Image via Warner Bros. Pictures
Updated May 26, 2026, 8:14 AM EDT
Mason is a Senior Author responsible for the creation of Movie List Articles and Movie Feature Articles. Author of nearly 50 published articles, Mason's creative tenure with Collider only continues to blossom, contributing verbose, inspired and articulate pieces for Collider and its millions of readers.
Sign in to your Collider account
Thriller movies are the cinematic equivalent of roller-coaster rides. Fascinating and adaptable, the genre isn't constrained to any specific type. Whether horror, action, drama, or mystery, thrillers have remained an applicable and reliable form of entertainment since the beginning. Think of the all-time greats, from Psycho to Jaws: a good thriller raises heartbeats, builds suspense, and keeps viewers on the edge of their seats.
Thrillers are especially engaging when elements of crime are mixed into the narrative. Not only does it add another layer of tension and danger, but it also keeps the story relatively grounded. After all, the real world has consequences, and crime thrillers maintain focus on characters suffering those consequences. Recent examples have kept the subgenre thriving, even producing some all-time greats. These are the best crime thrillers of the past five years, ranked by how engaging, action-packed, and exhilarating they are. The ranking will only include movies released within the last five years, give or take a few months.
12 'Rebel Ridge' (2024)
Image via NetflixEx-marine and hand-to-hand combat specialist Terry Richmond (Aaron Pierre) finds himself the victim of small-town corruption when the local police unlawfully seize his cousin's bail money. While attempting to exercise his rights and challenge the injustice, Terry clashes with police chief Sandy Burne (Don Johnson). Soon enough, Terry finds himself in a battle of wits against an entire police force that's covering up a history of malpractice.
Rebel Ridge is a sturdy and narratively robust crime thriller. Smart and consistently engaging and directed with near-surgical precision from Jeremy Saulnier, this is a must-watch for genre fans. Rebel Ridge simply would not have worked as well as it did if not for a magnificent performance from Pierre; he perfectly embodies the stoic yet reserved nature of a man holding back for everyone else's safety. Terry is one of the freshest takes on an action hero in a long while.
11 'Longlegs' (2024)
Image via NEONNaturally gifted FBI Agent Lee Harker (Maika Monroe) is assigned to investigate a series of unsolved murders believed to have been perpetrated by an elusive serial killer known only as Longlegs (Nicolas Cage). As Harker gets more involved, she realizes that these cases are not as cold as her agency believes, and every new clue discovered brings Harker closer to a horrifying truth rooted in her mysterious past.
While its marketing placed a heavy emphasis on horror, Longlegs can best be described as a crime thriller/mystery with elements of horror. For fans of classic crime thrillers such as The Silence of the Lambs and Se7en, Longlegs should satisfy and will almost definitely unsettle. Nicolas Cage turns in an especially deranged (yet ridiculously entertaining) performance as the titular serial killer. While Longlegs wears the skin of an arthouse horror effort, it's a brooding police procedural at its core.
10 'The Stranger' (2022)
Image via NetflixA circumstantial conversation between two strangers on a bus leads to a sturdy friendship between Mark (Joel Edgerton) and Henry (Sean Harris). The latter is a rugged and damaged soul who finds comfort in the friendship of Mark. However, neither man is completely honest about who they really are, and eventually, their deepest secrets begin to surface.
Not only a massively underrated movie in its own right, The Stranger is an impressive genre movie that stands out as one of the best in recent memory. Edgerton and Harris both deliver career-best performances — the evolution of their friendship and what develops from it keeps the narrative rooted firmly in strong character writing. Like the best crime thrillers, The Stranger keeps the viewer guessing, delivering some shocking twists and indulging in a consistently grim atmosphere.
9 'Dead Man's Wire' (2026)
Image via Row K EntertainmentDespite releasing in the initial weeks of the year, Dead Man's Wire has already set itself up to be one of the defining crime thriller experiences of 2026, bringing a shocking true story to life with a powerful reflection and examination of its story in a modern context. The film follows enraged former real estate developer Tony Kiritsis (Bill Skarsgård) enacting his plan of vengeance, taking a mortgage banker who did him wrong hostage, and demanding $5 million and an apology.
While it would be easy enough to simply tell another story of a fractured real-life criminal and the intricacies of his psyche, Dead Man's Wire is also as much about the widespread news story that this crime becomes and the wider country's reaction to this crime. Not only does the general populace have such a fascination with true-crime stories, but they can also find themselves rooting for those committing the crime when their story exposes the greater tragedies and mistreatment of everyday people.
8 'The Killer' (2023)
Image via NetflixA masterful assassin (Michael Fassbender) operates with a cold exactness that those in his profession must embrace. After failing to execute a contract, the private life of the assassin is threatened in a personal attack against him. Thus, the assassin places his employers in his crosshairs and begins the methodical takedown of an entire criminal empire.
It seems almost too obvious that a director as precise and meticulous as David Fincher would direct a crime thriller about a contract killer. Fassbender is fantastic in the role; his gaze is piercing and largely expressionless, but an inner monologue makes it clear that his sullen eyes act as a defensive barrier. The Killer is a surprisingly introspective and thoughtfully told hitman story. There's even a tinge of self-referential humor in this effective and strangely meditative crime thriller.
7 'Emily the Criminal' (2022)
Image via Roadside Attraction/Vertical EntertainmentEmily (Aubrey Plaza), like many unfortunate souls her age, is battling student debt and is unable to find a steady job. With nowhere else to turn, Emily accepts a position as a "dummy buyer," purchasing goods with stolen credit cards provided by a shady criminal racket. Soon in over her head, Emily finds herself being pulled into the seedy underworld of Los Angeles, where the consequences could prove deadly.
Plaza is a commanding force in this underappreciated, taut, and energetic crime thriller. Emily the Criminal is as simple as the title is general, but that's not to say the movie isn't effective; some sequences in Emily the Criminal should only be described as nerve-racking. It's a briskly paced and well-constructed debut from director John Patton Ford that shouldn't be overlooked by genre enthusiasts or Plaza fans alike.
Collider Exclusive · Action Hero Quiz
Which Action Hero Would Be
Your Perfect Partner?
Rambo · James Bond · Indiana Jones · John McClane · Ethan Hunt
Five legends. Five completely different ways of getting out alive — with style, with muscle, with charm, with luck, or with a plan so intricate it probably shouldn't work. Ten questions will reveal which action hero was built to have your back.
🎖️Rambo
🍸James Bond
🏺Indiana Jones
🔧John McClane
🎭Ethan Hunt
FIND YOUR PARTNER →
01
You're dropped into a dangerous situation with no warning. What do you need most from a partner? The first few seconds tell you everything about who belongs beside you.
ASomeone who already has three contingency plans running and is calmly working through all of them. BSomeone who reads the terrain instinctively and knows exactly how to use it against the enemy. CSomeone who keeps their nerve and their sense of humour when everything is falling apart. DSomeone who knows the history of wherever we are and what we're walking into. ESomeone with the right contact, the right cover identity, and the right exit already arranged.
NEXT QUESTION →
02
You have to get somewhere dangerous, fast. How do you travel? How you get there is half the mission.
AOn foot through terrain no one else would attempt — I move where vehicles can't follow. BOn a motorcycle, a cargo plane, or anything else that gets me there before I think too hard about it. CIn something that belongs to someone else — borrowed, stolen, or improvised under fire. DFirst class, with a cover identity and a gadget that does something I won't explain until it's needed. EBy whatever means are available — I've driven, flown, and once arrived by camel. The destination matters, not the method.
NEXT QUESTION →
03
You're pinned down and outnumbered. What does your ideal partner do? This is when you find out what someone is really made of.
ADisappears into the environment, flanks them silently, and ends it before I've reloaded. BCracks a one-liner, grabs a fire extinguisher or a chair, and improvises something that somehow works. CProduces a gadget specifically designed for this exact scenario and uses it with infuriating precision. DPulls out a whip, a pistol, and an archaeological insight that somehow gets us out alive. ENeutralises the threat with maximum efficiency and minimum words — they were already three moves ahead.
NEXT QUESTION →
04
The mission is paused. You have one evening to decompress. What does your partner suggest? Who someone is when the pressure drops is who they actually are.
AA bar with terrible lighting, cold beer, and absolutely no questions about feelings. BThe finest restaurant in the city, a bottle of something expensive, and a conversation that is equal parts brilliant and exhausting. CA local dig site, a museum after hours, or a long story about why that particular artefact matters to human civilisation. DPizza. Bad TV. Falling asleep halfway through a movie neither of you were watching anyway. EA debrief that turns into three hours of contingency planning that somehow becomes the most fun you've had all week.
NEXT QUESTION →
05
How do you prefer your partner to communicate mid-mission? Good communication is the difference between partners and a liability.
APrecise and minimal — tell me what I need to know and nothing else. Every word has a cost. BDeadpan and dry — keeping it light keeps me sharp, even when everything is on fire. CEnthusiastic and slightly chaotic — but always with useful information buried somewhere in the noise. DCalm and controlled through an earpiece, with a plan that covers every variable I haven't thought of yet. EBarely at all — silence is a language and they speak it fluently.
NEXT QUESTION →
06
Your enemy is powerful, well-resourced, and has the upper hand. How should your partner approach them? The approach to the enemy defines the partnership.
AInfiltrate their inner circle, learn everything, and dismantle them from inside out before they know we're there. BStudy the historical pattern — every villain of this type has a weakness written somewhere in the past. CGet them talking. The more they monologue, the more time I have to figure out how to beat them. DGo through them. Directly. With as much force as the terrain allows. EFind the one thing they haven't accounted for — there's always one thing — and make sure we're holding it.
NEXT QUESTION →
07
Things go badly wrong and you're captured. What do you trust your partner to do? Who someone is when you need them most is the only thing that matters.
ACome in alone, quietly, and get me out before anyone knows they were there. BHave already been working on the extraction since the moment I disappeared — the plan is already running. CCome in loud, come in fast, and worry about the collateral damage later — I'd do the same for them. DUse every resource, every contact, and bend every rule until I'm out — they don't leave people behind. ECharm their way in somehow, bluff through the hard part, and still manage to look good doing it.
NEXT QUESTION →
08
What does your ideal partner bring to the table that you couldn't replace? A great partner fills the gap you didn't know you had.
ATechnology that shouldn't exist yet and the training to use it under any conditions. BSurvival instinct so refined it borders on supernatural — and the scars to prove it's been tested. CKnowledge of history, language, and culture that makes them invaluable in places where force is useless. DThe ability to walk into any room in the world and immediately become the most trusted person in it. EStubbornness that refuses to accept a situation is hopeless — and the improvisational skill to back it up.
NEXT QUESTION →
09
Every partnership has a cost. Which of these can you live with? No one comes without baggage. The question is whether you can carry it together.
AA partner who never fully switches off — always watching exits, always calculating threats, even at dinner. BA partner who gets the job done brilliantly but has the emotional availability of a locked filing cabinet. CA partner who makes everything ten times more complicated than it needs to be — but who always comes through. DA partner who gets personally attached to every relic, ruin, and artefact we encounter, which slows everything down. EA partner who was not built for this and knows it — but shows up anyway, every time, without being asked.
NEXT QUESTION →
10
It's the final moment. Everything is on the line. What do you need from your partner right now? The last question is the most honest one.
AOne line. Absolutely dry. Delivered like the world isn't ending. Then we move. BNothing said at all — just a look that means we both already know what has to happen. CA plan I don't fully understand that somehow accounts for everything, delivered in thirty seconds flat. DA piece of historical context that reframes the entire situation and tells us exactly what to do next. ESomeone who steps forward instead of back — because that's who they've always been.
REVEAL MY PARTNER →
Your Partner Has Been Assigned Your Perfect Partner Is…
Your answers have pointed to one action hero above all others. This is the person built to have your back — for better or considerably, spectacularly worse.
Rambo
Your partner doesn't talk much, doesn't need to, and will have assessed every threat in your immediate environment before you've finished your first sentence. John Rambo is not a man of plans or politics — he is a force of nature shaped by survival, loyalty, and a capacity for endurance that goes beyond anything training can produce. He will not leave you behind. He has never left anyone behind who deserved to come home. What you get with Rambo is the most capable, most quietly ferocious partner imaginable — one who has been through things that would have broken anyone else, and who chose to keep going anyway. You'll never need to ask if he has your back. You'll just know.
James Bond
Your partner will arrive perfectly dressed, perfectly briefed, and with a cover story so convincing it'll take you a moment to remember what's actually true. James Bond is the most professionally dangerous person in any room he enters — and the most disarmingly charming, which is the point. He operates in a world of layers, where nothing is what it appears and every advantage is used without apology. You'll never be bored. You'll occasionally be furious. But when it matters — when the mission is genuinely on the line and the margin for error has collapsed to nothing — Bond is exactly the partner you want. He has survived things that have no business being survivable. He does it with style. That is not nothing.
Indiana Jones
Your partner will know the history, the language, the cultural context, and exactly why the thing everyone else is ignoring is actually the most important thing in the room. Indiana Jones is brilliant, reckless, and occasionally impossible — but he is also one of the most resourceful, most genuinely knowledgeable partners you could find yourself beside. He approaches every situation with a scholar's eye and a brawler's instinct, which is an unusual combination and a remarkably effective one. He hates snakes and gets personally attached to objects of historical significance, both of which will slow you down at least once. It doesn't matter. What Indy brings is irreplaceable — and the adventures you'll have together will be the kind people write books about. Assuming you survive them.
John McClane
Your partner was not supposed to be here. He does not have the right equipment, the right information, or anything approaching the right odds. He has a sarcastic remark and an absolute refusal to accept that the situation is as bad as it looks. John McClane is the greatest accidental hero in the history of action cinema — a man whose superpower is stubbornness, whose contingency plan is improvisation, and whose capacity to absorb punishment and keep moving would be alarming if it weren't so useful. He will complain the entire time. He will make it significantly more chaotic than it needed to be. And he will absolutely, unconditionally, without question come through when it counts. Yippee-ki-yay.
Ethan Hunt
Your partner has already run seventeen scenarios by the time you've finished reading the briefing, and the plan he's settled on involves at least two things that should be physically impossible. Ethan Hunt operates at the absolute edge of human capability — technically, physically, and intellectually — and he brings the same relentless precision to protecting his partners that he brings to dismantling organisations that shouldn't exist. He is not easy to know and he will never fully tell you everything. But he will carry the weight of the mission so completely, so absolutely, that your job is simply to trust him — and the remarkable thing is that trusting him always turns out to be the right call. The mission will be impossible. He will complete it anyway.
↻ RETAKE THE QUIZ
6 'To Catch a Killer' (2023)
Image via Vertical EntertainmentSet in Baltimore, Maryland, New Year's Eve celebrations serve as the backdrop to a series of seemingly random killings that claim the lives of 17 people across multiple locations. Eleanor Falco (Shailene Woodley), an exceedingly bright yet troubled police officer, is brought into the investigation headed by FBI investigator Lammark (Ben Mendelsohn). Falco's knack for profiling provides healthy leads, but the closer they get to capturing the disturbed killer, the more dangerous he proves himself to be.
While not all aspects of its police procedural narrative are totally convincing, To Catch a Killer is still viscerally entertaining and well-acted. Woodley is a talent who has continuously proved herself as one of the industry's most versatile performers. With no shortage of compelling twists and turns, To Catch a Killer is an engaging watch that's suitably gritty. It doesn't do anything to reinvent the genre, but perhaps it never needed to.
5 'It Was Just an Accident' (2025)
Image via NeonA powerful piece of renegade filmmaking that was made in protest of the authorities who imprisoned its filmmaker, Jafar Panahi's It Was Just an Accident is a powerful crime thriller that feels all the more real thanks to the context of its own creation. The Iranian filmmaker is constantly blurring the line between fiction and reality within the film, telling a powerful story of a group of scorned former prisoners looking to exact revenge on someone they believe to be their torturer.
There's a real weight and gravitas to It Was Just An Accident that makes its depicted crime and the thrills inherent to it all the more shocking and powerful on-screen. It proves not to be quite as simple as a story of revenge, as this small group deals with inner turmoils of not wanting to stoop to the level of their oppressors, especially without 100% certainty that this man is, in fact, their tormentor. The movie managed to be so exceptional in its craft that it won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival.
4 'The Outfit' (2022)
Image via Focus FeaturesLeonard (Mark Rylance) is a master English tailor who operates a shop in Chicago with the help of his assistant and receptionist, Mable (Zoey Deutch). Leonard's shop is located in the heart of a neighborhood controlled by the Irish Mob, who also happen to be his most valued customers. His livelihood is threatened when two men knock on his door in the dead of night, bloodied and handling FBI documents that could turn the criminal underworld on its head.
The Outfit is a rock-solid throwback to old-school gangster movies and an equally effective chamber thriller that makes the most of its talented cast. Despite an abundance of twists and reveals, The Outfit remains, for the most part, tidy and cleverly constructed. Being Graham Moore's directorial debut, it's a promising effort that should satisfy genre fans who are looking for a no-frills, old-fashioned crime thriller hearkening back to Hollywood's golden age.
3 'No Other Choice' (2025)
Image via NEONSouth Korean director Park Chan-wook is no stranger to creating exceptional and well-crafted crime thrillers during his filmmaking tenure, yet No Other Choice still feels like a great leap forward for the director and his distinct style. The film follows a shameful former paper mill manager who is dealing with an onslaught of disappointment and shame after being laid off and unable to find a new job in the ruthless job market. With seemingly no other choice and a carnal desire to reclaim his dignity as the family patriarch, he enacts a plan to murder his competition to make his job search easier.
No Other Choice manages to be as strikingly poignant with its story and messaging as it is exceptionally hilarious in execution. It blends dark comedy and crime thriller seamlessly to create one of the most electrifying and high-energy films of recent memory. It shows that even after decades of masterful filmmaking under his belt, Park Chan-wook is still breaking new ground and finding new ways to tell dynamic, well-crafted stories that reflect upon the struggles and culture of the modern era.
English (US) ·