Five best mystery thrillers on Netflix to watch right now
Think back to those old-school whodunnits that had a gentleman’s agreement with you, where the clues were placed subtly with a bit of discretion, mind you, but they were there, giving you a fair chance at working out who did it before the detective nicked your little victory… And then came Netflix.
And it might sound a bit rude, but mystery thrillers have got meaner now. These days, the clue you put your money on can turn out to be complete rubbish, and the person you had sussed can be barking up the wrong tree, and in hell goes your whole theory.
To be honest, it’s not bad sometimes because the films are not totally predictable, but at the end of the day, when your theory fails, you do feel a bit betrayed.
And if that’s your jam, Netflix has loads of these little headwreckers, and here are five of the best for your mind workout.
Five best mystery thrillers on Netflix to watch right now
Prisoners (Denis Villeneuve, 2013)
Be prepared for Prisoners because it will drag you somewhere far colder than you would’ve imagined. Hugh Jackman plays Keller Dover, a father whose young daughter disappears along with her friend on Thanksgiving, and from that point onwards, the film tightens the noose one scene at a time.
Detective Loki (Jake Gyllenhaal) takes the case, but when the prime suspect, Alex Jones (Paul Dano), is released for lack of evidence, Keller decides the police are moving far too slowly. And this is where you start squirming, because his desperation turns into something much uglier.
He kidnaps Alex and takes matters into his own hands, convinced that pain will produce the truth. Now ask yourself: how far would you go if it were your child? Prisoners keep hammering at that question until right and wrong almost look the same.
Forgotten (Jang Hang-jun, 2017)
If Prisoners made you suspicious of everyone, Forgotten goes one better and makes you suspicious of what you remember in the first place, so be ready to doubt yourself.
Jin-seok (Kang Ha-neul) moves into a new house with his family, already feeling slightly out of sorts, which you know, like most of us, but things take a turn when his older brother Yoo-seok is suddenly abducted. Nineteen days later, Yoo-seok comes home with no memory of what happened. Relief should follow, surely. Except something about him is off.
He behaves differently and disappears at night, and it’s fishy enough for Jin-seok to start looking around, and that, that right there is your cue to stop trusting absolutely anybody. This Korean thriller has everything from memory shifts (both characters’ and your) and answers leading to more questions. Just be careful, you!
Colors of Evil: Red (Adrian Panek, 2024)
It’s time to head to Poland now, where Colors of Evil: Red trades psychological disorientation for something colder: a murder that can’t be a secret. When the body of Monika Bogucka washes ashore on a beach in Tricity, prosecutor Leopold Bilski begins pulling at the thread and soon notices a resemblance to an older case.
His superiors would rather he leave that skeleton in the cupboard, but Bilski just keeps looking and is eventually joined by Monika’s mother, Helena, a judge who is very much in grief and won’t take a convenient answer to calm her nerves.
The investigation leads through nightclubs, and before long, organised crime gets involved with old secrets surfacing. Just know that someone made sure that it stayed a secret all these years, and that’s what you get to solve with Bilski and Helena.
God’s Crooked Lines (Oriol Paulo, 2022)
Enough of the detectives solving the case; it’s time we pull one under the bus. Think what happens when a detective cannot even prove she is sane? That’s basically the plot of God’s Crooked Lines.
Alice Gould (Bárbara Lennie) checks herself into a psychiatric hospital, claiming she is actually a private investigator looking into a suspicious death. All that until the doctors insist that this investigation exists only in her head. And now you are trapped with her.
Alice is intelligent and so utterly certain of herself that you naturally begin taking her side. Then one contradiction appears. Then another. Staff members tell different stories, while fellow patients offer fragments of truth. Meanwhile, you are stuck questioning whom to believe.
Unlocked (Kim Tae-joon, 2023)
After God’s Crooked Lines makes you question your own mind, Unlocked has an even worse idea. Na-mi (Chun Woo-hee) loses her smartphone, and when it finds its way back to her, she thinks she has simply dodged a bullet. Except a stranger, Jun-yeong (Yim Si-wan), has tampered with it and installed spyware, and now, Na-mi’s life is an open book for him.
This creep knows where she goes, who she talks to, what she searches for and how to dismantle her life without ever needing to stand beside her. You start noticing just how much of yourself lives inside that little screen because, well, you are. Someone is always watching.
Unlocked is not subtle about its warning, but that’s not the point here. It’s that very direct message that you should be focusing on. By the time Na-mi realises what is happening, privacy is already out the window… and someone else is holding the keys to her door.