Four dark thrillers to stream on Netflix this weekend
How often do you spot a character in a movie who is acting more normal than usual and find something fishy about it? It’s like something doesn’t add up. That’s the crack with these four thrillers. The danger is not always the mad guy with the weapon. Sometimes it’s the smooth-talking man giving you his version of events.
Netflix has built a huge audience for exactly these sorts of movies. The ones people finish and then spend another hour just replaying the details in their head. Was that person lying? Did that ending change the whole story? Would you believe it? Sometimes the rewatch is even better because the warning signs were sitting there all along.
Fact: Two of these four are David Fincher films, so you already know you are in for something cold and uncomfortable, so tread lightly. There is a reason why they are in the weekend pick category: because you might want to rewatch some of these thrillers for clues.
Four dark thrillers to stream on Netflix this weekend
Gone Girl (David Fincher, 2014)
It’s crazy how some marriages manage to look immaculate from the outside with those made-up smiles, and you get your faith restored in the institution of marriage all of a sudden, except it’s not. Gone Girl takes one look at that and turns that doubt into a solid rock. Nick and Amy Dunne hit five years of marriage, then Amy disappears from the house without a trace. Before long, the police are asking questions while the press starts circling. Nick does himself no favours, either. Honestly, the bloke looks guilty even when he is standing still.
Rosamund Pike is unbelievable in this, because she makes Amy feel wrong in a way you can’t quite put your finger on. She’s calm, but not warmly calm, but more like someone who makes you want to edge towards the door. Fincher cast her partly because loads of American viewers didn’t know her well enough to have fixed ideas about her, and that worked an absolute treat. Gillian Flynn adapted her own novel too, so none of the nasty edges got sanded down. The film doesn’t tidy anything up for you… It just lets this marriage fall apart.
Memento (Christopher Nolan, 2000)
And if Gone Girl makes you suspicious of a marriage, Memento makes you suspicious of your own brain, which is a bit much for a weekend watch, but there we are. Guy Pearce plays Leonard Shelby, a man who cannot create new memories after a brutal attack, so he uses Polaroids, handwritten notes and even tattoos to keep track of his hunt for the man who killed his wife. Except, hang on, how can he trust the clues when he cannot remember writing them?
One of the most underrated Nolan thrillers, he builds the film so that the colour scenes run backwards while the black-and-white sections go forwards, and the two strands meet only when you are about ready to demand a diagram. The idea came from a story by his brother Jonathan, and the film was shot in just 25 days. You must be joking!
The Killer (David Fincher, 2023)
Nothing beats watching a man who reckons he has turned murder into a tidy little science suddenly realise he has made an absolute show of it. Michael Fassbender plays a contract killer who lives by routines and treats every job like he’s some genius. Then he misses. One shot! That’s all it takes. The people behind the job want answers, and he knows they’re coming. Now he is legging it before they get to him first. So much for being in control, eh?
That is the film, really: a man insisting he is brilliant while the evidence keeps piling up in the opposite direction. Fincher had been circling the project for years, and he brought back Seven screenwriter Andrew Kevin Walker to adapt the French novel. The violence is sharp, but the real pleasure is watching this pompous man narrate his own genius while making one dodgy decision after another. Oh, come on, mate. Nobody believes you!
Rebel Ridge (Jeremy Saulnier, 2024)
What makes Rebel Ridge hit differently than the rest of the thrillers is how ordinary the whole thing looks at first. Terry Richmond is carrying cash to bail out his cousin when the local police stop him and take the money through civil asset forfeiture. Aaron Pierre plays Terry as a man doing everything he can to not lose his temper. He tells them why he has the cash and expects somebody to see sense. Obviously, nobody does. They assume that because he is chill, he can be pushed about. That turns out to be a very bad read of the situation.
Pierre came into the film after John Boyega left, but Terry never feels like a role that belonged to anybody else. You can see that he knows how dangerous he is, which makes everything more convincing. Pierre also handled a lot of the physical work, and the fights have a practical feel to them, so well done there. This is an action hero that genuinely feels different from your usual muscular ones.