And the mystery unravels.......10.... 9....8 ..... 1.Rear Window
Rear Window is a 1954 American mystery thriller film
directed by Alfred Hitchcock, written by John Michael Hayes and based on
Cornell Woolrich's 1942 short story "It Had to Be Murder". The film
is considered by many filmgoers, critics and scholars to be one of Hitchcock's
best. The film received four Academy Award nominations and was ranked #42 on
AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies list and #48 on the 10th-anniversary edition. In
1997, Rear Window was added to the United States National Film Registry. In
1997, Rear Window was selected for preservation in the United States National
Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally,
historically, or aesthetically significant". By this time, the film
interested other directors with its theme of voyeurism, and other reworkings of
the film soon followed, which included Brian DePalma's 1984 film Body Double
and Phillip Noyce's 1993 film Sliver.
2. Psycho
Another of Hickok masterpieces. I am sure you are all
familiar with films soundtrack if not check my movie Mondays soundtracks! Psycho
is a prime example of the type of film that appeared in the United States
during the 1960s after the erosion of the Production Code. It was unprecedented
in its depiction of sexuality and violence, right from the opening scene in
which Sam and Marion are shown as lovers sharing the same bed, with Marion in a
bra. In the Production Code standards of that time, unmarried couples shown in
the same bed would be taboo. Ranked among the greatest films of all time, it
set a new level of acceptability for violence, deviant behaviour and sexuality
in American films, and is widely considered to be the earliest example of the slashed
film genre. After Hitchcock's death in 1980, Universal Studios began producing
follow-ups: three sequels, a remake, a television film spin-off, and a TV
series. In 1992, the US Library of Congress deemed the film "culturally,
historically, or aesthetically significant" and selected it for preservation
in the National Film Registry.
3.Sleeping with the enemy Sleeping with the Enemy is a 1991 psychological thriller
film directed by Joseph Ruben and starring Julia Roberts. The film is based on
Nancy Price's 1987 novel of the same
name. Roberts plays a woman who escapes from her abusive, obsessive husband
from Cape Cod to Cedar Falls, Iowa, where she captures the attention of a
kindly college drama teacher. The score by Jerry Goldsmith won the BMI Film
Music Award, 1992, and the film was nominated for the Academy of Science
Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films Saturn Award for 1992 in four categories:
Best Actress (Roberts), Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actor (Bergin), Best
Horror Film and Best Music (Goldsmith).
4.The Silence of the Lamp
The Silence of the Lambs was released on February 14, 1991,
and grossed $272.7 million worldwide against its $19 million budget. Directed
by Jonathan Demme and starring Jodie Foster, Anthony Hopkins, and Scott Glenn,
the film is based on Thomas Harris' 1988 novel of the same name, his second to
feature Hannibal Lecter, a brilliant psychiatrist and cannibalistic serial
killer. It was only the third film, the other two being It Happened One Night
and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, to win Academy Awards in all the top five
categories: Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Director, and Adapted
Screenplay. It is also the first Best Picture winner widely considered to be a
horror film, and only the second such film to be nominated in the category, after
The Exorcist in 1973. The film is considered "culturally, historically or
aesthetically" significant by the U.S. Library of Congress and was
selected to be preserved in the National Film Registry in 2011.
5.Seven
Seven (stylized as SE7EN)[3] is a 1995 American neo-noir
thriller film that blends elements of the crime and horror genres. The film
stars Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman, with Gwyneth Paltrow, R. Lee Ermey, John C.
McGinley, and Kevin Spacey in supporting roles. New Line Cinema re-released
Seven in Westwood, Los Angeles, California on Christmas Day and in New York
City on December 29, 1995, in an attempt to generate Academy Award nominations
for Freeman, Pitt, and Fincher, which was ultimately unsuccessful. The
Independent, praised Freeman's performance: "the film belongs to Freeman
and his quiet, carefully detailed portrayal of the jaded older man who learns
not to give up the fight". Seven was released on September 22, 1995, in
2,441 theatres where it grossed US$13.9 million on its opening weekend. It went
on to gross $100.1 million in North America and $227.1 million in the rest of
the world for a total of $327.3 million, making Seven the seventh-highest grossing
film in 1995. The film also spent 4 consecutive weeks in the top spot at the
U.S. box office in 1995.
6. Inception Inception
is a 2010 science fiction heist thriller film written, produced, and directed
by Christopher Nolan. The film stars a large ensemble cast that includes
Leonardo DiCaprio, Ellen Page, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Marion Cotillard, Ken
Watanabe, Tom Hardy, Dileep Rao, Cillian Murphy, Tom Berenger, and Michael
Caine. Shortly after finishing Insomnia (2002), Nolan wrote an 80-page
treatment about "dream stealers" envisioning a horror film inspired
by lucid dreaming and presented the idea to Warner Bros. Inception was filmed
in six countries and four continents, beginning in Tokyo on June 19, 2009, and
finishing in Canada on November 22, 2009. Its official budget was US$160
million; a cost which was split between Warner Bros and Legendary Pictures.Nolan's
reputation and success with The Dark Knight helped secure the film's $100
million in advertising expenditure, with most of the publicity involving viral
marketing. Inception has grossed over $800 million worldwide becoming the
41st-highest-grossing film of all time. The home video market also had strong results,
with $68 million in DVD and Blu-ray sales. Inception has received wide critical
acclaim and numerous critics have praised its originality, cast, score, and
visual effects. It won four Academy Awards for Best Cinematography, Best Sound
Editing, Best Sound Mixing, and Best Visual Effects, and was nominated for four
more: Best Picture, Best Original Score, Best Art Direction, and Best Original
Screenplay.
7. Zodiac
Zodiac is a 2007 American mystery thriller film directed by
David Fincher and based on Robert Graysmith's non-fiction book of the same
name. Zodiac tells the story of the manhunt for a notorious serial killer who
called himself the "Zodiac" who killed in and around the San
Francisco Bay Area during the late 1960s and early 1970s, leaving several
victims in his wake and taunting police with letters, blood stained clothing,
and ciphers mailed to newspapers. The cases remain one of Northern California's
most infamous unsolved crimes. Fincher, screenwriter James Vanderbilt, and
producer Brad Fischer spent 18 months conducting their own investigation and research
into the Zodiac murders. The film grossed USD $13.3 million in its opening
weekend, placing second and posting a decent per-theater average of $5,671
8.Buried
The story is about Iraq-based American civilian truck driver
Paul Conroy (played by Reynolds), who, after being attacked, finds himself
buried alive in a wooden coffin, with only a lighter, flask, flashlight, knife,
glowsticks, pen and a mobile phone. Since its premiere at the Sundance Film
Festival, the film has received a positive critical reception. Review
aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a score of 87% based on
reviews from 148 critics, with an average score of 7.3 out of 10. The site's
consensus says: "Wringing a seemingly impossible amount of gripping drama
out of its claustrophobic premise, Buried is a nerve-wracking showcase for Ryan
Reynolds's talent." Scott Mantz of Access Hollywood called it "a
brilliantly twisted suspense thriller that would have made Alfred Hitchcock
proud. Chris Tilly at IGN gave the film a perfect 10 out of 10.
9.Number 23
The Number 23 is a 2007 American psychological thriller film
written by Fernley Phillips and directed by Joel Schumacher. Starring Jim
Carrey, the film was released in the United States on February 23, 2007. The
plot involves an obsession with the 23 enigma, an esoteric belief that all
incidents and events are directly connected to the number 23, some permutation
of the number 23, or a number related to 23. This is the second film to pair
Schumacher and Carrey, the first being Batman Forever. For his performance,
Carrey was nominated for the Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Actor at the 2008
Golden Raspberry Awards, but lost the "award" to Eddie Murphy for
Norbit. n its opening weekend, The Number 23 took in $14,602,867, coming in
behind Ghost Rider in its second weekend.[7] After five weeks of release, the
film grossed $35,193,167 at the domestic box office and $42,373,648 overseas
for a worldwide total of $77,566,815
10. The
Talented Mr. Ripley
The Talented Mr. Ripley is a 1999 American psychological
thriller written for the screen and directed by Anthony Minghella. An
adaptation of the 1955 Patricia Highsmith novel of the same name, the film
stars Matt Damon as Tom Ripley, Jude Law as Dickie Greenleaf, Gwyneth Paltrow
as Marge Sherwood and Cate Blanchett as Meredith Logue. The novel was
previously filmed as Plein Soleil in 1960. The film won several awards such as Best
Supporting Actor - Jude Law - 1999 British Academy of Film and Television Arts,
Best Score - Gabriel Yared - 1999 Broadcast Film Critics Association, Best
Director - Anthony Minghella - 1999 National Board of Review, Best Supporting
Actor - Philip Seymour Hoffman - 1999 National Board of Review, Best Supporting
Actor (Runner-up) - Philip Seymour Hoffman - 1999 National Society of Film
Critics nd nominated for many more.
Winter is coming (in some countries winter is still coming) and what a better way to spend your nights, watching movies especially when the weather is windy and cold. This Friday night was magnificent - raining all day long , freeze cold to stay out side, no one wanted to leave the house - we decided that a thriller marathon would be the best theme of the night. One picked the films , other prepared hot chocolate (with marshmallows please) took some warm blankets and snuggle at the couch with some extra pillows. You get the picture :P This night worked as an inspiration - and market research- for my Movie Monday. Mystery films with a grip of suspense. Here are my Top Ten Mystery Thriller Movies. The Usual Suspects (1995)
A sole survivor tells of the twisty events leading up to a
horrific gun battle on a boat, which begin when five criminals (Stephen
Baldwin, Gabriel Byrne, Benicio del Toro, Chazz Palminteri, Kevin Pollak, Pete
Postlethwaite and award winner Kevin Spacey.) meet at a
seemingly random police lineup. The film, shot on a $6 million budget, began as
a title taken from a column in Spy magazine called "The Usual
Suspects", after one of Claude Rains' most memorable lines in the classic
film Casablanca. Singer thought it would make a good title for a film, the
poster for which he and McQuarrie had developed as the first visual idea. The
film was shown out of competition at the 1995 Cannes Film Festival and then
initially released in a few theatres. It received favourable reviews, and was
eventually given a wider release. McQuarrie won an Academy Award for Best
Writing (Original Screenplay) and Spacey won the Academy Award for Best
Supporting Actor for his performance.
The Game (1997)
Wealthy San Francisco financier Nicholas Van Orton gets a
strange birthday present from wayward brother Conrad: a live-action game that
consumes his life. The Game was well received by critics like Roger Ebert and
major periodicals like The New York Times, but had middling box-office returns
compared to the success of Fincher's previous film, Seven. The scene in which
protagonist Van Orton finds a life-size clown doll in his driveway was ranked
#44 on Bravo's list of The 100 Scariest Movie Moments. According to Time
Magazine "Fincher's style is so handsomely oppressive, and Douglas'
befuddlement is so cagey, that for a while the film recalls smarter excursions
into heroic paranoia.
The Sixth Sense (1999)
It’s one of the most well know films with a twist ending and
of course with the catch phrase “ I see dead people” makes this film a MUST
SEE. The film was the second highest grossing film of 1999 (behind Star Wars
Episode I: The Phantom Menace), grossing about $293 million domestically and
about $379 million internationally. Its worldwide total is $672,806,292. The
film was nominated for six Academy Awards, including Best Picture. According to
the book DisneyWar, Disney's David Vogel read Shyamalan's speculative script
and instantly loved it. Without obtaining approval from his boss, Vogel bought
the rights to the script, despite the high price of US$2 million and the
stipulation that Shyamalan could direct the film. Disney later dismissed Vogel
as President of Walt Disney Pictures, and Vogel left the company.
The Bone Collector (1999)
A quadriplegic ex-homicide detective and his female partner
try to track down a serial killer who is terrorizing New York City. The movie
was based on the crime novel of the same name written by Jeffery Deaver,
concerning the quadriplegic detective Lincoln Rhyme. The
name was inspired by a New York Serial Killer from the early 1900s called James
Schneider, his surname being 'Tailor' in German. However when Stanon realized
that Lincoln was suicidal, he had to give him a reason to live. Using
inspiration of James Schneider, he took on Schneider's alias of the 'Bone
Collector' and began copying his crimes. Its a suspense film that Angelinas Jolie talent raised out with a good plot, investigation clues and great ending.
Memento (2000)
A man creates a strange system to help him remember things;
so he can hunt for the murderer of his wife without his short-term memory loss
being an obstacle. Memento premiered on September 5, 2000, at the Venice
International Film Festival to critical acclaim and received a similar response
when it was released in European theaters starting in October 2000. Critics
especially praised its unique, nonlinear narrative structure and motifs of
memory, perception, grief, self-deception, and revenge. The film was successful
at the box office and received numerous accolades, including Academy Award
nominations for Original Screenplay and Film Editing. The film subsequently was
named as one of the best films of the 2000s decade by several media, and has
since appeared in several critics' best lists.
The Others (2001)
Grace Stewart a single mother who lives in a darkened old house with her two
photosensitive children becomes convinced that her family home is haunted.It won eight Goya Awards, including awards for
Best Film and Best Director. This was the first English-language film ever to
receive the Best Film Award at the Goyas (Spain's national film awards),
without a single word of Spanish spoken in it. The Others was nominated for six
Saturn Awards including Best Director and Best Writing for Amenábar and Best
Performance by a Younger Actor for Alakina Mann, and won three: Best Horror
Film, Best Actress for Kidman and Best Supporting Actress for Fionnula
Flanagan. Kidman was also nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress
in Drama and a BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role, with Amenábar
being nominated for a BAFTA Award for Best Original Screenplay, a rare
occurrence for a horror film.
21 Grams (2003) One of the most amazing Naomi Watts - and of course my fav- Sean Penn performances. A freak accident brings
together a critically ill mathematician, a grieving mother, and a born-again
ex-con.21 Gramsis
presented in a nonlinear arrangement where the lives of the characters are
depicted before and after the accident. The three main characters each have
'past', 'present', and 'future' story threads, which are shown as non-linear
fragments that punctuate elements of the overall story, all imminently coming
toward each other and coalescing as the story progresses.The film received nominations at the 2003
Academy Awards for Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role (Benicio
del Toro) and Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role (Naomi Watts).
Mystic River (2003)
With a childhood tragedy that overshadowed their lives,
three men are reunited by circumstance when one loses a daughter. The film
opened to widespread critical acclaim. It was nominated for Academy Awards for
Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best
Supporting Actress, and Best Supporting Actor. Sean Penn won Best Actor and Tim
Robbins won Best Supporting Actor, making Mystic River the first film to win
both awards since Ben-Hur in 1959. Peter Travers of Rolling Stone wrote
"Clint Eastwood pours everything he knows about directing into Mystic
River. His film sneaks up, messes with your head, and then floors you. You
can't shake it. It's that haunting, that hypnotic." The Sun wrote that the
film was "a haunting masterpiece and probably (Eastwood's) best film to
date". The film earned $156,822,020 worldwide with $90,135,191 in the U.S.
and $66,686,829 in the international box office, which is significantly higher
than the film's $30,000,000 budget.
The Machinist (2004)
An industrial worker who hasn't slept in a year begins to
doubt his own sanity. The Machinist opened on 22 October 2004 in 3 theaters in
North America and grossed $64,661, with an average of $21,553 per theater
ranking 45th at the box office. The film's widest release was 72 theaters and
it grossed $1,082,715 in North America and $7,120,520 in other countries for a
total of $8,203,235. Christian Bale dramatically dieted for over four months
prior to filming, as his character needed to look drastically thin. According
to a biography of Bale written by his former assistant, his daily diet at this
time consisted of "water, an apple and one cup of coffee per day, with the
occasional whiskey" (approximately 55-260 calories). According to the DVD
commentary, he lost 62 pounds (28 kg), reducing his body mass to 120 pounds (54
kg). Bale wanted to go down to 99 pounds (45 kg), but the filmmakers would not
let him due to health concerns.
The Butterfly Effect (2004) An intelligent movie with a very unusual concept that is interesting
and unexpected and with different endings .Despite
the critical failure, the film was a commercial success, earning $17,065,227
and claiming the #1 spot in its opening weekend. Against a $13 million budget,
The Butterfly Effect grossed around $57,938,693 at the U.S. box office and
$96,060,858 worldwide. The film won the Pegasus Audience award and was nominated as Best Science
Fiction Fil at Brussels International Festival and nominated for Teen Choice Award
as for best thriller movie. What is distinguished about this movie is the fact
that it has four different endings. So you might want to check before you
download or see on-line.
