The best thrillers on Hulu right now
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Movies are always coming and going from Hulu. In fact, this month, five great thrillers ended their run on Hulu, finding new streaming homes (some no longer streaming at all). This just reinforces how important it is to check out a movie that’s on your radar before it’s gone. While some movies remain on the streamer for months, sometimes years, others expire.
This month, we have rounded up the best thrillers on Hulu, all of which are available to stream right now. There have been several exciting titles added, including a psychological dark comedy thriller starring Margaret Qualley, a fun thriller with George Clooney and Julia Roberts, and a captivating, devastating story starring Anya Taylor-Joy.
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!
Sanctuary (2023) [New]
Duration: 96m
Genre: Drama, Thriller
Stars: Margaret Qualley, Christopher Abbott, Danita Battle
Directed by: Zachary Wigon
If you’re looking for something psychological with dark comedic undertones, Sanctuary will satiate your appetite for a thriller that touches on these themes. Margaret Qualley is Rebecca, a dominatrix, and Christopher Abbott is Hal, her client. It’s their final session of welcome degradation and humiliation before Hal reveals that he can no longer see Rebecca. He’s about to take on the demanding role of CEO for his company, and their relationship just isn’t a fit for his new life. Angered by being tossed aside, Rebecca decides to put her own business learnings to use and demands that Hal pay her half his salary. It’s her actions, after all, that turned him from weak man to leader. It’s easy to guess what she threatens him with should he not comply. Now, Hal is being humiliated and shamed for real, without deriving any sexual pleasure from it.
A terrifying tale of a man being challenged by a woman who maintains her power dynamic in a scenario he doesn’t want, Sanctuary follows Hal’s descent as he desperately tries to save his career and reputation. Receiving overwhelmingly positive reviews, Rotten Tomatoes-accredited reviewer Matt Pais of MattPais.com describes Sanctuary as playing “mental pinball and sexual chess and psychological sudoku set to expert.”
Thoroughbreds (2018) [New]
Duration: 92m
Genre: Drama, Thriller
Stars: Olivia Cooke, Anya Taylor-Joy, Anton Yelchin
Directed by: Cory Finley
If you loved Anya Taylor-Joy in The Queen’s Gambit and The Menu, you’ll appreciate her performance as well in Thoroughbreds. In this black comedy thriller, she’s Lily, and Olivia Cooke is her former friend Amanda. Despite having gone their separate ways, the two high schoolers find themselves connected once again. They aren’t going to dances and doing one another’s make-up, though. They decide to hatch a devious plan to kill Lily’s stepfather, with the help of a contracted drug dealer, played by the late Anton Yelchin.
A sociopathic teen thriller, Thoroughbreds makes you question who is really the one who lacks empathy. Taylor-Joy is captivating as always; it’s tough to take your eyes off her in every scene. Tina Kakadelis from Beyond the Cinerama Dome calls Thoroughbreds a “cult classic in the making.”
Money Monster (2016) [New]
Duration: 98m
Genre: Thriller, Drama
Stars: George Clooney, Julia Roberts, Jack O'Connell
Directed by: Jodie Foster
Though Money Monster received mixed reviews, you can’t deny the star power of George Clooney and Julia Roberts, especially when they’re together on screen. A box office hit, Money Monster is about Lee Gates (Clooney), a financial TV show host, and his producer Patty Fenn (Roberts). The pair find themselves in a precarious position when an angry investor takes the entire crew hostage. He’s angry Lee endorsed a company on his show, resulting in the man losing his entire life savings to the scam. With a bomb vest positioned on the attacker and the receiver to detonate it over Lee’s kidney, police need to figure out how to shoot the receiver to eliminate the bomber’s leverage without killing Lee in the process.
Intense, gripping, and well-acted, Money Monster isn’t the best movie you’ll see in the genre. But for a casual watch, it will do the trick. NME’s Nick Levine puts it best: “Money Monster is no masterpiece, but as a form of glossy high-octane entertainment, it doesn’t disappoint.”
How to Blow Up a Pipeline (2023) [New]
Duration: 104m
Genre: Crime, Drama, Thriller
Stars: Ariela Barer, Kristine Froseth, Lukas Gage
Directed by: Daniel Goldhaber
Praised for its focus on timely eco-related topics, How to Blow Up a Pipeline is set in West Texas. A group of young residents decide bold steps are needed to get their point across. So, they devise a plan to blow up an oil pipeline, their radical response to the climate crisis. The film examines their actions and the morality of them: Are these young individuals activists or terrorists?
Featuring an ensemble cast that includes Lukas Gage (The White Lotus, Euphoria), Marcus Scribner (Black-ish), Ariela Barer (Runaways), and Kristine Froseth (The Buccaneers), Forbes’ Scott Phillips classifies How to Blow Up a Pipeline both as a “top-notch thriller” and an “examination of our modern political system where the voices of individual citizens seem to carry no weight.”
The Negotiator (1998)
Duration: 140m
Genre: Action, Crime, Drama, Thriller
Stars: Samuel L. Jackson, Kevin Spacey, David Morse
Directed by: F. Gary Gray
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)
Duration: 132m
Genre: Action, Thriller
Stars: Bruce Willis, Alan Rickman, Alexander Godunov
Directed by: John McTiernan
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.
A Haunting in Venice (2023)
Duration: 104m
Genre: Mystery, Thriller, Crime
Stars: Kenneth Branagh, Kyle Allen, Camille Cottin
Directed by: Kenneth Branagh
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)
Duration: 93m
Genre: Horror, Science Fiction, Thriller
Stars: Kaitlyn Dever, Elizabeth Kaluev, Zack Duhame
Directed by: Brian Duffield
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)
Duration: 100m
Genre: Thriller, Action, Science Fiction
Stars: Amber Midthunder, Dakota Beavers, Michelle Thrush
Directed by: Dan Trachtenberg
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)
Duration: 88m
Genre: Thriller
Stars: Christina Ricci, Judith Light, Joshua Bowman
Directed by: Karen Moncrieff
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)
Duration: 115m
Genre: Thriller, Drama
Stars: Gemma Arterton, James Norton, Marisa Abela
Directed by: Declan Lawn, Adam Patterson
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.
The Hummingbird Project (2019)
Duration: 111m
Genre: Thriller, Drama
Stars: Jesse Eisenberg, Alexander Skarsg?rd, Salma Hayek Pinault
Directed by: Kim Nguyen
Jesse Eisenberg, Alexander Skarsg?rd (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 (Skarsg?rd), 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)
Duration: 88m
Genre: Crime, Thriller, TV Movie
Stars: Judd Nelson, Stefanie Scott, Joely Fisher
Directed by: Elisabeth R?hm
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)
Duration: 92m
Genre: Horror, Thriller
Stars: Dianna Agron, Melora Hardin, Jay Ali
Directed by: Alexis Jacknow
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)
Duration: 114m
Genre: Horror, Thriller, Comedy
Stars: Daisy Edgar-Jones, Sebastian Stan, Jojo T. Gibbs
Directed by: Mimi Cave
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)
Duration: 82m
Genre: Horror, Science Fiction, Drama
Stars: Natalie Martinez, Matt Lauria, Christina Leone
Directed by: Daniel Stamm
Spending Valentine’s Day stuck on an elevator isn’t anybody’s idea of a good time. However, it seems to work out for Guy (Matt Lauria) and Jennifer (Natalie Martinez) in Down, a Hulu original movie. Both Guy and Jennifer are workers in a high rise who inadvertently become trapped over a long holiday weekend. At first, it seems like love is in the air and they appear to be natural romantic partners for each other. But all is not what it appears to be, and when the truth comes out, Guy and Jennifer will be at each other’s throats.
Pig (2021)
Metacritic: 82%
IMDb: 6.9/10
Rated: R
Duration: 91m
Genre: Drama, Thriller
Stars: Nicolas Cage, Alex Wolff, Adam Arkin
Directed by: Michael Sarnoski
Pig is collecting a ton of attention lately, by way of both bountiful media mentions and general word-of-mouth exchanges — and for plenty of good reasons. The film follows Rob (Nicolas Cage), a reclusive ex-chef living in the woods of Oregon. Now a truffle hunter, Rob scours the wilderness with his prized foraging pig. After a run-in with a gang of assailants, Rob’s pig is stolen. Connecting with a local contact (Alex Wolff), Rob follows the single lead he has to his swine’s whereabouts, plunging the self-proclaimed hermit into the seedy underbelly of Portland. An astonishing feature debut from writer-director Michael Sarnoski, Pig is a poignant film with an equally-poignant lead performance from Nicholas Cage, reminding us that the actor is capable of much more than camp.
The Secrets We Keep (2020)
Metacritic: 48%
IMDb: 5.8/10
Rated: R
Duration: 97m
Genre: Thriller, History
Stars: Noomi Rapace, Joel Kinnaman, Chris Messina
Directed by: Yuval Adler
In the post-World War II suburbs of America, Romanian immigrant Maja (Noomi Rapace) lives with her husband and young son. Still plagued by visions of horrific war crimes committed against her, Maja’s seemingly tranquil surface level is deeply disturbed when she encounters a man walking her streets, a gentleman she recognizes as an ex-SS officer who attacked her years before. What follows is a spiraling story of despair, regret, and past lives resurfacing. While not reinventing the genre, The Secrets We Keep leans successfully on its central talents, particularly Rapace. A Hitchcock-inspired thriller for modern-day audiences, we found it more than fitting for inclusion.
Run (2020)
Metacritic: 67%
IMDb: 6.7/10
Rated: PG-13
Duration: 90m
Genre: Thriller, Horror, Drama
Stars: Sarah Paulson, Kiera Allen, Pat Healy
Directed by: Aneesh Chaganty
Sarah Paulson is having a moment — well, she’s always having a moment. The star actress is capping off the year with Run, an intense thriller originally set for theatrical release on Mother’s Day 2020, instead now exclusive to Hulu. Paulson stars as a mother who seems to be harboring a deep secret, as her isolated daughter Chloe is slowly discovering. Kiera Allen, who plays Chloe, matches Paulson scene for scene and advances the conversation about representation in film, as Allen is a wheelchair-bound actress. Run is the highlight of original movies that arrived to the streaming service in November.
