10 Greatest Thriller Masterpieces of the Last 80 Years, Ranked

Considering just how impressive the cinematic collection of thrillers is, making any list of the all-time best is a Herculean task. Vertigo, Prisoners, The Conversation, and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy are just a few that come to mind when one thinks of the greatest entries into the genre over cinematic history, but for the best thrillers of the past 80 years, we had to limit it to the absolute best of the best.

10 'Dog Day Afternoon' (1975)

Three years after The Godfather, Al Pacino starred in Sidney Lumet's Dog Day Afternoon. The plot was highly controversial in 1975, with Pacino's Sonny Wortzik and Sal Naturile (John Cazale) robbing a bank to pay for a sex-change operation for Sonny's girlfriend. It all quickly goes wrong, though, when the cops close in before the thieves can get away.

Dog Day Afternoon is based on a thrilling true story, and it doesn't hold back. We get the usual bank heist tropes that have become the norm today, with people shot, threats made, and negotiators on the phone. At the center is a career-best Pacino, playing one of the defining antiheroes of the '70s. Lumet delivers a tense masterpiece made all the more perfect by Pacino's turn as a petty criminal worth cheering for. Attica! Attica!

9 'Wait Until Dark' (1967)

Audrey Hepburn stars in Terence Young's Wait Until Dark as Susy Hendrix, a blind woman who is unknowingly in possession of a doll with drugs in it. She ends up all alone at home and unable to see when three criminals, led by Harry Roat (Alan Arkin), come calling, willing to do anything it takes to get their cargo back.

Wait Until Dark is one of Hepburn's best movies, earning her a sixth and final Academy Award nomination. Susy is so easy to root for, but her disability doesn't make her a wilting flower. She takes the fight right to the baddies, leading to one of the best and tensest thriller endings ever made. And that famous jump scare! One moment between Hepburn and Arkin had audiences shrieking and still does six decades later.

8 'Chinatown' (1974)

Roman Polanski knows a thing or two about crafting suspense, and in 1974, he directed perhaps his best movie of all, Chinatown. It stars Jack Nicholson as J.J. Gittes, a private eye hired to watch a cheating husband, only to land himself in something much bigger that involves murder, cover-ups, and the husband's wife, Evelyn Cross-Mulwray (Faye Dunaway).

Chinatown is propelled by a script from Robert Towne, who won a richly deserved Best Original Screenplay Oscar for his work. Nicholson shines as Gittes, a man unable to get out of this mess who is now desperate to uncover the answers, including from Evelyn, who is not so trustworthy. Chinatown is a layered film of building tension and twists until it all comes crashing down in a fitting ending, one of the bleakest in cinematic history.

7 'The Departed' (2006)

Jack Nicholson is back on the list 32 years later, working with another legendary director. Martin Scorsese's The Departed is a mob film from a man who has made a career defining the genre. A remake of Infernal Affairs, the movie stars Matt Damon as Colin Sullivan, a man working for mob boss Frank Costello (Nicholson), who goes undercover in the Massachusetts Police Department. Meanwhile, a cop named Billy Costigan (Leonard DiCaprio) infiltrates the crime ring at the same time.

It's not hyperbole to call this one Scorsese's best film. After all, The Departed is the one that finally earned him a much-deserved and long-overdue Oscar for Best Director. It has a plot filled with incredible tension, where exposure will lead to death. The building suspense becomes unbearable all the way to a shocking scene in an elevator, which had everyone jumping out of their seats!

6 'The Usual Suspects' (1995)

With Bryan Singer and Kevin Spacey attached to it, The Usual Suspects can be an uncomfortable watch now, but it doesn't take away from what an outstanding ensemble created. The film surrounds a detective named Dave Kujan (Chazz Palminteri), who is investigating a ship explosion that left two dozen dead. He starts questioning a group of criminals who might be able to give him the information he needs, but will he discover the truth in time?

The cast also consists of Gabriel Byrne, Oscar winner Benicio del Toro, Kevin Pollack, and Stephen Baldwin, with a script by Christopher McQuarrie. Filled with so many characters, motivations, lies, and Kujan's search for a mysterious man named Keyser Söze, The Usual Suspects can be difficult to follow if you're not paying attention, but it's worth the mental effort to get to one of the top twist endings in film history.

5 'Fight Club' (1999)

If you love shocking twist endings, you can't go wrong with Fight Club either. Four years after Se7en, David Fincher directed an equally impressive film, based on a novel of the same name by Chuck Palahniuk. We're not supposed to talk about it, but Fight Club stars Edward Norton as the nameless narrator, a man bored with life who finds thrills in an underground fight club he creates with his cool new friend, Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt).

Chances are you know how this seminal anti-establishment thriller ends, but it's so much more than that jaw-dropping twist. Fight Club is gritty like only Fincher can do, and Norton and Pitt, along with Helena Bonham Carter, knock it out of the park. Arguably the ultimate film-bro movie, Fight Club has so much to say about male culture and even without the swerve at the end, it's still a brilliant thriller.

4 'North by Northwest' (1959)

During Alfred Hitchcock's career, it was one instant classic after another. A year before he changed horror forever with Psycho, Hitchcock helmed the perfect spy thriller. Of course, we're talking about North by Northwest, which stars Cary Grant as Roger Thornhill, a regular advertising executive who is mistakenly thought to be a government spy, sending him on a run for his life with Eve Kendall (Eva Marie Saint), a woman he just met.

North by Northwest is filled with one big moment after another, whether it's the iconic scene of Grant trying to outrun a crop duster, or it's he and Saint hanging off of Mount Rushmore. It's smart, cool, and surprisingly funny, and the template for what was to come in the then-nascent spy genre. Before James Bond, there was Roger Thornhill. Indeed, North by Northwest is a foundation movie in the spy, action, and thriller genres.

3 'Se7en' (1995)

After the disaster that was Alien 3, David Fincher's directing career could have been over just as it began. Thankfully, his next movie was Se7en, and he had an A-list cast made up of Brad Pitt, Morgan Freeman, and Gwyneth Paltrow. The film starts like your usual police murder mystery, with homicide detectives David Mills (Pitt) and William Somerset (Freeman) on the hunt for a serial killer who is using the Bible's seven deadly sins as his means for murder.

Se7en is dark and gritty, the cinematic representation of '90s grunge. Mills and Somerset bounce well off of each other as the young, reckless cop and the old curmudgeon. An already intense story takes it to the next gear when the killer reveals himself rather than being found. He's got a few deadly sins left on his list, and how he gets there had audiences sweating before ripping their hearts out. What's in the box?!

2 'Rear Window' (1954)

Over 70 years ago, Alfred Hitchcock made his most suspenseful movie. Instead of the wide scope of North by Northwest, Rear Window stays mostly in one claustrophobic location, impossible to escape from. Jimmy Stewart is Jeff Jeffries, a photographer for a living, now stuck in his apartment in a wheelchair after an accident. Bored, Jeffries starts watching the neighbors in his apartment complex when he witnesses what he thinks is the aftermath of a murder.

The setup for Rear Window has been replicated so many times in movies like Disturbia, but nothing comes close to Hitchcock's effort. Long before he was Perry Mason, Raymond Burr was intimidating as Lars Thorwald, Jeff's neighbor and potential murderer. Joining Stewart is a never-better Grace Kelly, giving the film a much-welcome dose of stylish allure. When the truth is revealed, audiences can't help but stare in awe at what Hitchcock has achieved.

1 'The Silence of the Lambs' (1991)

The Silence of the Lambs is a thriller so dark and terrifying that it can also make the list of best horror movies. Based on Thomas Harris' novel of the same name, Jonathan Demme's film follows a young and determined FBI agent named Clarice Starling (Jodie Foster), who's on the hunt for a serial killer called Buffalo Bill (Ted Levine). To find him, she visits a brilliant doctor named Hannibal Lecter (Anthony Hopkins) for guidance. The only problem? Lecter is a cannibal locked up in prison.

The Silence of the Lambs won the Big Five Oscars for Best Picture, Director, Actor, Actress, and Adapted Screenplay, and it deserved them all. Despite her youth, Clarice is a confident woman the audience immediately invests in. Buffalo Bill is terrifying, the score is intense, and Demme seamlessly weaves it all together. The Silence of the Lambs is Hopkins' movie, though. The calm Hannibal Lecter is a monster waiting to be unleashed, who is absolutely terrifying even when he's behind bars.