“What’s next?” is the one question that keeps us stick and intrigued throughout the film. It pushes us to begin to search for the answers ourselves. And you keep looking for it until it frustrates you to your limit. However, it is equally entertaining to watch your predictability turn into reality. It gives satisfaction and you feel connected to the film. The genre of mystery, thriller, and crime has emerged in the last two decades, gaining large audience attention. The stories have transformed themselves over the years, hence, providing strong characters and plot twists.
Keeping the thought in mind, below are 9 great detective thrillers to watch.
1. Memories Of Murder
Director- Bong Joon Ho
A second young and beautiful woman is found murdered, raped, and gagged with her underpants in the South Korean province of Gyunggi in 1986. Detective Park Doo-Man and Detective Cho Yong-Koo are two cruel and inept local detectives with no technique. They conduct a brutal and ineffective investigation into the murder by torturing the suspects. Detective Seo Tae-Yoon from Seoul arrives in the country to assist with the investigations. He is certain that the women are being murdered by a serial murderer. When a third woman is discovered murdered in the same “modus operandi,” the detectives track down the assassin’s trail.
2. Prisoners
Director- Denis Villeneuve
Keller Dover is dealing with the worst nightmare of any parent. Anna, his six-year-old daughter, is missing, along with Joy, her young playmate, and as the minute’s pass, worry builds in. The only lead is a derelict RV that was parked on their street previously. Detective Loki, who is in charge of the investigation, arrests the vehicle’s driver, Alex Jones, but he is released due to a lack of evidence. As the police explore several leads and the pressure rises, the panicked Dover believes he has no choice but to take matters into his own hands, knowing his child’s life is on the line.
3. Mystic River
Director- Clint Eastwood
Three kids, Dave Boyle and two of his pals, Jimmy Markum and Sean Devine, are playing on the sidewalk in a Boston neighborhood in the summer of 1975 when Dave is kidnapped by two men and subjected to sexual torture for several days. Dave eventually recovers from his tragedy and lives a happy adult life. Jimmy is a three-time ex-con whose daughter Katie is found murdered, and Dave becomes the prime suspect. Sean is a homicide detective who is investigating Katie’s death. As more information about Katie’s murder becomes available, he finds himself confronted with past and current issues. When ballistics revealed Katie had a boyfriend, they discovered a gun that belonged to her father, making her boyfriend the prime suspect.
4. Seven
Director- David Fincher
Two homicide detectives are on the lookout for a vicious serial killer who picks his victims based on the seven deadly sins. Detective David Mills, played by Brad Pitt, is a hopeful yet naive rookie who is paired with seasoned Detective William Somerset. They follow the killer’s every move together, experiencing the aftermath of his heinous murders one by one as the victims pile up in fast succession, all the while drawing closer to a grisly fate neither of them could have imagined.
5. M
Director- Fritz Lang
An elusive psychopath preys on naive, innocent youngsters in the heart of 1930s Berlin, spreading dread and bewilderment without leaving a trace. The crushing clasp of the law tightens on the local criminal network as authorities explore the city’s brutal urban maze, unable to sniff out any evidence and ferret out the merciless and relentless serial killer. An all-out manhunt begins as the horrible creature continues at loose, whistling the same song to lead his pure victims to their deaths. Thieves, beggars, prostitutes, and thugs have banded together to track down the murderer.
6. Chinatown
Director- Roman Polanski
Jake Gittes, a well-dressed private investigator, and expert in adultery cases in Los Angeles have a thriving company. Then a mysterious blonde enters his office, sure that her husband, Hollis Mulwray, chief engineer of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, is having an affair. And then Gittes finds himself caught in a tangled web of deception and murder. As a result, Gittes is being pursued by corrupt government officials and violent thugs for poking his nose into a sophisticated and hazardous scheme, and Jake is beginning to suspect that he’s been duped. In this problematic scenario, though, practically everyone has a skeleton in their closet.
7. L.A. Confidential
Director- Curtis Hanson
The dark setting for this intriguing noir-ish tale of police corruption and Hollywood depravity is 1950s Los Angeles. Three very different cops, each in their own way, are on the hunt for the truth: Bud White, ready to break the rules to seek justice but barely able to keep his raging violence under control; and Jack Vincennes, always looking for celebrity and a quick buck until his conscience drives him to join Exley and White down the one-way path to find the truth behind the dark world of L.A. crime.
8. Silence Of The Lambs
Director- Jonathan Demme
Clarice Starling is a young F.B.I. trainee. She is ordered to assist in the search for a missing woman in order to save her from a sadistic serial killer who skins his victims. Clarice talks to another psychopath, Dr. Hannibal Lecter. He used to be a distinguished psychiatrist, in an attempt to obtain a deeper understanding of the killer’s twisted mind. F.B.I. Special Agent Jack Crawford believes Lecter, who is also a very powerful and cunning mind manipulator, has the answers to their questions and can assist in the hunt for the killer. Clarice, on the other hand, must first acquire Lecter’s trust before the inmate will provide any information.
9. Zodiac
Director- David Fincher
Robert Graysmith works for the San Francisco Chronicle as a cartoonist. Paul Avery, a reporter whose drinking interferes with his profession, is irritated by his eccentricities. Because of their shared fascination with the Zodiac killer, the two become friends. As Avery’s life slides into drunken oblivion, Graysmith gets increasingly consumed with the case. Graysmith’s amateur detective work leads him to David Toschi, a police inspector who has yet to apprehend the Zodiac, Sherwood Morrill, a handwriting expert, Linda del Buono, a felon who knew one of the Zodiac’s victims, and others. Graysmith’s career, his wife, and his children all fade into the background when compared to catching the Zodiac.
