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This year seemed to be the one that marked a pivot away from superhero movies dominating the movie playing field. Of course, we still saw well-regarded Marvel movies such as James Gunn’s Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 in theaters. But the tepid reaction to The Flash, The Marvels, and Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom meant that the wave of superhero dominance was subsiding. In their absence, we saw a rise in intelligent, adult thrillers… the kind that once prevailed in the 1980s and 90s.
Granted, some were found on streaming services. But others, like Christopher Nolan’s masterful Oppenheimer, were designed for the biggest screens possible, and drove countless audience members back to theaters. Here, then, are the 10 best thrillers of 2023, starting with:
10. Missing
In the digital age, these social media-driven missing person’s thrillers are about as cutting edge as you can get. Building on the momentum of the riveting 2018 film Searching, the spiritual sequel Missing sends Storm Reid on a global cyber search to find her missing mother (Nia Long), who disappears during a vacation with her boyfriend. Using security cameras, internet searches and global tech, Missing keeps us on the edge of our seats while also convincing us we could be detectives, given all the tools at our fingertips.
9. Leave The World Behind
There are threats both large and small. You find examples of each in Sam Esmail’s taut Leave the World Behind, a doomsday scenario mystery that effortlessly shifts from the minor issue of a wife (Julia Roberts) distrusting the man (Mahershala Ali) from whom she is renting an AirBNB, to the major blockbuster sequences of self-driving Teslas trying to take Ethan Hawke off the roads of Long Island. No matter the circumstances, the danger always feels real.
8. Beau Is Afraid
Thrilling can also mean puzzling, and I spent the bulk of Ari Aster’s Beau is Afraid being very puzzled. I wasn’t alone, as some walked out of screenings of the movie demanding a refund. But that’s because Aster demands a lot of his audience as they follow the petrified Beau (Joaquin Phoenix) on a journey home for the anniversary of his father’s death. Only, it’s a surreal trip marked by unpredictable encounters, each meant to keep us off kilter. Mission accomplished.
7. Fair Play
There was a time when Hollywood was obsessed with the financial industry and the traders who manipulated the markets for dramatic suspense. Chloe Domont’s Sundance hit Fair Play returns us to those Wall Street playgrounds, where a romantic couple hides their relationship from their hedge fund bosses so as not to create competition in the work place. Guess what happens? Yes, but the rest of Fair Play takes us to some wild destinations, tightening the screws at almost every turn.
6. Anatomy of a Fall
True crime remains a popular genre, and Anatomy of a Fall represents the best movie in the format that I managed to see in 2023. As the title suggests, there is a fall. Samuel tumbles from the top floor of the family’s home. But was he pushed by his wife, Sandra, while their son was out of the house walking the family dog? The “did she or didn’t she” mystery of Anatomy of a Fall plays out in a French courtroom, and features a showcase performance by both Sandra Huller as the wife, and young Milo Machado Graner as Daniel, the son whose testimony could be the key to the entire investigation.
5. No One Will Save You
Brian Duffield’s brilliant No One WIll Save You is a home invasion thriller that asks, “What if the home invader was an alien?” The entire films hangs on the magnificent performance by Kaitlyn Dever, a young woman living alone in a quaint house who holds a secret – one that shuns her from the rest of the town, and might give her an edge over her extraterrestrial visitors.
4. John Wick Chapter 4
The John Wick franchise only improves with each new chapter. Really, they should have just left the man’s dog alone. But if not for that heinous crime, we likely wouldn’t get to enjoy all of the thrilling action set pieces that await us in this movie, up to and including the breathtaking fight in the middle of traffic at the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, France. Or the fight on what appears to be the longest flight of stairs in the world. Keanu Reeves is remarkable, as is this franchise.
3. Sharper
I knew nothing about Sharper heading into it, and that’s the optimal experience. The cast is exquisite, and they have been gifted with a razor-sharp screenplay about con artists climbing New York City’s social ladder by manipulating an escalating series of targets. That’s all I’ll tell you. Just know that it’s one of the best movies on Apple TV+ at the moment, and it made it to number three on this list for a reason.
2. The Killer
You have seen the story in David Fincher’s The Killer before. A professional assassin messes up a job, so the people who hire him strike back at his loved ones, sending him on a bloodthirsty mission of vengeance. But I’ll argue that you haven’t seen many versions of the familiar story told nearly as well as Fincher does. His craftsmanship is impeccable (because he’s Fincher). Michael Fassbender is deliciously quirky as the calm, composed OCD killer. The Killer doesn’t reinvent the wheel, but it makes one of the best wheels I have seen in a very long time.
1. Oppenheimer
Name another three-hour historical drama that brought you to the edge of your seat the way that Oppenheimer does. I’m not sure that you can. By tackling the story of J. Robert Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy) and the formation of the atomic bomb, Christopher Nolan wove action beats into a dramatic narrative, building suspense into the Manhattan Project and the Trinity Test, without shying away from the moral implications that come with Oppie’s work. What once existed as theory becomes reality before our very eyes… with Nolan’s harrowing finale reminding us that the nightmare Oppenheimer unleashed hangs over our very existence, today and forever.
Now that the best thriller movies of 2023 have been handled, we eagerly await what the genre will deliver for the 2024 movies schedule.