Psychological Thrillers

Sometimes the suspense comes from within one character, where they must resolve conflicts with their own minds. Usually, this conflict is an effort to understand something that has happened to them. These conflicts are made more vivid with physical expressions of the conflict in the means of physical manifestations.


Characters are no longer reliant on physical strength to overcome their brutish enemies (which is often the case in typical action-thrillers), but rather are reliant on their mental resources, whether it be by battling wits with a formidable opponent or by battling for equilibrium in the character's own mind. The suspense created by psychological thrillers often comes from two or more characters preying upon one another's minds, either by playing deceptive games with the other or by merely trying to demolish the other's mental state.


Strangers on a Train (1951) , Donnie Darko (2001), Unbreakable (2000), When a Stranger Calls (1979), Psycho (1960), Phone Booth (2003), Secret Window (2004), The Silence of the Lambs (1991), Jacob’s Ladder (1990), The Sixth Sense (1999), Basic Instinct (1992)