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There’s something comforting about a well-made thriller. The idea that despite its convoluted machinations and twisted turns, we will eventually arrive at a fixed resolution. The bad guy will be caught, the person caught in a trap will escape from it, the big riddle will be solved. From an old-school Agatha Christie-style murder mystery to an Oscar-nominated Guillermo del Toro movie to a horror film that will keep you guessing as it unravels - here are the 10 best thrillers on DisneyPlus Hotstar:
A group of affluent tourists travel to a remote island in search of the ultimate fine-dining experience, only to be met with a deranged chef (Ralph Fiennes) and an eccentric series of courses. The Menu is a pitch-black comedy that’s equal parts delectable and disturbing. Part of the fun is that at no point will you be able to predict what deranged delights it will serve up next.
A meet-cute that takes on a sinister undertone, an actor facing #MeToo allegations, a house bought in the Eighties that shelters horrific secrets — these three stories dovetail in terrific, terrifying ways in one of the most original horror features in recent memory. You’ll never look at an AirBnB the same way again.
This prequel to the Predator franchise switches up the formula by having its titular alien fight not Armymen and scientists, as it’s done before, but a teenage girl (Amber Midthunder) belonging to the indigenous Comanche tribe. It’s a thriller that doubles up as a coming-of-age tale in the most foreboding of environments, a jungle that seems to stretch on endlessly and warn that anybody who wanders in too deep might find themselves reduced from hunter to hunted.
There just had to be a Sriram Raghavan film on this list. Unfolding as a flashback, this adaptation of the 1963 French movie Symphonie Pour Un Massacre opens with an unidentified man being shot and then traces the complex circumstances leading up to that moment. It’s twisted, layered and unpredictable in the way all the best thrillers are.
Guillermo del Toro returns to his theme of ‘humans are the real monsters!’, weaving a taut narrative of deception, deceit and double-crossing in Forties New York. The first half of Nightmare Alley unfolds at a travelling carnival where workers come up with small-time ruses to trick customers, but it’s the second half, in which a circus worker (Bradley Cooper) poses as a clairvoyant and hatches a major scheme to swindle a wealthy tycoon (Richard Jenkins) in which the suspense builds to near-unbearable levels.
It’s easy to think of Eega as a fantasy action movie — this is, after all, a film in which the protagonist (Sudeepa) is a CGI fly. But what could be a more classic thriller movie plot than a man returning to avenge his own death? That he happens to be reincarnated as a fly is a credit to the imagination of the film’s writer and director, Vijayendra Prasad and SS Rajamouli, who revitalized the revenge drama with their unique spin on it.
When a director (Adrien Brody) adapting Agatha Christie's play The Mousetrap into a film is found dead after its 100th performance, an inspector (Sam Rockwell) must team up with his inexperienced constable (Saoirse Ronan) to uncover who the killer was. See How They Run is cheeky and often light-hearted, but the old-school murder mystery at its core is solidly structured. Plus, it’s a treat to see Rockwell and Ronan driving around Fifties London in a cute little Anglia.
Told over the course of a week, Ugly follows a struggling actor (Rahul Bhat) whose daughter (Anshika Shrivastava) goes missing. The film’s narrative urgency renders it a ticking timebomb, yet it’s infused with a more lingering, existential dread. It’s one of Anurag Kashyap’s best.
Is it scarier to lose your husband, or discover you might be better off with him dead? When a widow Beth (Rebecca Hall) begins to fear that she’s being haunted by her late husband’s ghost, it leads her to uncover details about his life that threaten to shatter her. The Night House is a horror movie that unravels like a gripping mystery, asking one existential question at its core — can we ever really know the people we love?
Six strangers check in to the El Royale hotel located along California–Nevada border — a nod to the characters’ duality — and as the night unfolds, the secret connections, frayed connections and deceptive alliances between them are revealed. The film boasts a star cast of Jeff Bridges, Cynthia Erivo, Dakota Johnson, Jon Hamm, Cailee Spaeny, Lewis Pullman and Chris Hemsworth.