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Tag: Thriller

Cache (2005)

Thriller Rated R

Austrian writer-director Michael Haneke’s quietly insidious film doesn’t just scare you; it messes with your head. Someone certainly is messing with the central couple (Daniel Auteuil and Juliette Binoche), who find a videotape on their doorstep that consists of nothing more than the image of their own home. As more tapes arrive, suspicion spreads. Cache

Constant Gardener, The (2005)

Thriller Rated R

The personal and the global are at frustrating odds in this ambitious adaptation of a John Le Carre novel that tries to tie together one man’s love for his late wife with drug-company espionage in Africa. Ralph Fiennes and Rachel Weisz ably anchor the personal story, while talented Brazilian director Fernando Meirelles (City of God)

Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989)

Thriller Rated PG-13

A practice run for Woody Allen’s superior Match Point, this essentially has the same premise: an adulterer considers killing his mistress when she threatens to upend his placid domestic life. What Match Point wisely avoided, Crimes indulges in: overwrought philosophical pontificating, obvious symbolism and, most notably, the onscreen presence of Allen himself. Allen has a

Duel (1971)

Thriller Rated PG

Steven Spielberg’s career hit its creative stride with this television movie. Essentially a 90-minute dissertation on the slight embarrassment of being passed on the open road, Duel follows a milquetoast businessman (Dennis Weaver) on a trip who is harassed and eventually hunted by the mysterious driver of a massive tanker truck. Weaver’s ironically named David

Assault on Precinct 13 (1976)

Thriller Rated R

Writer-director John Carpenter’s police thriller throbs with the sort of dread that can come from getting lost in a bad neighborhood. It brings to life our worst fears about the chaos that might erupt at any moment in the American urban wasteland. On the last night before a blighted precinct closes and police presence pretty

Night Listener, The (2006)

Thriller Rated R

Adapted from an Armistead Maupin novel – Maupin had a hand in the screenplay – The Night Listener is an oddly inert thriller, a movie of shocking revelations and sneaky twists that somehow still never jars you. Part of the problem is Robin Williams, who tends to become inert when giving one of his ‘serious’

Memento (2001)

Thriller Rated R

“…a masterful mindblower.”

Femme Fatale (2002)

Thriller Rated R

A shameless mishmash of classic, film noir archetypes and contemporary crassness, Femme Fatale follows a mysterious blonde (Rebecca Romijn-Stamos) as she steals and sleeps her way through a series of sad-sack men, most of whom get at least one chance to beat her up. None of this is much fun, primarily because the movie’s prehistoric

Birthday Girl (2001)

Thriller Rated R

When a by-the-book British bank clerk (Ben Chaplin) arranges for a Russian mail-order bride (Nicole Kidman), her lack of English is just the start of his problems. The movie works as long as it remains steeped in sexual paranoia and guilt, but soon the Hitchcock-like shadings give way to conventional thriller chase scenes.

Da Vinci Code, The (2006)

Thriller Rated PG-13

“I’ve played games of Scrabble that were more gripping than this.

Recent Reviews

Marty Supreme (2025)

Drama Rated R

“… shows off in a way that begins to feel needy.”

If I Had Legs I’d Kick You (2025)

Drama Rated R

“Byrne’s tiny touches that reverberate with recognizability.”

Jay Kelly (2025)

Drama Rated R

“… like watching the problems of a pillow.”


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