[#InEnglish] Focus: Shoot to thrill(er)

(frightening noise of a creaking door…)

THRILLER!

Today let’s focus on one of the most famous cinematographic genres that combines both suspense and excitement, but also anxiety. We all know thrillers but do we know this genre of fiction as good as we think we do? Furthermore, we’re lucky enough that the 11th Film Festival of La Roche-sur-Yon has introduced an Argentinian thriller-horrific movie, El Prófugo by Natalia Meta.

If the very first thrillers seem to appear in the 1920’s, the master director of the genre is undeniably Mr. Alfred Hitchcock. The Lodger, his first thriller which is also his third silent movie, opens up in 1926. Hitchcock’s reign on the genre lasts over sixty years with no less than 63 movies, from Strangers on a Train (1951), Dial M for Murder (1954), Vertigo (1958) to his seminal Pycho (1960).

Interestingly enough, more and more psychological thrillers and political thrillers were directed after the assassination of President Kennedy in 1963 to encapsulate the prevailing paranoia. So, in a way… thanks Lee Harvey! The thriller genre can also be connected to other movie genres like horror (slasher, particularly), or crime, and those combinations gave birth to many legendary movies.

Nowadays the thriller genre thrives quite well since it is handed over from a decade to another by means of directors like Brian De Palma, David Fincher, Martin Scorsese or Denis Villeneuve. So if you want to break a cold in a cold sweat, take a look below, as you can see, from the website Sens Critique, ten movies hailed as the best thrillers ever!

1. Seven (1995) by David Fincher

2. The Silence of the Lambs (1991) by Jonathan Demme

3. Shutter Island (2010) by Martin Scorsese

4. Usual Suspects (1995) by Bryan Singer

5. Prisoners (2013) by Denis Villeneuve

6. Gone Girl (2014) by David Fincher

7. Old Boy (2003) by Park Chan-wook

8. Psychose (1960) by Alfred Hitchcock

9. Fight Club (1999) by David Fincher

10. Memento (2000) by Christopher Nolan