The 3 Best Thriller Movies of All Time

In the world of film, the Thriller is a very broad category. As you’ll see with our compiled “3 Best” movie list, it ranges 80 years and dips its toe in many other genres – horror, film noir, espionage, etc. We’ve done our best here to give you a grand sampling of suspenseful movies, a rundown that spans multiple decades, evokes different moods, and showcases many directors (though there are a few repeats). So here are the best thriller movies of all time, from grim, grinning ghosts, to serial killers, to brainwashed pawns of enemy nations.

3. Psycho (1960)

Simply put, Psycho is one of the best and most influential suspense thrillers ever made and one of the best horror movies. This 1960 Alfred Hitchcock classic starring Anthony Perkins and Janet Leigh changed cinema and inspired countless future filmmakers in the process. For Hitchcock — who had previously crafted films like North by Northwest, Vertigo and Rear Window — the film was a notable departure from his established formula. Filmed with a smaller budget, in black-and-white, by the crew of his television series Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Psycho was controversial (at the time) in both structure and topic and now stands tall as one of the best movies of all time.

2. The Silence of the Lambs (1991)

Remember when a horror movie won the Oscar for Best Picture, Director, Actor, Actress and Screenplay? The Silence of the Lambs not only launched a Hannibal Lecter media franchise and ushered in a brief era of “prestige horror” — big name directors doing spooky stuff (i.e. Misery, Interview with a Vampire, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, etc) — but it also led to dozens of copycat serial killer films throughout the ’90s (one even being called Copycat). Oh, and did we mention it also happens to be a phenomenal movie with some of the best twists, turns, and scares of all time? The Silence of the Lambs is near-unbeatable.

1. North By Northwest (1959)

Truthfully, this list could be mostly Alfred Hitchcock films. Therefore it’s fitting that he should nab the top spot here with his epic mystery/thriller, North By Northwest. An espionage adventure brimming over with intrigue and fun, and featuring some of the most copied sequences in film, North By Northwest stars the incomparable Cary Grant as Roger Thornhill, a man mistaken for a spy and forced to flee from relentless pursuit, providing a blueprint by which all thrillers can be judged.