Film genre
"Suspense thriller" redirects here. For the general category "suspense/thriller", see
Thriller (genre)
.
Thriller film
, also known as
suspense film
or
suspense thriller
, is a broad
film genre
that evokes excitement and
suspense
in the audience.
[1]
The suspense element found in most films' plots is particularly exploited by the filmmaker in this genre. Tension is created by delaying what the audience sees as inevitable, and is built through situations that are menacing or where escape seems impossible.
[2]
The
cover-up
of important information from the viewer, and fight and chase scenes are common methods. Life is typically threatened in a thriller film, such as when the protagonist does not realize that they are entering a dangerous situation. Thriller films' characters conflict with each other or with an outside force, which can sometimes be abstract. The protagonist is usually set against a problem, such as an escape, a
mission
, or a mystery.
[3]
Screenwriter and scholar
Eric R. Williams
identifies thriller films as one of eleven super-genres in his
screenwriters' taxonomy
, claiming that all feature length narrative films can be classified by these super-genres.
[
undue weight?
–
discuss
]
The other ten super-genres are
action
,
crime
,
fantasy
,
horror
,
romance
,
science fiction
, slice of life,
sports
,
war
, and
western
.
[4]
Thriller films are typically hybridized with other super-genres; hybrids commonly including: action thrillers, fantasy and science fiction thrillers. Thriller films also share a close relationship with horror films, both eliciting tension. In plots about crime, thriller films focus less on the criminal or the detective and more on generating suspense. Common themes include, terrorism, political conspiracy, pursuit and romantic triangles leading to murder.
[3]
In 2001, the
American Film Institute
(AFI) made its selection of
the top 100 greatest American "heart-pounding" and "adrenaline-inducing" films of all time
. The 400 nominated films had to be American-made films whose thrills have "enlivened and enriched America's film heritage". AFI also asked jurors to consider "the total adrenaline-inducing impact of a film's artistry and craft".
[5]
[3]
Characteristics
In his book on the genre, Martin Rubin stated that the label "Thriller" was "highly problematic" declaring that "the very breadth and vagueness of the thriller category understandably discourage efforts to define it precisely.".
This was echoed by Charles Derry in his book
The Suspense Thriller
found that the terms "suspense thriller", "thriller" and "suspense film" used continuously in popular press, academic writings and the film industry with no clear idea of what the definition is.
Unlike other genres such as the
Western
which had recognizable iconography (cowboys, saloons, southwestern landscapes), the thriller lacks such unique iconography.
Rubin went on to state that thrillers involve an excess of certain qualities beyond the narratives: they tend emphasize action, suspense and atmosphere and emphasize feelings of "suspense, fright, mystery, exhilaration, excitement, speed, movement" over more sensitive, cerebral, or emotionally heavy feelings.
Rubin described thrillers as being both quantitative and qualitative as virtually all narrative films could be considered thrilling to some degree, while they could contain suspense to some degree, but at "a certain hazy point", the films become thrilling enough to be considered part of the genre.
For
Alfred Hitchcock
, a director very associated with the genre, he proclaimed that the
whodunnit
generated "the kind of curiosity that is void of emotion, and emotion is essential ingredient of suspense" and thus for Hitchcock, "mystery is seldom suspenseful"
In their discussions on the political thriller, Pablo Castrillo and Pablo Echart stated in 2015 that the concept of a thriller as an overarching, broad category is "traditionally unclear" due to the varied definitions between authors, with its "boundaries often blurred, overlapped, and hybridized with other genres."
In his book
The Suspense Thriller
(1988), the genre-studies specialist Charles Derry found the "suspense thriller" to be
crime films
that lacked a traditional detective figure and featured non-professional criminals or innocent victims as protagonists and excluded films that are often labeled as thrillers such as hard-boiled detective stories, horror films, heist films and spy films. Derry found the non-professional or victim being placed in unfamiliar situations enhanced their vulnerability and thus increased greater suspense.
Derry specifically noted the "innocent-on-the-run" theme a coherent in the genre, presenting them in films such as
The 39 Steps
(1935),
North by Northwest
(1959) and conspiracy thriller films like
The Parallax View
(1974) and the comedy-tinged
Silver Streak
(1976).
Alternatively, British communication professor Jerry Palmer in his book
Thrillers
defined the genre by literary roots, ideology and sociological backgrounds and that thrillers could be reduced to just two components: a hero and a conspiracy.
Palmer noted the hero in a thriller must be professional and competitive and not an amateur or an average citizen and suggested and declared characters such as spy
James Bond
or private eye
Mike Hammer
to be "quintessential thriller heroes".
Palmer also noted that audiences must approve of the hero's actions and adopt their moral perspective.
Palmer included styles such as detective films as part of the genre.
Rubin argued against Palmer's definition, noting that it would include
melodramas
and
courtroom dramas
such as
Meet John Doe
(1941) into the genre and eliminate such films as
Purple Noon
(1960) and
Psycho
(1960) from the genre.
Rubin borrowed from
G. K. Chesterton
's "A Defence of Detective Stories", stating that the world of the thriller is in an urban world, opposed to bygone eras of knights, pirates and cowboys which assists with the concept that "one normally does not think of Westerns as thrillers, even though they often contain a great deal of action, adventures chases and suspense."
Similarly, the
adventure film
is predominantly set in an environment that is already exotic and primitive, and removed form the realm of mundane and modern-day urban existence.
In his book
Crime Movies: An Illustrated History
,
Carlos Clarens
discussed location being related to thrillers as well, stating that crime films as emphasized broad, socially symbolic characters such as the criminal, the Law, and society while thrillers were more concerned with violence or disturbances within a private sphere.
Rubin declared that thrillers attached itself to other genres such as the
spy film
,
horror film
and various sub-genres of
crime films
more so than
Westerns
,
musicals
, and
war films
.
Derry also suggested this, stating that the film was an "umbrella genre" that cuts across several more clearly defined genres.
Rubin went as far to suggest that there was possibly no such thing as a pure "thriller thriller" as it was easier to apply it as a quality as a
spy thriller
, detective thriller,
horror thriller
, and that there is possibly no such thing as a pure "thriller thriller".
Rubin further expanded on the problematic usage of the genre due to its wide usage in media, such as the American magazine
TV Guide
listing
Basket Case
(1982) as a thriller, while its sequel
Basket Case 2
(1990) was a comedy and that films as diverse as the horror film
Halloween
(1978), the detective film
The Big Sleep
(1946), the
Harold Lloyd
comedy film
Safety Last!
(1923), the Hitchcock spy film
North by Northwest
(1959), the disaster film
The Poseidon Adventure
(1972), and the science fiction monster movie
Alien
(1979) can all be considered thrillers.
History
Precursors
Pre-film
Due to the what Rubin describe as a "wide, imprecise scope", it is unwieldy to attempt a comprehensive history of individual genres, including the thriller, and suggests it better to view the style in terms of cycles.
Prior to the development of films, the genre has its connections to broadly-based fiction of the 18th century.
Elements of the thriller are traced to the earliest gothic novel with
Horace Walpole
's
The Castle of Otranto
(1765) which led to
Matthew Lewis
's
The Monk
(1796) and
Ann Radcliffe
's
The Mysteries of Udolpho
(1794) and
The Italian
(1797).
Rubin noted that the extended vulnerability of the enthralled protagonists and victims in the thriller anticipated the thriller genre, a statement echoed by Robert D. Hume's 1969 essay which asserts that the Gothic novel involved a reader in a new ay, with increased emphasis on suspense, sensation and emotion opposed to moral and intellectual focuses.
The gothics being considered thrillers is problematic as they are set in antiquated decaying worlds and fail the tradition of being considered "modern".
The second literary form that predated thrillers was the Victorian
sensation novel
, starting with
Wilkie Collins
'
The Woman in White
(1859?1860) which stripped the gothic genre of its mysticism and brought to a contemporary time closer to everyday life.
These sensation novels often were published in serialized form, sometimes concluding their installments with
cliffhangers
called "climax and curtain".
The third of the proto-types to the thriller was early detective and mystery fiction, such as
Edgar Allan Poe
's "
The Murders in the Rue Morgue
" (1841), which is widely considered the first detective story.
The detective story drew upon the previously mentioned forms, and is shown through stories such as the
Sherlock Holmes
novel
The Hound of the Baskervilles
.
The roots of the thriller also generally associated with the rise of the urban-industrial society in the 19th century which created new and expanded mass audience, along with new forms of entertainment. This included stage play melodramas such as
Uncle Tom's Cabin
(1852) in which an escaped slave escapes over an ice-choked river and the rural-set melodrama
Blue Jeans
(1890) which features a heroine who unties the hero just before he is cut by and advancing buzz saw.
Other forms of entertainment arrived in the 19th century at fairgrounds and amusements parks with thrill-oriented rides and attractions such as
Ferris wheels
,
Shoot the Chutes
, which Rubin described as offering a "departure from humdrum reality that is merely a heightened version of that same humdrum reality.".
Silent era
At these same fair grounds, is where the earliest venues for film exhibitions with peep-show arcades which film historian Tom Gunning described as "the cinema of attractions".
These films provided early novelty-oriented shorts that provided surprise, amazement, laughter, or sexual stimulation with no narrative. The sensation of motion in these early films was later input into a framework known as the "chase film" which came into prominence in 1903.These films were often produced in Britain and France and employed minimal narrative for an extended chase scene that led to one of the most commercially celebrated American films of the period with
The Great Train Robbery
(1903).
Elements of
heist films
are seen in the film, with its depictions of ingeniously planned robberies, as well as the thriller's central emphasis on accelerated motion.
Chase films were limited in scope, but their emphasis on the chase sequence would extended into film in the future such as
On Her Majesty's Secret Service
(1969),
Vanishing Point
(1971), and
Speed
(1994).
The period between 1907 and 1913 solidified the film industry's domination of narrative filmmaking, predominantly with
D.W. Griffith
's films which Rubin described as refining for "enhancing suspense, psychological depth, and spatial orientation."
Griffith's applied techniques such as
cross-cutting
to enhance suspense in film such as
The Girl and Her Trust
(1912), which also applied psychological context for the actions.
Film serials
, featuring stories broken up into a number regularly scheduled episodes expanded on the suspense-educing devices of the earlier chase films.
Originally published in newspapers, as fictional story installments, the
Chicago Tribune
came upon the idea in 1913 to by running serialized stories in both newspapers and film versions.
This led to
The Adventures of Kathlyn
, a serial in 13 parts which was a grand success and led to the newspaper developing
The Million Dollar Mystery
which was even more successful.
Serials often ended with cliffhangers, an element that led to thrillers tendencies to break up into a series of self-enclosed set pieces.
Film serials were later produced in Europe, with French directors such as
Louis Feuillade
who previously worked making chase films to later making serials based on novels about master criminals, such as
Fantomas
(1913) and
Les Vampires
(1915).
Outside of France, the most significant venue for serials in Europe was Germany with
Fritz Lang
who wrote serials like
The Mistress of the World
(1919) and later directorial efforts like
The Spiders
(1919).
Lang would later make films similar to those of Feuillade with his films based on
Dr. Mabuse
which were sent in a contemporary time.
Lang's
Dr. Mabuse the Gambler
(1922) was described by Rubin as an important part of the development of the thriller with its "duplicitous, labyrinthine network of decadent nightspots and secret dens that are linked together by murky thorough fares, twisting back alleys and subterranean passages."
Lang's later film
Spies
(1928), had Lang make extensive use of crosscutting to not only enhance suspense and draw thematic parallels but also to develop what Rubin described as a "paranoid vision of a world where everything seems to together as an ever-widening web of conspiracy".
This type of editing was later applied to several
film noirs
, such as
Robert Siodmak
's
The Killers
(1946) and
Stanley Kubrick
's
The Killing
(1956),
Oliver Stone
's
JFK
(1991) and
Bryan Singer
's
The Usual Suspects
.
During this silent era in Germany,
German Expressionism
was active from 1905 onward.
These films featured distorted sets and stylized gestures which had an influence on filmmaking all over the world, including the United States.
The style has been particularly relevant to the thriller, combining psychology and spectacle.
1930s
The early 1930s saw the rise of two film genre movements: the gothic styled horror film and the
gangster film
.
Universal Pictures
was the leader of the horror genre in the early 1930s with its expressionist-derived atmosphere that started with two big hits film:
Dracula
(1931) and
Frankenstein
(1931).
Rubin noted that both films lacked the thriller's fundamental tension between the familiar and exotic or adventurous.
Also in the early 1930s, the gangster film arrived with early major films including
Mervyn LeRoy
's
Little Caesar
(1930),
William A. Wellman
's
The Public Enemy
(1932) and
Howard Hawks
Scarface
(1932).
These films centered on the rise of and fall of the criminal with Rubin noting that suspense in these films was "relatively slight", with both genres leaving an imprint on subsequent forms of the thriller with mid-1930s
G-Man
films, the early detective films of the 1940s, and the gangster films of the 1950s.
The gangster film itself, entrusted the modern urban environment with larger-than-life overtones.
Rubin described the mid-1930s as when the thriller entered its "classical period" with the emergence of key genres that were previously either non-existent or minor. These included the spy film, detective film, the
film noir
, the police film and the science fiction thriller.
The horror films of the early 1930s with their Europeanized settings and villains led to what Rubin described as a "growing uneasiness towards Europe" Such anxieties were directly registered with spy thriller films, that were previously marginalised but grew as the tensions of the 1930s and the outbreak of
World War II
.
The genre grew into popularity in Great Britain in the mid-1930s with the output of the countries leading filmmaker
Alfred Hitchcock
. Between 1934 and 1938, Hitchcock directed five spy thrillers:
The Man Who Knew Too Much
(1934),
The 39 Steps
(1935),
Secret Agent
(1936),
Sabotage
(1936), and
The Lady Vanishes
(1938). Along with Lang's output of the period, Rubin stated that Hitchcock became a "top rank" filmmaker specialising in the classical film thrillers, opposed to his prior output, which only sporadically included films that could be considered thrillers.
Compared to Lang, Hitchcock approach to the spy thriller was described by Rubin as "less abstract, less epic" with "a greater emphasis on individual psychology and subjective points of view" while Lang's primary focus was on "the structure of the trap", Hitchcock's was on the "mental state of the entrapped."
The first major American spy thriller of the World War II era was
Confessions of a Nazi Spy
(1939).
After relocating to the United States, Hitchcock continued his attachment to spy films with films like
Foreign Correspondent
(1940) and
Saboteur
(1942).
Despite having these films exist beyond the cityscapes of the thriller genre, they do not deploy the adventure nature of
The Adventures of Kathlyn
or
The Spiders
usually lacking in exaggerated methods of transport, such as parachute drops, safaris, submarines, or even high-speed chases.
1940s
Like the spy film, another genre that grew popular due to the war-generated phenomena in the early to mid-1940s saw the rise of thrillers centered around various phases of crime films such as the rise in popularity of detective films.
These ranged from
B-film
detectives such as
Michael Shayne
,
The Falcon
,
Boston Blackie
, the
Crime Doctor
as well as modernized
Sherlock Holmes
stories having him battle Nazis.
These smaller budget films led to more major productions such as
John Huston
's
The Maltese Falcon
(1941) while
Murder, My Sweet
(1944) introduced the character
Philip Marlowe
to film. Marlowe would appear again in
The Big Sleep
(1946).
These detective films drew upon thriller and thriller-related genres with their nocturnal atmosphere and style influenced by expressionism.
They often overlapped with
film noir
, a style coined by French critics in 1946 which arose in the mid-1940s.
The
film noir
style was not acknowledge by American filmmakers, critics or audiences until the 1970s.
Early films considered as harbingers of the movement include Fritz Lang's
You Only Live Once
(1937), the b-film
Stranger on the Third Floor
(1940) and
I Wake Up Screaming
(1941) and the first universally acknowledged major
film noir
:
Billy Wilder
's
Double Indemnity
.
During the 1940s, the influence of other foreign movements such as
Italian neo-realism
and American filmmaker's participation in making war documentaries and the audience's growing familiarity with these documentaries gritty and fact-based style led to Hollywood developing crime films that were shot in actual locations opposed to studio sets. These films included
The House on 92nd Street
and
Call Northside 777
(1947) and the most acclaimed of these films,
The Naked City
(1948) which re-created a police manhunt for a brutal killer.
These films eventually began toning down their factuality to be applied to more
noir
styles, such as with
Kiss of Death
(1947),
The Street with No Name
(1948), and
He Walked by Night
(1949).
Rubin found that placing these films in actual locations increased the tension of the ordinary world opposed to the limited confines of the studio sets.
Further spy films were made, including
The House on 92nd Street
began encompassing anti-communist themes. This was inaugurated with films like
The Iron Curtain
(1948).
These titles drew on 1930s gangster film conventions, with the American branch of the communist parties being depicted like a gangster organization. This cycle continued into the 1950s with
I Was a Communist for the FBI
(1951),
The Red Menace
(1949), and
Samuel Fuller
's
Pickup on South Street
(1953).
1950s
Crime was the significant focus of thrillers in the 1950s.
The more realistic crime films of the 1940s and film noir merged into films about police detectives thrillers. Unlike the more clean-cut police officers of the 1940s realistic films, these films often had the police officer following darker paths. These included
The Man Who Cheated Himself
(1951),
The Prowler
(1951),
Pushover
(1954).
A smaller wave of similar police thrillers had the police detective having moral weakness, but excessiveness.
These included
Where the Sidewalk Ends
(1950),
On Dangerous Ground
(1952),
The Big Heat
(1953).
Rubin declared
Orson Welles
'
Touch of Evil
(1958) as another major film of this flawed-cop style. Rubin found that these late noirs collectively represent a peak of character development and moral complexity in the film thriller that was closer to the psychology films of Alfred Hitchcock than the action or mystery-oriented forms of the police thriller.
Syndicate gangster films of the era had similarities to the anti-communist spy films and alien-invasion science fiction films of the era with films like
The Enforcer
(1951) while
The Phenix City Story
(1955) and
The Brothers Rico
which contained borderline breakdowns of the criminal world and the lawful world.
The gangsters of these films do not resemble conventional criminals of the past, they dressed casually while being non-confrontational with muted violence.
The 1950s also saw the movement of the
science fiction
thriller, which previously was a relatively minor genre.
The most prevalent was a hybrid of science fiction and horror in films like
Them!
(1954) and
Tarantula
(1955) while the films more attuned to the thriller occasionally saw an alien invasion theme, such as in
Invasion of the Body Snatchers
(1956) which Rubin described as being between "science-fiction mundaneness and film-noir moodiness".
The science fiction thrillers of the era are not set on far off planets or but featured in present-day locales such as in
It Came from Outer Space
and
The Incredible Shrinking Man
.
The 1950s also launched what Rubin called "a run of Hitchcock masterpieces", following an uneven part of experimentation in the late 1940s.
Rubin noted as Hitchcock hitting his stride with
Strangers on a Train
(1951),
Rear Window
(1954),
Vertigo
(1958),
North by Northwest
(1959), and
Psycho
(1960).
During this period, Anglo-American critics of the era preferred Hitchcock's lighter-hearted British classics of the 1930s, these films were declared as "more ambitious and mature works" by Rubin, which became the focus of a major reevaluation of Hitchcock's artistic stature, which included with the first full-length books study of his work:
Hitchcock
(1957), by
Eric Rohmer
and
Claude Chabrol
as well as the first English-language assessment, with
Robin Wood
's
Hitchcock's Films
(1965).
The plots and themes of these films would be re-worked into later directors such as
Jonathan Demme
(
Last Embrace
(1979)),
Brian de Palma
(
Dressed to Kill
(1980),
Body Double
(1984),
Obsession
(1976)) and
Curtis Hanson
(
The Bedroom Window
(1987)).
1960s
Around 1960, Rubin described that key thriller categories went through major overhauls. This led to closing what he described as "subversive debunking" that nearly closed the doors on genres like the detective film, re-contextualizing genres like the
neo-noir
, and enhancing the popularity of some genres such as the spy film briefly and other genres like the police film for longer periods.
The expansion of foreign-film exhibition in the United States of highly regarded thrillers was an influence on the American thriller film.
Among the earliest of these was
Henri-Georges Clouzot
's
The Wages of Fear
(1953) and
Les Diaboliques
(1955) and
Jules Dassin
's
Rififi
(1955) which influenced the 1960s thrillers with their sordid atmosphere.
Another cross-fertilization between American and European thrillers was the
French New Wave
, a movement which arose in the late 1950s. The style of these films were generally more self-conscious and intrusive than that of Hollywood films.
When these films had thriller aspects, these aspects of their story had a throwaway quality.
The influence of the French New Wave was seen on American thrillers such as
Mickey One
(1965),
Point Blank
(1967) and
Bonnie and Clyde
(1967) as well as later films (
Sisters
(1972),
Blue Velvet
(1986),
Reservoir Dogs
(1992)).
The spy film had been what Rubin described as "stagnating" for several years due to the limitations of post-war anti-communist films. The genre was dramatically revitalized by the surprised hit
Dr. No
(1962), which led to increasingly expensive and lucrative sequels as well as spearheading a 1960s spy craze in cinema and mass media.
Dr. No
was conceived as a series of action set pieces (called "bumps" by the series co-producer
Albert R. Broccoli
) which mixed the film's action and violence with generous doses of humor and Bond's post-bloodshed quips and sexual banter.
The Bond films generally distanced themselves with apolitical villains, that toned down the cold war elements of the original novels and spy films of the past, locating their films in Jamaica, Istanbul and Miami over Cuba, Berlin or Israel.
Rubin found that the Bond films important to the development of the thriller, but their own thriller dimensions was limited due to the Bond stories gravitating towards adventures, suspense sequences being moderate, and tensions kept simple compared to the films of Hitchcock or Lang.
Following the success of the Bond films, the character became the standard which all other spy films of the era were defined by within their similarities or dissimilarities.
These included having the spy being suave hero, colorful locations, attractive women and flamboyant decors. Many pre-1970s spy films were predominantly comedies with spy film elements, such as
Our Man Flint
(1966) and
The Silencers
(1966) and their sequels.
Another style of spy films attempted to differentiate themselves from the Bond films, while still differentiating themselves from the patriotic and Anti-Nazi and anti-communist spy films of the past. These films deglamorized the nature of the Bond films while still remaining thrillers, such as
The Ipcress File
(1965),
Funeral in Berlin
(1966),
The Defector
(1966) and
The Quiller Memorandum
(1966).
These films featured spies who seemed less invincible than James Bond and other super spies, and often featured a more paranoid edge to their plots.
Police thrillers returned to popularity around the period of law-and-order issues between 1968 and 1972 presidential campaigns through a general swing towards the
right
in the United States due to the
Vietnam War
. The police-centered were much less critical in their treatment of their justice obsessed lawmen and were showcased fighting to protect society where official institutions have failed them.
The police thriller returned in 1967 with the multiple-Oscar winning film
In the Heat of the Night
(1967), which was more about social issues than being a straight thriller, the films' use of racial epithets and strong-arm methods paved the way for films featuring characters like
Dirty Harry
and
Jimmy "Popeye" Doyle
for the upcoming police cycle.
Early films in the cycle included
Madigan
(1968),
The Detective
(1968),
Coogan's Bluff
(1968) and
Bullitt
(1968), the latter being more successful financially than any the previously mentioned thrillers.
Like Bond,
Bullitt
featured much of the mystique as the James Bond series, with his stylish lifestyle and being an elite specialist working with a larger organization and is granted considerable autonomy on the course of his assignments.
Bullitt
'
s producer
Philip D'Antoni
featured even more elaborate variations in his later productions such as
The French Connection
(1971) and
The Seven-Ups
(1973) as car chases became staple to modern police thrillers. These police thrillers also featured a harsher more conflict-riddled world closer to those of the anti-Bond spy films.
These films were also harsher and more violent, mostly due to the demise of the
Hays Code
.
The influence of the police thriller was long lasting, leading into the popular
Die Hard
and
Lethal Weapon
film series and attaching itself to other genres such as science fiction (
Mad Max
,
Blade Runner
,
RoboCop
), and comedy (
48 Hrs.
and
Beverly Hills Cop
).
1970s
Offshoots of the police thriller is the
vigilante film
, in which an avenger in an urban setting throws off the restraints of the super cop of the police thrillers to operate as a loner without a badge or uniform. The main characters usually revolve around personal revenge and desire to cleanse society of its evil doers. Examples include the
Death Wish
film series,
Taxi Driver
(1976) and
Ms. 45
(1981).
A cycle of
action films
featuring black leads that came from the police thriller, vigilante films, and
blaxploitation films
arrived with the 1970s.
The films predominantly feature loose-cannon private eyes such as in
Shaft
(1971),
Slaughter
(1972) and
Coffy
(1973) or hustlers such as in
Super Fly
(1972) and
The Mack
(1973).
The films were often derivations of earlier films such as
Cool Breeze
(1972), a remake of
The Asphalt Jungle
,
Hit Man
(1972) a remake of
Get Carter
(1971), and
Black Mama, White Mama
(1973) a remake of
The Defiant Ones
(1958). The cycle generally slowed down by the mid 1970s.
During the 1970s, contemporary situations such as the
Watergate scandal
and disillusionment about the Vietnam War led to conspiracy thrillers.
A cycle of these films included
Executive Action
(1973) about the
assassination of President John F. Kennedy
,
The Parallax View
(1974) about a sinister corporation linked to a series of political murders, and others like
The Conversation
(1974) and
Winter Kills
(1979).
Unlike other films of the past, the paranoia of these films often focused on American institutions opposed to gangsterism or communists.
A thriller-related movement in the 1970s was the
disaster film
, which came with the great financial success of
Airport
(1970), about an airplane crippled by a bomb that struggles to land in a snowstorm.
Similar films about a group of survivors escape several locations, such as
The Poseidon Adventure
(1972),
The Towering Inferno
(1974) and
Earthquake
(1974) about a group of troubled people in Los Angeles.
The films often featured all-star casts and often had the disaster happening early or mid-way into the story rather than at the climax with the narrative focusing on the group of survivors.
The genre ended following overt sequels, television films and parodies.
The genre had a brief revival in the late 1990s through the science-fiction and disaster hybrid
Independence Day
(1996), which was followed by
Dante's Peak
(1997),
Volcano
(1997) and
Titanic
(1997).
1990s to present
In the early 1990s, thrillers had recurring elements of obsession and trapped protagonists who must find a way to escape the clutches of the villain?these devices influenced a number of thrillers in the following years.
Rob Reiner
's
Misery
(1990), based on a book by
Stephen King
, featured
Kathy Bates
as an unbalanced fan who terrorizes an incapacitated author (
James Caan
) who is in her care. Other films include
Curtis Hanson
's
The Hand That Rocks the Cradle
(1992) and
Unlawful Entry
(1992), starring
Ray Liotta
.
[100]
Detectives/FBI agents hunting down a serial killer was another popular motif in the 1990s. A famous example is
Jonathan Demme
's Best Picture?winning crime thriller
The Silence of the Lambs
(1991)?in which young
FBI agent
Clarice Starling
(
Jodie Foster
) engages in a psychological conflict with a
cannibalistic
psychiatrist
named
Hannibal Lecter
(
Anthony Hopkins
) while tracking down
serial killer
Buffalo Bill?and
David Fincher
's crime thriller
Seven
(1995), about the search for a serial killer who re-enacts the
seven deadly sins
.
Another notable example is
Martin Scorsese
's neo-noir psychological thriller
Shutter Island
(2010), in which a U.S. Marshal must investigate a psychiatric facility after one of the patients inexplicably disappears.
In recent years, thrillers have often overlapped with the horror genre, having more gore/sadistic violence, brutality, terror and frightening scenes. The recent films in which this has occurred include
Disturbia
(2007),
Eden Lake
(2008),
The Last House on the Left
(2009),
P2
(2007),
Captivity
(2007),
Vacancy
(2007), and
A Quiet Place
(2018). Action scenes have also gotten more elaborate in the thriller genre. Films such as
Unknown
(2011),
Hostage
(2005), and
Cellular
(2004) have crossed over into the action genre.
Sub-genres
The thriller film genre includes the following sub-genres:
[101]
Action thriller
Action thriller
is a blend of both
action
and thriller film in which the protagonist confronts dangerous adversaries, obstacles, or situations which he/she must conquer, normally in an action setting. Action thrillers usually feature a race against the clock, weapons and explosions, frequent violence, and a clear antagonist.
[102]
Examples include,
Phantom Raiders
,
Nick Carter Master
Detective
,
Dirty Harry
,
Taken
,
[103]
The Fugitive
,
[104]
Snakes on a Plane
,
Speed
,
The Dark Knight
,
The Hurt Locker
,
[105]
The Terminator
,
Battle Royale
, the
Die Hard
series, and the
Bourne
series.
[106]
Comedy thriller
Comedy thriller
is a genre that combines elements of humor with suspense. Such films include
Silver Streak
,
Dr. Strangelove
,
Charade
,
Hera Pheri
,
Malamaal Weekly
,
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
,
In Bruges
,
Mr. and Mrs. Smith
,
Grosse Point Blank
,
The Thin Man
,
The Big Fix
,
Pocket Listing
,
The Lady Vanishes
, and
Game Night
.
Conspiracy thriller
Conspiracy thriller
a genre in which the hero/heroine confronts a large, powerful group of enemies whose true extent only she/he recognizes.
The Chancellor Manuscript
and
The Aquitaine Progression
by
Robert Ludlum
fall into this category, as do films such as
Awake
,
Snake Eyes
,
The Da Vinci Code
,
Edge of Darkness
,
[107]
Absolute Power
,
Marathon Man
,
In the Line of Fire
,
Capricorn One
, and
JFK
.
[108]
Crime thriller
Crime thriller
as an genre is a hybrid type of both
crime films
and thrillers, which offers a suspenseful account of a successful or failed crime or crimes. Such films often focus on the criminal(s) rather than a policeman
[
citation needed
]
. Central topics include serial killers/murders,
robberies
, chases,
shootouts
,
heists
, and
double-crosses
. Some examples of crime thrillers involving murderers are
Seven
,
[109]
No Country for Old Men
,
The French Connection
,
The Silence Of The Lambs
,
Memento
,
To Live and Die in L.A.
,
Collateral
, and
Copycat
.
[110]
Examples of crime thrillers involving heists or robberies are
The Asphalt Jungle
,
[111]
The Score
,
[112]
Rififi
,
Entrapment
,
[113]
Heat
, and
The Killing
.
Erotic thriller
Erotic thriller
is a thriller film that has an emphasis on
eroticism
and where a
sexual relationship
plays an important role in the plot. It has become popular since the 1980s and the rise of VCR market penetration. The genre includes such films as
Body Heat
,
Sea of Love
,
Basic Instinct
,
[114]
Chloe
,
Disclosure
,
Dressed to Kill
,
Eyes Wide Shut
,
In the Cut
,
Lust, Caution
, and
Single White Female
.
Giallo
Giallo
is an Italian thriller film that contains elements of
mystery
,
crime fiction
,
slasher
,
psychological thriller
, and
psychological horror
. It deals with an unknown killer murdering people, with the protagonist having to find out who the killer is. The genre was popular during the late 1960s-late 1970s and is still being produced today, albeit less commonly. Examples include
The Girl Who Knew Too Much
,
Blood and Black Lace
,
Deep Red
,
The Red Queen Kills Seven Times
,
Don't Torture a Duckling
,
Tenebrae
,
Opera
, and
Sleepless
.
Horror thriller
A subgenre involving
horror
.
[115]
Legal thriller
Legal thriller
is a suspense film in which the major characters are lawyers and their employees. The system of justice itself is always a major part of these works, at times almost functioning as one of the characters. Examples include
The Pelican Brief
,
Presumed Innocent
,
A Time to Kill
,
The Client
,
The Lincoln Lawyer
,
The Firm
.
Political thriller
Political thriller
is a type of film in which the protagonist must ensure the stability of the government. The success of
Seven Days in May
(1962) by
Fletcher Knebel
,
The Day of the Jackal
(1971) by
Frederick Forsyth
, and
The Manchurian Candidate
(1959) by
Richard Condon
established this subgenre. Other examples include
Topaz
,
Notorious
,
The Man Who Knew Too Much
,
The Interpreter
,
[116]
Proof of Life
,
[117]
State of Play
, and
The Ghost Writer.
Psychological thriller
Psychological thriller
film is a psychological type of film (until the often violent resolution), the conflict between the main characters is mental and emotional rather than physical. Characters, either by accident or their own curiousness, are dragged into a dangerous conflict or situation that they are not prepared to resolve. To overcome their brutish enemies characters are reliant not on physical strength but on their mental resources. This subgenre usually has elements of
drama
, as there is an in-depth
development of realistic characters
who must deal with emotional struggles.
[118]
The
Alfred Hitchcock
films
Suspicion
,
Shadow of a Doubt
,
Rear Window
, and
Strangers on a Train
, as well as
David Lynch
's bizarre and influential
Blue Velvet
, are notable examples of the type, as are
The Talented Mr. Ripley
,
The Machinist
,
[119]
Shutter Island
,
Mirrors
,
Insomnia
,
Identity
,
Gone Girl
,
Red Eye
,
[120]
Phone Booth
,
Fatal Attraction
,
The River Wild
,
[121]
Panic Room
,
[122]
Misery
,
Cape Fear
,
10 Cloverfield Lane
, and
Funny Games
.
[123]
Social thriller
Social thriller
are a
thriller
that uses suspense to augment attention to abuses of power and instances of oppression in society. This new subgenre gained notoriety in 2017 with the release of
Get Out
.
[124]
Other examples include
The Tall Man
,
Dirty Pretty Things
,
Parasite
, and
The Constant Gardner
.
Spy film
Spy film
is a genre in which the protagonist is generally a government agent who must take violent action against agents of a rival government or (in recent years) terrorists. The subgenre often deals with the subject of espionage in a realistic way (as in the adaptations of
John Le Carre
's novels). It is a significant aspect of
British cinema
,
[125]
with leading British directors such as
Alfred Hitchcock
and
Carol Reed
making notable contributions, and many films set in the
British Secret Service
.
[126]
Thrillers within this subgenre include
Berlin Express
,
Spy Game
,
Hanna
,
Traitor
,
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
,
The Tourist
,
The Parallax View
,
The Tailor of Panama
,
Mission Impossible
,
Unknown
,
The Recruit
, the
James Bond
franchise,
The Debt
,
The Good Shepherd
, and
Three Days of the Condor
.
[127]
Supernatural thriller
Supernatural thriller
films include an otherworldly element (such as fantasy or the
supernatural
) mixed with tension, suspense, or plot twists. Sometimes the protagonist or villain has some
psychic
ability and
superpowers
. Examples include
Fallen
,
[128]
Frequency
,
In Dreams
,
[129]
Flatliners
,
Jacob's Ladder
,
The Skeleton Key
,
[130]
What Lies Beneath
,
Unbreakable
,
The Sixth Sense
,
[131]
The Gift
,
[132]
The Dead Zone
, and
Horns
.
[133]
Techno-thriller
Techno-thriller
is a suspenseful film in which the manipulation of sophisticated technology plays a prominent part. Examples include
WarGames
,
The Thirteenth Floor
,
I, Robot
,
Source Code
,
Eagle Eye
,
Supernova
,
Hackers
,
The Net
,
Futureworld
,
eXistenZ
, and
Virtuosity
.
See also
Notes
- ^
Konigsberg 1997
, p. 421
- ^
Konigsberg 1997
, p. 404
- ^
a
b
c
Dirks, Tim.
"Thriller ? Suspense Films"
.
Filmsite.org
. Retrieved
July 25,
2010
.
- ^
Williams, Eric R. (2017).
The screenwriters taxonomy : a roadmap to collaborative storytelling
. New York, NY: Routledge Studies in Media Theory and Practice. p. 21.
ISBN
978-1-315-10864-3
.
OCLC
993983488
.
- ^
"AFI's 100 YEARS...100 THRILLS"
. American Film Institute. 2001.
Archived
from the original on January 1, 2017.
- ^
"Thriller and Suspense Films"
. Filmsite.org
. Retrieved
November 13,
2011
.
- ^
"Thriller/Suspense Subgenre Definitions"
. Cuebon.com
. Retrieved
June 24,
2010
.
- ^
"Action Thriller"
. AllRovi
. Retrieved
November 6,
2015
.
- ^
"Taken ? Cast, Reviews, Summary, and Awards ? AllRovi"
. Allmovie.com
. Retrieved
November 6,
2015
.
- ^
The Fugitive (1993)
AllMovie
- ^
"The Hurt Locker ? Cast, Reviews, Summary, and Awards ? AllRovi"
. Allmovie.com
. Retrieved
November 6,
2015
.
- ^
"Hollywood readying new wave action thrillers"
. ew.com
. Retrieved
November 11,
2015
.
- ^
"Edge of Darkness ? Cast, Reviews, Summary, and Awards ? AllRovi"
. Allmovie.com. January 29, 2010
. Retrieved
November 13,
2011
.
- ^
"JFK ? Cast, Reviews, Summary, and Awards ? AllRovi"
. Allmovie.com
. Retrieved
November 13,
2011
.
- ^
"Seven ? Cast, Reviews, Summary, and Awards ? AllRovi"
. Allmovie.com. October 24, 2011
. Retrieved
November 13,
2011
.
- ^
"Copycat ? Cast, Reviews, Summary, and Awards ? AllRovi"
. Allmovie.com. October 24, 2011
. Retrieved
November 13,
2011
.
- ^
"The Asphalt Jungle ? Cast, Reviews, Summary, and Awards ? AllRovi"
. Allmovie.com. June 8, 1950
. Retrieved
November 13,
2011
.
- ^
"The Score ? Cast, Reviews, Summary, and Awards ? AllRovi"
. Allmovie.com. July 13, 2001
. Retrieved
November 13,
2011
.
- ^
"Entrapment ? Cast, Reviews, Summary, and Awards ? AllRovi"
. Allmovie.com
. Retrieved
November 13,
2011
.
- ^
"Basic Instinct ? Cast, Reviews, Summary, and Awards ? AllRovi"
. Allmovie.com. March 20, 1992
. Retrieved
November 13,
2011
.
- ^
Benshoff, Harry M., ed. (2014).
A Companion to the Horror Film
.
Wiley
. p. 172.
ISBN
9781118883495
.
- ^
"The Interpreter ? Cast, Reviews, Summary, and Awards ? AllRovi"
. Allmovie.com. April 22, 2005
. Retrieved
November 13,
2011
.
- ^
"Proof of Life ? Cast, Reviews, Summary, and Awards ? AllRovi"
. Allmovie.com. December 8, 2000
. Retrieved
November 13,
2011
.
- ^
"Psychological Thriller Movies and Films ? Find Psychological Thriller Movie Recommendations, Casts, Reviews, and Summaries"
. AllRovi. October 24, 2011. Archived from
the original
on November 2, 2011
. Retrieved
November 13,
2011
.
- ^
Oksenhorn, Stewart (December 7, 2004).
"
'The Machinist': a haunting psychological thriller"
.
The Aspen Times
. Archived from
the original
on September 18, 2016
. Retrieved
September 10,
2016
.
- ^
"Red Eye ? Cast, Reviews, Summary, and Awards"
. AllRovi. August 19, 2005. Archived from
the original
on December 25, 2011
. Retrieved
November 13,
2011
.
- ^
"The River Wild ? Cast, Reviews, Summary, and Awards"
. AllRovi. October 24, 2011. Archived from
the original
on July 28, 2011
. Retrieved
November 13,
2011
.
- ^
"Panic Room ? Cast, Reviews, Summary, and Awards"
. AllRovi. March 29, 2002. Archived from
the original
on January 20, 2012
. Retrieved
November 13,
2011
.
- ^
"Funny Games ? Cast, Reviews, Summary, and Awards ? AllRovi"
. Allmovie.com. March 14, 2008
. Retrieved
November 13,
2011
.
- ^
Ebiri, Bilge (February 14, 2017).
"Get Out's Jordan Peele Brings the 'Social Thriller' to BAM | Village Voice"
.
Village Voice
. Retrieved
August 16,
2017
.
- ^
"The Spying Game: British Cinema and the Secret State", 2009
Cambridge Film Festival
, pp.54-57 of the
festival brochure.
Archived
July 20, 2011, at the
Wayback Machine
- ^
Geoffrey Macnab, "Spy movies ? The guys who came in from the cold"
,
The Independent
, October 2, 2009.
- ^
Filmsite.org
- ^
"Fallen ? Cast, Reviews, Summary, and Awards ? AllRovi"
. Allmovie.com. October 24, 2011
. Retrieved
November 13,
2011
.
- ^
"In Dreams ? Cast, Reviews, Summary, and Awards ? AllRovi"
. Allmovie.com. January 15, 1999
. Retrieved
November 13,
2011
.
- ^
"The Skeleton Key ? Cast, Reviews, Summary, and Awards ? AllRovi"
. Allmovie.com. August 12, 2005
. Retrieved
November 13,
2011
.
- ^
Shoard, Catherine (July 26, 2010).
"Spoiler alert: The Sixth Sense voted film with best twist"
.
The Guardian
. Retrieved
September 10,
2016
.
- ^
Billy Bob Thornton.
"The Gift ? Cast, Reviews, Summary, and Awards ? AllRovi"
. Allmovie.com
. Retrieved
November 13,
2011
.
- ^
"Daniel Radcliffe to Grow 'Horns' for Supernatural Thriller"
. Screen Rant. March 9, 2014
. Retrieved
October 11,
2014
.
References
Further reading
- Frank, Alan (1997).
Frank's 500: The Thriller Film Guide
. Batsford.
ISBN
978-0-7134-2728-8
.
- Hanich, Julian (2010).
Cinematic Emotion in Horror Films and Thrillers: The Aesthetic Paradox of Pleasurable Fear
. Routledge Advances in Film Studies.
Routledge
.
ISBN
978-0-415-87139-6
.
- Hicks, Neil D. (2002).
Writing the Thriller Film: The Terror Within
. Michael Wiese Productions.
ISBN
978-0-941188-46-3
.
- Indick, William (2006).
Psycho Thrillers: Cinematic Explorations of the Mysteries of the Mind
. McFarland & Company.
ISBN
978-0-7864-2371-2
.
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