The best thrillers you can watch on Netflix in January
The new year has begun and that means it’s time for a new batch of Netflix thrillers to fill your days.
Every month we select some of the best thrillers on Netflix to match the current season. Sometimes they fit well with an upcoming release. Other titles may be new additions to the platform.
This month we’ve rounded up an overlooked gem about Cold War spies with one of the most impressive casts ever assembled: a South Korean sci-fi thriller about a mysterious phone call and a psychological thriller from Found Footage about the horrors of online answering ads.
Editor’s Choice: The Good Shepherd
Director: Robert DeNiro
Form: Matt Damon, Angelina Jolie, Alec Baldwin
If you’re looking for a slow-paced drama about Cold War espionage and professional backstabbing, Robert De Niro’s fictionalized version of the birth of the CIA is a must-watch. Loosely based on the life of counterintelligence agent James Jesus Angleton, The Good Shepherd Matt Damon plays Edward Wilson, a Yale graduate who is recruited to work for the CIA to fight the Nazis and eventually the Soviets. As the years pass, Edward is forced again and again to confront the contradictions between his heart and his mind, between his conscience and his profession, and to confront the truths about himself and his country that he would much rather leave buried . With a running time of almost three hours, The Good Shepherd isn’t exactly a smooth watch, but it’s a rewarding one nonetheless. —Toussaint Egan
Director: Lee Chung Hyun
Stars: Park Shin Hye, Jeon Jong Seo, Kim Sung Ryung
One of the most exciting thrillers in recent history, The call follows a young woman named Kim Seo-yeon who returns to her childhood home and finds a very strange phone that somehow connects her directly to the young woman who lived in the house twenty years earlier, Oh Young-sook. However, the two discover that they are connected through more than just the phone, and discover that certain parts of their lives have strange overlaps, including the difficult relationships both have with their mothers. But this exciting new connection quickly goes awry when Seo-yeon discovers that Young-sook has a terrible secret and at least a few hidden agendas. This discovery leads the two into a bizarre cat-and-mouse game that takes place decades apart and in different realities. —Austen Goslin
Director: Patrick Brice
Form: Mark Duplass, Patrick Brice
Is there anything as terrifying and unpredictable as answering an online ad? The 2014 Found Footage horror film from director Patrick Brice and Mark Duplass cuts to the core of that fear and delivers a cinematic experience that is half the My dinner with Andre and the other half Wrong. After answering a Craigslist ad, Aaron (Brice) is recruited by Josef (Duplass) to help him film a suicide note to his unborn son. You see, Josef is dying… or at least that’s what he says. It isn’t long before this strange encounter takes a sinister turn, as Aaron discovers that both Josef and the circumstances behind his ‘project’ are not what they seem. The success of Crawl has spawned two sequels, a 2017 theatrical sequel and a spin-off TV series, with a potential third film currently in development. If you’re looking for a surprising, unusual psychological horror experience that will stay with you long after the credits roll, then you should definitely check this film out. -AT