20th Century Thrillers (20 titles)

Its hard to define what makes the quintessential thriller, and where do you draw the line between thrillers and 'action' flicks or cops and robbers, or fast-paced dramas, or gangester movies, or film noir etc. For me thrillers have got to have guns, chases, tough/flawed-but-true/sensitive-but-ruthless/guys, seductive/vulnerable/fiesty/vampy/resourceful gals, nasty/ viscious/cold-blooded/ villians, more guns, more chases, tensions, suspense, a few laffs and a sense of peril. All of these films do at least some of this stuff really well.

by: Grimmy Grimmy from Up North

70% from 13 members

Bullitt

The Daddy of the modern Thriller: it all stems from here, Car chases; cool, maverick cops; corrupt bosses; deadly shoot-outs in public places; gore; climaxes at airports. Oh, and Steve McQueen in a defining role.

Bullitt on DVD (1968)
Starring: Steve McQueen, Robert Vaughn, Jacqueline Bisset
Director: Peter Yates
Certificate:
In one of his most memorable roles, Steve McQueen stars as Detective Frank Bullitt, a hard-driving, tough-as-nails San Francisco cop. Bullitt has just received what sounds like a routine assignment: keep a star witness out of sight and out of danger for 48 hours, then deliver him to the courtroom ..read more »

Rate this: 69% from 8,220 members

Point Blank

Another 60s classic, from the decade of the anti-hero

Point Blank (1967)
Starring: Lee Marvin, Angie Dickinson, Keenan Wynn
Director: John Boorman
Certificate:
A man is shot and left for dead by his unfaithful wife and her mobster lover. Now he's back and out for revenge against the businessmen and mobsters who did him wrong.

Rate this: 78% from 352 members

North by Northwest

Psycho is more scarey, but this has colour, wit, zest, thrills, shocks, twists, humor, the effortless cool of Cary Grant and the slimey menace of James Mason. Hitchcock's greatest.

- our price: £5.43
North by Northwest on DVD (1959)
Starring: Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint, James Mason
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Certificate:
An advertising executive is mistaken for a spy and is pursued across the country while he looks for a way to survive.

Rate this: 75% from 20,728 members

Heat

Deadly shoot-outs in public places, gore; climax at an airport. Ok, its been done before but never like this, never better.

Heat on DVD (1995)
Starring: Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, Tom Sizemore
Director: Michael Mann
Certificate:
Robert De Niro and Al Pacino are finally together on screen in this riveting story about an intense rivalry between expert thief Neil McCauley (De Niro) and volatile cop Vincent Hanna (Pacino). McCauley will stop at nothing to do what he does best and neither will Hanna, even though it means ..read more »

Rate this: 74% from 39,108 members

Witness

Harrison Ford: the Cary Grant of the late 20th century. A slow burn of a thriller with a pastoral interlude.

Witness on DVD (1985)
Starring: Harrison Ford, Kelly McGillis, Danny Glover
Director: Peter Weir
Certificate:
Watch now: £2.49
After an Amish boy witnesses police corruption in a Philadelphia train station, a hardened cop takes him and his widowed mother back to their quiet Amish community. There, hiding from his crooked superiors, he is witness to a simpler and seductively innocent world. Academy Award Nominations: 8, ..read more »

Rate this: 71% from 7,198 members

Out Of The Past

Nobody does fedora, trenchcoat and cigarette better than Robert Mitchum. See also Mitchum's 'Farewell My Lovely'

- our price: £3.93
Out Of The Past on DVD (1947)
Starring: Robert Mitchum, Jane Greer
Director: Jacques Tourneur
Certificate:
Curious tale of a private eye who is hired by a villain to find his homicidal girlfriend. But the story takes a twist when he tracks her down and promptly falls in love with her.

Rate this: 75% from 901 members

Prime Cut

Quirky, memorable, early 70s thriller, typical of its time, its a 'B' movie in colour, with good production values and everyone is having fun.

Prime Cut (1972)
Starring: Lee Marvin, Gene Hackman, Angel Tompkins
Director: Michael Ritchie
Certificate:
Gritty, tongue-in-cheek drama about a Kansas City mobster in deep trouble when an enforcer from Chicago is sent to collect a debt.

Rate this: 64% from 65 members

Marathon Man

Schlesinger is not everyones cup of tea, but the torture scene has probably led to more cancelled dentist appointments than anything else in film history

Marathon Man on DVD (1976)
Starring: Laurence Olivier, Roy Scheider, Dustin Hoffman
Director: John Schlesinger
Certificate:
Watch now: £2.49
Columbia University graduate student Babe Levy (Dustin Hoffman) spends his spare time running in marathons. He finds himself running for his life, however, when he unwittingly becomes entangled in an espionage plot involving fierce Nazi fugitive Szell (Sir Laurence Olivier). Watch for--or avoid--..read more »

Rate this: 70% from 7,309 members

Gilda

South America. Nightclubs. Nasty Nazis. And Rita Hayworth. The Love Godess. The greatest Femme Fatale ever captured on screen

- our price: £4.93
Gilda on DVD (1946)
Starring: Rita Hayworth, Glenn Ford, Joseph Calleia
Director: Charles Vidor
Certificate:
GILDA is the film that gave the world the indelible image of Rita Hayworth in that tight gown, lovingly removing that long glove as she sings, "Put the Blame on Mame." That's enough to justify a viewing, but the film has more, including a bewitched, bothered, etc., performance by a never-better ..read more »

Rate this: 70% from 1,726 member

The Long Kiss Goodnight

One of my favourite films. Comic-book nonsense on one level, but just such great fun and Samuel Jackson's finest hour

The Long Kiss Goodnight on DVD (1996)
Starring: Geena Davis, Samuel L. Jackson, Patrick Malahide
Director: Renny Harlin
Certificate:
Stricken with amnesia eight years earlier, a small-town schoolteacher and mother hires a private eye to help her uncover her past. When it's discovered she's a former CIA operative--and that her "accident" was actually an assassination attempt--she and the detective are thrown into an automatic ..read more »

Rate this: 68% from 6,833 members