The 5 best thrillers to watch on Netflix and Hulu in September

Happy September, Polygon readers!

Summer is almost behind us, which means the fall of film and television releases are almost upon us. Spooky season is upon us, but that doesn’t mean you have to wait until October to enjoy the best thrillers currently streaming on Netflix and Hulu.

We’ve delved into the libraries of two of the most popular streaming platforms to bring you the best thrillers to watch as you wave goodbye to summer. From Michael Mann’s chilling neo-noir thriller Security and Steven Spielberg’s 1975 classic Jaws to Bong Joon-ho’s Snowpiercer and more: here are the best thrillers to watch on Netflix and Hulu this month.

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Thrillers on Netflix

Security

Year: 2004
Duration: 2 o’clock
Director: Michael Mann
Form: Tom Cruise. Jamie Foxx, Jada Pinkett Smith

It’s Tom Cruise’s scariest role – what’s not to love?

Security follows Max (Jamie Foxx), a Los Angeles cab driver who experiences the worst night of his life after picking up Vincent (Cruise), a well-dressed passenger who offers him $600 to be his personal driver that night. When Vincent’s true identity as a murderer is revealed, Max must find a way to seek help without incurring the wrath of his cold-blooded captor.

Featuring stunning nighttime cinematography, invigorating action and a brilliant cast of performers (including a brief appearance by Javier Bardem before his breakout 2007 film) No country for old men), Security is a standout contribution to the career of an always great filmmaker.

Jaws

Year: 1975
Duration: 2h 4m
Director: Steven Spielberg
Form: Roy Scheider, Robert Shaw, Richard Dreyfuss

Summer may be over, but the fear of man-eating sharks is evergreen.

Steven Spielberg’s blockbuster sent shockwaves through American audiences in 1975 by asking them one simple question: what if the greatest serial killer was nature itself? Set in the fictional New England resort town of Amity Island, Jaws centers on a police chief (Roy Scheider), a marine biologist (Richard Dreyfuss), and a professional shark hunter (Robert Shaw), who team up to take on a vicious great white shark terrorizing beachgoers during the 4th of July weekend. Adapted from Peter Benchley’s novel of the same name, Spielberg’s film eschews the first two-thirds of the source material in favor of an original story about institutional corruption in the face of looming danger (a theme that resonates with the then-recent Watergate scandal) . building to the film’s climactic third act, which adheres more strictly to Benchley’s book.

Debatable the typical summer horror blockbuster of American cinema, Jaws made Spielberg break through as one of the preeminent directors of his generation, a fact that would later be proven by a series of similar era-defining films such as Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Raiders of the Lost ArkAnd ET the extraterrestrial. Why not end the summer by watching one of the great summer blockbusters?

Snowpiercer

Year: 2013
Duration: 2h 6m
Director: Bong Joon Ho
Form: Chris Evans, Song Kang-ho, Tilda Swinton

Fall is just around the corner, and what better way to brace yourself for the cold weather than by watching Bong Joon-ho’s dystopian climate apocalypse thriller starring Chris “America’s Ass” Evans?

Set in the not-so-distant future, Bong’s film follows the inhabitants of the Snowpiercer, a massive sightseeing train and humanity’s last refuge after a climate catastrophe. Evans stars as Curtis Everett, a member of the Snowpiercer’s underclass, who rises up to overthrow the train’s oppressive upper class and create a better life for everyone else. With the help of Namgoong Minsoo (Song Kang-ho), a security specialist banished to the back of the train, and his psychic daughter Yona (Go Ah-sung), Curtis and his rebellion must battle the train’s army of security soldiers. reach the front and kill the Snowpiercer’s conductor, Wilford (Ed Harris).

Snowpiercer is a gripping and hallucinatory sci-fi thriller, packed with thrilling moments of action and desperation as the haves and have-nots of humanity’s last bastion of survival battle it out for the fate of the future. Featuring Bong’s latest science fiction film, Mickey 17set to premiere next year, now is a perfect time to look back at the director’s first foray into Hollywood filmmaking.

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Thrillers on Hulu

How to blow up a pipeline

Year: 2023
Duration: 1h 44m
Director: Daniel Goudhaber
Form: Ariela Barer, Kristine Froseth, Lukas Gage

Summer comes off the back of a summer in which global temperatures reached all-time highs, a summer marked by several climate-induced disasters, including the Canadian And Hawaiian forest firesDaniel Goldhaber’s eco-thriller, based on the non-fiction book by Andreas Malm, resonates even more every day.

How to blow up a pipeline follows a fictional group of climate activists, brought together by a mutual sense of anger and desperation, as they devise a plan to blow up an oil pipeline in West Texas. The film takes its time to reach its inevitable conclusion, examining the lives of each of the activists and what exactly radicalized them to take such extreme action in the fight for climate justice.

Whether it comes in the form of a loved one sickened by environmental pollution or a house torn apart by an oil conglomerate’s eminent domain, Goldhaber’s film does something few other films are willing to do: portray the lives of activists featuring controversial ideologies the same level of complexity and humanity is often reserved for characters who defend the status quo. It doesn’t matter what you take away from watching it How to blow up a pipelineOne thing’s for sure: it’s undeniably a reflection of its cultural moment, and a film that isn’t afraid to ask hard questions that only become more urgent by the day.

No exit

Year: 2022
Duration: 1h 35m
Director: Damien Power
Form: Havana Rose Liu, Danny Ramirez, David Rysdahl

If you’re looking for a paranoid thriller where no one trusts anyone and everyone is tired, No exit is the movie for you.

BottomsHavana Rose Liu stars as Darby, a recovering drug addict who escapes from rehab when she learns her sick mother is in the hospital. Stranded in a snowstorm, Darby stops at a visitors center filled with a group of fellow stranded strangers. When Darby discovers that one of the vehicles parked outside contains a kidnapped girl, Darby must devise a plan to discover the identity of the vehicle’s owner, rescue the girl, and escape safely through the blizzard to find help. No exit is a solid single-location thriller à la John Carpenter’s The thing or Quentin Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight, a tightly wound mystery that slowly spirals into a chaotic, violent frenzy for survival. Grab your things, make some popcorn and enjoy this highly entertaining thriller.