Thriller

  • Christian Petzold – Die Beischlafdiebin (1998)

    1991-2000Christian PetzoldDramaGermanyThriller

    Petra professionally works as a thief abroad to finance the studies of her younger sister Franziska in Germany. When she returns, she realizes that her sister has a secret, too.Read More »

  • Robert Wise – The Andromeda Strain (1971)

    1971-1980Amos Vogel: Film as a Subversive ArtRobert WiseSci-FiThrillerUSA

    Quote:
    An alien virus’s brief pit stop in the new American West, starkly documented by Michael Crichton and Robert Wise. A satellite crashes in a New Mexico burg, soon the place is filled with bodies whose circulatory systems have turned to powder — these are the best sequences, full of hushed dread and unnerving use of widescreen dead spaces (the camera focuses on the placid, dusty face of a fallen villager, then tilts up to frame a couple of researchers approaching in hazmat suits and a helicopter whirring against a cobalt sky). The scientific team is rounded up: Exposition-dispenser Arthur Hill, surgeon James Olson (who gets a crush on the computer’s female voice), splenetic researcher Kate Reid, and veteran doctor David Wayne (“A hippie! He’s going to a love-in,” his suspicious wife cries as he packs for the secret mission).Read More »

  • William Spier – A Lady Possessed (1952)

    1951-1960MysteryThrillerUSAWilliam Spier

    Plot Synopsis by Sandra Brennan
    In this off-beat, tuneful psychological thriller, an ailing pregnant woman is in the hospital when she inadvertently eavesdrops on a conversation between a pianist and his wife. Later, after losing her baby, the woman’s husband convinces her to convalesce in a nice country house he has rented. Later she learns that the house is owned by the pianist whose wife died. The poor confused girl then begins believing that she has been possessed by the spirit of the musician’s late wife.Read More »

  • George P. Cosmatos – The Cassandra Crossing (1976)

    1971-1980DramaGeorge P. CosmatosGermanyThriller

    Quote:
    At noon on October 25th, the Transcontinental Express left Geneva Station with almost one thousand people aboard. Their destination: Basel, Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam, Copenhagen, and Stockholm. No one arrived.

    “Outbreak” meets “The Runaway Train” as a motley group of passengers are quarantined on a train destined to prevent the spread of the disease at the cost of their lives. Government intrigue, international smuggling, and the legend of the Cassandra Crossing add to the suspense.Read More »

  • Jonatan Etzler – Get Ready With Me (2019)

    2011-2020Jonatan EtzlerShort FilmSwedenThriller

    Synopsis:
    Aspiring youtuber Vendela decides to get up infront of her high school class and show a disturbing video that disrupts the lesson and causes her teacher Lukas to fear for her life. Get Ready With Me is a refreshingly unpredictable thriller about generational power struggles that combines grim satire with the current urgencies of teen angst, social media and fame.Read More »

  • Cyril Frankel – Never Take Sweets from a Stranger (1960)

    1951-1960Cyril FrankelDramaHammer FilmsThrillerUnited Kingdom

    Peter Carter, his wife Sally and their young daughter Jean move to a sleepy Canadian village, where Peter has been hired as a school principal. Their idyll is shattered when it’s discovered that Jean has been the victim of the pedophile patriarch of the town’s most powerful family, and their cries for help are met with resistance from their new friends and neighbours.Read More »

  • Harry Horner & Rafael Portillo – A Life in the Balance (1955)

    1951-1960CrimeHarry HornerRafael PortilloThrillerUSA

    Third-billed Lee Marvin dominates the proceedings in A Life in the Balance. Marvin plays a psycho killer, whose trail is dogged by inquistive young Jose Perez. Jose’s father, musician Ricardo Montalban, has been accused of a series of murders. The boy is convinced that Marvin is the guilty party, and trails the man in hopes of bringing him to justice. No dummy he, Perez leaves a trail for the authorities to follow–a series of smashed-up police call boxes (a similar plot device was deployed for comic purposes by Harold Lloyd in Professor Beware). A Life in the Balance was filmed on location in Mexico City, with a great deal of screen time devoted to a colorful carnival.
    Hal Erickson, All Movie GuideRead More »

  • Jonathan Demme – The Truth About Charlie (2002)

    2001-2010Jonathan DemmeMysteryThrillerUSA

    This is a remake of Charade with Cary Grant and done with a few twists that make it interesting. A well to do couple in Paris are headed for divorce. The woman finds out her husband is dead before she gets the chance to ask for the divorce. She finds this out when she returns to their residence to find everything in it is gone. Two members of the French police are there and inform her of her husbands death. She encounters several people who want money stolen by her husband.Read More »

  • Mike Hodges – Black Rainbow (1989)

    1981-1990HorrorMike HodgesThrillerUnited Kingdom

    Quote:
    Mike Hodges (Flash Gordon, Get Carter) wrote and directed this supernatural chiller as a meditation on the human race s ability to destroy the world, a gothic tale of suspense and the occult, guaranteed to send shivers down your spine. Martha Travis (Rosanna Arquette, Pulp Fiction, Crash) is a travelling clairvoyant on the road with her sceptic father (Jason Robards, Once Upon a Time in the West, Magnolia). During a séance Martha communicates a message from a dead man to his wife in the audience. Shocked the wife insists her husband is still alive. Later that evening the husband is killed by a ruthless assassin. As Martha foresees more and more tragic events journalist Gary Wallace (Tom Hulce, Amadeus, Animal House) follows the pair in pursuit of a hot story with catastrophically eerie results. Sent direct-to-video by its struggling distributor on initial release, Black Rainbow unfairly never got the exposure it deserved, newly restored from the original negative audiences can now discover the darkness at the end of the rainbow, as never before.Read More »

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