Thought-Provoking Psychological Thrillers
by rantzak | created - 30 Jan 2013 | updated - 11 months ago | PublicThese are movie where after I've watched them, I need to take time to think about what I'd just seen. Some of these movies even had me feel like I'd missed something and needed to see them again.
I'm not claiming that these movies are all good. But they all had me thinking.
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1. Deja Vu (2006)
PG-13 | 126 min | Action, Crime, Sci-Fi
After a ferry is bombed in New Orleans, an A.T.F. agent joins a unique investigation using experimental surveillance technology to find the bomber, but soon finds himself becoming obsessed with one of the victims.
Director: Tony Scott | Stars: Denzel Washington, Paula Patton, Jim Caviezel, Val Kilmer
Votes: 327,786 | Gross: $64.04M
Claire is murdered as a part of a terrorist event. But she's important because she dies before the bomb went off which starts the ATF agent Doug (played by Denzel) to want to go back in time to save her. But they have already found his DNA at her house, so has he already gone back? If he couldn't save her the last time, what can he do different this time?
2. Inception (2010)
PG-13 | 148 min | Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi
A thief who steals corporate secrets through the use of dream-sharing technology is given the inverse task of planting an idea into the mind of a C.E.O., but his tragic past may doom the project and his team to disaster.
Director: Christopher Nolan | Stars: Leonardo DiCaprio, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Elliot Page, Ken Watanabe
Votes: 2,552,699 | Gross: $292.58M
A dream within a dream. So, is this all for real or have we been stuck in someone's dream this whole time?
3. Source Code (2011)
PG-13 | 93 min | Action, Drama, Mystery
A soldier wakes up in someone else's body and discovers he's part of an experimental government program to find the bomber of a commuter train within 8 minutes.
Director: Duncan Jones | Stars: Jake Gyllenhaal, Michelle Monaghan, Vera Farmiga, Jeffrey Wright
Votes: 550,028 | Gross: $54.71M
The soldier isn't really going back in time, he's being placed into someone else's life to find the bomber of a train. So how is it that he's changing events? Can he really stop the bomb from killing all thoes people in the first place?
4. Impostor (2001)
PG-13 | 95 min | Drama, Mystery, Sci-Fi
In the future, an alien race uses androids as bombs to attack Earth. A government weapons specialist is accused of being one such android and sets out to prove his innocence.
Director: Gary Fleder | Stars: Shane Brolly, Vincent D'Onofrio, Gary Sinise, Madeleine Stowe
Votes: 24,563 | Gross: $6.11M
Spencer is suspected of being a clone made with a bomb inside that will detonate when he is close to certain targets. Is he who he believes himself to be? Or is he really a ticking . . . well you know?
5. Paycheck (2003)
PG-13 | 119 min | Action, Mystery, Sci-Fi
What seemed like a breezy idea that would net an engineer millions of dollars ends up leaving him on the run for his life and trying to piece together why he's being chased.
Director: John Woo | Stars: Ben Affleck, Aaron Eckhart, Uma Thurman, Michael C. Hall
Votes: 113,309 | Gross: $53.79M
Jennings works on projects and when he's done his memory of the time is wiped away. Why is he being chased after this last job? What was he working on? Most importantly, why did he refuse the large paycheck?
6. Total Recall (1990)
R | 113 min | Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi
When a man goes in to have virtual vacation memories of the planet Mars implanted in his mind, an unexpected and harrowing series of events forces him to go to the planet for real - or is he?
Director: Paul Verhoeven | Stars: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sharon Stone, Michael Ironside, Rachel Ticotin
Votes: 354,779 | Gross: $119.39M
Recall will give you the memories of a vacation without leaveing their office. Quade asks to be put on Mars as a secret agent. Everything that followes is so unbelieveable. So is this all real, or is he stuck in his own mind at Recall?
7. Eagle Eye (2008)
PG-13 | 118 min | Action, Mystery, Thriller
Jerry and Rachel are two strangers thrown together by a mysterious phone call from a woman they have never met. Threatening their lives and family, she pushes Jerry and Rachel into a series of increasingly dangerous situations, using the technology of everyday life to track and control their every move.
Director: D.J. Caruso | Stars: Shia LaBeouf, Michelle Monaghan, Rosario Dawson, Michael Chiklis
Votes: 195,274 | Gross: $101.11M
When Jerry and Rachel have to ban together and figure out what's going on when a mysterious phone call from a woman they have never met tells them to do things or else. Who is this voice over the phone? How can she know everything about them?
8. The Game (1997)
R | 129 min | Drama, Mystery, Thriller
After a wealthy San Francisco banker is given an opportunity to participate in a mysterious game, his life is turned upside down as he begins to question if it might really be a concealed conspiracy to destroy him.
Director: David Fincher | Stars: Michael Douglas, Deborah Kara Unger, Sean Penn, James Rebhorn
Votes: 429,707 | Gross: $48.32M
Nicholas goes through all kinds of tests before he can receive his birthday present, the live action game. But when will the game begin? Is everyone involved in this game? Does this game even exsist?
9. Surrogates (2009)
PG-13 | 89 min | Action, Sci-Fi, Thriller
Set in a futuristic world where humans live in isolation and interact through surrogate robots, a cop is forced to leave his home for the first time in years in order to investigate the murders of others' surrogates.
Director: Jonathan Mostow | Stars: Bruce Willis, Radha Mitchell, Ving Rhames, Rosamund Pike
Votes: 180,321 | Gross: $38.58M
Is the world really so dangerous that we would live our lives through surrogates? Wouldn't our lives begin to feel muted or dull compared to real life?
10. The Butterfly Effect (2004)
R | 113 min | Drama, Sci-Fi, Thriller
Evan Treborn suffers blackouts during significant events of his life. As he grows up, he finds a way to remember these lost memories and a supernatural way to alter his life by reading his journal.
Directors: Eric Bress, J. Mackye Gruber | Stars: Ashton Kutcher, Amy Smart, Melora Walters, Elden Henson
Votes: 521,412 | Gross: $57.94M
The actions he takes, and enables others to take during his blackouts, change the timeline in the new future where he awakes. Moreover, the assimilation of dozens of years' worth of new memories from the alternate timelines causes him brain damage and severe nosebleeds.
How can he bring about the best present by changeing his past? Do his attempts to alter the past end up only harming those he cares about?
11. The Island (2005)
PG-13 | 136 min | Action, Sci-Fi, Thriller
A man living in a futuristic sterile colony begins to question his circumscribed existence when his friend is chosen to go to the Island, the last uncontaminated place on earth.
Director: Michael Bay | Stars: Scarlett Johansson, Ewan McGregor, Djimon Hounsou, Steve Buscemi
Votes: 327,753 | Gross: $35.82M
Lincoln begins having dreams that include memories that he knows are not from his own experiences. Lincoln discovers that the "lottery" is actually a guise to remove inhabitants from the compound.
Would people really be so blind by the need to stay alive that they would sacrifice the lives of others whom they deem as non-people.
12. Equilibrium (2002)
R | 107 min | Action, Drama, Sci-Fi
In an oppressive future where all forms of feeling are illegal, a man in charge of enforcing the law rises to overthrow the system and state.
Director: Kurt Wimmer | Stars: Christian Bale, Sean Bean, Emily Watson, Taye Diggs
Votes: 347,160 | Gross: $1.20M
This is a place where human emotion was deturmined to be the root cause of conflict. All emotionally stimulating material is banned and "sense offenders" are persecuted. After accidentally missing a dose, Preston begins to experience emotions which make him question his own morality and moderate his actions, while attempting to remain undetected by the suspicious society in which he lives.
13. In Time (2011)
PG-13 | 109 min | Action, Sci-Fi, Thriller
In a future where people stop aging at 25, but are engineered to live only one more year, having the means to buy your way out of the situation is a shot at immortal youth. Will Salas is accused of murder and on the run with a hostage.
Director: Andrew Niccol | Stars: Justin Timberlake, Amanda Seyfried, Cillian Murphy, Olivia Wilde
Votes: 446,671 | Gross: $37.52M
The citizens of New Greenwich can have anywhere from a few hundred to a few thousand years of time. Some citizens have so much time they can't fit it all into the time-tracker in their bodies (which maxes out at 9999 years), and must store it in portable time-containment-units at home or at a bank.
In this reality, poverty equils death. The question is, why are people dying when there should be unlimited amounts of time?
14. The Adjustment Bureau (2011)
PG-13 | 106 min | Crime, Drama, Mystery
The affair between a politician and a contemporary dancer is affected by mysterious forces keeping the lovers apart.
Director: George Nolfi | Stars: Matt Damon, Emily Blunt, Lisa Thoreson, Florence Kastriner
Votes: 270,240 | Gross: $62.50M
The Adjustment Bureau ensures that people's lives proceed as determined by "the plan", a complex document Richardson attributes to "the Chairman".
Do we really have free will? Is this what predestination looks like?
15. Signs (2002)
PG-13 | 106 min | Drama, Mystery, Sci-Fi
A widowed former reverend living with his children and brother on a Pennsylvania farm finds mysterious crop circles in their fields, which suggests something more frightening to come.
Director: M. Night Shyamalan | Stars: Mel Gibson, Joaquin Phoenix, Rory Culkin, Abigail Breslin
Votes: 385,912 | Gross: $227.97M
The story focuses on a former Episcopal priest named Graham Hess who discovers a series of crop circles in his cornfield. He slowly becomes convinced that the phenomena are a result of extraterrestrial life.
Can small things (like leaving water glasses everywhere) in life come to a critical point where there was a purpose? And if so, does that mean that there's someone who orchestrated these events beforehand?
16. Shadow of a Doubt (1943)
Passed | 108 min | Film-Noir, Thriller
A teenage girl, overjoyed when her favorite uncle comes to visit the family in their quiet California town, slowly begins to suspect that he is in fact the "Merry Widow" killer sought by the authorities.
Director: Alfred Hitchcock | Stars: Teresa Wright, Joseph Cotten, Macdonald Carey, Henry Travers
Votes: 70,528
Charlie is bored with life till her uncle comes to town. She soon learns that her uncle is one of two men suspected of being a serial killer known as the "Merry Widow Murderer" who seduces, steals from, and murders wealthy widows. Can this be?
How well do we really know the people around us?
17. Donnie Darko (2001)
R | 113 min | Drama, Mystery, Sci-Fi
After narrowly escaping a bizarre accident, a troubled teenager is plagued by visions of a man in a large rabbit suit who manipulates him to commit a series of crimes.
Director: Richard Kelly | Stars: Jake Gyllenhaal, Jena Malone, Mary McDonnell, Holmes Osborne
Votes: 850,463 | Gross: $1.48M
I can't really point at any specific questions for this film. It just had me saying "what?".
18. The Manchurian Candidate (1962)
PG-13 | 126 min | Drama, Thriller
An American POW in the Korean War is brainwashed as an unwitting assassin for an international Communist conspiracy.
Director: John Frankenheimer | Stars: Frank Sinatra, Laurence Harvey, Janet Leigh, Angela Lansbury
Votes: 79,863
Why don't you pass the time by playing a little solitaire?
How does the mind control work? Can you be controlled through brainwashing?
19. The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
R | 118 min | Crime, Drama, Thriller
A young F.B.I. cadet must receive the help of an incarcerated and manipulative cannibal killer to help catch another serial killer, a madman who skins his victims.
Director: Jonathan Demme | Stars: Jodie Foster, Anthony Hopkins, Scott Glenn, Ted Levine
Votes: 1,549,266 | Gross: $130.74M
Is the former psychiatrist and incarcerated cannibalistic serial killer helping with the investigation? Or is he just messing with everyone?
20. Se7en (1995)
R | 127 min | Crime, Drama, Mystery
Two detectives, a rookie and a veteran, hunt a serial killer who uses the seven deadly sins as his motives.
Director: David Fincher | Stars: Morgan Freeman, Brad Pitt, Kevin Spacey, Andrew Kevin Walker
Votes: 1,800,354 | Gross: $100.13M
What is evil?
21. The Shining (1980)
R | 146 min | Drama, Horror
A family heads to an isolated hotel for the winter where a sinister presence influences the father into violence, while his psychic son sees horrific forebodings from both past and future.
Director: Stanley Kubrick | Stars: Jack Nicholson, Shelley Duvall, Danny Lloyd, Scatman Crothers
Votes: 1,107,525 | Gross: $44.02M
This movie is really about the descent into madness.
22. Frailty (2001)
R | 100 min | Crime, Drama, Thriller
A mysterious man arrives at the offices of an FBI agent and recounts his childhood: how his religious fanatic father received visions telling him to destroy people who were in fact "demons."
Director: Bill Paxton | Stars: Bill Paxton, Matthew McConaughey, Powers Boothe, Matt O'Leary
Votes: 91,422 | Gross: $13.10M
One night many years ago, their father tells them that they have been tasked by God to root out and destroy demons whose names were to be provided for him by an angel.
Are they destroying demons or killing people? What would you do if God commanded you to do something like this?
23. Disturbia (2007)
PG-13 | 105 min | Crime, Drama, Mystery
When a teenager is placed under house arrest, he succumbs to despair and starts spying on his neighbors, hoping to spice up his life. This, however, leads him to witness a serial killer on the loose.
Director: D.J. Caruso | Stars: Shia LaBeouf, David Morse, Carrie-Anne Moss, Sarah Roemer
Votes: 248,385 | Gross: $80.21M
Or Rear Window
After Kale's mother, Julie, cuts him off from television, video games and music to keep costs down, Kale starts spying on his neighbors. After Kale witnesses several strange occurrences at Turner's house, Kale and his best friend Ronnie think Turner might be a serial killer.
This demonstrates the impulse of morbid curiosity.
24. Psycho (1960)
R | 109 min | Horror, Mystery, Thriller
A Phoenix secretary embezzles $40,000 from her employer's client, goes on the run and checks into a remote motel run by a young man under the domination of his mother.
Director: Alfred Hitchcock | Stars: Anthony Perkins, Janet Leigh, Vera Miles, John Gavin
Votes: 718,738 | Gross: $32.00M
I understand that the relationship of child and mother is important. This film takes that relationship to a whole new level.
25. Fallen (1998)
R | 124 min | Action, Crime, Drama
Homicide detective John Hobbes witnesses the execution of serial killer Edgar Reese. Soon after the execution, the killings start again, and they are very similar to Reese's style.
Director: Gregory Hoblit | Stars: Denzel Washington, John Goodman, Donald Sutherland, Embeth Davidtz
Votes: 92,685 | Gross: $25.19M
"Time Is on My Side"
Can demons die? What is possession?
26. Frequency (2000)
PG-13 | 118 min | Crime, Drama, Mystery
An accidental cross-time radio link connects father and son across 30 years. The son tries to save his father's life, but then must fix the consequences.
Director: Gregory Hoblit | Stars: Dennis Quaid, Jim Caviezel, Shawn Doyle, Elizabeth Mitchell
Votes: 115,801 | Gross: $45.01M
This is all about second chances.
27. Black Swan (2010)
R | 108 min | Drama, Thriller
Nina is a talented but unstable ballerina on the verge of stardom. Pushed to the breaking point by her artistic director and a seductive rival, Nina's grip on reality slips, plunging her into a waking nightmare.
Director: Darren Aronofsky | Stars: Natalie Portman, Mila Kunis, Vincent Cassel, Winona Ryder
Votes: 825,298 | Gross: $106.95M
28. Soylent Green (1973)
PG | 97 min | Crime, Mystery, Sci-Fi
A nightmarish futuristic fantasy about the controlling power of big corporations and an innocent cop who stumbles on the truth.
Director: Richard Fleischer | Stars: Charlton Heston, Edward G. Robinson, Leigh Taylor-Young, Chuck Connors
Votes: 70,600 | Gross: $7.92M
29. 21 Grams (2003)
R | 124 min | Crime, Drama, Thriller
A freak accident brings together a critically ill mathematician, a grieving mother, and a born-again ex-con.
Director: Alejandro G. Iñárritu | Stars: Sean Penn, Benicio Del Toro, Naomi Watts, Danny Huston
Votes: 245,922 | Gross: $16.29M
30. The Usual Suspects (1995)
R | 106 min | Crime, Drama, Mystery
The sole survivor of a pier shoot-out tells the story of how a notorious criminal influenced the events that began with five criminals meeting in a seemingly random police lineup.
Director: Bryan Singer | Stars: Kevin Spacey, Gabriel Byrne, Chazz Palminteri, Stephen Baldwin
Votes: 1,146,122 | Gross: $23.34M
31. Dead Again (1991)
R | 107 min | Crime, Drama, Mystery
A woman who has lost her memory is taken in by a Los Angeles orphanage, and a private eye is enlisted to track down her identity, but he soon finds that he might have a past life connection to her that endangers their lives.
Director: Kenneth Branagh | Stars: Kenneth Branagh, Emma Thompson, Andy Garcia, Lois Hall
Votes: 30,391 | Gross: $38.02M
32. The Gift (2000)
R | 111 min | Drama, Fantasy, Horror
A fortune teller with extrasensory perception is asked to help find a young woman who has mysteriously disappeared.
Director: Sam Raimi | Stars: Cate Blanchett, Katie Holmes, Keanu Reeves, Giovanni Ribisi
Votes: 74,804 | Gross: $12.01M
33. The Cell (2000)
R | 107 min | Crime, Horror, Sci-Fi
An F.B.I. Agent persuades a social worker, who is adept with a new experimental technology, to enter the mind of a comatose serial killer in order to learn where he has hidden his latest kidnap victim.
Director: Tarsem Singh | Stars: Jennifer Lopez, Vince Vaughn, Vincent D'Onofrio, Colton James
Votes: 109,141 | Gross: $61.33M
34. Phone Booth (2002)
R | 81 min | Crime, Thriller
Publicist Stuart Shepard finds himself trapped in a phone booth, pinned down by an extortionist's sniper rifle. Unable to leave or receive outside help, Stuart's negotiation with the caller leads to a jaw-dropping climax.
Director: Joel Schumacher | Stars: Colin Farrell, Kiefer Sutherland, Forest Whitaker, Radha Mitchell
Votes: 285,895 | Gross: $46.57M
35. Identity (2003)
R | 90 min | Mystery, Thriller
Stranded at a desolate Nevada motel during a nasty rain storm, ten strangers become acquainted with each other when they realize that they're being killed off one by one.
Director: James Mangold | Stars: John Cusack, Ray Liotta, Amanda Peet, John Hawkes
Votes: 267,370 | Gross: $52.16M
36. Don't Say a Word (2001)
R | 113 min | Drama, Mystery, Thriller
When the daughter of a psychiatrist is kidnapped, he's horrified to discover that the abductors' demand is that he break through to a post traumatic stress disorder suffering young woman who knows a secret...
Director: Gary Fleder | Stars: Michael Douglas, Sean Bean, Brittany Murphy, Skye McCole Bartusiak
Votes: 57,091 | Gross: $55.00M
37. Time Lapse (2014)
Not Rated | 104 min | Mystery, Sci-Fi, Thriller
Three friends discover a mysterious machine that takes pictures twenty-four hours into the future, and conspire to use it for personal gain, until disturbing and dangerous images begin to develop.
Director: Bradley King | Stars: Danielle Panabaker, Matt O'Leary, George Finn, John Rhys-Davies
Votes: 49,164
38. Predestination (I) (2014)
R | 97 min | Action, Drama, Sci-Fi
As his last assignment, a temporal agent is tasked to travel back in time and prevent a bomb attack in New York in 1975. The hunt, however, turns out to be beyond the bounds of possibility.
Directors: Michael Spierig, Peter Spierig | Stars: Ethan Hawke, Sarah Snook, Noah Taylor, Madeleine West
Votes: 304,907 | Gross: $0.07M
39. Edge of Tomorrow (2014)
PG-13 | 113 min | Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi
A soldier fighting aliens gets to relive the same day over and over again, the day restarting every time he dies.
Director: Doug Liman | Stars: Tom Cruise, Emily Blunt, Bill Paxton, Brendan Gleeson
Votes: 737,461 | Gross: $100.21M
40. Tenet (2020)
PG-13 | 150 min | Action, Sci-Fi, Thriller
Armed with only the word "Tenet," and fighting for the survival of the entire world, CIA operative, The Protagonist, journeys through a twilight world of international espionage on a global mission that unfolds beyond real time.
Director: Christopher Nolan | Stars: John David Washington, Robert Pattinson, Elizabeth Debicki, Juhan Ulfsak
Votes: 593,199 | Gross: $58.46M
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