Some of the most iconic movies of all time are thrillers from the 2000s. In this decade, filmmakers tried new approaches to story structure, thematic depth, and genre fusion. The Coen Brothers and visionary director Christopher Nolan have contributed significantly to this genre’s history of outstanding works, delivering several groundbreaking thrillers. These movies successfully bridged the gap between mainstream and arthouse cinema, appealing to a large audience with their nuanced storytelling.
Moreover, directors have been able to create more immersive and visually spectacular experiences due to technological developments in visual effects and sound design; Inception is a prime example of this. Furthermore, many post-9/11 thrillers were impacted by the tense political situation, giving realism and resonance for viewers today.
Films like Cache, which deal with paranoia, surveillance, and personal identification, have a powerful emotional impact because they mirror the fears of the modern viewer. The expansion of online and digital media in the 2000s, which encouraged audiences to discuss and study movies, including the influential thrillers below, also contributed to the growing popularity.
10. A History of Violence (2005)
Written and directed by Josh Olson, A History of Violence is a crime thriller by David Cronenberg, based on John Wagner and Vince Locke’s 1997 graphic novel. In addition to Viggo Mortensen and Maria Bello, the film also stars Ed Harris and William Hurt. The plot follows Tom Stall (Mortensen), a man who runs a cafe in a sleepy Indiana town, where he and his wife (Bello) and two kids enjoy a fairly regular life.
However, Tom’s tranquil life is shattered when he unintentionally kills two crooks who try to rob his diner. The media covers his deed, and proclaims him a hero in his community. Because of his notoriety, Tom attracts the attention of dangerous men who suspect he is not who he pretends to be. They claim he’s a vicious mobster who vanished from Philadelphia years ago. Tom must confront his past and protect his family as these men threaten his perfect life.
9. Taken (2008)
Taken features the acting talents of Liam Neeson, Maggie Grace, Famke Janssen, and Leland Orser in an action-packed thriller setting. The protagonist, Bryan Mills (Liam Neeson), is a former CIA agent living in Los Angeles who has developed unique skills throughout his career. Bryan does not hesitate to take action when his daughter Kim (Maggie Grace) and her friend are abducted by human traffickers while on a trip to Paris. He takes a plane to Paris and immediately begins an exhaustive search for his kidnapped daughter. He uses skills learned as a spy, fighter, and investigator to scour the Parisian underbelly.
Audiences were on the edge of their seats during Taken due to the film’s fascinating and fast-paced narrative. Bryan Mills became a legendary figure in the history of action thrillers thanks to Neeson’s superb performance. While Taken isn’t known for its depth or conceptual subtlety, the high-stakes premise and Neeson’s riveting performance helped propel it to box office success. The film’s memorable lines have also been widely cited in other forms of media, furthering the film’s cultural impact.
8. The Prestige (2006)
Filmmaker Christopher Nolan adapted Christopher Priest’s 1995 novel The Prestige for his 2006 psychological thriller. Christian Bale, Hugh Jackman, Michael Caine, and Scarlett Johansson front the film’s strong ensemble cast. In this picture, set in London at the end of the 19th century, Robert Angier (Jackman) and Alfred Borden (Bale) play two magicians who, following a sad event during a trick, go from being friends and colleagues to bitter rivals.
Each becomes obsessed with one-upping the other with the grandest of illusions, and this competition drives them to extremes of secrecy, self-sacrifice, and deception. Nolan deftly employs the structure of a magic trick as a framework for the film’s narrative, exploring ideas of obsession, identity, and the price of ambition via the lens of the vow, the turn, and the prestige. The film’s non-linear narrative approach and complex plot leave viewers wondering until the conclusion, much like a good magic trick.
7. American Psycho (2000)
Inspired by Bret Easton Ellis’s 1991 novel of the same name, American Psycho is a satirical psychological thriller/horror film directed by Mary Harron and released in 2000. The film chronicles the exploits of Patrick Bateman (Christian Bale), a pompous and self-absorbed Wall Street banker who resides in Manhattan during the ’80s financial boom. The excesses of his profession are only the tip of the iceberg; Bateman is also a serial killer who engages in increasingly violent and horrifying murders in his spare time.
American Psycho is a scathing satire that criticizes materialism, vanity, and the corrupting influence of corporate society. The film claims that rampant greed, egotism, and moral bankruptcy were common on Wall Street throughout the ’00s, and Patrick Bateman’s extreme dualism serves as an emblem of these characteristics. At first, “American Psycho” was criticized for the graphic violence and condemnation of the American consumer society that it depicted. However, it later earned praise for its incisive societal critique, witty dialogue, and compelling performance by Bale. The film has attained cult status and is now regarded as a classic of early twenty-first-century filmmaking.
6. Zodiac (2007)
Directed by David Fincher, Zodiac is a mystery thriller film released based on the non-fiction books Zodiac and Zodiac Unmasked by Robert Graysmith. The film, starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Mark Ruffalo, and Robert Downey Jr., investigates the unsolved Zodiac murders in the San Francisco Bay Area in the late 1960s and early 1970s with meticulous detail. The story primarily follows Robert Graysmith (played by Gyllenhaal), a San Francisco Chronicle cartoonist who becomes obsessed with the case, Paul Avery (Downey Jr.), a crime reporter for the same paper, and Inspector David Toschi (Ruffalo), a homicide detective for the San Francisco Police Department.
The lives of these three men become connected as they share the Chronicle’s investigation of the enigmatic and taunting letters from the self-proclaimed Zodiac Killer. A rigorous procedural, Zodiac emphasizes the research more than the usual genre thrills. Rather than providing a cleanly completed story, it focuses on the cost of obsession and the elusiveness of truth. The film succeeds where others have failed by depicting the precise nature of traditional journalism and detective work.
5. Mulholland Drive (2001)
Mulholland Drive is a 2001 neo-noir mystery thriller written and directed by David Lynch, one of today’s most distinctive and enigmatic filmmakers. The film, starring Naomi Watts, Laura Harring, and Justin Theroux, presents a convoluted story alternating between real-life events and weird dream sequences. Actress-to-be Betty Elms (Naomi Watts) moves to Los Angeles and stays with her aunt, where she meets a mystery woman (Laura Harring) suffering from amnesia after a car accident.
After seeing a poster for the film Gilda, in which Rita Hayworth played the lead role, the mysterious woman adopts her name. Betty’s decision to aid “Rita” in resolving her identity crisis takes them on a surreal adventure through the seedier underworld of Hollywood. Meanwhile, mysterious forces in Hollywood are pressuring filmmaker Adam Kesher (Justin Theroux) to cast a relatively-unknown actress in his following picture. The film builds to a strange and dizzying finale as these stories weave together, and the boundary between fact and illusion dissolves.
4. Memento (2000)
Christopher Nolan’s Memento is a breakthrough psychological thriller adapted from a short story by his brother, Jonathan Nolan. The film, starring Guy Pearce, Carrie-Anne Moss, and Joe Pantoliano, follows the story of Leonard Shelby (Guy Pearce), a former insurance investigator who suffers from anterograde amnesia after experiencing a traumatic event that also led to the death of his wife. Leonard will not rest until he finds his wife’s murderer and bring him to justice.
His memory impairment, however, means he must rely on a system of written reminders, Polaroid photos, and body art to help him remember things. As the plot develops, the spectator doubts Leonard’s recollections and the sincerity of the people he meets. Unique to Memento is its non-linear narrative, broken up into two parts. The first is in black and white and unfolds chronologically, while the second is in color and unfolds in reverse order. These episodes alternate throughout the film until they merge at the end, creating a jigsaw puzzle-like storyline that engages and intrigues the viewer.
3. The Departed (2006)
Martin Scorsese directed the crime thriller The Departed, for which he won an Academy Award for Best Director. The film is an adaptation of the Hong Kong movie Infernal Affairs, released in 2002. The film revolves around a war between the Massachusetts State Police and an Irish mob in Boston. It stars some of Hollywood’s finest, including Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, Jack Nicholson, and Mark Wahlberg.
The Departed centers on two main characters: police officer Billy Costigan (DiCaprio), who goes undercover in the mob, and criminal Colin Sullivan (Damon), who infiltrates the state police. The stakes get higher, putting both men in danger and putting their loyalty to the test. DiCaprio, Damon, and Nicholson all give strong performances, and Wahlberg’s portrayal of the tough-guy Sergeant Dignam garnered him an Academy Award nod for Best Supporting Actor. The film’s plot is a complicated web of deception and betrayal that requires viewers to pay great attention to every aspect.
2. Inception (2010)
Christopher Nolan’s Inception is a 2010 science fiction thriller he wrote and directed. Leonardo DiCaprio, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Eliot Page, Tom Hardy, Ken Watanabe, Cillian Murphy, and Marion Cotillard are just some of the stars in the picture. This high-concept heist thriller takes place entirely in the dream world, rather than the real one. Dom Cobb (DiCaprio), a professional thief, and his colleagues employ dream-sharing technology to steal information from people’s subconscious minds.
The plot develops when a wealthy businessman named Saito (Ken Watanabe) offers Cobb a second shot at life. The goal is not to steal an idea but to plant one, a process known as “inception.” It will be a perfect crime if they pull it off, but they face several genuine risks. Everything from the script to the special effects to the music to the ensemble cast in Inception was praised by reviewers. It was a box office hit, grossing more than $800 million globally. The film won four Academy Awards and was nominated for Best Picture and Original Screenplay.
1. No Country for Old Men (2007)
Based on Cormac McCarthy’s novel, No Country for Old Men is a neo-Western thriller filmed and written by Joel and Ethan Coen. The film stars an impressive ensemble starring Tommy Lee Jones, Javier Bardem, and Josh Brolin as Llewelyn Moss, a hunter who, after discovering the remnants of a botched drug deal near the Texas–Mexico border, decides to retain a bag full of cash for himself. This action directly conflicts with Anton Chigurh (Bardem), a cold-blooded assassin hired to reclaim the funds.
Ed Tom Bell (Jones), the small-town sheriff, is nearing retirement and disillusioned with the rising violence in his community as he tries to save Moss and his wife. The story of No Country for Old Men is austere, the language is sparse, and the atmosphere is tense. The Coen Brothers create a tense and terrifying film that relies not on music or sound effects to build suspense but on the intensity of the actors’ performances and the eeriness of its silences.
