Movies Like Nightcrawler Psychological Thriller Fans Need To See

Director-writer Dan Gilroy's 2014 thriller "Nightcrawler" is a cynical masterpiece. Jake Gyllenhaal utterly inhabits the character of Lou Bloom, a budding photojournalist who also happens to be a sociopath willing to do whatever it takes to advance himself in a profession where amorality and a lack of empathy are features, not bugs. This is the mark of a great thriller; the ability to be both enrapturing and tense on a moment to moment basis, and also provide the audience with a point of view and a message. "Nightcrawler" hits this mark with chilling precision.

All the following thrillers, like "Nightcrawler," contain both style and substance — although some lean more heavily in one direction. Whether they are inspirations or contemporaries to Gilroy's moody character piece, each one of the thrillers on this list contains a similar darkness at its core. So keep the lights on if you have to, but don't go to bed tonight without giving one of these masterful works of suspense a try. 

A sometimes forgotten entry in David Fincher's excellent catalog of dark '90s thrillers is "The Game" with Michael Douglas and Sean Penn. The two play a pair of brothers who were once close but have become estranged through the collective trauma of their father's suicide. When Conrad (Penn) visits his wealthy, grieving brother Nicholas (Douglas) he gifts him a voucher for a game. ​​Offered by a company called Consumer Recreation Services (CRS), the experience is promised to be immersive and life-changing unlike anything else.

After becoming irritated with a process that results in his application to play the game being denied, Nicholas starts to be terrorized by CRS. The lines between game and reality break down for the characters and the audience, keeping you on your toes the entire film. "The Game" is a thriller that twists and turns at every other minute, but never feels convoluted. The ending too, without giving anything away, is a stunner. Whether you predicted it or not is irrelevant. It simply works. 

Director Lynne Ramsay earned recognition for her traumatic psychological drama "We Need to Talk About Kevin" in 2011. Her next film wasn't released in most markets until 2018, but "You Were Never Really Here" established Ramsay as one of the most provocative directors working in the thriller space. 

Joaquin Phoenix is Joe, a hitman who targets human traffickers that kidnap young girls. As he takes on a job to rescue the daughter of a state senator, his dark and abusive past is slowly revealed to the audience. Once again, Ramsay is focusing on the effects of trauma. The ways trauma breeds both violence and compassion is on display in Joe, as Phoenix plays the character with nuance and grace. "You Were Never Really Here" is a tender movie, but it is set in such a dark place and punctuated with such brutal violence. It is that contrast that makes it worth watching.

Another thriller for Gyllenhaal fans to devour, "Prisoners" is the English-language debut of now-acclaimed French-Canadian director Denis Villeneuve. And what a rousing entrance the "Dune" director made. "Prisoners" is long, dark, and complex. More importantly, it was a sleeper hit both at the box office and with critics. Without its success, Villeneuve would probably never have got the budget and influence to make "Blade Runner 2049" and "Arrival." 

It starts simply when two little girls go missing. Detective Loki (Gyllenhaal) is on the case, but one of the parents, Keller Dover (Hugh Jackman), doesn't trust him and takes matters into his own hands after Loki releases the prime suspect. It sounds formulaic, but where "Prisoners" goes is anything but predictable. The supporting ensemble here is absolutely killer, too. With Viola Davis, Terrence Howard, Melissa Leo, and Paul Dano, it is hard not to find a compelling, nuanced performance around every one of this film's dark corners. 

Another classic collaboration between Martin Scorsese and Robert De Niro, "The King of Comedy" is not a comedy, but one of the most underrated thrillers in both renowned artists' respective filmographies. To this day, Rupert Pupkin remains one of the most charismatic and deeply unsettling characters De Niro has ever brought to life.

"The King of Comedy" is all about Pupkin, an amateur comedian with delusions of grandeur. After not landing a spot on a talk show with Jerry Langford (based on and played by Jerry Lewis), Pupkin hatches a kidnapping scheme to force Langford to give him his big break. The plot escalates to increasingly tense heights and ends in a spectacular manner.

If you have seen "Joker," you might be familiar with a lot of the beats here. Todd Phillip's take on Batman's arch nemesis is an homage to the New York films of the '70s and early '80s, but specifically references "King of Comedy," even casting De Niro as the Jerry Lewis figure to Joaquin Phoenix's Pupkin-inspired Arthur Fleck.

Director Tom Ford's unsettling "Nocturnal Animals" featured a knockout cast that included Amy Adams, Jake Gyllenhaal, Michael Shannon and an Oscar-nominated performance from Aaron Taylor-Johnson that you may have forgotten about by now. "Nocturnal Animals" is deeply impressive — if you can make it through it. The film's plot is heavily centered around lust and sexual violence and it can be a hard watch for some. Even among the other thrillers on this list, this one is extreme. 

The story switches between the real-life relationship of successful art gallery owner Susan Morrow (Adams) and her ex-husband Edward Sheffield (Gyllenhaal) and that of the fictional world inside a novel that Edward has written, titled "Nocturnal Animals." The film is an occasionally confusing, yet enticing romance in which Edward communicates his raw feelings about the wreckage of his marriage to Susan through the bleakness of the novel — which is an unbearably intense thriller all on its own.

"Caché" (also titled "Hidden") is a French film by Austrian writer-director Michael Haneke, who made both the extremely dark 1997 thriller "Funny Games" and its English-language remake 10 years later. With great leading performances by Juliette Binoche and Daniel Auteuil, it is easy to recommend this French-language feature to any fan of the thriller genre.

It follows a middle-aged married couple who begin receiving anonymous videotapes of their own home. As the frequency of invasive tapes increases, the family's internal relationships come under more strain and secrets from the past start to make their way to the surface. Tension builds between the parents and the children as it becomes increasingly uncertain if they will ever solve the mystery. The movie is slow and intellectual, but any movie fan who liked "Nightcrawler" for its nuanced performances and creeping sense of dread should give this French thriller a shot.

Another off-kilter thriller from "The Lobster" writer-director Yorgos Lanthimos, the dark and enigmatic "The Killing of a Sacred Deer" is actually the Greek filmmaker's most straightforward movie to date. Still, it is full of Lanthimos trademarks, including deadpan line readings, morbid humor, and a general air of unease that lingers throughout the movie's run time.

"The Killing of a Sacred Deer" stars Colin Farrell and Nicole Kidman as a married couple with three beautiful children who must deal with a strange young man who appears in their lives. Steven (Farrell), a rich, successful surgeon, meets a grieving boy (Barry Keoghan) one day and takes him under his wing. As the young man starts to become more and more manipulative and frightening, his true purpose in this family's life begins to come into focus. It is an unsettling thriller that isn't for the faint of heart, but if you can grin and bear it you'll find a tale worth mulling over for weeks after.