10 Best Psychological Thrillers On Netflix
Shutter Island and Nightcrawler are just a couple of the thrillers on Netflix right now!
There are few better film related feelings than getting through a mindbender of a movie, one that takes your brain for a ride and messes with it as though it were Play-Doh.
Movies like these offer us a chance to test our mental metal by putting ourselves through an intellectual wringer, with the occasional chill thrown in for good measure.
When you watch a movie you're usually a passive observer rather than an active participant. In their very nature, psychological thrillers go completely against this. They demand involvement from the viewer, as part of their success relies on getting in the audience's head.
Think of movies like Perfect Blue, Memento, or just about every David Lynch flick. They almost force you to interact with them in some way. Their narratives are rivers of ambiguity, where only your thoughts can save you from going under. Other times however you may find yourself too dumbfounded by what you're seeing to even think about it. Whatever the case may be, the sub-genre of psychological thrillers is a truly special one.
So, let's take a trip down the rabbit hole together with the ten best psychological thrillers on Netflix.
10. Tau
Gary Oldman as a robot? Sold.
In the future a young woman, Julia, is abducted and forced to take part in an experiment by Alex, a psychotic inventor. Escape seems easy at first, until she comes face to face with his AI housemate, Tau.
Tau just as much a character drama as it is a psychological thriller. Seeing the friendship between Julia and Tau grow as she teaches him about the outside world functions as a much needed bit of levity. The necessity for this levity comes from the film's strongest aspect, its villain.
Alex, played by a scary good Ed Skrein, is, to put it bluntly, evil. Everything terrible he does, and he does a lot of terrible things, comes from no other desire but the pursuit of his materialistic goals. With Alex, the cruelty seems to be the point. He even goes so far as to program Tau to feel pain as a way of keeping him under control. Once again, the man is evil.
The strength of Tau's antagonist raises the stakes, creating a thriller that, while relatively straightforward, feels constantly intense. If you like your thrillers with a sci-fi twist, this might just be the one for you.