Ten great thrillers

Basic Instinct (1992)
Hitchcock, soft-porn and Michael Douglas’ appalling taste in wool-wear combine in this era-defining slice of over-egged nonsense about Douglas’ cop falling for Sharon Stone’s man-killer dominatrix author. Yes, it’s trash, but it’s trash of the highest quality.
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'The Big Sleep' 1946

The Big Sleep (1946)
Howard Hawks’ adaptation of Raymond Chandler’s famously convoluted private eye thriller proved even more difficult to follow on screen – partly because of censorship. But when the cast is topped by Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall, who’s taking note of the story? It was the film in which Bogie fell for Bacall: the chemistry between the two is almost incendiary.
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'Casino Royale', 2006

Casino Royale (2006)
Bond went back to basics with this storming debut for Daniel Craig as 007. Gone were the gadgets, the tireless bed-hopping, the excessive stunts; instead this was a taut, muscular, only slightly ridiculous thriller that returned the franchise to the no-nonsense, page-turning immediacy of Ian Fleming's novels.
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Fargo (1995)
The Coen brothers’ hugely entertaining thriller involves a kidnapping gone wrong, an unhappy marriage and a wealthy businessman who refuses to pay a ransom. The backdrop may be chilly – the film is set during a Minnesota winter – but Frances McDormand brings rare warmth to her role as an intrepid, very pregnant investigating sheriff.
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'Get Carter', 1971

Get Carter (1971)
Gritty thriller meets Greek tragedy in this brutal modern noir about Michael Caine’s London-based gangster travelling to Newcastle to get payback for his brother’s death. With the violence as unglamorous as a pub brawl and a mood as bleak as Tyneside winter, it’s one of the nastiest and most honest films about revenge ever made.
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Jackie Brown (1997)
Quentin Tarantino, one of modern cinema’s great thriller directors, adapts one of literature’s great thriller writers Elmore Leonard in this absorbing tale of an middle-aged air hostess outfoxing a shrewd gunrunner over a stash of money. The intricate plot is a model of machine-crafted precision, but the leisurely pace allows for some rich characterisation and some soulful reflections on ageing.
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'LA Confidential', 1997

LA Confidential (1997)
James Ellroy’s ‘50s-set thriller was, among other things, a scabrous attack on Hollywood’s blind devotion to the culture of celebrity. So it’s a minor miracle that a big studio should ever have financed this sprawling, densely plotted tale of police corruption, shady movie stars and tabloid journalists in the first place. The greater miracle is that Ellroy’s vision was preserved in all its gloomy brilliance by Curtis Hanson’s sharp direction and fearless performances from a first-rate cast.
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'Le Samourai', 1967

Le Samourai (1967)
A major influence on US cinema’s crime wave in the ‘70s (not to mention on Tarantino), French director Jean-Pierre Melville’s portrait of a hit man is a stone-cold classic of icy detachment and designer violence. Revolving around Alain Delon’s professional assassin the film combines the tough-guy cynicism of film noir and crisp Parisian cool – with an added dash of Eastern mysticism.
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Memento (2000)
Christopher Nolan’s tale of a amnesiac victim of crime attempting to solve the case unfurled in reverse chronology, plunging the viewer into as much confusion as his addled hero. Disassembling the constituent parts of the thriller, Nolan pieced them back together to use the genre to probe the nature of identity. A profound, perplexing puzzle-piece of a film.
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The Usual Suspects (1995)
This wonderfully intricate thriller revolving around five professional thieves brought together for a police line-up is played like one long, expertly deployed con trick, pulling the rug from under us so many times we’re left reeling. An unspoken law of omerta forbids viewers of the film from revealing the movie’s glorious final twist.
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