The 25 Best Psychological Thrillers On Amazon Prime Video

The best psychological thrillers on Amazon Prime include a strong mix of original content and both old and new theatrical releases. The focus of a psychological thriller is to take viewers into the lives of people terrorized by an often unseen force, and usually, the movie is never what it seems. Twists and turns are a mainstay in this genre, with characters on frightening journeys out of their comfort zones, usually leaving the audience on the edge of their seats until the last ultimate reveal.

Prime Video has a fantastic line-up of psychological thrillers to stream, the best encompassing a wide range of films from various decades. There are Oscar winners, hidden gems, and some chilling blockbusters on the platform. From the more horrific to the criminal underworld side of the equation, these thriller movies are all but guaranteed to give the viewer goosebumps thanks to smart scares and top-notch performances.

A Darkly Comedic Thriller

Psychological thrillers are often intense and gripping, but that doesn’t mean they can’t be funny at the same time. This is proven with the wonderful, twisted, and darkly comedic thriller The Menu. The movie follows a group of cultured and wealthy diners who are invited to an exclusive dining experience at the isolated island restaurant of a world-renowned and celebrated chef (Ralph Fiennes). However, it soon becomes clear that this culinary genius has other plans for his guests.

The story is also made more interesting by Anya Taylor-Joy’s role as one of the diners who is less than impressed by the whole affair.

The movie is a clever and pointed satire on people who consume art and passion as a status symbol. However, it is also a criticism of artists who are filled with self-importance and toxic behavior. Every dish in The Menu raises the stakes of the evening, with the tension rising with each moment as the danger begins to set in. The story is also made more interesting by Anya Taylor-Joy’s role as one of the diners who is less than impressed by the whole affair. It is a movie that will have audiences on the edges of their seats while still delivering laughs.

24

The Thing (1982)

A Horror Classic That Doubles As A Thriller

John Carpenter’s masterpiece The Thing is regarded by many as the greatest horror movie of all time. It has some inventive sci-fi concepts and some of the most gruesome moments in the genre’s history. However, one of the ways it continues to grip audiences is through its psychological storytelling that uses a very human idea of paranoia in a story of a deadly alien creature. Kurt Russell leads the cast in the story of a group of researchers as a isolated base in Antarctica who become hunted by an alien who can mimick the appearance of its victims.

As the survivors begin to realize the capabilities of the alien, they realize that they cannot trust any of each other.

The creature transformation scenes feature some of the greatest practical movie effects in history, but there is a foreboding dread throughout the film that is extremely effective even when there is no monster on screen. As the survivors begin to realize the capabilities of the alien, they realize that they cannot trust any of each other. The psychological aspects of the movie have added to the fact that the ending of The Thing is still being debated many decades later.

23

Ex Machina (2015)

Alex Garland’s Gripping Look At AI

With artificial intelligence increasingly becoming a part of everyday life, Ex Machina remains a fascinating look at the ethics and chilling questions behind such technological breakthroughs. Domhnall Gleeson stars as a lowly worker at a big tech company who wins the opportunity to visit a retreat with his boss, one of the most influential and accomplished tech geniuses in the world (played by Oscar Isaac). However, the eccentric inventor reveals the retreat is actually a chance for his employee to test out his brand-new AI achievement.

Ex Machina introduces a lot of interesting questions into the conversation of humans creating artificial beings who can think for themselves and develop their own ideas. It presents the frightening possibilities but also criticizes those whose strive to accomplish this is clouded by arrogance and the desire for a new kind of power. The movie also blurs the lines between humans and machines, which makes for some memorable mind-bending moments.

22

Donnie Darko (2001)

A Chilling Early 2000s Apocalyptic Thriller

Jake Gyllenhaal had his breakthrough role with the complex and surreal thriller Donnie Darko. Gyllenhaal stars as the titular character, a young high school teen who begins having visions of an unsettling figure in a bunny costume who warns him that the end of the world is approaching. As Donnie goes about his typical coming-of-age story, dealing with teachers and a new girlfriend, he also seeks to save the world from its impending doom.

The movie was the directorial debut of Richard Kelly and earned a massive cult following from fans who enjoy picking apart the mind-bending story. The ending of Donnie Darko certainly leaves a lot of questions to answer, but the journey is a fascinating one with the story building in unexpected ways, including elements of time travel. It makes for a gripping ride that is surprisingly rewatchable as new elements of the story are revealed on repeat viewings.

21

The Wicker Man (1973)

While the 2004 version of The Wicker Man starring Nicolas Cage is a somewhat notorious bomb, that should not deter anyone from checking out the 1973 original, which holds up as a strange and unsettling thriller. The movie follows a Scotland Yard detective who is sent to investigate the disappearance of a young girl from an isolated island community. As the lawman looks into the locals and the strange religion, he begins to suspect a larger conspiracy at hand.

The film is an expertly executed slow-burn with a dream-like quality to the strange investigation the detective finds himself in the middle of. There are even a number of musical sequences to add to the surreal nature of the movie. However, it all builds to the excellent twist ending that elevates the whole movie with the shocking and creepy reveal.

20

Sicario (2015)

Denis Villeneuve’s Drug Cartel Thriller

Denis Villeneuve has made his name with science fiction movies, with masterpieces like Blade Runner 2049, Arrival, and the Dune franchise under his belt. However, he also directed the psychological thriller Sicario in 2015. The movie stars Emily Blunt, Benicio del Toro, and Josh Brolin in a film about an FBI agent (Blunt) enlisted to bring down a powerful Mexican drug cartel. The movie competed for the Palme d’Or at Cannes and hit theaters in 2015.

Taylor Sheridan (Yellowstone) wrote the script for Sicario.

The movie displays strong psychological action, as the FBI agents swept into the mission don’t know who they can trust and realize that there is danger at every turn, both from the Mexican cartels and those around them. From the tense border scene to the tunnel firefight, Sicario blends action and psychological thrills in expert fashion.

Sicario earned three Oscar nominations, including Best Cinematography, Best Original Score, and Best Sound Editing. The movie was also a success, with a small box office profit and a sequel coming in 2018 called Sicario: Day of the Soldado.

19

Silence Of The Lambs (1991)

The Psychological Thriller That Won Every Major Oscar

Silence of the Lambs did something rare. It won every major Oscar and did it as a psychological horror thriller, a genre that almost gets no Oscar love. Jonathan Demme directed the movie about a young FBI agent named Clarice Starling (Jodie Foster) who is sent to interview a cannibalistic serial killer named Hannibal Lecter (Anthony Hopkins) to help stop a new serial killer known as Buffalo Bill (Ted Levine). This movie made Lecter one of the best horror villains in history.

Hannibal received a prequel TV series & Clarice received a sequel TV series.

Nearly every scene involving Foster and Hopkins is filled with tension as Clarice attempts to stay calm and navigate the mind games Hannibal plays with her. Those moments are a big reason why the film made history when it swept the main Oscar categories, winning Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress (Foster), Best Actor (Hopkins), and Best Adapted Screenplay.

It remains the first and only horror movie in history to win Best Picture. The movie was added to the National Film Registry in 2011 by the Library of Congress for being culturally and historically significant. It also spawned a sequel, two prequels, and even a critically acclaimed television series called Hannibal and another called Clarice.

18

The Neon Demon (2016)

Nicolas Winding Refn’s Psychological Horror Thriller

Nicholas Winding Refn is one of the world’s most unique and polarizing directors, and his 2016 psychological horror thriller is on Prime Video for streaming. That movie stars Elle Fanning as Jesse, a teenager who moves to Los Angeles after her parents’ unexplained deaths. She then gets involved in the modeling industry there and picks up attention from older models.

However, she also finds herself in danger from those same models fighting to keep their beauty and a predator (played by Keanu Reeves). The Neon Demon was a box office failure, but it was Amazon Studios that released it and the main purpose was to showcase it on its streaming service, Prime Video.

The reviews were polarizing, with a 59% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. However, most critics praised Refn’s direction and the acting of Fanning and Jena Malone. The movie has acquired taste, as is most of Refn’s work, and for his fans, this delivered more of the psychological thrills that made him so popular as a cult filmmaker.

17

The Guilty (2018)

A Danish Crime Thriller In An Emergency Call Center

The Guilty is a 2018 Danish psychological thriller about a Copenhagen police officer assigned to answer emergency calls as he awaits a hearing for an on-duty shooting incident that resulted in the death of a teenager. When he receives a cryptic call from a woman, he realizes something is wrong and, after asking some questions, realizes she has been abducted. He then sets out to find more evidence as he tries to find the woman before it is too late.

The National Board of Review named it one of the top five foreign language films of 2018.

What makes this foreign language thriller unique is that the entire movie takes place in the emergency call center. The film follows this one police officer as he stays behind his desk and tries to figure out what is going on while talking to officers on the street who follow up on his leads. The movie was critically acclaimed, holding a 98% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

Critics praised its twists and turns, and the shocking ending that turned everything on its head. An American remake was developed starring Jake Gyllenhaal for Netflix, which premiered in 2021. It received solid reviews but not on the same level as the original 2018 iteration.

16

Triangle (2009)

A Time Loop Thriller

The subgenre of time loop movies can cover everything from horror to action to comedy but in the case of Triangle, it’s a psychological thriller. The British film focuses on a single mother (Melissa George) who goes on a boating trip with her friends and when they have to abandon ship, they come across a freighter they believe will rescue them, only for things to get worse.

When they board the freighter, someone begins stalking them and that’s only the beginning of the twists and turns this movie takes. Director Christopher Smith was inspired by great thrillers like Memento and Jacob’s Ladder, making for a tense story where the viewer can never pinpoint what’s coming next.

Triangle received strong reviews from critics and was a modest box office success on its small budget. The cast, from George to Liam Hemsworth, are impressive and the suspense was well crafted, making for a hidden gem of an indie film.

15

Oppenheimer (2023)

Christopher Nolan’s World War II Epic

Oppenheimer is an interesting movie because it is part biopic and part psychological thriller. As a biopic, it tells the story of J. Robert Oppenheimer, the theoretical physicist who helped develop the first nuclear weapons that helped end World War II. The movie shows his work with other reputable scientists and how important their mission was for the war effort. However, the movie also detailed how this affected Oppenheimer mentally and emotionally, almost driving him to ruin.

Oppenheimer also earned 13 Oscar nominations, winning Best Picture.

The movie was a monster success, making $976 million at the box office, making it one of the most successful historical epics ever released. With a 93% Rotten Tomatoes score, critics also ensured it was certified fresh, thanks to its scope and the mixture of psychological thriller elements with real-world history. Oppenheimer also earned 13 Oscar nominations, winning Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor (Cillian Murphy), and Best Supporting Actor (Robert Downey Jr.).

14

Saltburn (2023)

A Darkly Comic Psychological Thriller

Saltburn is a psychological thriller from 2023 that sees a family welcome a young man into their home over the summer, only to realize that they might have let the wrong person into their lives. Barry Keoghan plays Oliver, an Oxford student who meets an upper-class student named Felix, and the two develop a friendship. Felix learns of Oscar’s tough childhood and invites him to his estate country house, Saltburn. However, once there, bad things begin to happen to Felix’s family.

The movie is a twisted, dark comedy where nothing is as it seems. The ending is a gut punch that shows how everything that happens in the movie is planned out and executed in a devious manner. The cast is fantastic, with Richard E. Grant, Rosamund Pike, and Carey Mulligan among the ensemble. The movie seemed prime for awards but ended up shut out of the Oscars, although it did pick up five BAFTA nominations and two Golden Globe nominations.

13

Girl On The Third Floor (2019)

CM Punk In A Dark Psychological Horror Thriller

WWE superstar CM Punk took on an acting role in the 2019 horror thriller Girl on the Third Floor. The movie is part supernatural ghost story about a vengeful spirit and part psychological thriller about a broken man. Punk plays Don, a man who buys an old house and plans to remodel it for him and his pregnant wife Liz to live in. However, what Don doesn’t know is that a malevolent spirit lives in the house and that spirit’s past trauma will tempt Don and eventually destroy his life.

Girl on the Third Floor came out in the middle of the Me-Too Movement and plays strongly in those themes.

Girl on the Third Floor came out in the middle of the #MeToo Movement and plays strongly in those themes. The movie follows the downfall of Don, but the real hero here is his pregnant wife Liz, who has to figure out how to save herself and her baby when her husband fails them both. The movie received mostly positive reviews when released, and while it was originally a Netflix release, it has since moved to Amazon Prime Video.

12

Goodnight Mommy (2022)

Naomi Watts In A Terrifying Story Of Motherhood

Goodnight Mommy was a 2022 Amazon Prime Video original movie. The movie is a remake of a 2014 Austrian movie of the same name. Naomi Watts stars as an unnamed Mother whose twin sons, Elias and Lukas, come to live with her after staying with their father since a divorce. However, when the boys arrive, their Mother is wearing bandages wrapped around her face following cosmetic surgery. However, when one of her sons decides it isn’t their real mother under the wraps, things take a horrific turn.

The movie received mixed reviews, with many comparing it unfavorably to the original Austrian version. However, Watts is great in her role as the masked Mother who is attempting to convince her boys that she is who she claims to be. The children also give strong performances and the entire movie has a lingering sense of dread throughout, so much so that it makes the tragedy at the end hit even harder than if it had gone full-on with the violence and torture of the original movie.

11

Who You Think I Am (2019)

Juliette Binoche In A French Psychological Thriller

Who You Think I Am is a French-Belgian psychological drama thriller about a woman named Claire who is married with two sons, but is having an affair with a much younger man. When that younger man distances himself from her, she calls and can only reach his roommate. As a result, she decides to create a fake online persona and starts a cybersexual affair with his roommate under a fake name. This leads to tragedy, but not everything is as it seems when it comes to Claire.

Who You Think I Am premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival

The story is told through flashbacks as Claire undergoes psychotherapy sessions with Dr. Bormans and soon he realizes there is something wrong with her story, and he sets out to discover the truth. The movie received mostly positive reviews, and while some critics said it requires a lot more attention based on its dense plot, it is all worth it in the end. Who You Think I Am premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival and Juliette Binoche received acclaim for her performance.

10

Elephant Song (2014)

A Psychiatrist Is Drawn Into A Twister Game

Premiering in 2014 at the Toronto International Film Festival, Bruce Greenwood stars as Dr. Toby Greene, a psychiatrist sucked into mind games with an institutionalized patient named Michael. The patient is intelligent and has sucked Dr. Greene into his stories. The doctor wants to learn why the previous doctor, Dr. Lawrence, disappeared. Michael offers the truth, but only after leading Dr. Greene through a labyrinth tale that ends in tragedy.

Elephant Song is an engaging back-and-forth psychological thriller, with viewers never sure where the story might be leading until the big twist at the end. It is supported by a great cast, with Carrie-Anne Moss, Colm Feore, and Catherine Keener joining Greenwood. Nicolas Billon won the Canadian Screen Award for Best Adapted Screenplay and director Charles Binamé earned a nomination for Best Canadian Feature Film at the Vancouver International Film Festival.

9

The Lie (2020)

A Teenager’s Lies Destroy Her Family

The Lie is an Amazon Prime Video original movie, a psychological thriller about a lie that gets out of control. Joey King stars as Kayla, a teenage daughter of a divorced father named Jay (Peter Sarsgaard). When he is taking Kayla to her ballet retreat, they pick up her friend Britney to give her a ride. When the girls ask to go to the bathroom in the woods on the way, Jay pulls over, but soon Kayla runs back and says that Britney fell from a cliff. When Jay can’t find the body, one disaster leads to another.

With a title like The Lie, this movie promises that things are not as they seem. However, this results in a terrifying series of events that destroys everyone’s lives by The Lie‘s end. Released as part of the Welcome to Blumhouse film series, The Lie received mixed reviews, but it remains a tight thriller that shows what happens when a lie grows out of control. King’s performance is a highlight, and while the ending might not shock veteran horror fans, it is a compelling conclusion that leaves viewers thinking.

8

All The Old Knives (2022)

A Spy Thriller With Chris Pine

Chris Pine is Harry, a CIA operative sent to find out if Thandiwe Newton’s Celia was the mole.

All the Old Knives is an original psychological thriller on Amazon Prime released for the service in 2022. It is the tale of an old CIA operation gone wrong and the search for the team member who betrayed his fellow Americans. Chris Pine is Harry, a CIA operative sent to find out if Thandiwe Newton’s Celia was the mole. However, the two were also former lovers, making the investigation take on a whole new aspect. This makes their meeting and the All the Old Knives ending sting even more.

What makes this such a good psychological thriller movie is that it has multiple unreliable narrators, and either of the heroes could end up switching sides by the end. The movie earned mixed to positive reviews, with praise going to its dialogue-driven plot, and the homage to spy movies from the past. Evans and Newton also received praise for their performances in the movie. They are joined by some big names, including Laurence Fishburne and Jonathan Pryce.

7

Bones And All (2022)

A Cannibal Love Story

Based on the book by Camille DeAngelis, Bones and All is a disturbing psychological thriller that stars Taylor Russell and Timothée Chalamet as two young cannibals who fall in love as they take a road trip across America. The movie seems to take place in a world where cannibalism is slightly normalized as a condition that people face. However, as a love story, it is a unique and disturbing look at a couple struggling, and failing, to fit in normally in a world where what they do is considered monstrous.

One problem with the movie was that it was compared unfavorably to the book, which remains a bestseller and critically acclaimed work. However, despite this, the movie sits at 82% on Rotten Tomatoes thanks to its handling of the love story despite a very disturbing setting. The movie was a box office flop but received several awards nominations, including three from the Independent Spirit Awards. It also won the Silver Lion for Best Director at the Venice Film Festival.

6

Coherence (2013)

A Tale Of Alternate Worlds

One of the best psychological thrillers on Amazon Prime with a very small-scale sci-fi twist, Coherence revolves around a group of old friends meeting for dinner on the evening a comet visibly passes overhead. Throughout the bizarre evening, they realize that the comet’s passing has resulted in an inexplicable phenomenon, opening up the fabric of their reality and casting them into a night of confusion and doubt. This makes the movie a confusing tale, but one worth watching.

The improvisational nature of most scenes makes the movie a real exploration of a fascinating sci-fi idea in which the characters quite literally become their own worst enemies. Critics loved the movie, and it sits at 89% on Rotten Tomatoes, certified fresh, with an 81% audience score. The movie received praise for its low-budget filmmaking, while never skimping on the story or its character development. It also picked up several festival awards throughout its time on the circuit.