gene Hackman), despite being an incredibly private person himself, engages in surveillance for his clients. Over the course of one job, he believes he's overheard someone plot a murder. Haunted by his own failures in the past, Harry goes above and beyond his job description to learn more, overanalyzing everything until the poignant conclusion where Harry is told there's a bug in his apartment, leading him into a further chaotic state. It's a terrifying reminder that everyone deserves privacy, yet so many have willingly invited audio-recording devices into their homes and post every aspect of their lives onto public forums. 

• Starring: Gene Hackman, John Cazale, Harrison Ford
• Director: Francis Ford Coppola
• Year: 1974
• Runtime: 113 minutes
• Rating: PG
• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 93%

Sometimes, reality presents horrors more insidious than anything plucked from the depths of a screenwriter's mind. The Zodiac Killer, who murdered five people in the late 1960s across Northern California, is one such example. No movie has managed to capture the enduring enigma of the serial killer quite as well as 2007's "Zodiac" from director David Fincher. It brutally shows the Zodiac's slayings while diving into Robert Graysmith's (Jake Gyllenhaal) obsession with catching him. His family life deteriorates as he searches for answers in the still-unsolvable case, with the ending of "Zodiac" trying to provide a semblance of closure that simply isn't possible. Just when it seems like Robert's about to catch a break, new evidence emerges that creates more questions than answers. It's made all the more unnerving by the way the Zodiac sends letters and ciphers promising to reveal all, indicating a madness that wants to taunt before it kills. The Zodiac remains one of the most interesting true crime cases in American history, precisely because it continues to confound those who look too closely.

• Starring: Jake Gyllenhaal, Robert Downey Jr., Mark Ruffalo
• Director: David Fincher
• Year: 2007
• Runtime: 157 minutes
• Rating: R
• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 90%

"Loneliness has followed me my whole life. Everywhere. In bars, in cars, sidewalks, stores, everywhere. There's no escape." Travis Bickle's (Robert de Niro) quote from "Taxi Driver" exemplifies the film's key theme — loneliness. Travis fought in the Vietnam War but works as a taxi driver upon returning home, feeling as though he has no purpose and witnessing humanity's utter depravity in the seediest areas of New York City. He fantasizes about violence, with the veil between reality and dream constantly getting blurred (a theme in many of the best psychological thrillers). "Taxi Driver" has one of the best movie characters of all time in Travis, a man defined by contradictions. He's capable of both great evil and immense good. The audience understands why he does what he does, but he remains an enigma all the same, allowing viewers to fill in the blanks as they may. And given what the media has dubbed as a modern male loneliness epidemic, Travis' emotional journey seems incredibly relevant. One can only hope those watching "Taxi Driver" in the present day take the right lessons to heart and view Travis as a cautionary tale and not an aspirational figure.

• Starring: Robert de Niro, Jodie Foster, Cybill Shepherd
• Director: Martin Scorsese
• Year: 1976
• Runtime: 114 minutes
• Rating: R
• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 89%

From innovative camera techniques to a unique narrative structure, "Vertigo" has proven highly influential in terms of filmmaking. It's arguably Alfred Hitchcock's best film and one of the greatest psychological thrillers for its themes concerning obsession and toxic masculinity. James Stewart, playing against type, portrays a cop who develops a fear of heights in the line of duty and takes a job as a private investigator to track a client's wife, Madeleine (Kim Novak). She becomes the object of his obsession, and he goes to great lengths to get to the bottom of her strange actions. Intentionally or not, "Vertigo" could be seen as a personal treatise on Hitchcock's on views on women, particularly when considering the stories of his infatuation with Tippi Hedren, and the malice he treated her with after she rejected him. Even outside of that context, "Vertigo" remains an engaging watch — a dark, twisted tale that shows how love can truly drive someone mad. 

• Starring: James Stewart, Kim Novak, Tom Helmore
• Director: Alfred Hitchcock
• Year: 1958
• Runtime: 128 minutes
• Rating: PG
• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 93%

There's much to gain from watching "Parasite" a second time, including all of the small details that show just how far apart the upper and lower classes truly are. It's almost hard to pin "Parasite" down into a single genre, as it weaves between comedy and horror and psychological thriller, sometimes all within the span of a single scene. But it's very much a thriller, and one where the titular "parasite" changes depending on one's viewpoint. The poorer Kim family infiltrates their way into working for the wealthy Park family, finally getting a chance to experience the high life. They soon learn there are other machinations at play, others feeding off the wealth in whatever way they can, ultimately providing a clever critique on capitalism. And the movie's center holds the existentially terrifying question: How fair can a system be that actively prevents people from ascending the economic ladder? Each character represents another side of the die, from naive optimism that upward mobility is possible to self-defeating nihilism that it's all a joke. "Parasite" proves there's still plenty of steam left within the psychological thriller genre. 

• Starring: Choi Woo-shik, Park So-dam, Song Kang-ho
• Director: Bong Joon-ho
• Year: 2019
• Runtime: 132 minutes
• Rating: R
• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 99%

"The Silence of the Lambs" continues to inspire discussion and dissection of its greater themes thanks to the excellent character work on display, courtesy of Jodie Foster and Anthony Hopkins. The plot follows Clarice Starling (Foster) as she tries to bring the serial killer Buffalo Bill (Ted Levine) to justice. The only way she can do that is by getting inside the mind of a killer, and in this case, it's the cannibalistic Dr. Hannibal Lecter (Hopkins). There's gore and suspense, but the film truly shines when we're witnessing a simple conversation and battle of wits between Clarice and Hannibal. Clarice feels relatable to any woman who's had a career in a male-dominated field, while Hannibal offers a unique depiction of a murderer. He's well-spoken, intelligent, and cunning. It's not a movie that's content with delivering a surface-level psychoanalysis of the characters — we're drawn into their inner-most psyches. "The Silence of the Lambs" crawls under your skin, almost as though you're being interrogated by Hannibal Lecter himself. 

• Starring: Jodie Foster, Anthony Hopkins, Scott Glenn
• Director: Jonathan Demme
• Year: 1991
• Runtime: 118 minutes
• Rating: R
• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 95%

It's no exaggeration to claim that "Psycho" is one of the most important films ever made. After Marion Crane (Janet Leigh) steals money from her employer, she stays at the Bates Motel, where unspeakable horrors are about to unfold. Alfred Hitchcock proves he's the master of suspense with "Psycho" by constantly subverting expectations. Viewers are made to believe Marion will be our protagonist throughout this journey, but she's promptly killed in an iconic shower scene (we'll never look at Hershey's chocolate syrup the same way again). Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins) is presented as a man who wouldn't hurt a fly, but there's more to his shattered psyche than meets the eye. Norman is one of the great all-time movie villains, making it no mystery why there have been so many attempts to keep his legacy going in the form of sequels and a TV series. He's sympathetic for how his mother treated him while she was alive, but that doesn't make him any less terrifying. He's a symbol of how true terror can exist behind such a seemingly non-threatening facade, proving you don't need monsters and demons to horrify — you just need to show how the scariest entity of all is man.

• Starring: Anthony Perkins, Janet Leigh, Vera Miles
• Director: Alfred Hitchcock
• Year: 1960
• Runtime: 109 minutes
• Rating: R
• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 97%

David Lynch's films often defy traditional interpretations. They're intentionally designed to be open-ended so that viewers can reach their own conclusions, and nowhere is that more evident than his magnum opus, "Mulholland Drive." It's not just Lynch's best film, but arguably the best psychological thriller of all time. A basic synopsis doesn't do the film justice, as it has a simple set-up involving Betty Elms (Naomi Watts) moving to Los Angeles with big dreams of making it in Hollywood, where she befriends the amnesia-stricken Rita (Laura Harring). Other stories intersect with theirs, and at a certain point, we're left to wonder how much is actually a dream, as everyone should know Hollywood is as much of a nightmare factory as much as a dream machine. Moreso than anything else on this list, "Mulholland Dream" adheres to dream logic, often relying more on symbolism than straightforward facts. If "Mulholland Drive" is a psychological mystery, it forces the viewer to become the detective to figure out what is going on, challenging the notion of any inherent truth in the universe. It leaves us with the question of whether the universe is worth unraveling, or if we're all just along for the chaotic ride. 

• Starring: Naomi Watts, Laura Harring, Justin Theroux
• Director: David Lynch
• Year: 2001
• Runtime: 146 minutes
• Rating: R
• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 84%