Over the course of the last decade, the world has gotten several of what will surely be remembered as some of the greatest crime thrillers of the early 21st century. These have been exceptional masterpieces displaying the best that the genre has to offer: Sometimes brutal, sometimes darly alluring, but always fascinating and incredibly suspenseful stories about those who break the law and those who bring them to justice.
Whether they're focused on the law-breakers or the do-gooders; whether they're entirely dark in tone or have an edgy sense of humor; and no matter where in the world they come from, the best crime thrillers of the last 10 years are all among the best films of the same period. From 2016 to the present, audiences have been treated to the full potential of such exceptionally compelling films.
10 'Wind River' (2017)
Before he became one of the biggest names in modern streaming and television, Taylor Sheridan was a screenwriter. He made himself a household name with his highly acclaimed American Frontier Trilogy, starting with Denis Villeneuve's Sicario and followed by David Mackenzie's Hell or High Water. The final installment in the thematic trilogy was also the second movie directed by Sheridan himself, Wind River.
This neo-Western crime masterpiece is the kind of thriller that keeps you hooked from start to finish, a gripping murder mystery about the terrifying systemic violence against Indigenous women that still exists in the United States today. It's absolutely chilling and brilliantly character-driven, with some exceptional performances and an artfully unique approach to the tropes of the whodunnit genre.
9 'The Seed of the Sacred Fig' (2024)
Image via NEONWritten, produced, and directed by Mohammad Rasoulof, the Iranian political drama The Seed of the Sacred Fig is one of the best films that the country has produced in years. It's one of the best thrillers of 2024, a three-hour-long epic thriller following an investigating judge struggling with feelings of paranoia amid political unrest in Tehran, following the death of a young woman.
The film, hugely critical of Iranian authorities and the regime, got Rasoulof sentenced to eight years in prison ahead of the movie's release. He managed to flee to Germany, and the world was treated to one of the most original, compelling, and powerful political statements that cinema has had to offer this decade. For those who love thrillers that don't pull their punches, The Seed of the Sacred Fig is a must-see.
8 'No Other Choice' (2025)
Image via NEONNo one does thrillers quite like the South Koreans, and no South Korean filmmaker working today has mastered the genre quite as well as Park Chan-wook. The auteur's most recent outing is the pitch-black comedy No Other Choice, based Donald Westlake's horror thriller novel The Axe. Park took that story and made it sharply and distinctly Korean, yet still with a strong enough critique of modern capitalism to make it universally relatable and enjoyable.
But aside from being filled to the brim with the kind of dark humor that characterizes its director, No Other Choice is undeniably also a thriller—and one of the best Hitchcockian movies of the 21st century, at that. Marvelously directed and paced, exquisitely intelligent and character-driven, and with a depressing ending that makes the story's message on the technological evolution of the workplace all the more resounding, it's a revolutionary masterpiece whose snub for the Best International Feature Oscar this year was an absolute travesty.
7 'The Guilty' (2018)
Image via Nordisk Film SpringNot to be confused with its infinitely inferior American remake starring Jake Gyllenhaal, the Danish single-scene thriller The Guilty is one of the best thriller masterpieces since 2010. It was Gustav Möller's directorial debut, following a distressed Copenhagen police officer as he follows a case through phone conversations within the confines of an emergency call center.
Where many films throughout history have made the single-location and single-scene framing device feel like nothing more than a cheap gimmick (including this movie's own remake), Möller made it feel like a completely necessary and intrinsic part of the story. Intense, impeccably shot, and effectively mysterious, The Guilty is a must-see for all those tired of watching the same old crime thriller formula play out in every new outing of the genre they watch nowadays.
6 'Good Time' (2017)
Image via A24The movie that made Josh and Benny Safdie world-famous directors and catapulted Robert Pattinson to post-Twilight acclaim was Good Time, one of the best indie movies of the 21st century. Anchored by an iconic score by electronic musician Oneothrix Point Never (a.k.a. Daniel Lopatin), it's an anxiety-inducing modern crime classic that understands the genre's intricacies to absolute perfection.
For one, Pattinson truly is absolutely exceptional here, delivering what may still be the best performance he's ever offered in a film. But he's not the only thing that Good Time has going for it. Stylish, visually delightful, and impressively creative, it's a refreshing neon masterpiece that exudes pure energy and neuroticism. It's a rattling watch, but an essential one for thriller fans nonetheless.
5 'It Was Just An Accident' (2025)
Image via NEONJafar Panahi is perhaps the single most important and groundbreaking Iranian voice working in cinema right now. He has been imprisoned several times due to his criticisms of the Iranian government in his work, and that critical attitude reached its pinnacle last year, when he directed the Iranian-French-Luxembourgish co-production It Was Just An Accident without official filming permission from Iranian authorities.
It's admirably blunt in its politics and sharp in its sociopolitical message, condemning authoritarianism outright without ever sacrificing nuance or artistic subtlety.
Winner of the Palme d'Or at the most recent Cannes Film Festival, It Was Just An Accident is one of the best movies of the 2020s so far. It's admirably blunt in its politics and sharp in its sociopolitical message, condemning authoritarianism outright without ever sacrificing nuance or artistic subtlety. But it's not just a political document: It's an enthralling thriller as well, with some tremendous entertainment value and a perfect sense of suspense.
4 'Anatomy of a Fall' (2023)
Image via NEONWinner of the Palme d'Or at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival, Anatomy of a Fall is easily one of the best courtroom dramas of the last 100 years. This genre typically treats "the truth" and as a clear, immovable, supreme objective fact. But in reality, that's often not the case. Truth tends to be something far messier, more subjective, and less fully-knowable, and no courtroom drama demonstrates that fact better than Justine Triet's magnum opus.
The movie never spoon-feeds its audience easy answers—or any final answers at all, really, instead leaving the mystery at the core of its narrative ambiguous and... well, mysterious. Expertly crafted, marvelously directed, and led by a powerhouse Sandra Hüller, it's immensely ambitious and delectably smart feminist cinema at its very best, as well as one of the greatest crime thrillers of the 2020s so far.
3 'Uncut Gems' (2019)
Image via A24It may have been Good Time that really put the Safdie brothers on many cinephiles' radars, but it was Uncut Gems that put them on the mainstream map. It stars Adam Sandler, and the Safdies extract the most dramatic, intense, high-strung, and emotionally riveting performance that he's ever delivered out of him. But much like Good Time, Uncut Gems also doesn't live or die only by its lead performance.
Instead, it's one of the most anxious movies of all time for a wide variety of other reasons. The Safdies' direction is virtually flawless, for one. Their sense of pacing and suspense is an absolute masterclass in how to make an effective crime thriller, one that snatches the viewer by the back of the head, starts running, and doesn't let go until the credits roll. The film is also visually striking and supported by another fantastic Daniel Lopatin score, culminating in one of the most nail-bitingly tense third acts of any film from the 2010s.
2 'The Batman' (2022)
Image via Warner Bros. PicturesIt may also be a superhero film, but Matt Reeves's The Batman is a crime thriller at heart. Greatly inspired by films like Chinatown and the work of David Fincher (Se7en in particular), it's a suspenseful detective tale led by Robert Pattinson at his best. The rest of the cast is also phenomenal, and Reeves' stylish direction is a real treat for anyone that's been waiting for a properly masterful Batman film since 2008's The Dark Knight.
It's one of the most perfect movies of the last 5 years, and as such, easily also one of the best crime thrillers of the last decade, or perhaps even of the entirety of the 21st century. Aside from being a faithful yet fresh take on the story and world of the Caped Crusader, it's also a phenomenally powerful, mysterious, and tense crime epic in its own right. The character writing is amazing, the tone and atmosphere carefully built by Reeves are a masterclass, and Robert Pattinson's take on the Dark Knight may just be the best live-action incarnation of the character we've ever been treated to.
1 'One Battle After Another' (2025)
Image via Warner Bros. PicturesAfter a whopping 28 years of being Oscar-nominated time and time again yet never winning, it was this year that finally gave the legendary and iconic Paul Thomas Anderson not just one, nor just two, but three Academy Award victories—including Best Picture. The film responsible? One Battle After Another, which might indeed be the best that the director has ever been.
A celebration of revolution in the face of oppression that feels like it came out at exactly the right time (despite the fact that PTA started working on ideas for the movie over two decades ago), One Battle is one of the greatest Best Picture Oscar winners of modern times. Politically sharp, exceptionally well-paced, extraordinarily well-acted, and full of sequences that will go down in history as some of the best-made of 21st-century cinema, it's the best crime thriller that audiences have seen since 2016.
Collider Exclusive · Oscar Best Picture Quiz
Which Oscar Best Picture
Is Your Perfect Movie?
Parasite · Everything Everywhere · Oppenheimer · Birdman · No Country
Five Oscar Best Picture winners. Five completely different visions of what cinema can be — and what it can do to you. One of them is the film that was made for the way your mind works. Ten questions will figure out which one.
🪜Parasite
🌀Everything Everywhere
☢️Oppenheimer
🐦Birdman
🪙No Country for Old Men
FIND YOUR FILM →
01
What kind of film experience do you actually want? The best movies don't just entertain — they leave something behind.
ASomething that pulls the rug out — that makes me think I'm watching one kind of film and then reveals I'm watching another entirely. BSomething overwhelming — funny, sad, absurd, and genuinely moving, all at once. CSomething grand and weighty — a film that makes me feel the full scale of what I'm watching. DSomething formally daring — a film that pushes what cinema can even do. ESomething lean and relentless — pure tension with no wasted frame.
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02
Which idea grabs you most in a film? Great films are driven by a central obsession. What's yours?
AClass, inequality, and what people are willing to do when desperation meets opportunity. BIdentity, family, and the chaos of trying to hold your life together when everything is falling apart. CGenius, moral responsibility, and the catastrophic weight of a decision you can never take back. DEgo, legacy, and the terror of becoming irrelevant while you're still alive to watch it happen. EEvil, chance, and whether moral order actually exists or if we just tell ourselves it does.
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03
How do you like your story told? Form is content. The way a story is shaped changes what it means.
AGenre-twisting — I want it to start in one lane and migrate into something completely different. BMaximalist and genre-blending — comedy, action, drama, sci-fi, all in one ride. CEpic and non-linear — cutting between timelines, building a mosaic of cause and consequence. DA single unbroken flow — I want to feel like I'm living it in real time, no cuts to safety. ESpare and precise — every scene doing exactly what it needs to do and nothing more.
NEXT QUESTION →
04
What makes a truly great antagonist? The opposition defines the protagonist. What kind of opposition fascinates you?
AA system — invisible, structural, and almost impossible to fight because it has no single face. BThe self — the ways we sabotage, abandon, and fail the people we love most. CHistory — the unstoppable momentum of events that no single person can stop or redirect. DThe industry — the machinery of culture that chews up talent and spits out irrelevance. EPure, implacable evil — a force so certain of itself it becomes almost philosophical.
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05
What do you want from a film's ending? The final note is the one that lingers. What do you want it to sound like?
AShock and inevitability — a conclusion that recontextualises everything that came before it. BEarned emotion — I want to cry, laugh, and feel genuinely hopeful, even if the world is a mess. CDevastation and grandeur — an ending that makes me sit in silence for a few minutes after. DAmbiguity — something that leaves enough open that I'm still thinking about it days later. EBleakness — an honest refusal to pretend the world is tidier than it actually is.
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06
Which setting pulls you in most? Where a film takes place shapes everything — mood, stakes, what's even possible.
AA gleaming modern city with a hidden underside — beauty masking rot, wealth masking desperation. BA collapsing suburban life that opens onto something infinite — the multiverse of a single ordinary person. CThe corridors of power and science at a world-historical turning point — where decisions echo for decades. DThe grimy, alive chaos of New York and Hollywood — fame as both destination and trap. EVast, indifferent landscape — desert and highway where violence arrives without warning or reason.
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07
What cinematic craft impresses you most? Every great film has a signature — a technical or artistic element that makes it unmistakable.
AProduction design and mise-en-scène — every frame composed to carry meaning beneath the surface. BEditing and tonal control — the ability to move between registers without losing the audience. CScore and sound design — music that becomes inseparable from the dread and awe of what you're watching. DCinematography as performance — the camera not recording events but participating in them. ESilence and restraint — what's left unsaid and unshown doing more work than any dialogue could.
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08
What kind of main character do you root for? The protagonist is the lens. Who you choose to follow says something about you.
ASomeone smart and resourceful who makes increasingly dangerous decisions under pressure. BSomeone overwhelmed and ordinary who turns out to be capable of something extraordinary. CA brilliant, tortured figure whose gifts and flaws are inseparable from each other. DA self-destructive artist whose ego is both their superpower and their undoing. EA quiet, principled person trying to make sense of a world that has stopped making sense.
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09
How do you feel about a film that takes its time? Pace is a choice. Some films sprint; others let tension accumulate slowly, deliberately.
AI love a slow build when I know the payoff is going to be seismic — patience for a devastating reveal. BGive me relentless momentum — I want to feel breathless and emotionally spent by the end. CEpic runtime doesn't scare me — if the material demands three hours, give me three hours. DI want it to feel propulsive even when nothing is technically happening — restless energy throughout. EDeliberate and unhurried — I want dread to accumulate in the spaces between the action.
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10
What do you want to feel walking out of the cinema? The best films leave a mark. What kind of mark do you want?
AUnsettled — like I've just seen something I can't fully explain but can't stop thinking about. BMoved and energised — like the film reminded me what actually matters and gave me something to hold onto. CHumbled — like I've been in the presence of something genuinely important and overwhelming. DExhilarated — like I've just seen cinema doing something it's never quite done before. EHaunted — like a cold, quiet dread that stays with me for days.
REVEAL MY FILM →
The Academy Has Decided Your Perfect Film Is…
Your answers have pointed to one Oscar Best Picture winner above all others. This is the film that was made for the way your mind works.
Parasite
You are drawn to films that operate on multiple levels simultaneously — that begin in one genre and quietly, brilliantly migrate into another. Bong Joon-ho's Parasite is a film about class, desire, and the architecture of inequality that manages to be darkly funny, deeply suspenseful, and genuinely shocking across a single extraordinary running time. Your instinct is for cinema that hides its true intentions until the moment it's ready to reveal them. Parasite is exactly that — a film that rewards close attention and punishes assumptions, right up to its devastating final image.
Everything Everywhere All at Once
You want it all — and this film gives you all of it. The Daniels' Everything Everywhere All at Once is one of the most maximalist films ever made: action comedy, multiverse sci-fi, family drama, existential crisis, and a genuinely earned emotional core that sneaks up on you amid the chaos. You are someone who responds to ambition, who doesn't want cinema to choose between being entertaining and being meaningful. This film refuses that choice entirely. It is overwhelming by design, and its overwhelming nature is precisely the point — because the feeling of being crushed by infinite possibility is exactly what it's about.
Oppenheimer
You are drawn to cinema on a grand scale — films that understand history not as a backdrop but as a force, and that place their characters inside that force and watch what happens. Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer is a film about the terrifying gap between what we can do and what we should do, told with the full weight of one of the most consequential moments in human history behind it. You want your films to feel important without feeling self-important — to earn their ambition through sheer craft and the gravity of their subject. Oppenheimer does exactly that. It is enormous, complicated, and refuses easy comfort.
Birdman
You are drawn to films that foreground their own construction — that make the how of the filmmaking part of the what it's about. Alejandro González Iñárritu's Birdman, shot to appear as a single continuous take, is cinema examining itself through the cracked mirror of a fading actor's ego. You respond to formal daring, to the feeling that a film is doing something that probably shouldn't be possible. Michael Keaton's performance and Emmanuel Lubezki's restless camera create something genuinely unlike anything else — a film that is simultaneously about creativity, relevance, self-destruction, and the impossibility of ever truly knowing if your work means anything at all.
No Country for Old Men
You are drawn to cinema that trusts silence, that refuses to explain itself, and that treats dread as a form of meaning. The Coen Brothers' No Country for Old Men is a film about the arrival of a new kind of evil — implacable, arbitrary, and utterly indifferent to the moral frameworks we use to make sense of the world. It is one of the most formally controlled films ever made, and its controlled restraint is what makes it so terrifying. You want your films to haunt you, not comfort you. You are not interested in resolution if resolution would be dishonest. No Country for Old Men is honest in a way that most cinema never dares to be.
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One Battle After Another
Release Date September 26, 2025
Runtime 162 minutes
Director Paul Thomas Anderson
Writers Paul Thomas Anderson, Thomas Pynchon
English (US) ·