3) Wait Until Dark
Little-seen today, Wait Until Dark is still a great little thriller that creates tension out of non-action, before spiralling brilliantly into terror and violence at the end.
After a drug deal goes wrong, photographer’s wife Susy (Audrey Hepburn) is paid a home visit by a trio of gangsters posing variously as police and friends of her husband in order to get their hands on the heroin-filled MacGuffin inside her apartment. What ensues is a con game slowly unraveling, made even more complicated by one crucial factor: the fact that Susy is totally blind.
Facing off against Alan Arkin’s nasal and supremely nasty gangster, Audrey Hepburn gives an Oscar-nominated turn, her last before she went into semi-retirement. Her Susy makes for an unexpected heroine, in a home invasion movie where the victim can’t even see the invasion taking place – probably for the best, considering the film is home to one of the most frightening jump-scares found outside of horror cinema.