Greatest Thriller Movies (Revision Version)

[Brian]

Criteria: A thriller movie, or suspense film, is a film genre designed to elicit suspense, excitement, surprise, anticipation, and anxiety in the viewer. They often involve crime, mystery, or psychological conflict, often with a protagonist in a difficult situation. They were NOT chosen for how highly rated they are overall, but how they rate as thrillers based on their initial and lasting acclaim, influence as well as initial and lasting popularity. This list does NOT include classic western films.

Edited by: Brian

1. Vertigo (1958, Alfred Hitchcock) (James Stewart, Kim Novak, Barbara Bel Geddes, Tom Helmore)
2. Rear Window (1954, Alfred Hitchcock) (James Stewart, Grace Kelly, Wendell Corey, Thelma Ritter, Raymond Burr)
3. North by Northwest (1959, Alfred Hitchcock) (Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint, James Mason)
4. The Third Man (1949, Carol Reed) (Orson Welles, Joseph Cotten, Trevor Howard, Alida Valli)
5. M (1931, Fritz Lang) (Peter Lorre, Ellen Widmann, Inge Landgut, Otto Wernicke)
6. Double Indemnity (1944, Billy Wilder) (Fred MacMurray, Barbara Stanwyck, Edward G. Robinson)
7. The Silence of the Lambs (1991, Jonathan Demme) (Anthony Hopkins, Jodie Foster, Scott Glenn, Ted Levine)
8. Psycho (1960, Alfred Hitchcock) (Anthony Perkins, Janet Leigh, Vera Miles, Martin Balsam)
9. Jaws (1975, Steven Spielberg) (Roy Scheider, Robert Shaw, Richard Dreyfuss, Lorraine Gary)
10. The Night of the Hunter (1955, Charles Laughton) (Robert Mitchum, Shelley Winters, Lillian Gish)
11. Parasite (2019, Bong Joon-Ho) (Song Kang-ho, Lee Sun-kyun, Cho Yeo-jeong)
12. Chinatown (1974, Roman Polanski) (Jack Nicholson, Faye Dunaway, John Huston)
13. Taxi Driver (1976, Martin Scorsese) (Robert De Niro, Jodie Foster, Cybill Shepherd, Albert Brooks)
14. Touch of Evil (1958, Orson Welles) (Charlton Heston, Janet Leigh, Orson Welles, Dennis Weaver)
15. Notorious (1946, Alfred Hitchcock) (Cary Grant, Ingrid Bergman, Claude Rains, Louis Calhern)
16. No Country for Old Men (2007, Joel & Ethan Coen) (Tommy Lee Jones, Javier Bardem, Josh Brolin)
17. The French Connection (1971, William Friedkin) (Gene Hackman, Roy Scheider, Fernando Rey)
18. The Manchurian Candidate (1962, John Frankenheimer) (Frank Sinatra, Laurence Harvey)
19. Se7en (1995, David Fincher) (Brad Pitt, Morgan Freeman, Gwyneth Paltrow)
20. The Conversation (1974, Francis Ford Coppola) (Gene Hackman, John Cazale, Allen Garfield)
21. Blue Velvet (1986, David Lynch) (Isabella Rossellini, Kyle MacLachlan, Dennis Hopper)
22. The 39 Steps (1935, Alfred Hitchcock) (Robert Donat, Madeleine Carroll, Lucie Mannheim, Godfrey Tearle)
23. Memento (2000, Christopher Nolan) (Guy Pearce, Carrie-Anne Moss, Joe Pantoliano, Stephen Tobolowsky)
24. The Maltese Falcon (1941, John Huston) (Humphrey Bogart, Peter Lorre, Mary Astor)
25. The Wages of Fear (1953, Henri-Georges Clouzot) (Yves Montand, Charles Vanel, Folco Lulli, Peter Van Eyck)
26. Shadow of a Doubt (1943, Alfred Hitchcock) (Teresa Wright, Joseph Cotten, Macdonald Carey)
27. Mulholland Dr. (2001, David Lynch) (Naomi Watts, Laura Harring, Justin Theroux, Jeanne Bates)
28. L.A. Confidential (1997, Curtis Hanson) (Kevin Spacey, Russell Crowe, Guy Pearce)
29. Oldboy (2003, Chan-wook Park) (Choi Min-sik, Yoo Ji-tae, Kang Hye-jeong, Kim Byeong-Ok)
30. Rififi (1955, Jules Dassin) (Jean Servais, Carl Möhner, Robert Manuel, Janine Darcey)
31. The Lady Vanishes (1938, Alfred Hitchcock) (Margaret Lockwood, Michael Redgrave, Paul Lukas, Dame May Whitty)
32. Strangers on a Train (1951, Alfred Hitchcock) (Farley Granger, Ruth Roman, Robert Walker)
33. The Fugitive (1993, Andrew Davis) (Harrison Ford, Tommy Lee Jones)
34. The Sixth Sense (1999, M. Night Shyamalan) (Bruce Willis, Harvey Joel Osment, Toni Collette, Olivia Williams)
35. Zodiac (2007, David Fincher) (Jake Gyllenhaal, Robert Downey Jr., Mark Ruffalo)
36. The Departed (2006, Martin Scorsese) (Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, Jack Nicholson)
37. Le Samouraï (1967, Jean-Pierre Melville) (Alain Delon, Francois Périer, Nathalie Delon)
38. Gravity (2013, Alfonso Cuarón) (Sandra Bullock, George Clooney, Ed Harris)
39. Get Out (2017, Jordan Peele) (Daniel Kaluuya, Allison Williams, Bradley Whitford)
40. Dirty Harry (1971, Don Siegel) (Clint Eastwood, Andy Robinson, Harry Guardino)
41. Fargo (1996, Joel Coen) (William H. Macy, Steve Buscemi, Kristin Rudrüd, Peter Stormare)
42. Dog Day Afternoon (1975, Sidney Lumet) (Al Pacino, John Cazale, James Broderick)
43. Rebecca (1940, Alfred Hitchcock) (Joan Fontaine, Laurence Olivier, Judith Anderson)
44. The Usual Suspects (1995, Bryan Singer) (Stephen Baldwin, Gabriel Byrne, Benicio Del Toro)
45. Les Diaboliques (1955, Henri-Georges Clouzot) (Simone Signoret, Véra Clouzot, Paul Meurisse)
46. The Killing (1956, Stanley Kubrick) (Sterling Hayden, Coleen Gray, Vince Edwards)
47. Elevator to the Gallows (1958, Louis Malle) (Jeanne Moreau, Maurice Ronet, Georges Poujouly)
48. Blow Out (1981, Brian De Palma) (John Travolta, Nancy Allen, John Lithgow)
49. Blood Simple (1984, Joel Coen) (John Getz, Frances McDormand, Dan Hedaya)
50. Black Swan (2010, Darren Aronofsky) (Natalie Portman, Vincent Cassel, Mila Kunis)
51. The Big Sleep (1946, Howard Hawks) (Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, John Ridgely)
52. The Lives of Others (2006, Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck) (Martina Gedeck, Ulrich Mühe)
53. Gone Girl (2014, David Fincher) (Ben Affleck, Rosamund Pike, Neil Patrick Harris)
54. Deliverance (1972, John Boorman) (Jon Voight, Burt Reynolds, Ned Beatty)
55. Z (1969, Costa-Gavras) (Jean-Louis Trintignant, Yves Montand, Irene Papas)
56. Basic Instinct (1992, Paul Verhoeven) (Sharon Stone, Michael Douglas)
57. Gaslight (1944, George Cukor) (Charles Boyer, Ingrid Bergman, Joseph Cotten, Angela Lansbury)
58. The Handmaiden (2016, Park Chan-Wook) (Kim Min-hee, Kim Tae-ri, Ha Jung-woo, Cho Jin-woong)
59. Cape Fear (1962, J. Lee Thompson) (Gregory Peck, Robert Mitchum, Polly Bergen)
60. Uncut Gems (2019, Benny & Josh Safdie) (Adam Sandler, LaKeith Stanfield, Julia Fox)
61. In a Lonely Place (1950, Nicholas Ray) (Humphrey Bogart, Gloria Grahame, Frank Lovejoy)
62. High and Low (1963, Akira Kurosawa) (Toshiro Mifune, Tatsuya Nakadai, Kyoko Kagawa)
63. Goldfinger (1964, Guy Hamilton) (Sean Connery, Honor Blackman, Gert Fröbe
64. Klute (1971, Alan J. Pakula) (Jane Fonda, Donald Sutherland, Roy Scheider)
65. Fatal Attraction (1987, Adrian Lyne) (Michael Douglas, Glenn Close)
66. Zero Dark Thirty (2012, Kathryn Bigelow) (Jessica Chastain, Jason Clarke, Jennifer Ehle)
67. The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999, Anthony Minghella) (Matt Damon, Gwyneth Paltrow, Jude Law)
68. Reservoir Dogs (1992, Quentin Tarantino) (Harvey Keitel, Tim Roth, Steve Buscemi, Michael Madsen, Chris Penn)
69. Kiss Me Deadly (1955, Robert Aldrich) (Ralph Meeker, Albert Dekker, Paul Stewart)
70. Halloween (1978, John Carpenter) (Donald Pleasence, Jamie Lee Curtis, Nick Castle)
71. Peeping Tom (1960, Michael Powell) (Carl Boehm, Moira Shearer, Anna Massey)
72. Fight Club (1999, David Fincher) (Brad Pitt, Edward Norton, Meat Loaf, Helena Bonham Carter)
73. Blow-Up (1966, Michelangelo Antonioni) (David Hemmings, Vanessa Redgrave, Sarah Miles)
74. Heat (1995, Michael Mann) (Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, Jon Voight, Val Kilmer, Ashley Judd)
75. Don't Look Now (1973, Nicolas Roeg) (Julie Christie, Donald Sutherland)
76. The Game (1997, David Fincher) (Michael Douglas, Sean Penn, Deborah Kara Unger)
77. Inception (2010, Christopher Nolan) (Leonardo DiCaprio, Ken Watanabe, Joseph Gordon-Levitt)
78. Nightcrawler (2014, Dan Gilroy) (Jake Gyllenhaal, Rene Russo, Riz Ahmed)
79. Le Cercle Rouge (1970, Jean-Pierre Melville) (Alain Delon, Bourvil, Yves Montand)
80. The Vanishing (1988, George Sluizer) (Bernard-Pierre Donnadieu, Gene Bervoets)
81. Rope (1948, Alfred Hitchcock) (James Stewart, John Dall, Farley Granger)
82. Drive (2011, Nicolas Winding Refn) (Ryan Gosling, Carey Mulligan, Bryan Cranston)
83. Repulsion (1965, Roman Polanski) (Catherine Deneuve, Ian Hendry, John Fraser)
84. From Russia with Love (1963, Terence Young) (Sean Connery, Pedro Armendáriz, Lotte Lenya)
85. Shutter Island (2010, Martin Scorsese) (Leonardo DiCaprio, Mark Ruffalo, Ben Kingsley)
86. Point Blank (1967, John Boorman) (Lee Marvin, Angie Dickinson, Keenan Wynn)
87. Dr. No (1962, Terence Young) (Sean Connery, Ursula Andress, Joseph Wiseman)
88. Caché (2005, Michael Haneke) (Daniel Auteuil, Juliette Binoche, Maurice Bénichou)
89. Argo (2012, Ben Affleck) (Ben Affleck, Bryan Cranston, Alan Arkin, John Goodman)
90. The Hurt Locker (2009, Kathryn Bigelow) (Jeremy Renner, Anthony Mackie)
91. Laura (1944, Otto Preminger) (Gene Tierney, Dana Andrews, Clifton Webb, Vincent Price)
92. The Big Heat (1953, Fritz Lang) (Glenn Ford, Gloria Grahame, Lee Marvin)
93. White Heat (1949, Raoul Walsh) (James Cagney, Virginia Mayo, Edmond O'Brien, Steve Cochran)
94. The Crying Game (1992, Neil Jordan) (Stephen Rea, Jaye Davidson)
95. Bullitt (1968, Peter Yates) (Steve McQueen, Robert Vaughan)
96. Sicario (2015, Denis Villeneuve) (Emily Blunt, Benicio del Toro, Josh Brolin)
97. Misery (1990, Rob Reiner) (James Caan, Kathy Bates)
98. Ex Machina (2014, Alex Garland) (Domhnall Gleeson, Alicia Vikander, Oscar Isaac)
99. The Asphalt Jungle (1950, John Huston) (Sterling Hayden, Marilyn Monroe, James Whitmore)
100. Knife in the Water (1962, Roman Polanski) (Leon Niemczyk, Jolanta Umecka, Zygmunt Malanowicz)

25 More Worth Mentioning
101. Anatomy of a Murder (1959, Otto Preminger) (James Stewart, Lee Remick, Ben Gazzara, George C. Scott)
102. The Long Goodbye (1973, Robert Altman) (Elliott Gould, Nina van Pallandt, Sterling Walter Hayden)
103. Memories of Murder (2003, Bong Joon-ho) (Kang-ho Song, Sang-kyung Kim, Roe-ha Kim)
104. The Passenger (1975, Michelangelo Antonioni) (Jack Nicholson, Maria Schneider, Steven Berkoff)
105. Deep Red (1975, Dario Argento) (David Hemmings, Daria Nicolodi, Macha Meril)
106. Donnie Darko (2001, Richard Kelly) (Jake Gyllenhaal, Mary McDonnell)
107. The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974, Joseph Sargent) (Walter Matthau, Robert Shaw, Martin Balsam)
108. What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962, Robert Aldrich) (Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, Victor Buono)
109. Marathon Man (1976, John Schlesinger) (Dustin Hoffman, Laurence Oliver)
110. Charade (1963, Stanley Donen) (Cary Grant, Audrey Hepburn, Walter Matthau)
111. Collateral (2004, Michael Mann) (Tom Cruise, Jamie Foxx, Dennis Farina)
112. Burning (2018, Lee Chang-dong) (Yoo Ah-in, Steven Yeun, Jeon Jong-seo)
113. Mean Streets (1973, Martin Scorsese) (Harvey Keitel, Robert De Niro, David Proval, Amy Robinson)
114. Joker (2019, Todd Phillips) (Joaquin Phoenix, Robert De Niro, Zazie Beetz)
115. Wait Until Dark (1967, Terence Young) (Audrey Hepburn, Alan Arkin, Richard Crenna)
116. The Prestige (2006, Christopher Nolan) (Hugh Jackman, Christian Bale)
117. Dressed to Kill (1980, Brian De Palma) (Michael Caine, Angie Dickinson, Nancy Allen)
118. Thief (1981, Michael Mann) (James Caan, Tuesday Weld)
119. Body Heat (1981, Lawrence Kasdan) (William Hurt, Kathleen Turner)
120. Duel (1971, Steven Spielberg) (Dennis Weaver)
121. Run Lola Run (1998, Tom Tykwer) (Franka Potente, Moritz Bleibtreu, Herbert Knaup)
122. Dial M for Murder (1954, Alfred Hitchcock) (Ray Milland, Grace Kelly, Robert Cummings)
123. The Grifters (1990, Stephen Frears) (Anjelica Huston, John Cusack, Annette Bening)
124. Witness (1985, Peter Weir) (Harrison Ford, Kelly McGillis)
125. The Day of the Jackal (1973, Fred Zinnemann) (Edward Fox, Michael Lonsdale, Terence Alexander)

[Brian]

In the post first post of this thread is my Greatest Thriller Movies list. I have mostly copied the names of directors and actors from other pages on DDD, so they should be free of errors unless there are errors elsewhere on the site from where they were copied. The exceptions are some of the 2010’s movies, where I took the info from wiki.

Great thriller movies will be great movies in general, but the films being ranked as thriller movies means some very great movies may seem low because I’ve determined then to be only quasi-thriller movies. For example, I view Halloween as more a horror and slasher movie than thriller, and even considered not including it at all, but thought that there was enough of a general perception that it is also a thriller that I decided to include it on the list, but not very high. Psycho is probably a greater overall movie than Rear Window or North by Northwest, but the latter two are pure thriller, while Psycho is part thriller and part horror movie, so I put it a little lower than the other two.

I excluded classic westerns because some sources list High Noon as a thriller but not other true westerns, which seemed inconsistent to me, so for the sake of consistency, I excluded them all. I specified CLASSIC westerns because something like No Country for Old Men, which I don’t think is a true western, should be eligible for the list.

I’ll wait about a week to allow for comments before asking Lew to post it on the main site.

EDIT: Here are 4 others that I considered but I thought they fell just short:

Frenzy (1972)
Dead Ringers (1988)
Prisoners (2013)
Plein Soleil (Purple Noon) (1960)

[Tim]

On the first glance, nice job, Brian.

[ManPerson]

Some movies I could see a bit higher:
Le Samourai
Charade
High and Low
Rope
Strangers On a Train
Body Heat
Les Diaboliques

I'd also suggest adding The Long Goodbye.

Overall, this looks really good, though.

[Area Man]

This is a really, really well-done list! I think that you nailed the definition of "thriller." Very fair.

The only omission that could be considered "glaring" would be White Heat (1949).

Anyway, other than White Heat, here are some thrillers to think about, as they're mostly other genres, but could potentially be considered for low placement/honorable mentions, if you so desire:

-12 Angry Men (1957) (more of a courtroom drama, but it has thriller elements)
-1917 (2019) (war movie with race-against-the-clock thriller elements that downplay conventional war-time combat)
-Bad Day at Black Rock (1955) (this one may run afoul of the "no classic westerns" rule, but since it's technically a neo-western, set in the year 1945, I'm mentioning it, just in case)
-the films of Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy (2005, 2008, and 2012) (superhero movies with action-thriller aesthetics)
-The Batman (2022) (another action-thriller-style interpretation of the Batman character)
-A Beautiful Mind (2001) (biopic with some thriller elements related to Cold War intrigue and "mind-bender" content)
-The Big Lebowski (1998) (comedy-neo-noir, and noir/neo-noir is, more or less, a type of thriller)
-Blade Runner (1982) (it's a sci-fi-neo-noir, and noir/neo-noir is, more or less, a type of thriller)
-Bullitt (1968) (honestly, this one's more of a crime-thriller than an action movie)
-District 9 (2009) (sci-fi-action-thriller)
-Dunkirk (2017) (sort of a survival thriller in war movie clothes)
-Escape from New York (1981) (sci-fi-action-thriller)
-The Getaway (1972) (action-crime-thriller)
-The Great Escape (1963) (it's a war movie, of course, but it could also be considered a prison-break thriller)
-The Guns of Navarone (1961) (an early action-thriller in war movie clothes)
-Hard Boiled (1992) (action-thriller)
-Jurassic Park (1993) (obviously, it's a sci-fi film, first and foremost, but it does have those borderline-horror thriller jumps)
-Knives Out (2019) (obviously, it's more of a mystery movie, but the line between mystery and thriller can become blurred easily)
-Léon: The Professional (1994) (action-thriller)
-Lethal Weapon (1987) (action-thriller)
-The Matrix (1999) (action-sci-fi-thriller)
-Mississippi Burning (1988) (crime-drama with crime-thriller elements)
-The Most Dangerous Game (1932) (action, adventure, horror, thriller, all in one hour-long masterpiece)
-The Omega Man (1971) (action, horror, science-fiction, thriller, all in one)
-Oppenheimer (2023) (biopic with some in-your-face thriller aesthetics)
-The Penalty (1920) (a very, very early gangster-thriller with Lon Chaney giving one of his breakout performances)
-Planet of the Apes (1968) (of course, it's primarily sci-fi, but there is a lot of thriller-style suspense, mystery, and tension as the nature of the planet the astronauts landed on is slowly revealed)
-The Raid: Redemption (2011) (action-thriller)
-Soylent Green (1973) (sci-fi-neo-noir, and noir/neo-noir is basically a type of thriller)
-Speed (1994) (action-thriller)
-Suspense (1913) (a very, very early home-invasion thriller with early versions of the car chase and of split-screen)
-This Gun for Hire (1942) (this film noir was Alan Ladd's breakout film)
-The Terminator (1984) (more sci-fi-action, but still has thriller elements)
-Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991) (see note for above film)
-Total Recall (1990) ("mind-bender" sci-fi-action-thriller)
-The Warriors (1979) (action-crime-thriller)
-Westworld (1973) (this one might violate the "no classic westerns" rule, but it is a sci-fi film, too, but I'll toss its name out there, just in case)
-Where Eagles Dare (1968) (like The Guns of Navarone, it could be considered an early action-thriller in war movie clothes)

It's your call if you even want to include any of these, but I'd recommend White Heat, as I've said, and maybe Bullitt, The Penalty, Suspense, etc. I fully understand if most/all of the suggestions listed above are considered thriller in too loose a sense.

[ManPerson]

Most of those seem like kind of a stretch, I don't think the list should extend to including any film that has thriller elements. I definitely agree about adding White Heat though.

[Area Man]

Gotcha, just wanted to make sure. Genre perimeters can be tricky.

Also, I absolutely love The Untouchables (1987). It's a ten-outta-ten movie to me. However, is it a thriller? Yes, it has one of the all-time great suspense set-pieces (the train station staircase part), but, to me, it seems more like a grand, sprawling gangster-action-drama epic than a tightly-wound suspense/thriller picture. Maybe something else could replace it or maybe I'm just splitting hairs? Just some food for thought. Not a demand.

[Brian]

Thank you to all of you. There's a lot here to think about, so I'll address some of it now and return to the rest of it later.

White Heat is definitely a great enough movie to make the list. It didn't appear on any of the thriller lists that I consulted while making this list, but those lists generally had a bit of a modern bias, which could explain why it wasn't on them. It's hard to deny that it's a thriller, so I'll add it.

I agree that The Untouchables is borderline as a thriller, so on a list of this length, it's probably a good one to drop, especially since something needs to be dropped to make room for White Heat. So I think that's the switch that I'll make: White Heat for The Untouchables, but with White Heat in the top 100.

I briefly considered The Long Goodbye for the list, but left it off because I thought it might be too satirical to include. However, I included Fight Club, so maybe I wasn't consistent in excluding The Long Goodbye. I haven't seen these 2 movies, so I'm going by what I've read about them, and my sense was that The Long Goodbye was the more satirical of the two. But even if it is, does that mean that it's not really a thriller? Since I'm on the fence about this, if there's a consensus here about The Long Goodbye, I'll go with it.

[Brian]

In addition to adding White Heat in place of The Untouchables, I intend to add The Long Goodbye at the top of honorable mention, and I think that Bound is probably the best the best one to drop to make room for it. I don't think that the ones that ManPerson mentioned were off in their positioning by much, but I can see giving them a 3-6 position promotion. So here's my 2nd draft of the list (the top 31 are unchanged):

1. Vertigo (1958, Alfred Hitchcock) (James Stewart, Kim Novak, Barbara Bel Geddes, Tom Helmore)
2. Rear Window (1954, Alfred Hitchcock) (James Stewart, Grace Kelly, Wendell Corey, Thelma Ritter, Raymond Burr)
3. North by Northwest (1959, Alfred Hitchcock) (Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint, James Mason)
4. The Third Man (1949, Carol Reed) (Orson Welles, Joseph Cotten, Trevor Howard, Alida Valli)
5. M (1931, Fritz Lang) (Peter Lorre, Ellen Widmann, Inge Landgut, Otto Wernicke)
6. Double Indemnity (1944, Billy Wilder) (Fred MacMurray, Barbara Stanwyck, Edward G. Robinson)
7. The Silence of the Lambs (1991, Jonathan Demme) (Anthony Hopkins, Jodie Foster, Scott Glenn, Ted Levine)
8. Psycho (1960, Alfred Hitchcock) (Anthony Perkins, Janet Leigh, Vera Miles, Martin Balsam)
9. Jaws (1975, Steven Spielberg) (Roy Scheider, Robert Shaw, Richard Dreyfuss, Lorraine Gary)
10. The Night of the Hunter (1955, Charles Laughton) (Robert Mitchum, Shelley Winters, Lillian Gish)
11. Parasite (2019, Bong Joon-Ho) (Song Kang-ho, Lee Sun-kyun, Cho Yeo-jeong)
12. Chinatown (1974, Roman Polanski) (Jack Nicholson, Faye Dunaway, John Huston)
13. Taxi Driver (1976, Martin Scorsese) (Robert De Niro, Jodie Foster, Cybill Shepherd, Albert Brooks)
14. Touch of Evil (1958, Orson Welles) (Charlton Heston, Janet Leigh, Orson Welles, Dennis Weaver)
15. Notorious (1946, Alfred Hitchcock) (Cary Grant, Ingrid Bergman, Claude Rains, Louis Calhern)
16. No Country for Old Men (2007, Joel & Ethan Coen) (Tommy Lee Jones, Javier Bardem, Josh Brolin)
17. The French Connection (1971, William Friedkin) (Gene Hackman, Roy Scheider, Fernando Rey)
18. The Manchurian Candidate (1962, John Frankenheimer) (Frank Sinatra, Laurence Harvey)
19. Se7en (1995, David Fincher) (Brad Pitt, Morgan Freeman, Gwyneth Paltrow)
20. The Conversation (1974, Francis Ford Coppola) (Gene Hackman, John Cazale, Allen Garfield)
21. Blue Velvet (1986, David Lynch) (Isabella Rossellini, Kyle MacLachlan, Dennis Hopper)
22. The 39 Steps (1935, Alfred Hitchcock) (Robert Donat, Madeleine Carroll, Lucie Mannheim, Godfrey Tearle)
23. Memento (2000, Christopher Nolan) (Guy Pearce, Carrie-Anne Moss, Joe Pantoliano, Stephen Tobolowsky)
24. The Maltese Falcon (1941, John Huston) (Humphrey Bogart, Peter Lorre, Mary Astor)
25. The Wages of Fear (1953, Henri-Georges Clouzot) (Yves Montand, Charles Vanel, Folco Lulli, Peter Van Eyck)
26. Shadow of a Doubt (1943, Alfred Hitchcock) (Teresa Wright, Joseph Cotten, Macdonald Carey)
27. Mulholland Dr. (2001, David Lynch) (Naomi Watts, Laura Harring, Justin Theroux, Jeanne Bates)
28. L.A. Confidential (1997, Curtis Hanson) (Kevin Spacey, Russell Crowe, Guy Pearce)
29. Oldboy (2003, Chan-wook Park) (Choi Min-sik, Yoo Ji-tae, Kang Hye-jeong, Kim Byeong-Ok)
30. Rififi (1955, Jules Dassin) (Jean Servais, Carl Möhner, Robert Manuel, Janine Darcey)
31. The Lady Vanishes (1938, Alfred Hitchcock) (Margaret Lockwood, Michael Redgrave, Paul Lukas, Dame May Whitty)
32. Strangers on a Train (1951, Alfred Hitchcock) (Farley Granger, Ruth Roman, Robert Walker)
33. The Fugitive (1993, Andrew Davis) (Harrison Ford, Tommy Lee Jones)
34. The Sixth Sense (1999, M. Night Shyamalan) (Bruce Willis, Harvey Joel Osment, Toni Collette, Olivia Williams)
35. Zodiac (2007, David Fincher) (Jake Gyllenhaal, Robert Downey Jr., Mark Ruffalo)
36. The Departed (2006, Martin Scorsese) (Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, Jack Nicholson)
37. Le Samouraï (1967, Jean-Pierre Melville) (Alain Delon, Francois Périer, Nathalie Delon)
38. Gravity (2013, Alfonso Cuarón) (Sandra Bullock, George Clooney, Ed Harris)
39. Get Out (2017, Jordan Peele) (Daniel Kaluuya, Allison Williams, Bradley Whitford)
40. Dirty Harry (1971, Don Siegel) (Clint Eastwood, Andy Robinson, Harry Guardino)
41. Fargo (1996, Joel Coen) (William H. Macy, Steve Buscemi, Kristin Rudrüd, Peter Stormare)
42. Dog Day Afternoon (1975, Sidney Lumet) (Al Pacino, John Cazale, James Broderick)
43. Rebecca (1940, Alfred Hitchcock) (Joan Fontaine, Laurence Olivier, Judith Anderson)
44. The Usual Suspects (1995, Bryan Singer) (Stephen Baldwin, Gabriel Byrne, Benicio Del Toro)
45. Les Diaboliques (1955, Henri-Georges Clouzot) (Simone Signoret, Véra Clouzot, Paul Meurisse)
46. The Killing (1956, Stanley Kubrick) (Sterling Hayden, Coleen Gray, Vince Edwards)
47. Elevator to the Gallows (1958, Louis Malle) (Jeanne Moreau, Maurice Ronet, Georges Poujouly)
48. Blow Out (1981, Brian De Palma) (John Travolta, Nancy Allen, John Lithgow)
49. Blood Simple (1984, Joel Coen) (John Getz, Frances McDormand, Dan Hedaya)
50. Black Swan (2010, Darren Aronofsky) (Natalie Portman, Vincent Cassel, Mila Kunis)
51. The Big Sleep (1946, Howard Hawks) (Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, John Ridgely)
52. The Lives of Others (2006, Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck) (Martina Gedeck, Ulrich Mühe)
53. Gone Girl (2014, David Fincher) (Ben Affleck, Rosamund Pike, Neil Patrick Harris)
54. Deliverance (1972, John Boorman) (Jon Voight, Burt Reynolds, Ned Beatty)
55. Z (1969, Costa-Gavras) (Jean-Louis Trintignant, Yves Montand, Irene Papas)
56. Basic Instinct (1992, Paul Verhoeven) (Sharon Stone, Michael Douglas)
57. Gaslight (1944, George Cukor) (Charles Boyer, Ingrid Bergman, Joseph Cotten, Angela Lansbury)
58. The Handmaiden (2016, Park Chan-Wook) (Kim Min-hee, Kim Tae-ri, Ha Jung-woo, Cho Jin-woong)
59. Cape Fear (1962, J. Lee Thompson) (Gregory Peck, Robert Mitchum, Polly Bergen)
60. Uncut Gems (2019, Benny & Josh Safdie) (Adam Sandler, LaKeith Stanfield, Julia Fox)
61. In a Lonely Place (1950, Nicholas Ray) (Humphrey Bogart, Gloria Grahame, Frank Lovejoy)
62. High and Low (1963, Akira Kurosawa) (Toshiro Mifune, Tatsuya Nakadai, Kyoko Kagawa)
63. Goldfinger (1964, Guy Hamilton) (Sean Connery, Honor Blackman, Gert Fröbe
64. Klute (1971, Alan J. Pakula) (Jane Fonda, Donald Sutherland, Roy Scheider)
65. Fatal Attraction (1987, Adrian Lyne) (Michael Douglas, Glenn Close)
66. Zero Dark Thirty (2012, Kathryn Bigelow) (Jessica Chastain, Jason Clarke, Jennifer Ehle)
67. The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999, Anthony Minghella) (Matt Damon, Gwyneth Paltrow, Jude Law)
68. Reservoir Dogs (1992, Quentin Tarantino) (Harvey Keitel, Tim Roth, Steve Buscemi, Michael Madsen, Chris Penn)
69. Kiss Me Deadly (1955, Robert Aldrich) (Ralph Meeker, Albert Dekker, Paul Stewart)
70. Halloween (1978, John Carpenter) (Donald Pleasence, Jamie Lee Curtis, Nick Castle)
71. Peeping Tom (1960, Michael Powell) (Carl Boehm, Moira Shearer, Anna Massey)
72. Fight Club (1999, David Fincher) (Brad Pitt, Edward Norton, Meat Loaf, Helena Bonham Carter)
73. Blow-Up (1966, Michelangelo Antonioni) (David Hemmings, Vanessa Redgrave, Sarah Miles)
74. Heat (1995, Michael Mann) (Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, Jon Voight, Val Kilmer, Ashley Judd)
75. Don't Look Now (1973, Nicolas Roeg) (Julie Christie, Donald Sutherland)
76. The Game (1997, David Fincher) (Michael Douglas, Sean Penn, Deborah Kara Unger)
77. Inception (2010, Christopher Nolan) (Leonardo DiCaprio, Ken Watanabe, Joseph Gordon-Levitt)
78. Nightcrawler (2014, Dan Gilroy) (Jake Gyllenhaal, Rene Russo, Riz Ahmed)
79. Le Cercle Rouge (1970, Jean-Pierre Melville) (Alain Delon, Bourvil, Yves Montand)
80. The Vanishing (1988, George Sluizer) (Bernard-Pierre Donnadieu, Gene Bervoets)
81. Rope (1948, Alfred Hitchcock) (James Stewart, John Dall, Farley Granger)
82. Drive (2011, Nicolas Winding Refn) (Ryan Gosling, Carey Mulligan, Bryan Cranston)
83. Repulsion (1965, Roman Polanski) (Catherine Deneuve, Ian Hendry, John Fraser)
84. From Russia with Love (1963, Terence Young) (Sean Connery, Pedro Armendáriz, Lotte Lenya)
85. Shutter Island (2010, Martin Scorsese) (Leonardo DiCaprio, Mark Ruffalo, Ben Kingsley)
86. Point Blank (1967, John Boorman) (Lee Marvin, Angie Dickinson, Keenan Wynn)
87. Dr. No (1962, Terence Young) (Sean Connery, Ursula Andress, Joseph Wiseman)
88. Caché (2005, Michael Haneke) (Daniel Auteuil, Juliette Binoche, Maurice Bénichou)
89. Argo (2012, Ben Affleck) (Ben Affleck, Bryan Cranston, Alan Arkin, John Goodman)
90. The Hurt Locker (2009, Kathryn Bigelow) (Jeremy Renner, Anthony Mackie)
91. Laura (1944, Otto Preminger) (Gene Tierney, Dana Andrews, Clifton Webb, Vincent Price)
92. The Big Heat (1953, Fritz Lang) (Glenn Ford, Gloria Grahame, Lee Marvin)
93. White Heat (1949, Raoul Walsh) (James Cagney, Virginia Mayo, Edmond O'Brien, Steve Cochran)
94. The Crying Game (1992, Neil Jordan) (Stephen Rea, Jaye Davidson)
95. Bullitt (1968, Peter Yates) (Steve McQueen, Robert Vaughan)
96. Sicario (2015, Denis Villeneuve) (Emily Blunt, Benicio del Toro, Josh Brolin)
97. Misery (1990, Rob Reiner) (James Caan, Kathy Bates)
98. Ex Machina (2014, Alex Garland) (Domhnall Gleeson, Alicia Vikander, Oscar Isaac)
99. The Asphalt Jungle (1950, John Huston) (Sterling Hayden, Marilyn Monroe, James Whitmore)
100. Knife in the Water (1962, Roman Polanski) (Leon Niemczyk, Jolanta Umecka, Zygmunt Malanowicz)

25 More Worth Mentioning
101. Anatomy of a Murder (1959, Otto Preminger) (James Stewart, Lee Remick, Ben Gazzara, George C. Scott)
102. The Long Goodbye (1973, Robert Altman) (Elliott Gould, Nina van Pallandt, Sterling Walter Hayden)
103. Memories of Murder (2003, Bong Joon-ho) (Kang-ho Song, Sang-kyung Kim, Roe-ha Kim)
104. The Passenger (1975, Michelangelo Antonioni) (Jack Nicholson, Maria Schneider, Steven Berkoff)
105. Deep Red (1975, Dario Argento) (David Hemmings, Daria Nicolodi, Macha Meril)
106. Donnie Darko (2001, Richard Kelly) (Jake Gyllenhaal, Mary McDonnell)
107. The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974, Joseph Sargent) (Walter Matthau, Robert Shaw, Martin Balsam)
108. What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962, Robert Aldrich) (Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, Victor Buono)
109. Marathon Man (1976, John Schlesinger) (Dustin Hoffman, Laurence Oliver)
110. Charade (1963, Stanley Donen) (Cary Grant, Audrey Hepburn, Walter Matthau)
111. Collateral (2004, Michael Mann) (Tom Cruise, Jamie Foxx, Dennis Farina)
112. Burning (2018, Lee Chang-dong) (Yoo Ah-in, Steven Yeun, Jeon Jong-seo)
113. Mean Streets (1973, Martin Scorsese) (Harvey Keitel, Robert De Niro, David Proval, Amy Robinson)
114. Joker (2019, Todd Phillips) (Joaquin Phoenix, Robert De Niro, Zazie Beetz)
115. Wait Until Dark (1967, Terence Young) (Audrey Hepburn, Alan Arkin, Richard Crenna)
116. The Prestige (2006, Christopher Nolan) (Hugh Jackman, Christian Bale)
117. Dressed to Kill (1980, Brian De Palma) (Michael Caine, Angie Dickinson, Nancy Allen)
118. Thief (1981, Michael Mann) (James Caan, Tuesday Weld)
119. Body Heat (1981, Lawrence Kasdan) (William Hurt, Kathleen Turner)
120. Duel (1971, Steven Spielberg) (Dennis Weaver)
121. Run Lola Run (1998, Tom Tykwer) (Franka Potente, Moritz Bleibtreu, Herbert Knaup)
122. Dial M for Murder (1954, Alfred Hitchcock) (Ray Milland, Grace Kelly, Robert Cummings)
123. The Grifters (1990, Stephen Frears) (Anjelica Huston, John Cusack, Annette Bening)
124. Witness (1985, Peter Weir) (Harrison Ford, Kelly McGillis)
125. The Day of the Jackal (1973, Fred Zinnemann) (Edward Fox, Michael Lonsdale, Terence Alexander)

[ManPerson]

I don't think that the ones that ManPerson mentioned were off in their positioning by much, but I can see giving them a 3-6 position promotion.

I'll highlight Le Samourai as one that could be still be a bit higher. Delon's character was hugely influential on the stoic loner protagonist archetype found in many later thriller films. Some quotes from wiki.

The overall atmosphere, character development, and narrative style of the American film The French Connection are largely influenced by Le Samouraï (1967) by Jean-Pierre Melville. William Friedkin also drew inspiration from the character played by Alain Delon—a solitary and methodical hitman—to shape the character of Popeye Doyle (Gene Hackman).[44] Moreover, the subway chase scene in The French Connection is directly inspired by Bullitt and Le Samouraï.[45]

Luc Besson drew inspiration from Jef Costello (played by Delon in Le Samouraï) to create Léon, the titular character embodied by Jean Reno in Léon: The Professional.[36][37]

In Drive by Nicolas Winding Refn and Baby Driver by Edgar Wright,[75] both directors drew inspiration from Le Samouraï, crafting protagonists—played by Ryan Gosling and Ansel Elgort, respectively—who are taciturn yet charismatic getaway drivers, reminiscent of Jef Costello.[76] Ryan Gosling has stated that his acting in Drive was influenced by Delon’s performance in Le Samouraï .[77]

Scorsese also noted that Jef Costello, played by Delon in Le Samouraï, served as an inspiration for the creation of Travis Bickle, the protagonist of Taxi Driver (a role that was offered to Alain Delon).[52][53]

Le Samouraï is one of Quentin Tarantino’s favorite films.[54][55][56][57] The French classic influenced his creation of the world of Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction. In this regard, the costume design for Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction stemmed from a discussion between Tarantino and costume designer Betsy Heimann about French noir films featuring Alain Delon.

Michael Mann, for Heat (just like for Collateral), creates the character of Neil McCauley, played by Robert De Niro, drawing inspiration from the minimalist and detached style of Delon in Le Samouraï.[60] The line "I am alone, not lonely" from McCauley (De Niro in Heat) directly echoes the one from Jef Costello (Delon in Le Samouraï) : "I never lose, never really".[61]

I could see it in the top 30, or at least pretty close to it.

[Tim]

Off topic, but looking at this, wonder if we underrated Le Samourai on the 1960s list and, by extention, on the all time one.

[ManPerson]

I think we did. I'd clearly give it popularity and influence over Viridiana. I'd give it acclaim and influence over Doctor Zhivago and Cool Hand Luke (which is from the same year). Maybe it should be next to The Manchurian Candidate. I'd say...

Acclaim: Le Samourai
Popularity: Close
Influence: Manchurian Candidate

I think Le Samourai's win in acclaim might be bigger, but either way they are pretty close.

[Brian]

I'll move Le Samouraï up to #37. Looking at that part of the list, I'm now inclined to think that Get Out and Dirty Harry should be ahead of Fargo on a thriller list, though Fargo may be the greater movie overall, so I'll go ahead and make that change. I'll edit my last post to show these changes.

If you're talking about Le Samourai being near The Manchurian Candidate on the all-time list, I take it that you're leaning toward Le Samouraï going ahead of Les Diaboliques on that list, right?

[ManPerson]

Yes, I would lean towards that

[Area Man]

I don't want to sound pushy, but I think a solid case could be made for Bullitt (1968) to appear on the list. It was, if I'm not mistaken, the first in the wave of loose-cannon cop thrillers that included the likes of Dirty Harry and The French Connection. While it's sometimes described as an "action movie," it really doesn't have much of that sort of stuff (though it's still an excellent film, don't get me wrong), clearly falling into the crime-thriller genre better than the action genre. The car chase in it is iconic though, and rewrote the rules on how to handle action scenes with fast-moving automobiles. Just my thoughts on the matter.

[ManPerson]

I agree with adding Bullitt.