Stills from ‘A House of Dynamite,’ ‘Black Bag,’ ‘Highest 2 Lowest,’ and ’The Housemaid’Netflix / Focus Features / A24 / Lionsgate

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Patrick Cavanaugh is an Editor at MovieWeb and has been writing about movies and TV for 15 years. He’s covered everything from superhero to Star Wars, as well as events like San Diego Comic-Con, Star Wars Celebration, the Sundance Film Festival, South by Southwest, and more. One time, Michael Shannon said to Patrick, "You’re funny."

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We’ve already covered some of our favorite Horror titles of the year, with those picks delivering the more unsettling and disturbing experiences of 2025, but not all of the more anxiety-inducing excursions made our skin crawl, as we were given some pretty great thrillers this year, too. As many genre fans can tell you, there’s a fine line between what defines one genre vs. another, and when it comes to our criteria of a thriller, all of these picks are firmly grounded in the real world, relying on actual events as opposed to ghouls and goblins to unnerve us.

From murder mysteries to domestic scandals to kidnappings, the year’s best thrillers covered a lot of territory, with their uniting theme being the excitement they offered us. See below for our picks of the five best thrillers of 2025.

5 ‘The Housemaid’

After Echo Valley, after Christy, and after a variety of tabloid coverage, fans weren’t particularly clamoring for more Sydney Sweeney by the time December rolled around, but when you toss Amanda Seyfried and director Paul Feig into the mix, The Housemaid is one of the bigger surprises of the year.

Based on the Freida McFadden book of the same name, The Housemaid was a campy, silly, sexy, and overall twisted experience. In lesser hands, the storyline of a live-in housemaid being gaslit by her wealthy, suburban boss could have descended into absurd territory, though Feig’s proven talents of balancing tones and Seyfried’s willingness to completely cut loose kept us guessing and delighted from start to finish.

4 ‘Highest 2 Lowest’

A24 / Apple Original Films

The description of " Spike Lee directing Denzel Washington in an Akira Kurosawa remake" seems like a given that we’d get a crowdpleaser, but potentially due to the weight of the prestige of the talent attached, Highest 2 Lowest still felt like it flew under the radar. Those who did venture to check out the movie, though, were given the exact kind of movie that cinema has been missing for years.

Washington’s quest to retrieve his kidnapped son, whether by following the kidnapper’s rules or making his own path, was full of strong performances from the entire ensemble and Lee’s signature cinematic style. *Highest 2 Lowest *didn’t attempt to reinvent the wheel, instead delivering a story devoid of otherworldly threats or bombastic confrontations, just an engaging adventure full of grounded-yet-thrilling stakes.

3 ‘A House of Dynamite’

Netflix

Filmmaker Kathryn Bigelow is no stranger to a political thriller, but *A House of Dynamite *still surprised us with its effectiveness. Unfolding in almost-real time, audiences were confronted by the all-too-real scenario of how US politicians would react to discovering a nuclear warhead was inbound. Such a premise could similarly be seen in more bombastic, action-oriented outings, yet by stripping away superficial conflicts, we were given something entirely more engaging.

Bigelow brought her masterful direction to an impressive ensemble, consisting of talent like Idris Elba, Rebecca Ferguson, and Tracy Letts. One of the more talked-about and controversial elements of the movie was that, with a countdown of only 20 minutes when the movie started, as the warhead’s impact became imminent, the movie would pivot to different characters and go back to the start of the countdown. For some, the frequent resets undercut the tension, but for many others, resetting the narrative timeline while the audience knew of the underlying threat only amplified the tension exponentially, as our anxiety grew with each passing minute.

2 ‘Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery’

Netflix

Murder mysteries always ignite problem-solving in an audience’s mind, as we hope to digest a narrative’s clues for ourselves in hopes of besting the characters, but Rian Johnson’s *Knives Out *films have flipped the script. With both *Knives Out *and Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, Johnson leaned heavily into humor to undercut the obvious tension of murders, but with Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery, viewers got an experience lighter on laughs yet heavier on intrigue.

Daniel Craig’s Benoit Blanc has been the glue that held these movies together, and by taking nearly 45 minutes for Blanc to show up at the scene of the crime, it was clear that *Wake Up Dead Man *was doing something different. We still got a cast full of both established and up-and-coming superstars, we got an unexpected murder, and we got some laughs, yet this sequel’s tone felt like the first time our heroes were actually facing imminent danger for not getting to the bottom of this crime.

1 ‘Black Bag’

Focus Features

One common theme among all of the year’s best thrillers is that they brought together a talented ensemble and let a traditionally gripping story unfold, and no movie did it better this year than Black Bag. Director Steven Soderbergh has a long history of executing stories like these, thanks to movies like Out of Sight, The Limey, Traffic, Side Effects, Logan Lucky, and his *Ocean’s 11 *trilogy, but even with that impressive resume, *Black Bag *still felt unexpected.

Starring Cate Blanchett and Michael Fassbender, *Black Bag *explored a married couple who were both intelligence officers who are trying to find the source of a leak, with each other being suspects, as well as their closest friends being on that list of suspects. Every time the audience thought they knew where *Black Bag *was headed, Soderbergh would take us somewhere else, and in a premise that was rife with potential for something bombastic, it stayed grounded and realistic and always thrilling.

Black Bag

4 /5

Release Date March 14, 2025

Runtime 94 minutes

Director Steven Soderbergh

Writers David Koepp

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Kathryn St. Jean

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George Woodhouse

Black Bag is a Steven Soderbergh directed thriller from Focus Features. Cate Blanchett, Michael Fassbender, Regé Jean Page and Marisa Abela lead the cast, along with Naomie Harris, Pierce Brosnan, and Tom Burke. The story, which is currently under wraps, was written by David Koepp.