Best Crime Thrillers on Netflix Right Now

Updated: September 2026

The best crime thrillers on Netflix right now range from serial-killer investigations and kidnapping mysteries to corrupt-cop movies, heist films, neo-noir, organised-crime stories and tense dramas about ordinary people suddenly pulled into criminal worlds.

Crime thrillers work because they combine two powerful forms of suspense. There is usually a crime that needs to be understood, prevented or survived, but there is also the question of what that crime reveals about the people involved. Netflix UK currently has a particularly strong crime-thriller catalogue, including established films such as Zodiac, Prisoners, Collateral, Training Day, Inside Man, Nightcrawler and A History of Violence alongside newer titles including Rebel Ridge, The Killer, Reptile, The Good Nurse and The Guilty. See also our best thriller movies on Netflix guide.

Quick Picks: Best Crime Thrillers on Netflix

• Best crime thriller overall: Zodiac (2007)
• Best kidnapping thriller: Prisoners (2013)
• Best corrupt-cop thriller: Training Day (2001)
• Best modern police-corruption thriller: Rebel Ridge (2024)
• Best serial-killer investigation: Zodiac (2007)
• Best hitman thriller: Collateral (2004)
• Best neo-noir crime thriller: Nightcrawler (2014)
• Best heist thriller: Inside Man (2006)
• Best gangster movie: Scarface (1983)
• Best crime movie about ordinary people: A History of Violence (2005)
• Best stressful crime thriller: Uncut Gems (2019)
• Best contained crime thriller: The Guilty (2021)
• Best true-crime thriller: The Good Nurse (2022)
• Best mystery crime thriller: Searching (2018)
• Best hidden gem: Reptile (2023)
• Best crime thriller to watch tonight: Collateral (2004)

Jump to: 30 Best Crime Thrillers · Detective Movies · Serial Killer Movies · Corrupt Cop Movies · Heist Movies · Neo-Noir · Hitman Movies · Kidnapping & Missing-Person · Organised Crime & Gangsters · Legal Crime Thrillers · Hidden Gems · What to Watch Tonight · Watch Blood Star

The 30 Best Crime Thrillers on Netflix Right Now

1. Zodiac (2007)

David Fincher’s Zodiac is our choice for the best crime thriller on Netflix because it transforms a real serial-killer investigation into something far more psychologically complex than a conventional murder mystery. Jake Gyllenhaal plays Robert Graysmith, a cartoonist who becomes fascinated by the Zodiac killer.

Fincher deliberately refuses the normal satisfaction of a detective thriller. Leads appear promising and then collapse. That absence of certainty becomes the film’s greatest source of suspense.

Year: 2007
Director: David Fincher
Cast: Jake Gyllenhaal, Mark Ruffalo, Robert Downey Jr., Anthony Edwards
Genre: Serial-killer thriller / detective crime thriller
Why watch it: One of cinema’s greatest investigations, turning uncertainty and obsession into extraordinary suspense.

2. Prisoners (2013)

Denis Villeneuve’s Prisoners begins with the disappearance of two young girls and quickly becomes one of the most morally uncomfortable crime thrillers of the twenty-first century. Read our full Movies Like Prisoners guide.

Hugh Jackman plays Keller Dover, whose daughter disappears. Convinced that a suspect knows where she is, Keller takes matters into his own hands. Roger Deakins’ dark, rain-soaked cinematography adds to the oppressive atmosphere.

Year: 2013
Director: Denis Villeneuve
Cast: Hugh Jackman, Jake Gyllenhaal, Paul Dano, Viola Davis
Genre: Kidnapping thriller / detective mystery
Why watch it: A relentlessly tense missing-child investigation that forces the audience into deeply uncomfortable moral territory.

3. Collateral (2004)

Michael Mann’s Collateral takes place almost entirely across one night in Los Angeles. Jamie Foxx plays Max, a taxi driver who discovers his passenger, Vincent, played by Tom Cruise, is a contract killer with several targets before morning.

Cruise is particularly effective because Vincent rarely behaves like a conventional movie villain, making his complete disregard for human life even more disturbing.

Year: 2004
Director: Michael Mann
Cast: Tom Cruise, Jamie Foxx, Jada Pinkett Smith, Mark Ruffalo
Genre: Hitman thriller / crime thriller
Why watch it: A beautifully controlled single-night crime thriller featuring one of Tom Cruise’s best and darkest performances.

4. Rebel Ridge (2024)

Jeremy Saulnier’s Rebel Ridge begins with a relatively simple abuse of authority and gradually expands into a tense examination of institutional corruption. Read more in our guide to movies about corrupt cops.

Aaron Pierre plays Terry Richmond, a former Marine whose money is seized by local police through civil asset forfeiture. Don Johnson plays police chief Sandy Burnne with exactly the right level of calm, terrifying authority.

Year: 2024
Director: Jeremy Saulnier
Cast: Aaron Pierre, Don Johnson, AnnaSophia Robb
Genre: Police-corruption thriller / crime thriller
Why watch it: One of Netflix’s strongest recent films about corrupt authority and a system designed to protect itself.

5. Nightcrawler (2014)

Dan Gilroy’s Nightcrawler follows Lou Bloom, played by Jake Gyllenhaal, who discovers that filming car crashes and violent crime scenes for local television news can become a business opportunity if you abandon almost every ethical boundary.

The film becomes a dark neo-noir about a marketplace where violence has value and the person willing to cross the furthest ethical boundary possesses a competitive advantage.

Year: 2014
Director: Dan Gilroy
Cast: Jake Gyllenhaal, Rene Russo, Riz Ahmed, Bill Paxton
Genre: Neo-noir / psychological crime thriller
Why watch it: A viciously funny and deeply unsettling crime movie anchored by one of Jake Gyllenhaal’s finest performances.

6. Training Day (2001)

Antoine Fuqua’s Training Day takes place over a single day as rookie LAPD officer Jake Hoyt learns that the detective training him, Alonzo Harris, operates according to a completely different set of rules. See our full best movies about corrupt cops guide.

The film becomes one of the definitive movies about corrupt cops because Alonzo’s greatest weapon is not his gun. It is the authority that allows him to define what is normal.

Year: 2001
Director: Antoine Fuqua
Cast: Denzel Washington, Ethan Hawke, Scott Glenn, Eva Mendes
Genre: Corrupt-cop thriller / police crime film
Why watch it: Denzel Washington creates one of cinema’s most charismatic and terrifying corrupt police officers.

7. Inside Man (2006)

Spike Lee’s Inside Man starts with a classic bank-heist setup and then continually undermines what the audience assumes is happening. Clive Owen plays Dalton Russell, whose robbers appear unusually confident that police cannot stop his plan.

The film is enormously entertaining because it makes the audience solve the crime at the same time as the police.

Year: 2006
Director: Spike Lee
Cast: Denzel Washington, Clive Owen, Jodie Foster, Christopher Plummer
Genre: Heist thriller / crime mystery
Why watch it: A clever, satisfying bank-heist movie where understanding the real crime is half the pleasure.

8. A History of Violence (2005)

David Cronenberg’s A History of Violence begins when small-town diner owner Tom Stall kills two criminals attempting a robbery and becomes a national hero — then strangers start recognising him as somebody else entirely.

The film’s real question is whether someone can genuinely become a different person or whether old identities remain underneath whatever life has been constructed on top.

Year: 2005
Director: David Cronenberg
Cast: Viggo Mortensen, Maria Bello, Ed Harris, William Hurt
Genre: Neo-noir / crime thriller
Why watch it: A compact and intelligent crime movie about hidden identity and whether violence can ever truly be left behind.

9. The Killer (2023)

David Fincher’s The Killer puts the audience inside the routine of a professional assassin. Michael Fassbender plays an unnamed contract killer whose internal monologue emphasises discipline — until he misses, and the controlled professional identity he has constructed collapses.

The result is less an action movie than a procedural neo-noir about professionalism, self-delusion and violence as employment.

Year: 2023
Director: David Fincher
Cast: Michael Fassbender, Tilda Swinton, Charles Parnell
Genre: Hitman thriller / neo-noir
Why watch it: An exceptionally controlled assassin movie that makes preparation and procedure as compelling as the violence.

10. Uncut Gems (2019)

Uncut Gems may be one of the most stressful crime movies ever made. Adam Sandler plays Howard Ratner, a New York jeweller and compulsive gambler constantly trying to solve one financial disaster by creating another.

Howard could stop at almost any time. He simply cannot — and that inability to accept safety makes the film increasingly unbearable.

Year: 2019
Directors: Josh Safdie and Benny Safdie
Cast: Adam Sandler, Lakeith Stanfield, Julia Fox, Kevin Garnett
Genre: Crime thriller / gambling thriller
Why watch it: Two hours of beautifully controlled anxiety built around an extraordinary Adam Sandler performance.

11. Reservoir Dogs (1992)

Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs largely avoids showing the robbery around which its entire story revolves. Instead, the criminals regroup inside a warehouse after the job goes catastrophically wrong, certain that somebody betrayed them.

Tarantino uses fractured chronology to gradually reveal relationships and information the characters themselves may not possess.

Year: 1992
Director: Quentin Tarantino
Cast: Harvey Keitel, Tim Roth, Michael Madsen, Steve Buscemi
Genre: Heist thriller / crime drama
Why watch it: A landmark independent crime film about betrayal, paranoia and a robbery we barely even see.

12. Scarface (1983)

Brian De Palma’s Scarface follows Tony Montana from Cuban refugee to enormously powerful Miami drug lord. Al Pacino plays Tony as a man whose ambition contains no natural stopping point.

Tony believes power will provide security. Instead, the more powerful he becomes, the more paranoid and isolated he is.

Year: 1983
Director: Brian De Palma
Cast: Al Pacino, Michelle Pfeiffer, Steven Bauer, Robert Loggia
Genre: Gangster movie / organised crime
Why watch it: A huge, excessive crime epic featuring one of Al Pacino’s most iconic performances.

13. True Romance (1993)

Tony Scott directs Quentin Tarantino’s screenplay about Clarence and Alabama, two lovers who accidentally find themselves travelling with a suitcase full of cocaine. Christian Slater and Patricia Arquette play the couple, drawn into conflict with gangsters, police and Hollywood criminals.

The famous confrontation between Dennis Hopper and Christopher Walken remains one of the most memorable dialogue scenes in 1990s crime cinema.

Year: 1993
Director: Tony Scott
Cast: Christian Slater, Patricia Arquette, Dennis Hopper, Christopher Walken
Genre: Crime thriller / lovers-on-the-run movie
Why watch it: A wildly entertaining mixture of romance, organised crime and Tarantino dialogue.

14. The Good Nurse (2022)

The Good Nurse tells the true story of serial killer Charles Cullen without turning him into an exaggerated movie monster. Jessica Chastain plays Amy Loughren, an ICU nurse who forms a friendship with new colleague Cullen, played by Eddie Redmayne.

Cullen is frightening because he looks exactly like the kind of colleague nobody would automatically suspect.

Year: 2022
Director: Tobias Lindholm
Cast: Jessica Chastain, Eddie Redmayne, Nnamdi Asomugha
Genre: True-crime thriller / serial-killer movie
Why watch it: A restrained and unsettling true-crime film about how a killer can hide inside an institution built around care.

15. The Guilty (2021)

Antoine Fuqua’s The Guilty barely leaves an emergency dispatch centre. Jake Gyllenhaal plays Joe Baylor, a police officer temporarily assigned to answer emergency calls, who receives a call from a woman he believes has been kidnapped.

Because Joe cannot see the alleged victim, the suspect or the location, both he and the audience must construct the crime from incomplete information.

Year: 2021
Director: Antoine Fuqua
Cast: Jake Gyllenhaal, with voices including Riley Keough and Ethan Hawke
Genre: Contained crime thriller / kidnapping thriller
Why watch it: A tense 90-minute crime movie where information is more dangerous than action.

16. Searching (2018)

Searching tells almost its entire story through laptops, phones, security cameras and online communication. John Cho plays David Kim, whose teenage daughter Margot disappears, forcing him to search through her digital footprint.

The digital format never feels like a gimmick because the story is fundamentally about reconstructing somebody through their online life.

Year: 2018
Director: Aneesh Chaganty
Cast: John Cho, Debra Messing, Michelle La
Genre: Missing-person thriller / crime mystery
Why watch it: One of the smartest modern missing-person films, using digital life as an investigative crime scene.

17. Reptile (2023)

Benicio del Toro plays Detective Tom Nichols, assigned to investigate the brutal murder of a young real-estate agent. Nothing remains obvious for long — Nichols begins discovering connections involving property, police and people more interested in protecting themselves than solving the murder.

Grant Singer directs Reptile with a deliberately slow, uneasy atmosphere driven by suspicion rather than action.

Year: 2023
Director: Grant Singer
Cast: Benicio del Toro, Justin Timberlake, Alicia Silverstone
Genre: Detective thriller / neo-noir
Why watch it: A moody, underrated Netflix detective film built around corruption, distrust and Benicio del Toro.

18. The Mule (2018)

Clint Eastwood directs and stars as Earl Stone, an elderly horticulturist whose financial problems lead him to begin transporting drugs for a Mexican cartel — nobody suspects him because of his age and appearance.

Eastwood uses that contrast to create both tension and humour while examining regret, family and the consequences of choosing money over relationships.

Year: 2018
Director: Clint Eastwood
Cast: Clint Eastwood, Bradley Cooper, Laurence Fishburne, Michael Peña
Genre: Drug crime thriller / true-crime drama
Why watch it: An unusual crime story about an elderly man accidentally becoming one of a cartel’s most valuable couriers.

19. Ocean’s Eleven (2001)

Steven Soderbergh’s Ocean’s Eleven may be lighter than many films on this list, but it remains one of the most entertaining heist movies ever made. George Clooney plays Danny Ocean, assembling a team to rob three Las Vegas casinos simultaneously.

The pleasure comes from watching the plan being assembled — then Soderbergh reveals what we were not told.

Year: 2001
Director: Steven Soderbergh
Cast: George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, Julia Roberts
Genre: Heist movie / crime thriller
Why watch it: One of the slickest and most purely enjoyable heist films ever made.

20. Woman of the Hour (2024)

Anna Kendrick directs and stars in Woman of the Hour, inspired by the true story of serial killer Rodney Alcala appearing on a television dating show. Rather than making the killer the most fascinating person in the story, Kendrick concentrates on the women around him.

The result is a serial-killer crime film where charm itself becomes a weapon.

Year: 2024
Director: Anna Kendrick
Cast: Anna Kendrick, Daniel Zovatto, Tony Hale
Genre: True-crime thriller / serial-killer movie
Why watch it: A disturbing true-crime story that focuses on the women around a killer rather than mythologising him.

21. Argo (2012)

Ben Affleck’s Argo turns an extraordinary true CIA operation into an expertly constructed suspense movie. During the Iran hostage crisis, six diplomats hide with the Canadian ambassador while a CIA specialist devises a bizarre rescue plan built around a fake film production.

Affleck allows the absurdity of the plan to provide humour before tightening the suspense as the group attempts to leave Iran.

Year: 2012
Director: Ben Affleck
Cast: Ben Affleck, Bryan Cranston, Alan Arkin, John Goodman
Genre: Political crime thriller / true-story suspense
Why watch it: A brilliantly paced true-story thriller where filmmaking itself becomes part of an escape plan.

22. El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie (2019)

Aaron Paul returns as Jesse Pinkman in Vince Gilligan’s continuation of Breaking Bad. The movie begins immediately after Jesse escapes captivity, needing money, a new identity and a way to leave Albuquerque before police find him.

The protagonist is not looking for power or revenge. He simply wants the opportunity to disappear.

Year: 2019
Director: Vince Gilligan
Cast: Aaron Paul, Jesse Plemons, Robert Forster
Genre: Crime thriller / fugitive movie
Why watch it: A thoughtful epilogue to Breaking Bad built around escape rather than criminal ambition.

23. The Brave One (2007)

Jodie Foster plays Erica Bain, a New York radio host whose life changes after she and her fiancé are violently attacked. Traumatised, she buys a gun — and what begins as self-protection gradually becomes vigilantism.

Neil Jordan’s film is most interesting when it focuses on the psychological transition between victim and hunter. See our best revenge movies of all time guide.

Year: 2007
Director: Neil Jordan
Cast: Jodie Foster, Terrence Howard, Naveen Andrews
Genre: Vigilante thriller / revenge crime movie
Why watch it: A darker revenge thriller interested in what happens psychologically when a victim starts hunting criminals herself.

24. A Time to Kill (1996)

Joel Schumacher’s adaptation of John Grisham’s A Time to Kill combines courtroom drama with crime thriller and racial conflict. Samuel L. Jackson plays a father who kills the men accused of attacking his daughter; Matthew McConaughey plays the lawyer who defends him.

Threats and violence spread outside the courtroom as racial tension grows throughout the Mississippi community.

Year: 1996
Director: Joel Schumacher
Cast: Matthew McConaughey, Samuel L. Jackson, Sandra Bullock, Kevin Spacey
Genre: Legal crime thriller / courtroom drama
Why watch it: A classic 1990s courtroom thriller built around an extraordinary ensemble cast.

25. The Firm (1993)

Tom Cruise plays Mitch McDeere, an ambitious young lawyer offered what appears to be the perfect job at a prestigious Memphis firm. Then he notices that several lawyers connected to the firm have died unexpectedly.

Sydney Pollack turns corporate life into a conspiracy thriller where contracts, professional privilege and career ambition become mechanisms of control.

Year: 1993
Director: Sydney Pollack
Cast: Tom Cruise, Gene Hackman, Jeanne Tripplehorn, Ed Harris
Genre: Legal thriller / organised-crime conspiracy
Why watch it: One of the definitive 1990s conspiracy thrillers, turning a prestigious law firm into a criminal trap.

26. The Rainmaker (1997)

Francis Ford Coppola’s adaptation of John Grisham’s The Rainmaker follows a young lawyer taking on a powerful insurance company. Matt Damon plays Rudy Baylor, discovering that a family’s medical-insurance claim was denied despite overwhelming evidence.

Rudy begins with almost no professional power, confronting an organisation with vastly greater resources and experience.

Year: 1997
Director: Francis Ford Coppola
Cast: Matt Damon, Danny DeVito, Claire Danes, Jon Voight
Genre: Legal thriller / corporate crime
Why watch it: An accessible David-versus-Goliath legal thriller from Francis Ford Coppola.

27. Operation Finale (2018)

Operation Finale dramatises the Israeli operation to capture Adolf Eichmann in Argentina years after the Second World War. Oscar Isaac plays Mossad agent Peter Malkin, while Ben Kingsley portrays Eichmann.

Much of the film’s tension comes from the relationship between captor and prisoner as Eichmann attempts to manipulate the people holding him.

Year: 2018
Director: Chris Weitz
Cast: Oscar Isaac, Ben Kingsley, Mélanie Laurent
Genre: Historical crime thriller / manhunt film
Why watch it: A fascinating real-life manhunt built around one of history’s most notorious fugitives.

28. Eye in the Sky (2015)

Gavin Hood’s Eye in the Sky turns a military operation into an intense ethical thriller. Helen Mirren plays a British colonel overseeing a drone mission that changes from surveillance to potential assassination — then a child enters the strike zone.

Rather than simplifying the moral problem, the film shows how difficult it is to make a supposedly rational calculation when an individual human life is visible on screen.

Year: 2015
Director: Gavin Hood
Cast: Helen Mirren, Aaron Paul, Alan Rickman, Barkhad Abdi
Genre: Political thriller / counterterrorism crime drama
Why watch it: A tense ethical thriller where the central weapon is not a gun but a decision.

29. Sleepers (1996)

Sleepers begins with four boys whose lives are permanently changed after a prank leads to detention in a juvenile facility, where they suffer horrific abuse. Years later, chance brings two of them face to face with one of the guards responsible.

Barry Levinson assembles an extraordinary cast in a film that raises interesting questions about whether justice and legality are necessarily the same thing.

Year: 1996
Director: Barry Levinson
Cast: Robert De Niro, Brad Pitt, Kevin Bacon, Dustin Hoffman
Genre: Revenge thriller / courtroom crime drama
Why watch it: A powerful ensemble crime drama about childhood trauma and adults attempting to manufacture justice.

30. The Stranger (2022)

Joel Edgerton plays an undercover police officer attempting to gain the trust of a suspected criminal played by Sean Harris. Rather than chase sequences or violent confrontations, much of the film consists of conversation between two men each concealing crucial information.

Sean Harris gives an unsettling performance because danger remains mostly beneath the surface.

Year: 2022
Director: Thomas M. Wright
Cast: Joel Edgerton, Sean Harris, Jada Alberts
Genre: Undercover police thriller / true-crime drama
Why watch it: A slow-burning and psychologically intense undercover investigation with excellent performances.

Best Detective Movies on Netflix

Detective thrillers are one of the strongest branches of crime cinema because investigation naturally creates suspense. Zodiac is the obvious first choice. Reptile offers a more traditional detective story in which solving a murder gradually reveals corruption around the investigator, and The Stranger takes the investigation undercover.

Best Serial Killer Movies on Netflix

For serial-killer crime thrillers, Zodiac remains the essential choice. The Good Nurse approaches serial killing from inside a hospital, and Woman of the Hour examines Rodney Alcala through the bizarre fact that he appeared on a television dating show while committing murders.

Best Corrupt Cop Movies on Netflix

Training Day is the classic — Alonzo Harris is frightening because his criminality is inseparable from his badge. Rebel Ridge updates that idea by making corruption systemic rather than simply individual. See our full best movies about corrupt cops guide.

Best Heist Movies on Netflix

Inside Man is the strongest heist thriller on the list because the apparent robbery conceals another objective. Ocean’s Eleven is considerably lighter but turns planning itself into entertainment, while Reservoir Dogs shows the opposite side of the genre: the plan has already failed.

Best Neo-Noir Movies on Netflix

Nightcrawler is one of the strongest modern examples, turning Los Angeles at night into a world of ambition, violence and moral emptiness. A History of Violence brings noir into small-town America, and The Killer turns professional murder into a cold procedural.

Best Hitman and Assassin Movies on Netflix

Collateral puts the audience inside a taxi with a professional killer whose murder is simply work. The Killer approaches assassination from the killer’s own point of view, exposing the gap between professional philosophy and actual human behaviour.

Best Kidnapping and Missing-Person Thrillers on Netflix

Prisoners is the strongest kidnapping movie currently on the list. The Guilty approaches kidnapping almost entirely through a telephone, and Searching builds a missing-person investigation around digital evidence.

Best Organised Crime and Gangster Movies on Netflix

For large-scale organised crime, Scarface remains the biggest film in the current selection. True Romance places relatively ordinary lovers inside an organised-crime conflict they are completely unprepared for, and The Mule follows someone who enters cartel logistics almost accidentally.

Best Legal Crime Thrillers on Netflix

A Time to Kill combines a criminal trial with racial conflict and physical danger outside the courtroom. The Firm turns a legal career into an organised-crime conspiracy, and The Rainmaker focuses on corporate wrongdoing and an enormous imbalance of resources.

Best True-Crime Thrillers on Netflix

The Good Nurse uses the Charles Cullen case to examine institutional failure. Woman of the Hour reframes Rodney Alcala’s crimes through the women who encountered him, and Operation Finale dramatises the hunt for Adolf Eichmann.

Best Crime Movies About Revenge and Vigilantes

The Brave One follows a traumatised victim who gradually becomes a vigilante. Sleepers is partly constructed around adults attempting to punish people who abused them as children. See our best revenge movies of all time guide.

Best Hidden-Gem Crime Thrillers on Netflix

Reptile deserves more attention than it received when released — Benicio del Toro gives the film a patient, suspicious centre. The Stranger is another strong choice for viewers who prefer quiet procedural tension to action.

What Is the Best Crime Thriller on Netflix Right Now?

Our first choice is Zodiac (2007). If you want a kidnapping thriller, watch Prisoners. For a hitman movie, choose Collateral. For police corruption, watch Training Day or Rebel Ridge. For a heist, choose Inside Man. For a serial killer, choose The Good Nurse after Zodiac. For a hidden gem, watch Reptile or The Stranger.

What Crime Thriller Should You Watch on Netflix Tonight?

If you want the best overall film, watch Zodiac. If you want something dark and intense, choose Prisoners. If you want something fast and stylish, watch Collateral. If you want corrupt cops, choose Training Day. If you want a bank robbery, choose Inside Man. If you want a gangster epic, choose Scarface. If you want something anxious, watch Uncut Gems.

What Makes a Great Crime Thriller?

The best crime thrillers are rarely only about identifying who committed a crime. They are about pressure. In Prisoners, fear pushes a father beyond ordinary moral boundaries. In Training Day, police authority becomes a mechanism for criminal power. In Zodiac, solving a crime becomes an obsession that changes the lives of the people investigating it. That flexibility is why the crime thriller remains one of cinema’s most durable genres.

How We Chose the Best Crime Thrillers on Netflix

This ranking is not based simply on Netflix’s popularity chart. We consider filmmaking quality, performances, suspense, originality, importance within crime cinema, critical reputation and how strongly each film delivers the experience someone searching for a crime thriller actually wants. Older movies such as Zodiac, Training Day, Collateral and Inside Man remain near the top because they continue to stand among the strongest examples of the genre.

Looking for Another Crime Thriller? Watch Blood Star

If you have worked through Netflix’s crime thrillers and want something less familiar, Blood Star takes the genre onto the isolated highways of the American Southwest. Bobbi is travelling alone when she attracts the attention of a small-town sheriff. At first, the encounter appears routine — he has a badge, a patrol car and all the authority that comes with the uniform. Gradually, Bobbi begins to understand that those things are precisely what make him so dangerous.

A traveller is expected to stop when he tells them to stop. Other people are likely to believe his version of events. He knows the roads, the local area and how the system around him operates. Bobbi does not. That imbalance turns Blood Star into a crime thriller where institutional power, serial-predator behaviour and physical isolation become part of the same threat. Read more in our guide to movies about corrupt cops.

The desert also changes the mechanics of the story — long distances between towns, few witnesses and limited places to seek help. For viewers who like the corruption of Rebel Ridge and Training Day, the pursuit structure of The Hitcher, the desert tension of No Country for Old Men and road crime thrillers where ordinary people suddenly discover they are being hunted, Blood Star is worth discovering.

Blood Star is not currently on Netflix, so it does not appear in the ranked list above.

See every legitimate way to watch Blood Star free →

Film posters via TMDB.

Related guides

• Best Thriller Movies on Netflix Right Now
• Movies Like Prisoners
• Best Crime Thriller Movies of All Time
• Best Movies About Corrupt Cops
• Best Revenge Movies of All Time

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