If you have Amazon Prime, you currently have free access to some top-rate thrillers:
Riders of Justice: This overlooked gem finished #2 on my Best Movies of 2021. Mads Mikkelsen stars in a character-driven story that has been inadequately described as a revenge thriller and as an action comedy. It is gloriously satisfying as entertainment, but the more I think about it, Riders of Justice explores grief, revenge and mortality – they’re all in here. And it’s still very, very funny.
Locke: An extremely responsible guy (Tom Hardy) has made one mistake – and he’s trying to make it right. But trying to do the responsible thing in one part of your life can have uncomfortable consequences in the others. The title character drives all night trying to keep aspects of his life from crashing and burning. The story is actually a domestic drama – there are no explosions to dodge, no one in peril to rescue and no bad guys to dispatch. But it’s definitely a thriller because we care about whether Locke meets the two deadlines he will face early the next morning.
Blue Ruin: In this entirely fresh take on the revenge thriller, we are following a homeless man (Macon Blair) and observing his survival tactics; once we’re hooked, we learn that a traumatic incident led to his homelessness. Then we watch him methodically prepare for an entirely different mission. There is very little dialogue in the first 30 minutes. And then we have 60 minutes of lethal cat-and-mouse, with intense suspense about which of the characters will survive and how. As a thriller, this is first class.
The Hunt (Jagten): In a terrifyingly plausible story, Mads Mikkelsen plays a man whose life is ruined by a false claim of child sexual abuse. It’s a magnificent performance by Mikkelsen.
The Hit: Terence Stamp plays a London gangster who, after ratting out his colleagues, is ten years into a new life in sunny Spain. His former associates track him down and send a determined professional killer (John Hurt) and his goofy young sidekick (Tim Roth in his movie debut). A tense road trip ensues.
The Limey: This time, Terence Stamp plays a tenacious British hood who shows up in Los Angeles to investigate the death of his daughter. He suspects foul play on the part of a wealthy record producer (Peter Fonda) who hunkers down in a guarded compound in Big Sur.
The Last Seduction: I just wrote about this 1994 neo-noir as part of my The Last Movie Title series. Linda Fiorentino dazzles in a career-topping performance as delicious performance as a sociopath more outrageously devious than any character that Barbara Stanwyck, Audrey Trotter, Jane Greer or Claire Trevor ever got to play.
The Conversation: At the height of his powers, Francis Ford Coppola directed The Conversation in 1974 between The Godfather and The Godfather: Part II, and The Conversation is every bit the masterwork as the others. In a role just as iconic as in The French Connection, Gene Hackman plays an audio surveillance expert entangled in a morally troubling assignment – and then obsessed. The most significant achievement in The Conversation, however, is the groundbreaking sound editing by Walter Murch. After experiencing The Conversation, you’ll never again overlook movie sound editing.
