When it comes to thrillers, Hulu has a wide selection from which to choose, including crime thrillers, comedic thrillers, dramatic ones, even horror. This month, for example, you can dive into old favorites fans love to watch again and again like Die Hard, or movies like The Negotiator that will grip you from start to finish.
The best thrillers on Hulu right now are always changing as new movie titles are added and old ones removed. But there’s always a great selection, and we keep you updated with what’s available in this carefully curated, consistently updated list. Have a look and bookmark a title or two to add to your watch list this month.
Also, be sure to give the Disney Bundle a look — it’ll get you Hulu, Disney+, and ESPN+ for just $14 a month. That way, you’ll get thrillers and more from Hulu, plus tons of other great content. Hulu isn’t the only streaming platform around. We’ve also put together guides to the best thrillers on Netflix, the best thrillers on Amazon Prime Video, and the best horror movies on Netflix if you want to crank up the terror!
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The Negotiator1998 -
Die Hard1988
The Negotiator (1998)
Samuel L. Jackson and Kevin Spacey shine in this action thriller about two Chicago police lieutenants who have a special expertise in hostage negotiations. Lieutenant Danny Roman (Jackson) is wrongly accused of murder and gets caught up in embezzlement accusations involving the department for which he serves as a board member. Desperate to prove his innocence, he does the unthinkable and takes hostages. Among his list of demands is that Lieutenant Chris Sabian (Spacey), another top negotiator, is present to help diffuse the situation, believing Sabian might be the only person he can trust to help him uncover the truth, and get out alive.
An intense ride the entire way through, The Negotiator is a cunning battle of wits as much as it is a movie filled with action. Jackson and Spacey lead the film with gripping, believable performances, while the supporting cast including Paul Giamatti, Michael Cudlitz, and David Morse help keep you on your toes through every scene.
Die Hard (1988)
Whether you call it a Christmas movie or not, there’s no denying that Die Hard is one of the best action thrillers around, and arguably one of Bruce Willis’ best movies. Spawning several sequels, Die Hard centers around John McClane (Willis), a New York City police detective who spends Christmas trying to stop a terrorist plot in a Los Angeles skyscraper.
Filled with fabulous fight scenes, heroic moments, and humor, too, Die Hard is considered to be one of the greatest action movies of all time. Don’t wait until the holiday season to watch this movie. Die Hard is the kind of movie you’ll want to watch again and again anyway, so enjoy its gripping plot and Willis at his best any time of year.
Captain Phillips (2013)
Tom Hanks is electrifying as always in this biographical action thriller about the real-life Captain Richard Phillips, a merchant mariner who was taken hostage by Somali pirates in 2009. Based on Philips’ own book, A Captain’s Duty: Somali Pirates, Navy SEALs, and Dangerous Days at Sea, the movie follows his terrifying story of sailing through Kenya when pirates made their way onto the vessel. The harrowing experience as Phillips and his crew try to stay alive and take down the enemies is tense and nail-biting.
Hanks is always engaging and fully encapsulates this role, making you believe every last moment of panic, terror, and even calm. Captain Phillips was a critical and box office success and earned six Academy Award nominations, including one for Best Picture. Barkhad Abdi (Castle Rock, The Curse) was also nominated for Best Supporting Actor for his role as pirate leader Abduwali Muse, an impressive accomplishment for what was the actor’s first film role.
Runaway Jury (2003)
John Cusack plays Nicholas Easter, a juror on a gun-related case in this 2003 legal thriller. Nicholas has a knack for influencing the jury and swaying the case in any way necessary, and he proves his ability to do so. The high-stakes game flies between lawyer Wendell Rohr (Dustin Hoffman), jury consultant Rankin Fitch (Gene Hackman), and a mysterious woman named Marlee (Dead Ringers‘ Rachel Weisz), who offers a verdict to the highest bidder. Even though the jury is already intentionally stacked with people sympathetic to the defendant, a firearms manufacturer, Nicholas has the gift of persuasion and knows he can change minds if he wants to do so. The situation escalates in Runaway Jury when both sides take measures into their own hands. Jurors are being removed and blackmailed until Fitch, who has ties to the defendant, is backed into the corner.
Once you’re invested in the story, you can’t wait to find out what happens, Nicholas’ motivations, and which way he’ll sway the jury by the end and, more importantly, why. Runaway Jury is a gripping, edge-of-your-seat story. It’s adapted from the John Grisham novel The Runaway Jury, one of many movies adapted from his captivating writing, like The Firm, The Client, and The Pelican Brief. Topping off the top-notch cast are some other well-known names like Luis Guzmán, Jeremy Piven, and Jennifer Beals.
A Haunting in Venice (2023)
Kenneth Branagh (Oppenheimer) is behind this mystery film that serves as a sequel to Death on the Nile. In the same vein as movies like Knives Out and inspired by Agatha Christie’s novel Hallowe’en Party, there’s an ensemble cast of characters all caught up in a mysterious death. Branagh himself stars as detective Hercule Poirot, who has decided to retire just as he attends a Halloween party where someone is murdered.
Poirot uses his incredible perceptive abilities, interview techniques, and strategy of deduction to figure out what happened to the brutally departed. A Haunting in Venice is spookier and darker than other films that feature the same central character, but it has the same whodunit flavor you’ve come to expect and love from these types of movies.
No One Will Save You (2023)
If you’re looking for a thriller that skews more toward horror, No One Will Save You fits the bill. The movie centers around Brynn (Dopesick’s Kaitlyn Dever), a young woman living as a recluse. She has been shunned by her neighbors, so she spends her days and nights making a model town in her living room and mourning the loss of her best friend and mother. But when there’s a home invasion and Brynn discovers aliens have taken over, her life is turned upside down.
An interestingly quiet movie (there are only five words of dialogue through the entire thing), No One Will Save You is like nothing else you’ve ever seen. It has elements of horror and sci-fi smashed into one, with a commanding performance from Dever that will have you convinced she’s a widely underrated breakout star.
Prey (2022)
If you love Predator, you’ll want to check out Prey. The sci-fi action thriller serves as a prequel to the first four movies. Set in 1719 in the Great Plains, it follows Naru (Amber Midthunder), a young Comanche woman who wants to prove that she’s a good hunter. To do so, she does whatever is necessary to protect her people from a humanoid alien that is attacking them. She also has to fight off French fur traders who are after the buffalo she and her people need to survive.
Nominated for six Primetime Emmy Awards, Prey was also the first in the franchise to win one, for Outstanding Sound Editing for a Limited or Anthology Series, Movie or Special. Critics say Prey stands on its own, so it’s worth watching even for those who have never watched other films in the franchise.
Escaping the Madhouse: The Nellie Bly Story (2019)
A hidden gem of a thriller, Escaping the Mad House: The Nellie Bly Story stars Christina Ricci and Judith Light. A young journalist decides to look into the goings-on at a local mental hospital. But what she discovers shocks her to her very core. Desperate to expose the asylum for what it does to its female patients, Nellie (Ricci) decides to fake having a mental illness so she can go deep undercover.
What’s most fascinating about this movie is that while a fictional account, it’s based on a real story and real person. Bly went undercover for the New York World and her book about the brutality and neglect helped spark real change in the handling of the care of the mentally ill.
Rogue Agent (2022)
The story in Rogue Agent is based on the real-life one of Robert Hendy-Freegard, who pretended to be an MI5 agent, successfully fooling many people. He went so far into the con, in fact, that he convinced several people to fear a fake assassination by the IRA. James Norton stars as the titular character in this British mystery drama thriller, while Gemma Arterton is Alice Archer, the woman who finally uncovered and revealed the truth.
Rogue Agent is so filled with plenty of twists, turns, and suspense that you’ll have a hard time believing something like it really happened.
Swallow (2020)
Hunter Conrad (Haley Bennett) seemingly has it all, with a wealthy husband and a lavish home in New York. But she feels emotionally stifled and isolated, often ignored by those around her. She develops a strange desire to consume inedible objects to deal with her emotions. She starts with a marble, but her desires become increasingly dangerous as she graduates to eating things like thumbtacks and batteries. It’s a psychological disorder called pica, and when her secret habits are discovered during a routine pregnancy checkup, Hunter is sent to therapy, where she’s diagnosed.
The psychological thriller delves deep into the psyche of a troubled woman whose disorder becomes more and more concerning: Hunter seemingly can’t stop and thrives on the control it affords her. Swallow is a subtle, though unsettling look at a woman’s struggle to control her own body that manifests in a way that no one could ever have imagined.
The Hummingbird Project (2019)
Jesse Eisenberg, Alexander Skarsgård (Infinity Pool), Michael Mando, and Salma Hayek star in this thriller-drama about the inside lives of stockbrokers and the ever-moving stock exchange. When stockbroker Vincent (Eisenberg) convinces Bryan (Frank Schorpion) to order a new high-frequency trading (HFT) operation to invest in fiberoptic cable, the situation gets hairy at his company, particularly when he decides to leave.
The Hummingbird Project follows Vincent’s attempt to build a cable tunnel with his cousin, Anton (Skarsgård), so they can program trading software that will be faster than any other. The pair compete with their former employer, Eva (Hayek), in a high-stakes fight for market domination.
Girl in the Basement (2021)
This Lifetime movie is terrifyingly inspired by the real-life case of Josef Fritzl from Austria and his teenage daughter Elisabeth. In Girl in the Basement, the young girl is Sara (Stefanie Scott) a teen with so much potential who is excited for the arrival of her 18th birthday. She’s anxious for the day to come because finally, as a legal adult, she can escape the clutches of her controlling father Don (Judd Nelson).
However, before Sara can leave, her father does the unthinkable: he kidnaps her, keeping her imprisoned in the basement over what would eventually become a period of 24 harrowing years. Through that time, he rapes and assaults her, resulting in the birth of seven children. While Girl in the Basement is a dramatization of this disturbing true story, knowing the real story behind it makes the movie even more haunting.
Clock (2023)
Dianna Agron (Glee) stars as Ella in this sci-fi horror thriller with a premise that’s all-too-familiar for Millennial women nowadays. Ella is a 37-year-old woman who, despite being constantly pressured by friends and family members to start a family, has no interest in having children. But her journey to living life how she wants eventually takes a twisted, horrifying turn.
When Ella secretly undergoes an experimental treatment to help speed up her biological clock, she starts seeing and doing things she can’t quite control and doesn’t quite understand.
Fresh (2022)
After repeated frustration with dating apps, Noa (Where the Crawdads Sing‘s Daisy Edgar-Jones) decides to pursue things the old-fashioned way when she has a chance meeting with a striking man at the grocery store. Steve (Sebastian Stan) at first appears to be the perfect gentleman, sweeping Noa off her feet. So, she’s not hesitant at all to jump right into his invitation to spend a romantic weekend away.
But upon arrival, Noa discovers that Steve is hiding a dark, ominous secret. Her life is in serious danger and she’s in for a sick and twisted ride. Fresh is described as both upsetting and provocative but also widely praised for putting a modern spin on the traditional horror genre.
Down (2019)
Pig (2021)
82%
6.9/10
Fear of Rain (2021)
5.9/10
Silk Road (2021)
41%
6.0/10
The Secrets We Keep (2020)
48%
5.8/10
Run (2020)
67%
6.7/10Editors' Recommendations
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