10 Best Cat-and-Mouse Thrillers, Ranked

Audiences are obsessed with thrillers, and it’s hard to blame them. It’s a genre that can get anyone’s heart pumping and adrenaline going, forcing them to sit in suspense at the edge of their seat as they wonder what could possibly happen next. The thriller confronts viewers with the complexities of the human psyche, as well as the darkest parts of human nature. Much more often than that, thrillers are a blast of fun.

The genre has diverged into multiple subcategories throughout its history, from amusing comedy to the nail-biting psychological thriller. One of the best subgenres, though, is the cat-and-mouse thriller. These chilling stories are all about the chaser and the chased and all the tense and often surprising things that happen during this pursuit. From old classics like High and Low to modern entries into the genre like No Country for Old Men, these are thrillers that make audiences feel like they are the mouse having to escape from a big, ferocious cat that won’t rest until they’re caught.

10 ‘The Silence of the Lambs’ (1991)

Directed by Jonathan Demme

The third of only three films that have won the big five Oscars (Best Picture, Actor, Actress, Director, and Screenplay), The Silence of the Lambs is psychological horror/thriller at its very best. It’s about a young F.B.I. cadet tasked with finding a serial killer who skins his victims. To do it, seeks the help of an incarcerated and manipulative cannibal killer named Hannibal Lecter.

Anthony Hopkins‘s beyond-chilling performance made Hannibal one of the most iconic characters in modern horror, and Jodie Foster offers the performance of a lifetime as protagonist Clarice Starling. The strange connection between Hannibal and Clarice gives The Silence of the Lambs most of its personality, and Clarice’s desperate chase of Buffalo Bill provides some edge-of-your-seat suspense and plenty of terrifying moments. With exquisite direction by Jonathan Demme and one of the best horror screenplays of all time, The Silence of the Lambs makes itself worthy of its fame.

9 ‘The Departed’ (2006)

Directed by Martin Scorsese

At least so far, The Departed is the only picture that has earned Martin Scorsese a Best Director Oscar and his only Best Picture winner. It hardly comes as a surprise. Arguably the auteur’s best thriller, The Departed tells with vibrancy and style the story of an undercover cop and a mole in the police attempting to identify each other while the former infiltrates an Irish gang in South Boston.

This high-energy and fast-paced thriller is full of shocking twists and surprises until the surprisingly dark ending. Relentless but engrossing, The Departed features Scorsese at his most confident, presenting a brutal story with panache and precision. With the star-studded cast doing some of the best work of their careers and the intense script having zero dead spots at any point during the runtime, The Departed stands out as a fascinating examination of how blurry the line between good and evil can be.

8 ‘Memories of Murder’ (2003)

Directed by Bong Joon-ho

Bong Joon-ho is easily one of the most famous Korean filmmakers working today, and Memories of Murder is by far one of his best movies. Inspired by a ghastly true story, it’s set in a small Korean province in the late ’80s. There, two detectives struggle to solve a case involving multiple young women murdered by a mysterious culprit. What follows is a narrative with some of the most potent suspense of any film in the genre.

Reminiscent of other cat-and-mouse true-crime films like David Fincher‘s Zodiac, Memories of Murder combines gripping mystery with Bong’s signature pitch-black sense of humor. Its social commentary is sharp, and its visual style is alluring, cementing the director as a master of the genre. The atmosphere of evil and bleakness permeating the narrative becomes more powerful by the horrifying fact that, by the time the movie was released, the real killer hadn’t been identified yet. This chilling reality made Memories of Murder have an even greater impact, becoming one of the best murder mystery films of all time.

7 ‘No Country for Old Men’ (2007)

Directed by Joel Coen and Ethan Coen

Winner of four Academy Awards, including Best Picture, No Country for Old Men is one of Joel and Ethan Coen‘s best films. Violence and mayhem ensue after a hunter stumbles upon the aftermath of a drug deal gone wrong near the Rio Grande, taking over two million dollars in cash with him. He then begins his escape from Anton Chigurh, the ruthless hitman who will stop at nothing to get back the money and kill the man who stole it.

No Country for Old Men violently forces the noir and the Western to clash, using this conflict between genres as a vehicle for its themes of good versus evil, fate versus free will, and an old world of justice and lawfulness versus one where people do what they want. With Javier Bardem‘s Chigurh (probably the Coens’ best villain) chasing Josh Brolin‘s Llewelyn Moss and Tommy Lee Jones‘s Ed Tom Bell following Chigurh, viewers will find themselves engrossed by this three-way cat-and-mouse game.

6 ‘Fargo’ (1996)

Directed by Joel Coen and Ethan Coen

No Country for Old Men might be the Coens’ most mature and complex cat-and-mouse thriller, but it arguably isn’t their best. That title would have to go to Fargo, a singular thriller about a Minnesota car salesman whose inept crime falls apart due to the incompetence of his henchmen and the persistent police work of Frances McDormand‘s Marge Gunderson.

Absurd yet splattered with moments of unexpected violence, Fargo does a flawless job of balancing the story’s suspense and the Coens’ typical absurdist dark humor. Marge’s hunt for these idiotic criminals is as gripping as it is delightfully silly, making audiences root for her while also wanting to get more of William H. Macy, Steve Buscemi, and Peter Stormare‘s characters. Fargo is incredibly entertaining from start to finish, offering plenty of interesting commentary on the nature of evil.

5 ‘High and Low’ (1963)

Directed by Akira Kurosawa

Akira Kurosawa is easily the greatest Japanese director ever; plenty of movies could worthily be counted among his best, and High and Low is undeniably way up there. The movie has been particularly talked about in recent days thanks to the remake Spike Lee has in the works, but the truth is that this riveting crime drama never stopped being relevant. It’s one of the best police procedurals the silver screen has ever seen, following a shoe company executive who becomes a victim of extortion when his chauffeur’s son is kidnapped by mistake and held for ransom.

The movie’s scathing messages about corporate greed and class differences are as important today as they were in ’60s Japan. However, the most interesting part is how Kurosawa dives deep into the story’s humanistic aspect, examining each character’s psyche with attention while never losing sight of the plot’s thrilling suspense. It feels like the director is always ten steps ahead of the audience, creating a film that hooks viewers in from the get-go and doesn’t let go until the credits.

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4 ‘Olbdoy’ (2003)

Directed by Park Chan-wook

Park Chan-wook, one of the other kings of South Korean cinema, has made some of the country’s best-known masterpieces. Oldboy, however, is by far his best and most popular work. It’s not for the faint of heart, but this harrowing crime thriller is about a man who’s kidnapped and imprisoned for fifteen years. After being released, he has five days to get revenge on his captors.

Oldboy is one of Letterboxd’s favorite revenge films, thanks to Park’s relentless direction and the script’s complete willingness to dive as deeply as it can into the darkest pits of humanity. The action is creatively shot and frenetically edited, and the visceral narrative shows the chaotic and destructive power of revenge in all its least glamorous splendor. Arthouse action thrillers don’t get much better than Oldboy, a deeply influential picture that ranks among Park’s crowning gems.

3 ‘Heat’ (1995)

Directed by Michael Mann

Over the years, Michael Mann has proved to be a really interesting director, dipping his toes into all sorts of genres. Still, Mann’s best and most widely-recognized picture remains the slow-burn crime thriller Heat. Led by a pair of late career-defining performances by Al Pacino and Robert De Niro, this action epic is about a relentless detective hunting a group of high-end professional thieves who mistakenly leave behind a clue at their latest heist.

Pacino and De Niro are magnetic, the script is surprisingly nuanced and layered for a ’90s action film, and Mann’s direction is simultaneously subtle and grand. Heat more than makes up for its introspective character work and deliberate pace with some of the greatest action scenes the decade ever saw, as well as with the gripping nature of the dynamic between Pacino’s restless detective and De Niro’s calculating master thief. As riveting as it’s incisive, Heat is a kinetic movie, a character study on the true nature of crime disguised as an action thriller.

2 ‘Se7en’ (1995)

Directed by David Fincher

Nowadays, the thriller genre is pretty much synonymous with David Fincher. The director is one of the modern masters of suspense, and that’s abundantly visible in movies like Se7en. This horrifying and often cruel masterpiece stars Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman as two detectives (a rookie and a veteran) who hunt a serial killer who’s using the seven deadly sins as his M.O.

The film’s nihilistic tone is absolutely chilling, culminating in one of the most emotionally devastating and edge-of-your-seat third acts Hollywood has produced. Se7en‘s complex and eerie yet mesmerizing story makes it one of the most rewatchable mystery films of the ’90s, while Freeman’s stoic yet relatable work keeps the whole thing grounded, preventing it from descending too much into despair. There’s always some new bit of foreshadowing to detect, some horrifying detail in the background that adds a whole new dimension to this outstanding movie.

1 ‘Memento’ (2000)

Directed by Christopher Nolan

Considering that he’s nowadays one of the leading blockbuster directors working in Hollywood, it’s easy to forget that Christopher Nolan was once an up-and-coming filmmaker from the indie scene. It was during this time that he made what’s not only one of his best works but the best indie of the 2000s. Told in reverse chronological order, Memento follows an amnesiac man trying to track down his wife’s killer.

Though it was only Nolan’s second movie, Memento feels like the work of an artist in full control of his craft. The reverse-story gimmick may not be easy to keep track of at first, but once viewers get the hang of it, they’ll be treated to a riveting tale about the horrible things that people will do to give their lives some semblance of meaning. The cat-and-mouse game at the center of the narrative is fascinating throughout the runtime, but it’s the twist ending that really makes it the most powerful in the whole subgenre.

NEXT:The Best Thrillers of All Time, Ranked