10 Greatest Serial Killer Thriller Movies Of All Time, Ranked

Serial killers have been one of the most popular villains in thriller movies for years. This specific character type has appeared in everything from horror movies to action thrillers to intense dramatic thrillers. In every case, it is the serial killer who demands the viewer's attention in these movies. Regardless of who plays the detective trying to stop this killer, the person taking lives remains the memorable and terrifying centerpiece of these films.

Few people prove this more than Anthony Hopkins' portrayal of Hannibal Lecter. While he is in jail for most of the movie, he still steals the scene every time he appears. Add in the unhinged Buffalo Bill, and there is a reason The Silence of the Lambs was an Oscar success, although Jodie Foster holds her own beside the serial killers. While all other serial killer thrillers are matched up with this masterpiece, many have come close to its brilliance.

Serial killer thrillers are attractive to many different kinds of filmmakers and movie stars. Names like Michael Mann, David Fincher, and Bong Joon-ho have worked in the genre. Names like Brad Pitt, Denzel Washington, Jake Gyllenhaal, and Sigourney Weaver have taken lead roles in these films. Every step of the way, the serial killers keep viewers on the edge of their seats, making these movies quick success stories.

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (2011)

David Fincher adapted Stieg Larsson's novel The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo in 2011, making it the second adaptation of the story. The original movie was a Swedish film that was the first part of a trilogy, but Fincher's movie ended the franchise after just one release. That is unfortunate because this is a critically acclaimed movie, with fantastic acting, direction, and an incredible music score by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross.

The movie follows a young hacker named Lisbeth Salander (Rooney Mara), who works with a journalist named Mikael Blomkvist (Daniel Craig) to solve a 40-year-old disappearance that turns out to be a murder, exposing corruption within a wealthy family. The killer turns out to be Martin Vanger (Stellan Skarsgård), a man who had been killing women for decades. Mara earned an Oscar nomination for her performance.

Copycat (1995)

One of the most underrated thrillers of the 1990s is the movie Copycat. Released in 1995, the movie stars Sigourney Weaver as a criminal psychologist named Dr. Helen Hudson and Harry Connick Jr. as an imprisoned serial killer, Daryll Lee Cullum, a man who physically targeted and attacked Hudson before his arrest. As a result, Hudson has remained isolated and agoraphobic since that time.

However, the movie tells the story of a new serial killer who is copying the styles of past killers to draw out Hudson for a dark, deadly game. The new killer copies everyone from the Boston Strangler and Ted Bundy to the Son of Sam and the fictional Daryll Lee Cullum. Holly Hunter also stars as the detective investigating the murders. The twist at the end, which reveals Cullum's role in the new murders, remains haunting to this day.

I Saw The Devil (2010)

I Saw the Devil is a South Korean revenge thriller by Kim Jee-woon that takes a very different approach to the serial killer thriller subgenre. That is because this is a revenge thriller, and it has a secret agent searching for the serial killer who murdered his fiancée. As a result, the serial killer is the main villain, but the pursuit of vengeance actually morally corrupts the once-heroic secret agent.

Secret agent Kim Soo-hyun's (Lee Byung-hun) fiancée is brutally murdered and dismembered by a deranged psychopath, Jang Kyung-chul (Choi Min-sik). However, instead of killing the serial killer, the agent implants a tracking device in him and lets him go so he can then hunt him down and torture him repeatedly. This received high critical praise, with critics pointing out how trauma can turn even the best of men into villains over time.

Kiss The Girls (1997)

One of the best-selling detective novel series of all time is James Patterson's Alex Cross series. This has been adapted several times into movies and TV shows, and the best of these came in 1997 with the serial killer thriller Kiss the Girls. Directed by Gary Fleder, Morgan Freeman stars here as Alex Cross, while Ashley Judd co-stars as Dr. Kate McTiernan.

This is a more personal story for Cross, as it was his niece who was abducted, and he ends up teaming with McTiernan, who had previously escaped the serial killer, to save his niece. The twist here is that the serial killer is a police detective (Cary Elwes), while the movie adds a second serial killer to confuse the investigation. This is a smart film that launched Alex Cross onto the big screen.

Manhunter (1986)

Long before Anthony Hopkins perfected the role of Hannibal Lecter, the cannibalistic serial killer debuted on the big screen in the 1986 movie Manhunter. This was one of Michael Mann's earlier films, an adaptation of Thomas Harris's novel Red Dragon. While the book was also adapted over a decade later as part of Hopkins' run as Lecter, this movie stars Brian Cox as the imprisoned killer.

William Petersen (CSI) stars as Will Graham, the FBI profiler who helped bring down Lecktor (the spelling was changed in this movie). Here, he is trying to stop a serial killer known as the Tooth Fairy (Tom Noonan), and he has to go to Lecktor for help. With Mann's stylish, neon-soaked visuals and Noonan's eerie performance as the Tooth Fairy, it remains a highlight in the entire franchise.

The Bone Collector (1999)

In 1999, The Bone Collector does something very different by putting its biggest star, Denzel Washington, off his feet throughout the entire movie as a quadriplegic forensics expert named Lincoln Rhyme. The main star here, though, is Angelina Jolie as a patrol officer named Amelia, who is a rookie trying to track down a serial killer who leaves all his kill scenes as elaborate setups.

The killer, called the Bone Collector, abducts victims in a taxi and stages grisly deaths built as puzzles referencing an old crime book. Rhyme helps Amelia crack the puzzles as she tries to find the killer before she becomes the next target. That makes puzzle-solving the most important thing about this movie, even more than the killer and the detectives. It wasn't critically acclaimed, but it remains a re-watchable favorite.

Memories Of Murder (2003)

Years before Bong Joon-ho won an Oscar for Parasite, he directed one of the best serial killer movies of all time. This is a South Korean thriller that is based on the real Hwaseong serial murders of 1986-1991, committed by the first recognized serial killer in South Korea. Song Kang-ho and Kim Sang-kyung star as the two detectives investigating the case, as the local police struggle to crack it.

The most interesting aspect of this serial killer movie is that the killer is never caught, and the real-life killer was not captured until after this movie was released, which helped raise awareness of the cold case. With no known motive and the killer not caught, it offers up a look at the frustrating attempts to find a faceless killer. Memories of Murder remains one of the best South Korean thrillers of the 21st century.

Zodiac (2007)

In 2007, David Fincher took on another unsolved serial killer case with the Zodiac Killer from the 1960s and 1970s. The real killer hunted victims in the San Francisco Bay Area, and the identity of the killer remains unknown to this day. In Zodiac, a cartoonist named Robert Graysmith (Jake Gyllenhaal) becomes obsessed with cracking the case, and in Fincher's film, he actually names a suspect.

The movie is based on two books that Graysmith wrote about the killings, Zodiac (1986) and Zodiac Unmasked (2002). Not solving the case but leaving it open-ended was an interesting way for Fincher to conclude his story, and adding in a theory made it something that attracts true-crime obsessives.

Se7en (1995)

David Fincher directed the serial killer thriller Se7en in 1995, and it remains the darkest mainstream genre film of that decade. In this movie, a young detective named David Mills (Brad Pitt) is partnered with a veteran nearing retirement named William Somerset (Morgan Freeman). Together, they are pulled into a serial killer mystery where a man known as John Doe is murdering people and staging their deaths around the Seven Deadly Sins.

Kevin Spacey is unsettling as John Doe, but this is all about Mills, his young wife (Gwyneth Paltrow), and Somerset, and how the killer pulls all three of them into his horrifying plans. Se7en's ending makes this a hard movie to rewatch, but it all plays out as a perfectly scripted tale of terror.

The Silence Of The Lambs (1991)

The most successful serial killer thriller ever made arrived in 1991 with Jonathan Demme's The Silence of the Lambs. In this film, a young FBI trainee named Clarice Starling (Jodie Foster) is sent to interview a cannibalistic serial killer named Hannibal Lecter (Anthony Hopkins) to see if he can help crack a new serial killer case involving a man known as Buffalo Bill (Ted Levine).

The best character here, by far, is Hopkins as Lecter, and he helped turn this movie into a franchise. This was also a massive success, sweeping all the major categories at the Oscars, becoming one of only three movies in history to win all five major awards.