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There's a reason Paramount+'s fast-paced new movie Wardriver sits at the top of the streamer's Top 10 rankings—it's a thriller, and people love them. In fact, according to FlixPatrol, most of the biggest streaming services currently have thrillers among their top five because they offer mystery, crank up the tension, and dare you to look away lest you miss something.
And while Paramount+ staples like the Mission: Impossible saga get watched on repeat, allow me to offer a few other suggestions for a weekday adrenaline-pumper, with my number one pick a David Fincher classic about one of America's most notorious serial killers.
Minority Report
Spielberg and Cruise hunt a murder that hasn't happened yet
Before Tom Cruise and Steven Spielberg had their much-publicized falling out around the time of their second and last movie together, War of the Worlds, they collaborated on what is one of the best and most influential sci-fi thrillers ever made—Minority Report. The iconic 2002 film, an adaptation of Philip K. Dick's 1956 short story of the same name, is still one of the best screen adaptations of Dick's work, alongside Blade Runner and Total Recall.
In 2054, where psychics known as "precogs" can look into the future and see murders before they're committed, law enforcement officers who are part of a unit known as PreCrime can use the information to apprehend perpetrators, often before they even know they're about to kill. Heading up the PreCrime unit is John Anderton (Cruise), who's very good at his job and believes in the system, until the precogs finger him as a future killer. This triggers a high-stakes manhunt, led by agent Danny Witwer (Colin Farrell), as Anderton races to clear his name and uncover the conspiracy behind the accusation.
Minority Report is not only a classic mold-breaking sci-fi thriller, but nerds will tip their hats to the film's prediction of gesture-controlled screens and eyeball-scanning tech. The film has a solid 89% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
The Talented Mr. Ripley
Identity theft was never so sinister
With Matt Damon leading the cast of what is quickly becoming the movie event of 2026 in Christopher Nolan’s massive The Odyssey, why not set aside a couple of hours this week to pay homage to one of the actor’s most sinister roles in the psychological thriller The Talented Mr. Ripley.
Nominated for five Oscars, Anthony Minghella's 1999 adaptation of Patricia Highsmith's 1955 novel is a gorgeously chilling movie about stolen identity—shot across some of the most beautiful corners of Italy, as if the scenery were there to soften the evil unfolding within it. Damon plays Tom Ripley, a young New York go-getter who’s sent to a beautiful Italian coastal town to retrieve Dickie Greenleaf (Jude Law), the pampered, work-dodging son of a shipping magnate. But once Tom tastes Dickie's frivolous, sun-drenched lifestyle and glamorous circle of friends (including Gwyneth Paltrow and Cate Blanchett), bringing him home is driven from Tom's mind—and something far darker takes its place.
Highsmith's character has been adapted many times since, from 1960 French classic Purple Noon to Netflix's 2024 series starring Fleabag's Andrew Scott, but Damon's deranged con man remains the definitive big-screen Ripley.
Zodiac
David Fincher's slow-burn chase for an uncatchable real-life killer
Widely considered one of director David Fincher's (Mindhunter, Fight Club) best movies, Zodiac trades the religion-driven flash of his film Se7en for a meticulous, creeping dread—made all the more haunting because it's all true.
Based on San Francisco Chronicle political cartoonist Robert Graysmith's non-fiction books Zodiac (1986) and Zodiac Unmasked (2002), Fincher’s critically acclaimed film tells the true story of the serial killer who famously taunted police with his handwritten ciphers and letters while terrorizing the San Francisco Bay Area in the late 1960s and '70s.
Jake Gyllenhaal plays the out-of-his-league but determined Graysmith, whose puzzle-solving fixartion morphs into full obsession as he chases a suspect the cops can't quite pinpoint. Robert Downey Jr. is cynical crime reporter Paul Avery, and Mark Ruffalo is homicide detective Dave Toschi, both run ragged while on the hunt for Zodiac, who was never caught. The 2007 film lives up to Fincher’s superb library of work and has a 90% critics’ rating on RT.
Bring on the goosebumps
Whichever of these acclaimed thrillers you start with, you'll surely be second-guessing someone's motives by the end credits. But if, for some reason, none of these movies is doing it for you, How-To Geek's streaming section has an endless array of movie recommendations for you to help you find something great to watch.
