Thebest thrillersof the 2000s feature a strong blend of genre films directed by some of the best filmmakers working in Hollywood. The thing about thrillers is that they exist in several different genres,from high-octane action moviesand horror films to Westerns, fantasy, and sci-fi flicks. The only thing that matters isthat it keeps viewers on the edge of their seats.
From 2000 to 2009,several notable filmmakers directed some outstanding thrillers,with David Cronenberg, David Fincher, and Christopher Nolan serving as prime examples. There were also someexcellent thrillers from lesser-known directorsthat have stood the test of time and remain shining examples of why these films are so exciting.
In 2005, David Cronenberg released the action thrillerA History of Violence,which was one of his more accessible mainstream releases. Viggo Mortensen stars as Tom Stall,a diner owner who has been hiding a secret from his familyand friends for years. However, when he makes the national news after a heroic rescue, his past returns to haunt him.
The story is intense, with Tom as a regular guy with a wife and kids, but a past that he ran from years before. When gangsters show up in his small town, they reveal his secrets to his family, and Tom ends up having to choose between his family and the life that he felt he left behind.
A History of Violence,based on the graphic novel by John Wagner and Vince Locke, earned two Oscar nominations for Best Supporting Actor (William Hurt) and Best Adapted Screenplay. The thriller has an 88% fresh Rotten Tomatoes score and ended up on several lists counting down the best movies of the 2000s, regardless of genre.
David Fincher created some of the best thrillersof the 1990s, with notable hits includingFight Club,Se7en,andThe Game.He didn’t slow down in the 2000s either and released one of his most acclaimed thriller movies. InZodiac,Fincher tells the story ofthe men who investigated the Zodiac Killerin the 1970s.
Jake Gyllenhaal is Robert Graysmith, a political cartoonist who works for theSan Francisco Chronicle,who ends up deciphering one of the Zodiac killer’s encrypted letters. He works with news reporter Paul Avery (Robert Downey Jr.). Mark Ruffalo also stars as police Inspector Dave Toschi, a man investigating the murders.
The film has a 90% Rotten Tomatoes score, but was shunned by the Oscars, receiving no nominations.
The real Zodiac killer was never caught, so Fincher uses his movie to hint at who it might have been, based on Graysmith’s novel,Zodiac Unmasked.The film has a 90% Rotten Tomatoes score, but was shunned by the Oscars, receiving no nominations. Despite this, it was included on several top 10 lists of 2007.
Park Chan-wook directed the action-thrillerOldboy,a South Korean movie about a man abducted and held as a prisonerfor 15 years in a hotel room. After 15 years, without knowing why he was being held or who kidnapped him, he is suddenly released. This leads the man on a path of revenge against the person who ruined his life.
Oldboyhas been widely regarded as one of the greatest South Korean thrillers in history, with fans ranging from Quentin Tarantino to Roger Ebert, who praise its brilliance. Even Spike Lee counts himself as a fan, and he directed an inferior version of the film a decade later.
Oldboyis alsopart of Park Chan-wook’sVengeance Trilogy,followingSympathy for Mr. Vengeanceand precedingLady Vengeance.TheOldboyRotten Tomatoes score is an impressive 82%, and it won several awards upon its release, including the Grand Prix at the Cannes International Film Festival.
The Bourne Ultimatumwas the third film in theJason Bourneseries, and wrapped up the main story of the title hero as he sought to learn more about his past. Based on the Robert Ludlum novels, thefirst movie introduced Jason Bourne as an amnesiacwho was shot and thought dead. He soon learns his attempted murder had ties to the CIA’s black ops programs.
The third movie brings this story to life, as Jason Bourne learns more about Operation Treadstone inThe Bourne Ultimatum.This puts his life in danger as the U.S. government will do anything they can to silence him, sending the best-trained killers in their employ after him to kill the man once and for all.
Paul Greengrassshot the film often using a shaky cam effect,which made the entire experience feel disorienting, helping the audience feel what Bourne is going through as he races to discover why the government wants him dead. The thriller won three Oscars, all for technical achievements, and it has a high 92% Rotten Tomatoes score.
In the 1990s, Denzel Washington established himself as one of the best dramatic actors of his generation, with notable roles in films such asMalcolm XandPhiladelphia.However,Washington won his second Oscar,and the only one for Best Actor, for his roleas the dirty cop in the 2001 crime thrillerTraining Day.
Directed by Antoine Fuqua, Ethan Hawke stars as a young, ambitious LAPD officer named Jake Hoyt who is assigned to work with a highly decorated narcotics officer named Alonzo Harris (Washington). As they go about their work, Jake soon learns that Alonzo is involved in more criminal activity than most of the people they bust.
Hawke was also nominated for an Oscar, and the movie was so popular that it also spawned a spinoff television series a decade later.
This is an intense thriller, with Hawke’s young cop having to figure out how to deal with his corrupt partner, knowing how easily Alonzo could make him disappear and cover up the crime. Hawke was also nominated for an Oscar, and the movie was so popular that it also spawned a spinoff television series a decade later.
David Lynch directed some of the most bizarre and complex thrillers in cinema history. However, one of his best arrived in 2001with the surrealist neo-noirMulholland Drive.The movie follows an aspiring actress (Naomi Watts) who arrives in Los Angeles and befriends a woman with amnesia (Laura Harring). As expected of Lynch, nothing is as it seems.
Lynch refused to explain the film’s meaning, allowing viewers to determine for themselves what they felt it was trying to convey. The confusing plot didn’t hurt its critical reception, as Lynch earned an Oscar nomination for Best Director, while the film received a Best Picture (Drama) nomination at the Golden Globes.
Top Hollywood professionals respect the film, though, ranking it as the second-best film of the 21st Century in a recentNew York Timespoll.
Also, as expected for David Lynch,Mulholland Drivewas polarizing, receiving a slightly lower 84% Rotten Tomatoes score compared to other top thrillers of the decade. Top Hollywood professionals respect the film, though, ranking it as thesecond-best film of the 21st Century in a recentNew York Timespoll.
Christopher Nolan has become the king of the box office, with giant films likeOppenheimer,Interstellar,andThe Dark Knight.However, the film that made him a star was a smaller thriller from 2000 calledMemento.In this movie,Guy Pearce plays a man with amnesia who is trying to find the person who killed his wife.
What makes thisMementoso unique is that Nolan tells the story in reverse,with each scene unfolding in the opposite order, until the final scene in the movie is the first in the actual story. This allows the viewers to remain as confused as the main character until the end, where everything is revealed, and then it starts over for the protagonist.
What could have been a simple gimmick movie ended up as a masterwork of suspense, as Nolan proved to be a master storyteller, and it was clear that the best was still to come for the auteur filmmaker. The Library of Congress addedMementoto the National Film Registry in 2017.
In 2006, Martin Scorsese remade the Hong Kong crime thrillerInfernal Affairs,just four years after the original movie was released.In Scorsese’s version, the action is moved from Hong Kong to Boston.Matt Damon is a mobster sent undercover to become a Boston cop, while Leonardo DiCaprio is a cop sent undercover in the mafia.
The cast helpsdifferentiate the Scorsese version from the outstanding original film.Jack Nicholson plays the mob boss, while Mark Wahlberg is the hot-tempered staff sergeant of the Boston police force. Shockingly, the only actor recognized at the Oscars was Wahlberg, who was nominated for Best Supporting Actor.
However, the film was a massive success. It won Best Picture, while Scorsese won Best Director at the Oscars. It was also a box office success, making $291.5 million on a $90 million budget.
Alfonso Cuarón remains one of Mexico’s most renowned filmmakers, as evidenced by his four Oscar wins. He won Best Director forGravityandRoma,but didn’t receive a nomination for his best movie. That was his 2006 dystopian thriller,Children of Men,a story about a world where no babies were born in two decades.
Clive Owen stars as civil servant Theo Faron, a man tasked with helping transport a woman named Kee (Clare-Hope Ashitey) to safety. Kee is pregnant, marking the first pregnancy in two decades. This means several people want to capture her, both those who want to study her and the cultists who feel the world needs to end and want her dead.
It also appeared on several top 10 lists for the year and earned three Oscar nominations…
The film was widely acclaimed, with a 92% on Rotten Tomatoes. It also appeared on several top 10 lists for the year and earned three Oscar nominations, including Best Adapted Screenplay, although it didn’t win any of them.
One of the best thrillers of the 2000s, andone of the best movies of the 21st century,regardless of genre, is the Coen brothers’No Country for Old Men.The movie stars Josh Brolin as a man who finds a botched drug deal gone wrong and steals the money he sees at the massacre.This leads the mob to send an assassin (Javier Bardem) to retrieve it.
Bardem plays Anton Chigurh, a man who often decides if he will kill a person or not, depending on a coin flip. Almost based on the personification of Death itself, Anton is a force of nature and one of the greatest villains in cinema history. Bardem won an Oscar for his performance.
The movie itself was also a great success, winning the Oscars for Best Picture and Best Director and being named the sixth-best movie of the 21st century by Hollywood professionals in 2025.
