See where you can stream nailbiters from William Friedkin, Bong Joon Ho, and David Fincher this weekend. 10 pulsepounding thrillers you can stream right now See where you can stream nailbiters from William Friedkin, Bong Joon Ho, and David Fincher this weekend. By Randall Colburn :maxbytes(150000):stripicc()/RandallColburnauthorphotoe7e8b48d9f8645588439077e721a5f48.jpg) Randall Colburn Randall Colburn is a writer and editor at . His work has previously appeared on The A.V. Club, The Guardian, The Ringer, and many other publications. EW's editorial guidelines May 15, 2026 6:17 p.m.

See where you can stream nail-biters from William Friedkin, Bong Joon Ho, and David Fincher this weekend.

10 pulse-pounding thrillers you can stream right now

See where you can stream nail-biters from William Friedkin, Bong Joon Ho, and David Fincher this weekend.

By Randall Colburn

Randall Colburn

Randall Colburn is a writer and editor at **. His work has previously appeared on The A.V. Club, The Guardian, The Ringer, and many other publications.

EW's editorial guidelines

May 15, 2026 6:17 p.m. ET

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'Lurker'; 'Snake Eyes'; 'The Vanishing'. Credit:

Thrill-seekers can't always be scaling peaks, surfing waves, and standing on the edge of skyscrapers. Sometimes, a movie is all someone needs to spike that heart rate, and there are plenty of excellent thrillers at your fingertips.

Streaming this month are testosterone-packed classics, under-appreciated gems, and disquieting character studies. Alex Russell's unnerving *Lurker*, for example, is now available on HBO Max after winning the Independent Spirit Award for Best First Feature.

Read on for 10 thrillers you can stream right now.

Den of Thieves (2018)

Gerard Butler in 'Den of Thieves'. STX

*Den of Thieves* was met with a shrug upon its 2018 release, but Christian Gudegast's macho heist thriller has amassed a healthy fanbase in the years since, with German arthouse darling Christian Petzold (*Phoenix, Afire*) among its most prominent defenders. It even got a 2025 sequel, *Den of Thieves 2: Pantera*.

Sure, it's no *Heat*, but its climactic heist sequence is plenty thrilling in its own right. And Gerard Butler is at his sleazy best as Big Nick, a hard-drinking detective with a chip on his shoulder and a love for Everlast's "What It's Like."

**Director: **Christian Gudegast

**Cast: **Gerard Butler, Pablo Schreiber, Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson, O'Shea Jackson Jr., Dawn Olivieri, Mo McRae

Where to watch *Den of Thieves*: Netflix

Face/Off (1997)

Nicolas Cage in 'Face/Off'. Everett Collection

When fans want Nicolas Cage to go crazy, they basically want him to do whatever the hell he's doing in *Face/Off*.

The Oscar winner stars in John Woo's operatic action-thriller as terrorist Castor Troy, who, while in a coma, has his face surgically grafted onto FBI agent Sean Archer (John Travolta), who's trying to discover where he planted a bomb. When a faceless Troy wakes up, he decides to see how Sean's face fits. The pair infiltrate each other's lives and families, resulting in some of the most stylish (and ridiculous) action sequences of the era.

If the premise alone doesn't grab you, know that Cage claims to have "left [his] body" while filming. "I got scared, am I acting or is this real? I can see it if I look at the movie, that one moment, it's in my eyes," he recalled in 2021.

**Director: **John Woo

**Cast: **Nicolas Cage, John Travolta, Joan Allen, Gina Gershon, Alessandro Nivola

Where to watch *Face/Off*: Paramount+

Adam Wingard emphasizes new 'Face/Off' is a sequel: 'We would absolutely never remake 'Face/Off''

20 thriller series on HBO Max to keep you on the edge of your seat

Infernal Affairs (2002)

Andy Lau and Tony Leung in 'Infernal Affairs'.

The Hong Kong crime thriller *Infernal Affairs* is best-known Stateside as the inspiration for *The Departed* (2006), but it's worth a look, even for fans of Martin Scorsese's Oscar winner. In fact, ** called it "every bit as good as Scorsese's homage, if not better."

Tony Leung and Andy Lau lead the cast, with Leung playing a cop working undercover to infiltrate a Triad drug-smuggling ring. Lau, meanwhile, is a Triad mole who’s managed to embed himself within the police force. It’s only a matter of time before one — or both — of them gets caught.

"What makes *Infernal Affairs *one of the all-time great crime flicks is its whiplash twist ending," reads our review. "Even if you saw *The Departed*, you should still buckle up."

**Directors: **Andrew Lau and Alan Mak

**Cast:** Andy Lau, Tony Leung, Anthony Wong, Eric Tsang

Where to watch *Infernal Affairs*: HBO Max

Killer Joe (2011)

Matthew McConaughey in 'Killer Joe'.

*Killer Joe* has quite the pedigree. It stars McConaissance-era Matthew McConaughey and a creative team that includes director William Friedkin and writer Tracy Letts, who won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 2008 for his play *August: Osage County*.

McConaughey plays the eponymous killer, who’s hired by a family of ne'er-do-wells to murder a woman as part of a life insurance scheme. What comes after isn't for the fainthearted. At the time, EW's critic took issue with how Friedkin's film "[rubs] viewers’ faces in close-up scenes of brutality that reasonable people ought not to be able to watch."

That said, they nevertheless praised the effectiveness of those scenes, noting that the movie is "its own kind of mean." For some, that's a warning. For others, it's an invitation.

**Director:** William Friedkin

**Cast: **Matthew McConaughey, Emile Hirsch, Gina Gershon, Juno Temple, Thomas Haden Church

Where to watch *Killer Joe*: Netflix

Lurker (2025)

Archie Madekwe in 'Lurker'.

Alex Russell's skin-crawling psychological thriller won the Independent Spirit Award for Best First Feature. It's easy to see why.

This story of an aimless retail employee, Theodore (a chilling Théodore Pellerin), who worms his way into the inner circle of rising pop star Oliver (Archie Madekwe) is a queasy dissection of both the digital attention economy and the kinds of parasitic fandom baked into it.

As the film unfolds, it becomes clear that Theodore isn't taken with Oliver so much as he is being in proximity to someone *like* Oliver. It's all about clout.

**Director:** Alex Russell

**Cast: **Théodore Pellerin, Archie Madekwe, Zack Fox, Havana Rose Liu, Wale Onayemi, Daniel Zolghadri, Sunny Suljic

Where to watch *Lurker*: HBO Max

Memories of Murder (2003)

'Memories of Murder'.

Neon/Courtesy Everett Collection

Sixteen years before his class satire Parasite won the Oscar for Best Picture, Bong Joon Ho thrilled audiences with *Memories of Murder*, an offbeat thriller inspired by the real-life story of South Korea's first widely documented serial killer case.

Song Kang-ho and Kim Sang-kyung star as detectives investigating a rash of rapes and murders in the city of Hwaseong. Looking back on the film in 2020, EW praised the movie's "turn-on-a-dime tonal shifts," "precisely calibrated blocking and staging," and "exquisite command of tension."

**Director:** Bong Joon Ho

**Cast: **Song Kang-ho, Kim Sang-kyung

Where to watch *Memories of Murder*: Paramount+

Panic Room (2002)

Kristen Stewart and Jodie Foster in 'Panic Room'. Everett Collection

You won't find a lot of meat on the bones of *Panic Room**,* David Fincher's follow-up to *Fight Club*, but the cat-and-mouse thriller has an appealing cast and style for days. (Anyone else get nostalgic for that brief period where Dwight Yoakam kept getting cast as psychopaths?)

The first act, in particular, is striking. "With the camera swooping and scaling the man-made landscape of tall buildings at vertiginous angles (and with Howard Shore’s score invoking the musical language of Bernard Herrmann), we're immediately trapped in a state of Hitchcockian high anxiety," our critic wrote at the time.

**Director: **David Fincher

**Cast:** Jodie Foster, Kristen Stewart, Forrest Whitaker, Jared Leto, Dwight Yoakam

Where to watch *Panic Room*: Hulu

Sicario (2015)

(Left to right) Daniel Kaluuya, Hank Rogerson, Victor Garber, and Emily Blunt in 'Sicario'.

Richard Foreman/Lionsgate Films

Taylor Sheridan was still a few years out from creating *Yellowstone* when he penned the Oscar-nominated *Sicario*, which stars Emily Blunt and Benicio Del Toro in what EW's critic called a "white-knuckle descent into the dark depths of the U.S./Mexico drug war."

"*Sicario* is a brilliant action thriller with the smarts of a message movie," reads our review. "And the message is this: Are we willing to bend the rules and sell our souls to fight a war that will probably never be won? Before you answer that question, see this film."

**Director: **Denis Villeneuve

**Cast: **Emily Blunt, Benicio Del Toro, Josh Brolin

Where to watch* Sicario*: Hulu

Snake Eyes (1998)

Nicolas Cage in 'Snake Eyes'.

This pulpy neo-noir from Brian De Palma frustrated many critics at the time and remains one of the director’s more divisive films. Still, even its biggest haters can't deny its bravura opening sequence, a continuous glide through a crowded arena that’s intricately staged and brimming with subtle detail.

Nicolas Cage goes gonzo mode as Rick Santoro, a dirty detective who witnesses an assassination at a high-profile boxing match and tumbles into a dizzying conspiracy packed with colorful characters.

"Conspiracy" is the key word here. *Snake Eyes* isn't a whodunnit, but a meditation on perspective and myth-making as they relate to public assassinations. The ghosts of JFK and RFK haunt the periphery of every shot.

**Director: **Brian De Palma

**Cast: **Nicolas Cage, Carla Gugino, Gary Sinise, John Heard, Kevin Dunn

Where to watch *Snake Eyes*: Paramount+

The Vanishing (1988)

Johanna Ter Steege in 'The Vanishing'.

Everett Collection

*The Vanishing *is considered by many (including Stanley Kubrick) to be one of the most horrific movies ever made.

George Sluizier's French/Dutch thriller tells the story of a man whose girlfriend disappears during a vacation in France. She walks into a rest stop and never comes out. Three years later, he finally meets the man who abducted her. You'll never forget the film's final minutes.

"Despite a distinct lack of anything supernatural (or even a single onscreen death), *The Vanishing *produces a terror that’s bone-white rather than blood-red," EW's critic wrote in a piece about existential horror.

Sluizier also directed the film's 1993 remake. Sure, it stars Jeff Bridges and Sandra Bullock, but it doesn't hold a candle to the original.

**Director: **George Sluizier

**Cast: **Bernard-Pierre Donnadieu, Gene Bervoets, and Johanna ter Steege

Where to watch *The Vanishing*: Kanopy

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Published: May 17, 2026 at 10:39AM on Source: RON MAG

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