The 7 Best Psychological Thrillers Streaming on HBO Max Right Now
HBO Max‘s film library is filled with worthwhile, great psychological thrillers. From well-known, iconic classics to underseen, forgotten films, the streamer has movies you either may not have ever heard of before or ones you have been meaning to check out for years. Case in point: Its psychological thriller collection includes the most underrated film that “Andor” creator Tony Gilroy has ever made, as well as one of the most beloved and oft-quoted movies of the 1990s.
Here are the best psychological thrillers you can stream on HBO Max in July.
“Duplicity” (2009)
“Duplicity,” writer-director Tony Gilroy‘s underrated follow-up to his acclaimed “Michael Clayton,” is an unlikely blend of paranoid corporate politics and romance. It follows two paid corporate spies (Julia Roberts and Clive Owen) whose attraction to each other complicates their respective assignments and compels them to concoct a daring scheme designed to trick their bosses.
Breezy and bubbly, “Duplicity” is more comedic and lighthearted than the films and TV shows (i.e., “Michael Clayton,” “Andor”) Gilroy is best known for. But the film’s lighter tone actually pairs surprisingly well with Gilroy’s usual, razor-sharp standards. The resulting film is a delightful romantic comedy about the terrifying level of vulnerability and trust that true romance requires. Like falling in love, “Duplicity” keeps you on your toes from beginning to end.
“Get Out” (2017)
The film that announced Jordan Peele as a bona fide horror master and completely altered the trajectory of the former “Key & Peele” star‘s career, “Get Out” still ranks high as one of the best and most original thrillers of the last 10 years. A social thriller in the same vein as “The Stepford Wives,” the Oscar-winning film follows a young black man (Daniel Kaluuya) whose trip to meet his white girlfriend’s (Allison Williams) family takes an unexpected turn when he realizes he has walked right into a terrifying plot.
Brimming with paranoia and ingeniously conceived images, “Get Out” is a conspiracy thriller that slowly tightens its grip on you until it becomes straight-up suffocating. It is a relentlessly thrilling bit of genre entertainment that is packed with sharply realized ideas — particularly about systemic racism and cultural appropriation. 8 years after its theatrical release, it still cuts like a knife.
“Fight Club” (1999)
It may not seem as transgressive and boundary-pushing now as it did in 1999, but “Fight Club” is still a masterful, stylistically invigorating psychological thriller. Based on Chuck Palahniuk’s 1996 novel of the same name, the David Fincher-directed classic follows a dissatisfied, depressed man (Edward Norton) who is wrested out of his oppressively mundane existence in an increasingly consumeristic America when he is talked into forming an underground fight club with an eccentric soap salesman (Brad Pitt).
One of the most explicit takedowns of contemporary American culture that Hollywood has ever produced, “Fight Club” is a deranged thriller that disorients you at every turn. To watch it is to feel yourself pulled into the same identity crisis and mental spiral as its increasingly desperate, unhinged protagonist.
“MaXXXine” (2024)
“MaXXXine,” director Ti West’s divisive sequel to 2022’s “X” and “Pearl,” is a twisted genre mash-up about, among other things, Hollywood’s ruthless business practices, the hypocrisy of the Christian Right and the difficulty of building a fulfilling life for yourself as an adult, especially when you were denied a strong foundation as a child. At the center of it all is Maxine Minx (Mia Goth), a porn star trying to land a life-changing role in a mainstream Hollywood film in 1980s Los Angeles.
Her world is upended when the events of “X” come back to haunt her and she finds the people in her life hunted by a mysterious serial killer. Overflowing with Hollywood references, “MaXXXine” may not be quite as great as “X” or “Pearl,” but it is still a captivating, visually striking thriller.
“The Long Good Friday” (1980)
In “The Long Good Friday,” what may seem like a simple crime thriller on paper is given blistering psychological depth by director John Mackenzie and star Bob Hoskins. The latter leads the film as a tough, brutish London gangster who has been in control of the city for so long that he does not believe anyone could — or would — ever hurt him. That false sense of security is violently ripped away when his life-changing arrangement with an American businessman is threatened by a series of attacks against him and his criminal business outfit.
“The Long Good Friday” follows Hoskins’ bewildered, increasingly indignant Harold Shand as he tries to uncover his attackers’ identities and regain the sense of control he worked so hard to acquire. It is an explosive, nerve-jangling journey, one that is elevated above its pulpy simplicity by Hoskins’ teeth-gritted, furious star turn and by Helen Mirren’s cool, quietly terrified supporting performance opposite him.
“Blood Simple” (1984)
“Blood Simple” is the film that put writer-director duo Joel and Ethan Coen on the map. Their feature directorial debut is a seedy, sweaty psychological crime thriller about a man (Dan Hedaya) who discovers his wife (Frances McDormand, in her feature film debut) is having an affair with one of his employees (John Getz) and hires a merciless private investigator (M. Emmet Walsh) to kill them both. Drenched in paranoia and narratively concerned with matters of infidelity, betrayal and personal accountability, “Blood Simple” is a pitch-black thriller that packs a hell of a punch.
The film’s drawn-out, Hitchcockian third-act climax is iconic for a reason. It not only involves an astonishing set piece but one born organically out of its characters’ personal insecurities and suspicions, which makes it the perfect finale for a thriller as psychologically piercing and unnervingly quiet as “Blood Simple.”
“Juror #2” (2024)
“Juror #2” is simultaneously a tense psychological legal thriller and a thought-provoking moral drama. Directed by Clint Eastwood, it centers on a recovering alcoholic (Nicholas Hoult) who is tasked with serving as a jury member on a high-profile murder case, despite his wife nearing the due date of her high-risk pregnancy. Once seated, he begins to suspect that he may have actually been the one responsible for the crime on trial.
“Juror #2,” consequently, follows Hoult’s Justin as he finds himself torn between his responsibilities to the law and those he has to his growing family. Shot with patient, unobtrusive elegance by Eastwood, “Juror #2” refuses to give its protagonist or its viewers any easy answers, all while repeatedly tightening and loosening its grip on both. It is a masterful, understated thriller that lingers in your head and heart long after you watch it.
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