Psychological thrillers show an unbalanced emotional state of a person, which leads to violence or unexpected twists of the plot.
Not surprisingly, many of the films on this list are not only some of the best psychological thrillers of all time, but also the best films among all genres, as this genre is very popular with people. Write in the comments that I forgot.😉
28 American Psycho, 2000
A wealthy New York investment banking executive, Patrick Bateman, hides his alternate psychopathic ego from his co-workers and friends as he delves deeper into his violent, hedonistic fantasies.
Directed by Mary Harron
Cast: Christian Bale, Willem Dafoe, Josh Lucas
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27 Fatal Attraction, 1987
Dan Gallagher is a successful New York lawyer with a beautiful wife, Beth, and a 6 year-old daughter who spends a weekend with a book editor, Alex Forrest. As far as Dan is concerned, it’s a one time thing but Alex has something more in mind, as she amply demonstrates even before the weekend is over. When he makes it clear that there is no future for them, Alex begins to seek him out, whether calling him constantly calling him at home or at work and even visiting his apartment, which is up for sale, and meeting Beth. Alex’s obsession knows no bounds and she becomes increasingly violent, putting Dan’s life – and that of his family’s – in danger.
Directed by Adrian Lyne
Cast: Michael Douglas, Glenn Close, Anne Archer
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26 Zodiac, 2007
In the late 1960s/early 1970s, a San Francisco cartoonist becomes an amateur detective obsessed with tracking down the Zodiac Killer, an unidentified individual who terrorizes Northern California with a killing spree.
Directed by David Fincher
Cast: Jake Gyllenhaal, Mark Ruffalo, Anthony Edwards, Robert Downey Jr.
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25 The Machinist (El Maquinista), 2004
Trevor Reznik is a lathe-operator who suffers from insomnia and hasn’t slept in a year. Slowly, he begins to doubt his sanity as increasingly bizarre things start happening at work and at home. Haunted by a deformed co-worker who no one seems to think exists, and an ongoing stream of indecipherable Post-It notes he keeps finding on his fridge, he attempts to investigate what appears to be a mysterious plot against him and, in the process, embroils two women in his madness.
Directed by Brad Anderson
Cast: Christian Bale, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Aitana Sánchez-Gijón
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24 Donnie Darko, 2001
Donnie Darko doesn’t get along too well with his family, his teachers, and his classmates; but he does manage to find a sympathetic friend in Gretchen, who agrees to date him. He has a compassionate psychiatrist, who discovers hypnosis is the means to unlock hidden secrets. His other companion may not be a true ally. Donnie has a friend named Frank, a large bunny which only Donnie can see. When an engine falls off a plane and destroys his bedroom, Donnie is not there. Both the event, and Donnie’s escape, seem to have been caused by supernatural events. Donnie’s mental illness, if such it is, may never allow him to find out for sure.
Directed by Richard Kelly
Cast: Jake Gyllenhaal, Jena Malone, Maggie Gyllenhaal
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23 Inception, 2010
Dom Cobb is a skilled thief, the absolute best in the dangerous art of extraction, stealing valuable secrets from deep within the subconscious during the dream state, when the mind is at its most vulnerable. Cobb’s rare ability has made him a coveted player in this treacherous new world of corporate espionage, but it has also made him an international fugitive and cost him everything he has ever loved. Now Cobb is being offered a chance at redemption. One last job could give him his life back but only if he can accomplish the impossible – inception. Instead of the perfect heist, Cobb and his team of specialists have to pull off the reverse: their task is not to steal an idea but to plant one. If they succeed, it could be the perfect crime. But no amount of careful planning or expertise can prepare the team for the dangerous enemy that seems to predict their every move. An enemy that only Cobb could have seen coming.
Directed by Christopher Nolan
Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Ellen Page, Tom Hardy
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22 Black Swan, 2010
Nina Sayers is a dancers with a New York City ballet company. She is dedicated to her art and her craft but lacks confidence. She is also pressed on by her domineering mother, also a ballerina in her youth, who gave up dancing when she got pregnant with Nina. Nina seems to achieve her goal when the company’s artistic director Thomas Leroy selects her as the lead in their new production of Swan Lake. Leroy is honest however in telling her that while he has no doubt she can handle the role of the white swan, he’s not sure she can handle the role of the black swan. Adding to her self-doubts is the arrival of a new dancer, Lily, who seems ideally suited to playing the black swan. To succeed, Nina will will have to transform herself into something she has never been.
Directed by Darren Aronofsky
Cast: Natalie Portman, Mila Kunis, Vincent Cassel
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21 Misery, 1990
After a famous author is rescued from a car crash by a fan of his novels, he comes to realize that the care he is receiving is only the beginning of a nightmare of captivity and abuse.
Directed by Rob Reiner
Cast: James Caan, Kathy Bates, Richard Farnsworth
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20 Mystic River, 2003
In the summer of 1975 in a neighborhood in Boston, 3 kids, Dave Boyle and two of his friends, Jimmy and Sean, are playing on the sidewalk when Dave gets abducted by two men and endures several days of sexual abuse. Eventually, Dave escapes traumatized throughout adulthood. Jimmy is an ex-con and a father of three, whose daughter Katie, is found dead and Dave becomes the number one suspect. Sean is a homicide detective, investigating Katie’s murder, ends up finding himself faced with past and present demons as more is uncovered about Katie’s murder. Learning Katie had a boyfriend, ballistics later turn up a gun belonging to the father, which then puts her boyfriend as the suspect. Will Sean find out who killed Katie? Will Jimmy make it through the investigation? And will Dave ever find out what really happened when he was abducted?
Directed by Clint Eastwood
Cast: Sean Penn, Tim Robbins, Kevin Bacon, Laurence Fishburne
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19 The Shining, 1980
A man, his son, and wife become the winter caretakers of an isolated hotel where Danny, the son, sees disturbing visions of the hotel’s past using a telepathic gift known as “The Shining”. The father, Jack Torrance, is underway in a writing project when he slowly slips into insanity as a result of cabin fever and former guests of the hotel’s ghosts. After being convinced by a waiter’s ghost to “correct” the family, Jack goes completely insane. The only thing that can save Danny and his mother is “The Shining”.
Directed by Stanley Kubrick
Cast: Jack Nicholson, Shelley Duvall, Danny Lloyd
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18 Primal Fear, 1996
Courtroom thriller about a slick, hotshot lawyer who takes the seemingly unwinnable case of a young altar boy accused of murdering an eminent catholic priest.
Directed by Gregory Hoblit
Cast: Richard Gere, Edward Norton, Laura Linney
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17 Memento, 2000
Memento chronicles two separate stories of Leonard, an ex-insurance investigator who can no longer build new memories, as he attempts to find the murderer of his wife, which is the last thing he remembers. One story line moves forward in time while the other tells the story backwards revealing more each time.
Directed by Christopher Nolan
Cast: Guy Pearce, Carrie-Anne Moss, Joe Pantoliano
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16 Oldboy (Oldeuboi), 2003
An average man is kidnapped and imprisoned in a shabby cell for 15 years without explanation. He then is released, equipped with money, a cellphone and expensive clothes. As he strives to explain his imprisonment and get his revenge, Oh Dae-Su soon finds out that his kidnapper has a greater plan for him and is set onto a path of pain and suffering in an attempt to uncover the motive of his mysterious tormentor.
Directed by Park Chan-wook
Cast: Choi Min-sik, Yoo Ji-tae, Kang Hye-jeong
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15 The Usual Suspects, 1995
Following a truck hijack in New York, five conmen are arrested and brought together for questioning. As none of them are guilty, they plan a revenge operation against the police. The operation goes well, but then the influence of a legendary mastermind criminal called Keyser Söze is felt. It becomes clear that each one of them has wronged Söze at some point and must pay back now. The payback job leaves 27 men dead in a boat explosion, but the real question arises now: Who actually is Keyser Söze?
Directed by Bryan Singer
Cast: Stephen Baldwin, Gabriel Byrne, Benicio Del Toro
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14 Gone Girl, 2014
On the occasion of his fifth wedding anniversary, Nick Dunne reports that his wife, Amy, has gone missing. Under pressure from the police and a growing media frenzy, Nick’s portrait of a blissful union begins to crumble. Soon his lies, deceits and strange behavior have everyone asking the same dark question: Did Nick Dunne kill his wife?
Directed by David Fincher
Cast: Ben Affleck, Rosamund Pike, Carrie Coon
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13 Taxi Driver, 1976
Travis Bickle is a lonely, impotent and insomniac ex-marine, who spends his nights driving his taxi throughout the shadowy streets of mid-70’s New York City. Travis is fed up with the society he finds himself surrounded by, wishing that a “real rain will come and wash all the scum off the streets”. But Travis’s personality sees him being unable to connect with virtually anyone, until he becomes infatuated with a blonde campaign worker named Betsy and then later meets an adolescent prostitute named Iris. As Travis grows increasingly more paranoid of his situations, he begins to sees these relationships he develops as ‘missions’ of which he will need to be the saviour.
Directed by Martin Scorsese
Cast: Robert De Niro, Jodie Foster, Peter Boyle, Harvey Keitel
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12 Vertigo, 1958
A San Francisco detective suffering from acrophobia investigates the strange activities of an old friend’s wife, all the while becoming dangerously obsessed with her.
Directed by Alfred Hitchcock
Cast: James Stewart, Kim Novak, Barbara Bel Geddes
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11 Rear Window, 1954
A wheelchair-bound photographer spies on his neighbors from his apartment window and becomes convinced one of them has committed murder.
Directed by Alfred Hitchcock
Cast: James Stewart, Grace Kelly, Wendell Corey
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10 Psycho, 1960
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.
Directed by Alfred Hitchcock
Cast: Anthony Perkins, Vera Miles, John Gavin
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9 The Sixth Sense, 1999
Malcolm Crowe is a successful child psychiatrist who takes on the task to help a terrified boy who seems to be plagued by visions of ghosts. But as his relationship with the boy deepens, he learns some very disturbing truths about the boy’s visions.
Directed by M. Night Shyamalan
Cast: Bruce Willis, Haley Joel Osment, Toni Collette
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8 The Game, 1997
Nicholas Van Orton is a very wealthy San Francisco banker, but he is an absolute loner, even spending his birthday alone. In the year of his 48th birthday (the age his father committed suicide) his brother Conrad, who has gone long ago and surrendered to addictions of all kinds, suddenly returns and gives Nicholas a card giving him entry to unusual entertainment provided by something called Consumer Recreation Services (CRS). Giving in to curiosity, Nicholas visits CRS and all kinds of weird and bad things start to happen to him.
Directed by David Fincher
Cast: Michael Douglas, Sean Penn, Deborah Kara Unger
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7 The Prestige, 2006
In the end of the Nineteenth Century, in London, Robert Angier, his beloved wife Julia McCullough and Alfred Borden are friends and assistants of a magician. When Julia accidentally dies during a performance, Robert blames Alfred for her death and they become enemies. Both become famous and rival magicians, sabotaging the performance of the other on the stage. When Alfred performs a successful trick, Robert becomes obsessed trying to disclose the secret of his competitor with tragic consequences.
Directed by Christopher Nolan
Cast: Hugh Jackman, Christian Bale, Michael Caine
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6 A Beautiful Mind, 2001
After John Nash, a brilliant but asocial mathematician, accepts secret work in cryptography, his life takes a turn for the nightmarish.
Directed by Ron Howard
Cast: Russell Crowe, Ed Harris, Jennifer Connelly
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5 Shutter Island, 2009
U.S. Marshall, Teddy, and his partner, Chuck, travel to a secluded island home to a mental facility called Shutter Island. The reason for Teddy’s arrival is to investigate the disappearance of a missing patient, named Rachel. As Teddy and Chuck dive deeper into their investigation to find out where Rachel has gone, they reveal the dark secrets of Shutter Island.
Directed by Martin Scorsese
Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Mark Ruffalo, Ben Kingsley
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4 The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, 2011
This English-language adaptation of the Swedish novel by Stieg Larsson follows a disgraced journalist, Mikael Blomkvist, as he investigates the disappearance of a wealthy patriarch’s niece from 40 years ago. He is aided by the pierced, tattooed, punk computer hacker named Lisbeth Salander. As they work together in the investigation, Blomkvist and Salander uncover immense corruption beyond anything they have ever imagined.
Directed by David Fincher
Cast: Daniel Craig, Rooney Mara, Christopher Plummer
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3 Se7en, 1995
Directed by David Fincher
Cast: Brad Pitt, Morgan Freeman, Gwyneth Paltrow, Kevin Spacey
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2 The Silence of the Lambs, 1990
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.
Directed by Jonathan Demme
Cast: Jodie Foster, Anthony Hopkins, Brooke Smith
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1 Fight Club, 1999
An insomniac office worker, looking for a way to change his life, crosses paths with a devil-may-care soapmaker, forming an underground fight club that evolves into something much, much more.
Directed by David Fincher
Cast: Edward Norton, Brad Pitt, Helena Bonham Carter
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