Often regarded as cinema’s greatest achievement, ‘Vertigo’ presents the peak of Hitchcock’s psychosexual fixations in gloriously shot Technicolor. Playing Judy Barton – or is it Madeleine Elster? – Kim Novak personifies twisty femininity. Jimmy Stewart’s ‘Scottie’ Ferguson, an ex-detective increasingly consumed by her, is a perfect subversion of the actor’s wholesome image.
What separates a psychological thriller from a regular old thriller? As the phrase implies, it mostly has to do with the mind. In the best examples, special attention is paid to the mental disposition of its characters, and the thrills themselves are derived from how those motivations influence the movement of the plot. That might make it sound highfalutin, but the greatest psychological thrillers play on elemental fears, traumas and delusions to send goosebumps racing up the viewer’s arms. As one particularly disturbed young man once said, we all go a little mad sometimes – and that’s what makes the genre so relatable… and frightening.
Taking all that into consideration, we probed the most shadowy corners of cinema to put together this list of the best psychological thrillers ever made. Some are tense and twisty, others are more meditative, but nearly all of them will leave you feeling dizzy, discombobulated and probably in need of some fresh air afterward.
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