Credit: Netflix

Looks like we are in the mood for a proper nerve-jangler, then, and lucky for you, Netflix certainly knows how to keep people watching. And what’s better than a crisp mystery thriller that will keep you hooked for hours?

And it’s even better when a woman is at the centre of the story because when they take the charge, the drama only gets better and layered… At least for these mystery thrillers, it does.

The fun of a good mystery thriller lies in the fact that it makes you go in circles before pointing out that the track is actually square. You start off thinking you have everyone sussed, and then bam! A twist appears from nowhere.

Netflix has plenty that play this game, but these five are the ones to get stuck into if you want women driving the mystery rather than just getting caught up in it.

Five best mystery thrillers on Netflix to watch right now

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (David Fincher, 2011)

Rooney Mara’s attitude in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is why it wins half the points because this lady walks into this film as if she has already decided everyone in the room is an idiot. Her Lisbeth Salander is not here to explain herself or make life comfortable. She watches. She waits. And, oh dear, she notices everything. Mikael Blomkvist is hired to investigate Harriet Vanger, who vanished from her family’s island decades ago. Yes, there’s an ancient family mystery too.

Except the more he digs through photographs and old secrets, the more you realise that they are hiding something. Then Lisbeth joins in, and the whole thing is observed from a different angle. The film earned five Oscar nominations, including Best Actress for Mara, but actually won for Film Editing. And frankly? Deserved.

The Woman in Cabin 10 (Simon Stone, 2025)

Don’t you just hate it when your gut has a terrible feeling of something certainly happening but everyone else around you keeps ignoring it? That is Lo Blacklock’s nightmare in The Woman in Cabin 10. She is a journalist invited aboard billionaire Richard Bullmer’s superyacht, and one night she sees a woman from the cabin next door thrown overboard. The problem is, the crew insists cabin 10 was empty and every passenger is accounted for, which is, umm, suspicious.

So Lo has two choices: let it go or start doing what she’s best at: investigation while trapped at sea with people who seem very determined to forget the whole thing. Keira Knightley’s Lo is a stubborn woman, and she has to be; otherwise, she won’t reach the depth of truth. But fair warning, the close atmosphere on the yacht might make you suffocate a bit, and well, so does the story. Here comes the claustrophobia.

Gone Girl (David Fincher, 2014)

Ha, another Fincher on the list, and yep, another “girl” in the title, although this time, Amy Dunne is no ordinary girl and definitely not one of those who are sitting around waiting to be rescued. She disappears on her fifth wedding anniversary, leaving her husband Nick in a house full of odd clues and half-truths, and honestly, it would’ve been enough, but Amy had something else in mind. She did enough homework to make the police and the press believe that her husband, Nicholas, is hiding something.

This brilliant mystery becomes a slipper when it lets you believe that you’ve got the marriage and her disappearance all figured out, but oh, you really haven’t! The film yanks the rug sideways. Gillian Flynn adapted her own bestselling novel, so the screenplay keeps its dirty wit and media satire intact, while Rosamund Pike makes you speechless with her performance. You are not solving a mystery here; you are being played by it!

The Girl on the Train (Tate Taylor, 2016)

Ever stared out of a train window and invented lives for strangers? Yup, we’ve all been there, and so does Rachel Watson, until the fantasy turns rancid when Megan Hipwell, one half of the couple she watches, disappears. Rachel had seen Megan with another man beforehand, but before she can process it, she wakes after a drunken blackout, bruised and confused and missing chunks of the night, which, let’s be honest, is not ideal when you are trying to work out whether you witnessed something or, in this case, caused it.

You know what’s funny; Rachel is trying to solve Megan’s disappearance while knowing perfectly well that her own memory is dodgy as hell, and Emily Blunt has done one heck of a convincing us that. She is brittle and in complete shambles, so even when the plotting tips into melodrama, you stay with her.

Veronica Mars (Rob Thomas, 2014)

Here comes the nostalgia. Veronica Mars will take you back to the cult teen mystery series that ran from 2004 to 2007; only this time, it’s a film, although we have Kristen Bell as Veronica, so that’s a relief. As we all know, Veronica has already done the teenage private-eye thing, thank you very much. The film continues the same with her being in New York, supposedly done with sleuthing and heading for a law career (very grown-up) until ex-boyfriend Logan calls: his pop-star girlfriend has been murdered, he is the prime suspect and… well, well, well. So much for that.

Back to Neptune, she goes, insisting she is only there to help Logan find a lawyer. Oh, cut it out, Veronica; you know exactly where this is going! Her detective instincts are back, and before you can even process it, our leading lady is off digging through old classmates and Neptune’s grubby class politics. Newcomers? Don’t panic; you’ll follow perfectly well without watching three seasons first. Long-time fans? Lovely having you back.