If anyone wondered how strong of a platform Netflix is for today’s consumption of movies, take a look at Bird Box, one of the most successful thrillers ever.
The Netflix original movie reportedly had over 26 million viewers in its first week alone according to Nielsen ratings. Netflix themselves reported that over 45 million accounts watched the Sandra Bullock movie in the first seven days.
However, while that is a lot of viewers, there are a ton of thrillers on Netflix that deserves a watch as well. Here are a few of them:
1. Gerald’s Game
Gerald’s Game is a Netflix original thriller that you don’t want to watch alone. This one is from the mind of Stephen King as director Mike Flanagan adapted the movie from the Master of Horror’s 1992 suspense novel of the same name.
Gerald’s Game stars Carla Gugino as a woman who ends up handcuffed to a bed in an isolated lake house; after her husband has a heart attack and falls lifeless beside the bed she’s in. She then begins to hear something that might be a predator outside the house.
Stephen King was so impressed by the film that he gave the rights to his Shining sequel, Doctor Sleep, to Flanagan.
2. The Sixth Sense
While M. Night Shyamalan was considered a joke for a number of years, he started out directing one of the best thrillers of all-time; The Sixth Sense. While Shyamalan is back in style again thanks to his Unbreakable trilogy; at the time, he looked like the next Steven Spielberg thanks to this horror movie.
Bruce Willis stars as a child psychologist named Malcolm Crowe; who was traumatized when a patient he failed comes to see him and takes his own life in front of him. He tries to get back on his feet when he starts to treat a young boy named Cole (Haley Joel Osment); who claims that he can see dead people and they won’t leave him alone.
3. Train To Busan
For people who think that the zombie genre is oversaturated and there is nothing new, check out Train to Busan. This horror thriller on Netflix was released in 2016 in South Korea; the highest grossing film in that territory for the year of its release. As a matter of fact, the movie did so well that James Wan has already said he plans to produce an American remake.
The movie follows a divorced man who agrees to take his estranged daughter to visit her mom for her birthday. However, the day they are set to board the train, a zombie outbreak occurs. They end up fighting to stay alive on the train that is heading for what everyone thinks is the last safe city for survivors.
4. It Follows
Released in 2014, It Follows is a psychological thriller that tackles one of the most unique monsters in horror cinema. After a girl named Jay has an intimate encounter with a new boyfriend, he knocks her out afterward. She wakes up bound to a wheelchair and he tells her that there is a creature that will start to stalk her.
The only way to stop it from ending her life is to pass on the curse to someone else through sex. However, if the person who inherits the curse perishes, it goes back to the one before; meaning that he needs her to survive and pass it on for him to live as well. It Follows is one of the best thrillers on Netflix and remains a modern day horror classic.
5. Se7en
Released in 1995, Se7en stars Brad Pitt as a young police detective who teams with the veteran in Morgan Freeman. The dynamic duo search for a serial killer who is eliminating people using the Seven Deadly Sins. The end has one of the biggest gut punches in cinema. This is one of the best thrillers of the ’90s and it is now available for everyone to rediscover on Netflix.