10 Worst Thrillers of the 2020s So Far, Ranked

The art and beauty in creating a high-tension, edge-of-your-seat thriller is something that has been widely explored throughout all of film history, with many revolutinos and developments being made in expanding the genre’s possibilities. In the modern day of filmmaking, thriller films have reached a point of massive highs, ranging from widely acclaimed blockbusters like Oppenheimer to smaller-scale yet equally praised films like Anatomy of a Fall.

However, the 2020s hasn’t been without its fair share of thrillers that have accomplished the complete opposite, being comically inept in their execution with constant flaws and issues that get in the way of their intended thrills. These select few thrillers range from high-budgeted misfires that failed to connect with audiences to low-budget passion projects that faltered due to a lack of experience or a myriad of other issues. At the very least, the complete lack of quality in these films serves to only make the best thrillers of recent memory that much more invigorating.

10 ‘Money Plane’ (2020)

Directed by Andrew Lawrence

While many low-quality thriller films set themselves up as a larger-than-life experience that disappoints on its promises, Money Plane is the type of cheap, no-nonsense film that is fully aware of its own ineptitude. The modern, airline-based take on a heist thriller follows a professional thief who is $40 million in debt, planning to pay it all off with one final heist on the futuristic airborne casino known as the Money Plane. However, the plane is also home to some of the world’s most dangerous criminals, making the score far from easy to accomplish.

While it’s certainly refreshing to see an action-thriller that fully embraces its status as a dumb, low-effort thrill ride, being self-aware of one’s flaws doesn’t remove said flaws from the equation. It makes for a fun time to mock aspects like the ridiculously unbelievable plot, Kelsey Grammar‘s comical phoned-in performance, and action scenes that baffle the mind with their lack of quality. As far as the 2020s are concerned, this is one of the decade’s most iconic so-bad-they’re-good movies so far.

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9 ‘They/Them’ (2022)

Directed by John Logan

While the film’s cheesy title quickly made it the subject of mockery when it was first announced, the inherent concept behind They/Them was certainly brimming with potential. The idea of a classic summer camp slasher that directly leans into the deep-rooted history that LGBTQ+ themes and characters have had with horror sounds like a recipe for something truly special, yet in execution, this potential is largely squandered. The film follows a group of campers at an LGBTQ+ conversion camp dealing not only with a ruthless killer on the loose but the horrifying psychological techniques of conversion therapy.

The biggest problem with They/Them is that it attempts to balance its two completely different sources of horror that, individually, could have made for a great film, but together serve to detract from one another annoyingly. The film is at its best when it shows the very real and palpable dread of conversion therapy, yet the slasher plot, bare-bones characters, and obnoxious editing all get in the way of the film’s occasional signs of greatness. More than just a simple bad experience, its disappointing nature makes it that much more painful, as the pieces were there for something truly great.

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8 ‘Miller’s Girl’ (2024)

Directed by Jade Halley Bartlett

Erotic thrillers that deal with deeply uncomfortable subject matter and age-gap relationships in film have been a topic of controversy and discussion for decades, with Miller’s Girl being the decade’s premiere example of how badly this topic can be handled. The film follows the story of talented young writer Cairo Sweet (Jenna Ortega), who finds herself getting entangled in a seductive game of cat and mouse with her teacher (Martin Freeman) after being assigned a deeply personal writing project.

While Miller’s Girl attempts to approach its risqué topic in good faith and with a distinct focus on painting its characters in a dark light, the film doesn’t go far enough and ends up portraying the exact opposite message. By the film’s end, it’s clear that it has added nothing of value to the conversation of the uncomfortable power dynamic apparent in these age gaps, yet still has the gall to stoke its ego and treat itself as a highly intellectual experience. The film completely botches the importance and impact of its themes ironically during a time when they couldn’t be more relevant.

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7 ‘Firestarter’ (2022)

Directed by Keith Thomas

A modern reboot of the Stephen King classic that was previously adapted to film almost 40 years prior, Firestarteractively makes changes to King’s beloved original story that serve to take away from the overall experience. The film follows the struggles that have continuously followed young Charlie, whose parents have constantly been on the run to hide her from a shadowy federal agency that wants to harness her inherent pyrokinetic powers. While her father has done a good job of teaching Charlie to suppress her power, as she turns 11 years old, the fires become much harder to control.

Firestarter features a singular redeeming quality, that being the exceptional score done by John Carpenter and his son, yet every other element of this forgettable remake falls flat on its face. The film is simply too divided in terms of tone and doesn’t know what it wants to be, whether an emotional family drama, a striking action thriller, or the origin story of a superhero. This divided nature and tonal inconsistency end up resulting in a complete lack of stakes or interest in anything happening in the film, being largely forgettable by its end.

6 ‘The Last Days of American Crime’ (2020)

Directed by Olivier Megaton

An underwhelming action thriller that manages to annoy and bore much more than excite, The Last Days of American Crime mixes obnoxious editing and vile themes to make for a largely sickening experience. The film takes place in a dystopian future where, in a last-ditch effort by the government to put a stop to crime and terrorism, it enacts a plan to broadcast a signal that will force those who hear it to be unable to knowingly break the law.

As if the multitude of issues surrounding the actual filmmaking and pacing were obnoxious enough, The Last Days of American Crime depicts mindless violence and over-the-top gore during a moment when audiences needed it least. Even if this police brutality-filled film had been released at a time that wasn’t as unfortunate as the George Floyd protests, it still wouldn’t receive any mileage or praise due to just how poorly its action and story are executed. The film has nothing to say outside its generic, mind-numbing action, yet said action isn’t even good to begin with.

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5 ‘Karen’ (2021)

Directed by Coke Daniels

Striking and politically poignant horror thrillers have been a large trend in the 2020s following the major success of Jordan Peele’s filmography in the late 2010s, yet one film that notoriously tried and failed to recapture this energy was Karen. The film follows racist neighbor Karen Drexler (Taryn Manning) who is making it a personal mission to displace the new black family that has moved in next door to her. However, this family won’t back down from staying in the neighborhood, creating a fierce battle between them.

One of the strongest elements of Peele’s films is their inherent subtlety in how they handle their themes, working wonders not just examinations of modern political struggles but still engaging films without the inherent subtext. Karen has no difference between its subtext and standard text, being as blatant and in-your-face as possible with its themes, which wouldn’t be a problem if said themes weren’t incredibly surface-level and unengaging. It ironically gives its messages the inverse effect, almost glorifying its racist caricature to create one of the worst horror movies of the 2020s.

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4 ‘Deadly Illusions’ (2021)

Directed by Anna Elizabeth James

Deadly Illusions follows bestselling female novelist Mary, who is dealing with the difficulties of writer’s block, so in an attempt to finally get some progress done on her work, she hires innocent young Grace to watch over her twin children. Mary soon finds the inspiration in her storytelling from her blossoming friendship with Grace, yet things take a turn when she begins to have sexual fantasies about Grace, including actions between Grace and her husband, Tom. As these fantasies continue to grow in quantity, Mary can’t discern the difference between what is real and what is a fantasy.

Deadly Illusions takes a standard plot of psychological turmoil and erotic fantasy and completely falls apart due to its myriad of plot holes and inconsistencies. The film puts much more focus on the sexual tension and erotic nature surrounding its characters than the actual plot and development of its characters, creating a garbled mess where its characters become nothing more than caricatures to lust over. When the film finally ends up taking its dark twist by the end, it has completely lost any momentum and its twists feel hollow, predictable, and uninspired.

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3 ‘Brazen’ (2022)

Directed by Monika Mitchell

While Brazen attempts to act as a modern take on the classic police procedural subgenre of thriller, the film’s awkward execution and misunderstanding of the subject matter turns it into an unintentional laughingstock. The film follows murder mystery writer Grace Miller (Alyssa Milano), who finds herself at the center of a real-life murder mystery when her sister Kathleen ends up dead soon after calling her sister for help. To make matters more complicated, it becomes revealed that in the 5 years of non-communication between the sisters, Kathleen had been working as an online dominatrix.

Brazen does just about everything wrong when it comes to creating an effective murder mystery story. From an uninteresting case to obvious red herrings to even more obvious twists, the entire film is predictable from the opening scenes. Its connections and focus on the online dominatrix element of the murder mystery also create a strange, unintentionally comedic element to the murder, making it difficult to take it seriously as a grounded thriller.

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2 ‘2025: The World Enslaved by a Virus’ (2021)

Directed by Simon Wesely and Joshua Wesely

An egregious piece of conspiracy theory perpetuating propaganda that feels more like a 2010s YouTube video than a feature film, 2025: The World Enslaved by a Virus is exactly as terrible as its title makes it sound. The film takes place in a post-apocalyptic world created by mandates brought on by the spread of COVID-19, where on top of mask mandates and social distancing, Christianity has been made illegal. However, an underground group of evangelicals is fighting to start a revolution to reunite the Christians of the world and regain their freedom.

2025: The World Enslaved by a Virus somehow manages to give the already largely maligned faith-based films a bad name with its lackluster filmmaking and plot that has already aged like milk in less than 5 years after its release. Its supposed rallying cry comes across as little more than a whimper, with its poor execution coming across as embarrassing even to those who align with its political statements. It goes beyond simply one of the worst thrillers of the 2020s and is easily one of the worst films released in the past 25 years.

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1 ‘365 Days’ (2020)

Directed by Barbara Bialowas and Tomasz Mandes

In a time of creative freedom and increased sexual freedom from wider audiences, the line between what constitutes a genuine erotic thriller and indecent adult material has never been tested more than in 365 Days. The film follows a Polish woman who, while on a vacation to Italy with her boyfriend, ends up getting kidnapped by the powerful and seductive leader of a Sicilian crime family, Massimo. Massimo has completely fallen in love with the woman, forcing her to stay with him for a full calendar year, where afterward she can decide for herself if she wants to leave, or stay and become his wife.

365 Days‘s gross and uncomfortable kidnapping eroticism is already enough to be one of the worst thrillers of recent memory by itself, but what pushes the film over the edge is its egregious sexual content that serves no other purpose to the film. The film never has the self-awareness to understand the disturbing nature of its fantasy romance, instead treating a literal kidnapping and sexual violence as a fun, sexy time. Despite its abhorrent nature, the film managed to receive two sequels to create an entire trilogy of near-unwatchable erotic thrillers.

NEXT: The Worst Movies of the 2020s So Far, According to Letterboxd