Few countries enjoy their movies as much as , and director Claire Denis is currently one of their most celebrated auteurs. With a long career working in her native tongue, Denis made her English language debut in 2019 with the sci-fi film Stars At Noon.
While movies that combine a love story with chilling suspense have sky-high potential, romantic thrillers are not an especially common hybrid genre in Hollywood today. However, when one hits, it leaves a huge impact on critics and audiences, as evidenced by these high-Tomatometer movies.
Queen & Slim (2019): 83%
When their awkward Tinder date ends in a self-defense killing of a police officer, a young Black couple must go on the run to avoid spending life in prison. So begins Queen & Slim, the cinematic debut of longtime music video director Melina Matsoukas, which combines the grit of a crime drama with up-to-the-minute social commentary.
While Queen & Slim wasn't a massive box office hit, it struck a chord with many critics, and its A- Cinemascore shows that audiences were enthralled, as well. While the story is derivative of Bonnie and Clyde and Thelma & Louise, Daniel Kaluuya and Jodie Turner-Smith have terrific chemistry, which goes a long way in making their characters watchable, despite their massive flaws.
Bound (1996): 90%
Before Lana and Lily Wachowski set the world on fire with The Matrix, they were cutting their teeth on Bound, an erotic heist thriller with an LGBTQ+ twist. The story follows Corky (Gina Gershon) and Violet (Jennifer Tilly), an ex-con and gangster's girlfriend, who fall in love and plot to rob the mob of $2 million.
Bound remains the Wachowskis' highest-rated film on Rotten Tomatoes, and with a thrilling, engaging plot and Gershon and Tilly's performances, it's easy to see why. The movie was also ahead of its time in being fairly mainstream and featuring a lesbian couple front and center as the leads, something that would've been considered "daring" in the '90s.
Vertigo (1958): 93%
Alfred Hitchcock is well-known as the master of suspense, but of all the subgenres, he probably most mastered the romantic thriller, with Vertigo being a great example. One of the director's most famous works, the movie initially garnered mixed reactions, but its reputation soared later on, and it's now considered a work of genius.
Set in San Francisco, Vertigo tells the story of John "Scottie" Ferguson, a retired police detective who is hired by an old friend to follow his wife, who he believes has been acting abnormally. What begins as a fairly simple detective story slowly becomes a highly psychological character study, where Scottie's mental state becomes his greatest enemy.
To Catch A Thief (1955): 94%
The second Alfred Hitchcock film to make the list, To Catch A Thief stars Cary Grant as John Robie, a former jewel thief who must clear his name after finding himself the suspect in a series of robberies. Pairing Hitchcock favorites Grant and Grace Kelly, the movie has a considerably lighter tone than many of his other films, but that gives it a unique vibe among his larger body of work.
While other romantic thrillers may focus on the psychological or the erotic, To Catch A Thief feels more like an old-school rom-com, with the lead actors having a breezy charm that makes them easy to like. The easygoing atmosphere also makes the movie ripe for one of Hitchcock's funniest, most obvious cameos.
Charade (1963): 94%
Often called the best Hitchcock movie that Hitchcock never made, Charade pairs one of his favorite leading men, Cary Grant, with the always lovable Audrey Hepburn for a rom-com thriller. The plot begins when Reggie Lampert (Hepburn) finds that her estranged husband has been murdered, and must team up with a spy (Grant) to protect herself from his killers.
While the thriller elements of Charade, like the hunt for the gold Reggie's husband stole, are on point, the movie also has a magic touch for humor, and the stars have great chemistry and comedic timing. This is one of the reasons newly-introduced Redditors often find the movie surprisingly perfect.
Notorious (1946): 96%
One of the best of Alfred Hitchcock's numerous spy thrillers, Notorious follows an American spy who falls in love with the daughter of a Nazi war criminal. A major success upon release, the movie is now celebrated as a masterpiece, with critics like Roger Ebert calling it one of the best of all time (RogerEbert).
The main attraction of Notorious is obviously the onscreen love affair between Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman, two of the most charismatic actors of Old Hollywood who make for quite the sensual couple. The movie is also notable for being one of the first to deal with the aftermath of World War II, and the escaped Nazis add a sense of menace that another villain might not have.
Diva (1981): 96%
The French have a knack for tackling the language of love in all its forms, and a psychological thriller about an opera fanatic whose obsession with a prodigious singer leads him into a web of organized crime is certainly a unique vision. Diva was underappreciated when it came out, with today's critics praising the movie as highly engaging and visually appealing.
One of the things Diva is best known for is breaking from the '70s French cinema's realist trend, instead opting for a colorful, stylized aesthetic that helped spawn the "cinéma du look" movement. Without director Jean-Jacques Beineix paving the way, fans might never have gotten some of Luc Besson's most beloved films.
The Handmaiden (2016): 96%
An erotic thriller following a young woman caught up in a plot to defraud her wealthy employer, The Handmaiden was a critical hit right out the gate, earning praise for its rich, entertaining plot and impeccable period detail. The film is an adaptation of the British novel Fingersmith, which transplants the story from Victorian Britain to Japanese-occupied Korea.
Director Park Chan-Wook is one of South Korea's most acclaimed filmmakers, and his direction makes every twist and turn genuinely shocking. He also deserves credit for making a great LGBTQ+ thriller that, even with plenty of explicit sexual content, never feels like it's trivializing its subjects, with both leads being well-rounded characters with a lot of hidden depths that make them highly sympathetic.
Suspicion (1941): 97%
Suspicion may not be one of Alfred Hitchcock's best-known films, but with an Old Hollywood power couple in Joan Fontaine and Cary Grant, it's bound to have plenty of fans anyway. While the movie wasn't as successful as its predecessor Rebecca, it earned a series of Oscar nominations, most notably for Joan Fontaine, the only Academy Award-winning performance in Hitchcock's filmography.
The plot of Suspicion follows a newly-married heiress who discovers that her charming husband may be a cold-blooded killer. In addition to Fontaine's star turn, Grant gives a solid performance as Johnnie Aysgarth, playing with his usual character type of the lovable playboy to reveal a darker side.
Rebecca (1940): 98%
In all of Hitchcock's long, illustrious career, only one movie of his won the Academy Award for Best Picture - Rebecca, based on the book by famed mystery writer Daphne Du Maurier. The film is a period romance about a young woman who marries a wealthy man but soon finds herself in the shadow of her new husband's deceased first wife.
Not only is Rebecca an effective thriller, brilliantly utilizing the "maybe magic, maybe mundane" trope to make the audience wonder if the protagonist is actually being haunted, it's also a sumptuous period piece, and every costume and makes everything feel opulent, as well as creepy. Like many of Hitchcock's classics, it's also inspired many movies that came after it, including a 2020 remake of Rebecca itself.
