Thriller & Mystery
Trust few and fear all in a collection of films packed with suspense, paranoia and conspiracy – some dark, some brooding, others bordering the experimental.
Explore erotic thrillers, racial politics, espionage, fake news, queer characters and femmes fatales in our selection of nail-biting and disturbing films. Plenty of deception, and in some cases death, lies ahead. From the pulse-racing to the hair raising, these thrillers will keep you on the edge of your seat.
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Amateur
Isabelle is a former nun living in New York, earning a living writing erotic fiction while awaiting her higher calling. She meets Thomas, an amnesiac unaware of his past as a ruthless pornographer, once responsible for turning his young wife, Sofia, into the world's most notorious adult star. As ...
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The Onion Field
In 1963 LA, two officers were kidnapped in a real-life hostage ordeal that ended with the brutal execution of one in a desolate onion field. Though the other cop escapes, he is forever marked by the traumatic event. As the two assailants appeal their death sentences, they find themselves entangle...
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Stranger by the Lake
Alain Guiraudie’s acclaimed mystery-thriller is set in a gay cruising ground in Southern France. The appearance of a handsome stranger stirs the passions of a young man, whose obsession continues even after the new arrival appears to have committed a violent crime. It’s a fascinating mix of t...
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Eclipse
A remote cliff-side house on the Scottish coast is the setting for Simon Perry’s atmospheric psychological thriller, barely seen since it was first screened. Tom Conti plays a bereaved brother troubled by memories of his deceased twin. A Christmas celebration with his brother’s widow and her ...
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Once Were Warriors
An unemployed MÄori living in Auckland’s slums, heavy-drinking Jake has a violent temper that he takes out on his family and strangers alike - especially his wife, Beth. Their eldest son, Nig, has joined a gang; Boogie has been placed in foster care; and Grace retreats into her journal. The un...
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L.627
Narcotics officer Lulu (Didier Bezace) and his squad doggedly navigate the grimy underbelly of Paris, contending with red-tape, a lack of resources and an overwhelming in-tray. Co-written with a French police veteran, Michel Alexandre, Tavernier’s film avoids the clichés, delivering an authentic ...
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Diva
Stylish first feature from Jean-Jacques Beineix (Betty Blue) about a young Parisian postal worker (Frédéric Andréi) who secretly makes a bootleg recording of his favourite opera singer (Wilhelmenia Fernandez) performing. But the recording draws the attention of dangerous criminals as he become...
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Elite Squad
Captain Nascimento (Wagner Moura), a BOPE (Special Police Operation Battalion) officer, is tasked with clearing the drug gangs in the slums of Rio de Janeiro before a visit from the Pope. Meanwhile, desperate to take on a safer job so that he can be closer to his pregnant wife, he trains up two y...
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Pit Stop
Rick Bowman, a drag racing street punk, winds up in jail after a street race goes wrong. Bailed out by race promoter Grant Willard, Bowman is offered sponsorship as a stock car driver, entering the deadly, demolition derby-adjacent world of “figure eight†racing. As Bowman moves up the ranks,...
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Tony
Tony (Peter Ferdinando) cuts an odd figure. Wandering the streets of his East London neighbourhood, he quietly observes the people around him, occasionally inviting an unlucky few back to his flat for some squash. Asking a prostitute for a cuddle or reeling off his extensive VHS collection, he is...
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Love Rites
When Hugo meets the enigmatic Myriam on the Paris Metro, he finds himself becoming increasingly obsessed with her. Following her back to her flat, Hugo sleeps with her, but finds that his obsession has grown until Myriam seems to have total control over his body and soul. The final film of cult f...
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Open Your Eyes
Alejandro Amenabar weaves together a complex sci-fi romance with this audacious drama. Cesar (Eduardo Noriega) is a handsome and successful man, but feels completely different once he meets Sofia (Penelope Cruz), who captivates him with her beauty and sensibility. However, just at the beginning o...
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Melancholia
The sole directorial credit by the German-born founder of distributor Artificial Eye, Andi Engel, is a cerebral thriller about an art critic drawn into an assassination plot. Jeroen Krabbe plays the German ex-pat who reconnects with his radical past when he’s asked to assist with the hit of a C...
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Flight to Berlin
‘They asked me the wrong question’ says murder suspect Susannah after being interrogated by the police. She was found in the apartment of a known criminal but this turns out to be the least of her problems as her past begins to catch up with her. Brooding acting and stunning location shooting...
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Silent Scream
1963: When Larry Winters violently murders a Soho barman in cold blood he is sentenced to life imprisonment. Within ten years he is addicted to prescription drugs and feared as Scotland's most violent inmate.
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The Third Man
One of the greatest British films, Carol Reed's classic very consciously emphasises its time and place - post-war Vienna - yet its resonant themes around loss of innocence and a fall from grace render it timeless. Joseph Cotten plays the writer searching the Austrian capital for his missing frien...
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Out of the Darkness
Shot on location around Derbyshire, this atmospheric and entertaining ghost story - which sees the dispossessed spirit of a young plague victim making contact with modern kids - is one of the highlights of the latter days of the Children's Film Foundation. Past intrudes on present with increasing...
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The Night of the 12th
Detective Yohan Vivès (Bastien Bouillon) has only just taken over as head of the detective bureau of the local police department when he is assigned to the chilling murder of a young woman in her quiet mountain village. But what starts as a meticulous investigation into the victim’s life soon tur...
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Evil under the Sun
Peter Ustinov stars as Agatha Christie's immortal detective, Hercule Poirot, in this star-studded murder-mystery. Poirot is tying up some loose ends on a shimmeringly beautiful Adriatic island when he's dragged into the case of an actress' strangling. In typical Christie style, everyone on the be...
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Blind Beast
Blind Beast is a masterpiece of erotic horror that explores the all-encompassing and overwhelming relationship between the artist and his art and the obsessive closed world that the artist inhabits, with maestro director Yasuzo Masumura (Giants and Toys, Irezumi) conjuring up a hallucinogenic dre...
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The Man Who Haunted Himself
Conservative executive Harold Pelham (a harrowing and atypical performance by Roger Moore) is involved in a car accident and declared momentarily dead. When he's eventually released from the hospital, Pelham discovers that an exact double of him has recently been seen in places that he's never be...
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An Inspector Calls
It is 1912, and the shadow of war looms over a wealthy family. As they celebrate their eldest daughter's engagement in their lavish Yorkshire manor, they're interrupted by an ominous police detective who is investigating a young woman's suicide, and what role each of them played in her death.
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It Always Rains on Sunday
The British New Wave came a decade earlier than advertised with Robert Hamer's downbeat postwar thriller. In a dank East End of ration-book misery, dosshouses and black marketeering, a world-weary housewife is shaken by the sudden reappearance of an old lover, now an escaped convict on the run. R...
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Sweeney!
Hard-bitten Flying Squad officer Jack Regan gets embroiled in a deadly political plot when an old friend asks him to investigate the death of his girlfriend. Framed on a drunk-drive charge and suspended from the force, with his partner and best mate George Carter unable to help, Jack must rely on...