Don’t be fooled by that family-friendly, Marvel-filled homepage. Disney+ has a slew of very adult, all-time thriller classics, and here Eliza Janssen has chosen 25 of the most essential.
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A Cure For Wellness (2016)
Watch on Disney+Common Disney director Gore Verbinski got back to his icky, sticky roots with this period psychological horror. It’s an original story, despite feeling plenty like a Thomas Mann or Edgar Allen Poe creepfest, about a sterile young executive whose body and mind get messed with at an eerie Swedish wellness retreat. Mia Goth is a perfect spooky waif, fashionably wearing eels like Britney accessorises with a snake.
Alien (1979)
Watch on Disney+We can categorise Ridley Scott’s GOAT outer-space terrifier any damn way we want: as horror, sci-fi, thriller and more. Over the years the xenomorph baddie has been ascribed as metaphor for many things (AIDS, vague notions of violence and chaos, the transformative body horror of pregnancy or assault) but you really don’t need to look too deep to be horrified by its iconic scenes. We love Ellen Ripley forever.
Black Swan (2010)
Watch on Disney+“I was perfect”: yeah you were, Oscar-winner Natalie Portman, as a high-strung ballerina who goes way too method in her role as Swan Lake’s tragic lead. Being a Darren Aronofsky film, moments of gore and horror can spring out in any mundane scene, resulting in one of the most feel-bad dance movies you’ll ever encounter.
Bringing Out The Dead (1999)
Watch on Disney+A thought-provoking Scorsese drama that’ll leave you thinking that ambos just don’t get paid enough. Nicolas Cage keeps things surprisingly toned-down as an exhausted paramedic on an infernal night of picking up patients. Each of his fellow paramedics represents a different facet of their difficult job—failure, malice, optimism—and the editing is superb.
The Deep End (2001)
Watch on Disney+You bring a child into the world, care for them almost single-handedly while your husband’s constantly at work, and then their gay lover’s corpse washes up near your beautiful lakeside home. What’s Tilda Swinton to do, and who’s she meant to believe, in this chilling and complex drama? The Deep End is melodramatic, for sure, but it packs in surprises and Swinton bolsters every one with a plausible lead performance.
Enemy of the State (1998)
Where to watchHere’s one of the neatest action thrillers of the 90s, made by an 80s supergroup of producer Jerry Bruckheimer and Top Gun director Tony Scott. Will Smith and Gene Hackman have great chemistry as a Hitchcockian wrong man and a powerful NSA communications expert (could be his same character from The Conversation??). But there’s also some wild supporting appearances, with everyone from Jack Black to Regina King.
Face/Off (1997)
Watch on Disney+God bless John Woo for his creative control of this bonkers, high-concept action thriller. Nic Cage and John Travolta swap faces, meaning each gets to play both a maniacal terrorist and a grieving government agent willing to do anything to avenge his kid’s death. Of course doves break free to litter the air around the climactic gunfight.
Fight Club (1999)
Where to watchA melange of mean, snarky metaphors frenetically come together to mock Gen X emasculation in David Fincher’s most entertaining movie. Brad Pitt and Ed Norton are two sides of the same toxic coin, but tone is king here: the Dust Brothers’ chaotic, adrenaline-pumping soundtrack is the perfect background music for Norton’s sardonic, pissed-off narration. Seems it is ok to talk about Fight Club, on this list at least.
The French Connection (1971)
Watch on Disney+It’s wild that a grim, cynical film like this could win Best Picture once upon a time. Gene Hackman is merciless as the unpleasant detective “Popeye” Doyle, doing whatever it takes to hunt down a French heroin smuggler. William Friedkin nails the claustrophobic, doomed feeling of a city on the brink, and the subway stair shootout still hits hard.
Gone Girl (2013)
Watch on Disney+Poor Ben Affleck: saddled with a faintly punchable face, and enough dramatic high-profile romances that he’s the perfect casting choice for a dodgy husband caught up in his wife’s disappearance. Based on the literary sensation by Gillian Flynn, who worked on the bitter, brilliant screenplay too, this thriller is the ideal antidote to treacly big-screen romcoms, showing a couple whose resentment and entitlement makes them darkly perfect for one another.
The Good Son (1993)
Watch on Disney+Right after playing a loveably evil child in the Home Alone films, talented kid actor Macauley Culkin let his sociopathic side fully come through opposite Elijah Wood in this spooky drama. It got overwhelmingly negative reviews at the time of its release, but the climactic cliff sequence will still get goosebumps going, and Wood and Culkin are alarmingly convincing as kids who aren’t so innocent.
Heat (1995)
Watch on Disney+A dogged cop and a career criminal come to respect each other, and best of all they’re played by mob movie alums Al Pacino and Robert De Niro: finally facing off after their characters tragically could never appear together in the Godfather films. Michael Mann’s blood-pumping heist classic has been recently re-acclaimed as one of the genre’s greatest of all time, so it’s about time you watched its steely gray storytelling for yourself to find out why.
JFK (1991)
Watch on Disney+“Back, and to the left: back, and to the left…” Oliver Stone’s tin-foil-hat-clad conspiracy thriller is both murky and whole-heartedly jingoistic, ending with a sentimental hope that the next generation of paranoid patriots can get to the truth of President Kennedy’s convoluted assassination. Kevin Costner’s barnstorming court monologue is still astoundingly written and performed.
Martha Marcy May Marlene (2011)
Watch on Disney+None of us ever think we’d be naive enough to join a cult. But watching Sean Durkin’s stirring psychological drama, you might gain a little more empathy for the vulnerable people who end up in such controlling, manipulative situations. Elizabeth Olsen is fragile but not broken as a cult escapee who tries to reconnect with her sister, Sarah Paulson, confronting her trauma from the cult’s shady leader through disturbing flashbacks.
The Night House (2021)
Watch on Disney+I’d honestly watch Rebecca Hall reading a phone book aloud, but she has plenty of chilling material to work with in David Bruckner’s nocturnal thriller. Hall plays a widow who uncovers her late husband’s bizarre secret architecture project and relationships with women who look strikingly similar to her. The jump scares are inventive and shocking, and you deeply root for the grieving protagonist too.
Nightmare Alley (2021)
Watch on Disney+Roll up, roll up! Cinema’s carnival maestro Guillermo del Toro gets to homage all of his favourite bleak 1940s noir titles in this misanthropic novel adaptation. Bradley Cooper is surprisingly nasty as a circus shyster who’ll do anything for a vague grab at power and status, but he meets his match in a sinister therapist played by Cate Blanchett.
One Hour Photo (2002)
Watch on Disney+An unlikely horror/villain performance from Robin Williams that’s hard to forget when you switch back to his goofy, amiable roles. Music video freak Mark Romanek directs this tale of obsession, with Williams as a lonely photo kiosk worker who becomes fixated on a seemingly idyllic local family. “I just took pictures”, he claims to the cops, once his dark plan for the family plays out in unnerving and surreal scenes.
Phone Booth (2002)
Watch on Disney+Sometimes all you need is a single location, a game performer, and a villain’s growly voice over the phone. Colin Farrell stars as a pretty bad person who we still somehow feel a lot of sympathy for, once the guy on the other end of his phone booth call promises to snipe him should he dare to hang up. Typically flamboyant director Joel Schumacher mostly reigns in his usual theatrics for a sparse and exciting yarn.
Ready or Not (2019)
Watch on Disney+Weddings are a pretty bad time to learn about your new spouse’s nutty family traditions. For fledgling scream queen Samara Weaving, the honeymoon begins with a deadly game of hide and seek, including Andie MacDowell and Adam Brody as some of her murderous in-laws. The thrills end on an explosive note: why eat the rich when you can explode them instead?
The Sixth Sense (1999)
Watch on Disney+M. Night Shyamalan’s breakout film is most fondly remembered for its brain-wringing twist, but that really does the precise direction and heartfelt storytelling a disservice. Death and the grace it can bring are wonderfully conveyed, with Haley Joel Osment giving one of the all-time great child acting performances as a delicate boy suffering as a conduit between the living and the dead.
Speed (1994)
Watch on Disney+No action hit of the 90s made as much use of a ticking time-bomb set-up as Jan de Bont’s Speed, introducing us to Sandy Bullock and making a clean-cut Keanu even more of a star. Dennis Hopper is the sneering madman watching his bus plan go boom, and the ever-escalating thrills play out with nerve-shredding precision.
Stoker (2013)
Watch on Disney+Not Park Chan-wook’s greatest movie, but a worthwhile psychological trip all the same. A pair of Aussies, Mia Wasikowska and Nicole Kidman, play a dysfunctional mother and daughter whose lives of cold malaise are shattered by the arrival of their late patriarch’s brother. It’s all very Hitchcockian, with a stylised, verbose script and some ingenious match-cut transitions.
Summer of Sam (1999)
Watch on Disney+Spike Lee’s energetic period piece takes the unusual approach of showing the culture and atmosphere surrounding a tumultuous string of New York murders, rather than closely chronicling the killer himself. The movie ends up feeling much more like a suspenseful mob story, starring a philandering John Leguizamo and Adrien Brody as a punk— he actually got his nose broken while filming a brutal fight scene.
Taken (2008)
Where to watchLiam Neeson has a very particular set of skills, namely revitalising his career in mid-life to only play gritty avenger dads. When his daughter is kidnapped whilst on a European vacation, retired CIA agent Brian hops on a flight and cracks skulls together to get the answers he needs. Luc Besson and Pierre Morel know just how to shoot a violent urban odyssey, and Neeson gives some neat John McClane energy.
Trance (2013)
Watch on Disney+The McGuffin at the centre of Danny Boyle’s psychological thriller is a lost Goya artwork, but don’t expect any stuffy art theory lessons. Instead, James McAvoy stars as a hapless heist participant put completely through the ringer when he fails his accomplices. A tricky hypnotherapist played by Rosario Dawson is key to recovering the painting, but she may have some selfish designs of her own.
What Lies Beneath (2000)
Watch on Disney+An unusually bleak and adult film from Robert Zemeckis, without too much CGI either. The marital thriller isn’t perfect by any means, but it’s disturbing to see Michelle Pfeiffer slowly determine that her husband, Harrison Ford, may have a dark connection to the ghostly woman she’s been seeing in visions. There’s a terrific scene of a paralysed Pfeiffer trying to avoid drowning in a bathtub that’s particularly well-directed.
Titles are added and removed from his page to reflect changes to the Disney+ catalogue. Reviews no longer available on this page can be found here.
