The Best Thrillers to Watch on Netflix This September

The fall movie season has begun and Netflix is ​​heralding it with the amazing new film Rebel Back. The new film from the director of Green room is already a notable contender for one of the year’s best films, but it’s also just one of many great thrillers on Netflix this September.

Each month we select a few thrillers on Netflix that fit the current season. Sometimes they fit well with an upcoming release. Other titles may be new additions to the platform.

Next to Rebel Backwe’ve put together a selection of excellent films, including one of the most brutal mystery films of all time and a dark thriller starring Denzel Washington, in which he practically plays the villain from a slasher film.

Director: Jeremy Saulnier
Form: Aaron Pierre, Don Johnson, AnnaSophia Robb

Jeremy Saulnier’s latest action thriller is not only the best thriller available on Netflix this month, but also a contender for one of the best films of the year, period. Aaron Pierre (Old, The Underground Railroad) plays Terry Richmond, a former Marine who is pulled over by police while biking through a small rural town to post bail for his recently incarcerated cousin. After the money he was carrying is seized by authorities through civil asset forfeiture, Terry’s drive to save his cousin’s life puts him on a collision course with the town’s corrupt sheriff (Don Johnson).

Pierre’s performance exudes a palpable, righteous anger that oozes from beneath the surface of his stoic and controlled demeanor. Rebel Back‘s story features some of the most efficient and memorable scripts in recent memory, with otherwise innocuous lines and props reappearing later with profound meaning. The action is exhilarating, the editing and pacing breathtaking, and the story elemental in its empathetic resonance. If Aaron Pierre isn’t a star after this performance, it certainly won’t be through any fault of his own. —Toussaint Egan

Director: Park Chan-wook
Form: Choi Min-sik, Yoo Ji-tae and Kang Hye-jeong

Oldie has one of the best thriller premise of all time: a drunken man is kidnapped and locked in a tiny hotel room, where he discovers that his wife has been murdered and that he has been framed for the crime. He remains locked in that room for 15 years, and when he is released, all he wants is revenge. And that revenge takes shape in brutal, shocking, and very unexpected ways.

Oldie is already a modern classic, but if you haven’t seen this dark South Korean thriller from master director Park Chan-wook, you absolutely must check it out — if you’re up for it.Austen Goslin

Director: Antoine Fuqua
Form: Denzel Washington, Dakota Fanning, Eugenio Mastrandrea

The equalizer 3 is a film for anyone who has ever lay awake in the middle of the night wondering, What if Jason Voorhees was an uncle-like black man with a penchant for tea and fancy hats? Denzel Washington reprises his role as Robert McCall, a retired Defense Intelligence Agency officer with a very specific skill set, acquired over a very long career of what I would describe as “artisanal ass-kicking.”

After a one-man raid on a mafia drug compound, Robert is helped back on his feet and awakens in the Italian coastal town of Altamonte. As he recovers, Robert is slowly embraced by the townspeople, who welcome him as one of their own. However, Robert’s actions eventually attract the attention of not only CIA agent Emma Collins (Dakota Fanning), but also an Italian crime syndicate that has begun terrorizing Altamonte. Determined to save his new adopted home, Robert secretly aids Emma in her investigation into the syndicate’s actions before eventually taking matters into his own hands.

The equalizer 3 is a slower and more emotionally restrained film than director Antoine Fuqua’s previous installments in the series, but no less violent and exciting. Washington delivers a gripping performance from Robert as a man ready to truly stop violence and embrace his newfound sense of community and peace, while at the same time ready to return to violence to protect that peace. What’s equally, if not more, riveting is seeing Washington and Fanning back on screen for the first time since 2004 Man on fireresulting in an unofficial mentor/mentee dynamic that makes the film worth watching in and of itself. —AT