10 Conspiracy Movies That Will Make You Paranoid

2. Klute

There are few scores more haunting than the one Michael Small composed for Klute, and it's to his credit that Pakula's first thriller remains one of the director's best.

Released in 1971, the same year the Citizens Commission to Investigate the FBI broke into the Bureau's Pennsylvania offices, and as its practices of surveillance and harassment gripped the public's attention, Klute stood out as one of the decade's first truly authentic thrillers.

Centred around the eponymous PI John Klute (Donald Sutherland) as he investigates the disappearance of a wealthy businessmen, an investigation that brings him into the path of sex-worker Bree Daniels (Jane Fonda, herself a victim of Bureau harassment), Klute ticks all the boxes when it comes to suspenseful cinema; it has an eerie score and a bone-chilling atmosphere to match, compelling performances from its leads and an anti-establishment undertone that set a precedent for other works in that genre.

What the film does so effectively, however, is orchestrate its own kind of paranoia. You can't help but feel helpless in so many of its moments, but equally, that's just what good - nay, great - thrillers do.