10 Most Underrated Thrillers Of The 2010s

Looking back on the thrillers of the last decade, there are some exceptional movies that stand out. Movies like Parasite and Gone Girl gained a lot of attention from critics and audiences, earning their place among the genre’s best. But the 2010s featured plenty of great thrillers that flew under the radar.

In some cases, these were acclaimed movies that audiences just didn’t take an interest in. Some didn’t receive as positive of a response as they deserved. Whatever the reason for being overlooked, it is never too late to check out these underrated thrillers from the 2010s.

10 Frozen (2010)

Don’t let the name fool you, Frozen is not an animated movie about princesses, but rather a brutal survival thriller. The movie follows a trio of friends who set out to enjoy a late-night ski adventure only for their chairlift to stop midway up, leaving them stranded high in the frigid air with no help around and wolves circling below.

It’s perhaps not surprising that such a small movie didn’t get much attention, but it achieves a lot from its modest scale. It is a gripping and grounded tale that will leave viewers with chills for more than one reason.

9 Headhunters (2011)

Though Parasite managed to make Oscar history, it is always difficult for a foreign language movie to get noticed by American audiences. Even a movie as exciting as Headhunters was not given its due despite featuring Jaime Lannister himself, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau.

The movie follows a corporate headhunter who moonlights as an art thief. But when he steals a valuable painting from a former mercenary, his world is turned upside down. It is a nail-biting game of cat and mouse with a bit of dark humor thrown in.

8 Killing Them Softly (2012)

Even a big star like Brad Pitt can have overlooked movie roles such as in Killing Them Softly. The crime thriller finds Pitt playing a mob hitman who is hired to clean up after a pair of low-level criminals rob a mob card game.

The movie received a very negative reaction from audiences who were most likely expecting a shoot-em-up gangster movie. Instead, Killing Them Softly is a slow and quieter thriller that takes an interesting approach to depict organized crime as a corporation which makes for a fascinating and unique thriller story.

7 Blue Ruin (2013)

The revenge thriller is a common story with plenty of great entries to its genre over the years. Blue Ruin follows a young man who returns to his childhood home to carry out an act of vengeance only to set off a series of deadly consequences.

What makes Blue Ruin stand out as a revenge story is how incompetent and messy the protagonist is as an assassin. It gives the movie a strange sense of humor among all the brutality and director Jeremy Saulnier maintains a gripping tension throughout the story.

6 ’71 (2014)

The historical thriller ’71 earned solid reviews upon its debut only to fail to gain any further attention. As the title suggests, the story takes place in 1971 in Belfast as British soldiers go in to suppress riots. When the forces pull out of the city, one lone soldier is left behind.

Instead of turning the story into an action movie where the hero fights his way to safety, it is a thriller about a scared young man running from danger. It is a thrilling and intense ride that reveals the line between allies and enemies can be rather thin.

5 Cop Car (2015)

Before directing MCU projects like Spider-Man and the upcoming Fantastic Four, Jon Watts directed this low-budget thriller. Though Cop Car managed to put Watts on Marvel’s radar, few others have found this intriguing little movie.

It follows a pair of young friends who find an abandoned cop car only to become the target of the murderous corrupt cop it belongs to. It is a far different movie than Watts’s superhero outings, but it is a tight and gripping throwback adventure.

4 Imperium (2016)

It is likely some audiences will always have a difficult time separating Daniel Radcliffe from his Harry Potter role, but Imperium is a great example of what the talented actor is capable of. Radcliff plays a young FBI agent who takes on a mission of infiltrating a white supremacist group.

The movie is a solid procedural thriller elevated by Radcliffe’s lead performance. The lingering tension as he gets sucked deeper into this dangerous world and surrounds himself with enemies leaves viewers on the edge of their seats.

3 I Don’t Feel At Home In This World Anymore (2017)

I Don’t Feel at Home in This World Anymore is another movie that maintains its dark and violent story while also adding some comedy. It follows a mild-mannered woman whose house is broken into, causing her to take action in finding the thieves.

Melanie Lynskey is great as the unassuming hero while Elijah Wood is terrific as her oddball neighbor who joins her vigilante mission. It is a weird and wonderful story that seemed to be buried when released on Netflix.

2 Searching (2018)

John Cho will soon be leading the live-action Cowboy Bebop series, but he really proved his lead hero chops in the excellent thriller Searching. Cho plays a father who begins a frantic search to find his missing daughter.

While that might sound like a typical missing person thriller, Searching is unique in that it is told all through computer, cell phone, and video screens. What could have easily been a silly gimmick is used expertly to create a gripping and entertaining thriller like no other.

1 The Vast Of Night (2019)

While most audiences expect alien invasion thrillers to be big-budget productions, The Vast of Night accomplishes a lot with a very small scale and a lot of talent. The movie takes place in a small town in the 1950s when a switchboard operator and radio DJ pick up strange sounds in the area.

Told over the course of one night, the movie simply follows these characters as they explore this occurrence and reveal a much larger story at hand. It feels like a throwback to Amblin-type movies with some great filmmaking, including unbelievable one-shot sequences that are worth watching on their own.

About The Author

Colin McCormick
(2030 Articles Published)

Colin McCormick is a Senior Writer with Screen Rant and has been a proud member of the team since 2019. In addition to his work as Screen Rant, Colin is also a writer of News, Feature and Review pieces at Game Rant. Colin has had a long passion and obsession with movies going back to the first time he saw The Lion King in theaters. Along with movies, Colin stays up-to-date on the latest must-see TV shows. While he loves to find interesting projects in any kind of genre, he has a special movie of crime stories that are infused with a little dark humor much like the work of his favorite author, Elmore Leonard.

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