Best 80's US Thrillers
by jorge_barrio_uribarri | created - 21 Nov 2022 | updated - 21 Nov 2022 | Public- Instant Watch Options
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1. Witness (1985)
R | 112 min | Drama, Romance, Thriller
While protecting an Amish boy - who is the sole witness to a brutal murder - and his mother, a detective is forced to seek refuge within their community when his own life is threatened.
Director: Peter Weir | Stars: Harrison Ford, Kelly McGillis, Lukas Haas, Josef Sommer
Votes: 104,735 | Gross: $68.71M
2. The Hitcher (1986)
R | 97 min | Action, Mystery, Thriller
A young man who escapes the clutches of a murderous hitchhiker is subsequently stalked by the hitcher and framed for his crimes.
Director: Robert Harmon | Stars: Rutger Hauer, C. Thomas Howell, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Jeffrey DeMunn
Votes: 52,582 | Gross: $5.84M
3. Runaway Train (I) (1985)
R | 111 min | Action, Adventure, Drama
Two escaped convicts and a female railway worker find themselves trapped on a speeding train with no brakes and nobody driving.
Director: Andrey Konchalovskiy | Stars: Jon Voight, Eric Roberts, Rebecca De Mornay, Kyle T. Heffner
Votes: 33,036 | Gross: $7.94M
4. The Name of the Rose (1986)
R | 130 min | Drama, Mystery, Thriller
An intellectually nonconformist friar investigates a series of mysterious deaths in an isolated abbey.
Director: Jean-Jacques Annaud | Stars: Sean Connery, Christian Slater, Helmut Qualtinger, Elya Baskin
Votes: 117,334 | Gross: $7.15M
5. Music Box (1989)
PG-13 | 124 min | Crime, Drama, Thriller
A lawyer defends her father accused of war crimes, but there is more to the case than she suspects.
Director: Costa-Gavras | Stars: Jessica Lange, Armin Mueller-Stahl, Frederic Forrest, Donald Moffat
Votes: 8,669 | Gross: $6.26M
6. Of Unknown Origin (1983)
R | 88 min | Horror, Thriller
A man becomes destructively obsessed with killing a dangerous rat, which has taken residence in his recently renovated house.
Director: George P. Cosmatos | Stars: Peter Weller, Jennifer Dale, Lawrence Dane, Kenneth Welsh
Votes: 3,787 | Gross: $1.08M
7. Altered States (1980)
R | 102 min | Horror, Sci-Fi, Thriller
A psycho-physiologist experiments with drugs and a sensory-deprivation tank and has visions he believes are genetic memories.
Director: Ken Russell | Stars: William Hurt, Blair Brown, Bob Balaban, Charles Haid
Votes: 38,660 | Gross: $19.85M
8. Shoot to Kill (1988)
R | 110 min | Action, Adventure, Crime
An F.B.I. Agent teams up with a tracker to pursue a murderer after he vanishes into the mountains and infiltrates a hiking group.
Director: Roger Spottiswoode | Stars: Sidney Poitier, Tom Berenger, Kirstie Alley, Clancy Brown
Votes: 14,953 | Gross: $29.30M
9. Cujo (1983)
R | 93 min | Horror, Thriller
Cujo, a friendly St. Bernard, contracts rabies and conducts a reign of terror on a small American town.
Director: Lewis Teague | Stars: Dee Wallace, Daniel Hugh Kelly, Danny Pintauro, Christopher Stone
Votes: 51,015 | Gross: $21.20M
10. Body Heat (1981)
R | 113 min | Crime, Drama, Romance
During an extreme heatwave, a beautiful Florida woman and a seedy lawyer engage in an affair while plotting the murder of her rich husband.
Director: Lawrence Kasdan | Stars: William Hurt, Kathleen Turner, Richard Crenna, Ted Danson
Votes: 40,157 | Gross: $24.06M
11. Frantic (1988)
R | 120 min | Crime, Drama, Mystery
In a hotel room in Paris, a doctor comes out of the shower and finds that his wife has disappeared. He soon finds himself caught up in a world of intrigue, espionage, gangsters, drugs and murder.
Director: Roman Polanski | Stars: Harrison Ford, Betty Buckley, Emmanuelle Seigner, Djiby Soumare
Votes: 57,834 | Gross: $17.64M
12. Thief (1981)
R | 123 min | Action, Crime, Drama
An ace safe cracker wants to do one last big heist for the mob before going straight.
Director: Michael Mann | Stars: James Caan, Tuesday Weld, Willie Nelson, Jim Belushi
Votes: 39,069 | Gross: $11.49M
13. Monkey Shines (1988)
R | 113 min | Drama, Horror, Sci-Fi
A quadriplegic man has a trained monkey help him with his paralysis, until the little monkey begins to develop feelings, and rage, against its new master.
Director: George A. Romero | Stars: Jason Beghe, John Pankow, Kate McNeil, Joyce Van Patten
Votes: 13,039 | Gross: $5.34M
14. Christine (1983)
R | 110 min | Horror, Thriller
A nerdish boy buys a strange car with an evil mind of its own and his nature starts to change to reflect it.
Director: John Carpenter | Stars: Keith Gordon, John Stockwell, Alexandra Paul, Robert Prosky
Votes: 92,510 | Gross: $21.20M
15. No Way Out (1987)
R | 114 min | Action, Crime, Drama
A coverup and witchhunt occur after a politician accidentally kills his mistress.
Director: Roger Donaldson | Stars: Kevin Costner, Gene Hackman, Sean Young, Will Patton
Votes: 46,024 | Gross: $35.51M
16. The Believers (1987)
R | 114 min | Crime, Drama, Horror
Cal Jamison, a police psychologist, is forced to deal with a series of ritualistic murders and a malevolent cult.
Director: John Schlesinger | Stars: Martin Sheen, Helen Shaver, Harley Cross, Robert Loggia
Votes: 8,115 | Gross: $18.75M
17. Lock Up (1989)
R | 109 min | Action, Crime, Drama
With only six months left of his sentence, inmate Frank Leone is transferred from a minimum security prison to a maximum security prison by a vindictive warden.
Director: John Flynn | Stars: Sylvester Stallone, Donald Sutherland, John Amos, Sonny Landham
Votes: 46,455 | Gross: $22.10M
18. Kill Me Again (1989)
R | 94 min | Action, Crime, Drama
A young detective becomes involved with a beautiful woman on the run from the mob and her psychopath boyfriend.
Director: John Dahl | Stars: Val Kilmer, Joanne Whalley, Pat Mulligan, Nick Dimitri
Votes: 5,689 | Gross: $0.28M
19. The Mighty Quinn (1989)
R | 98 min | Action, Crime, Drama
When police officer Xavier Quinn's childhood friend, Maubee, becomes associated with murder and a briefcase full of ten thousand dollar bills, The Mighty Quinn must clear his name. Or try to catch him, which could be even trickier.
Director: Carl Schenkel | Stars: Denzel Washington, Robert Townsend, James Fox, Mimi Rogers
Votes: 6,553 | Gross: $4.56M
20. Tequila Sunrise (1988)
R | 115 min | Crime, Drama, Romance
A former L.A. drug dealer tries to go straight but his past and his underworld connections bring him into the focus of the DEA, the Mexican feds and the Mexican drug cartels.
Director: Robert Towne | Stars: Mel Gibson, Michelle Pfeiffer, Kurt Russell, Raul Julia
Votes: 33,951 | Gross: $41.29M
21. To Live and Die in L.A. (1985)
R | 116 min | Action, Crime, Drama
A fearless Secret Service agent will stop at nothing to bring down the counterfeiter who killed his partner.
Director: William Friedkin | Stars: William Petersen, Willem Dafoe, Jane Leeves, Cherise Bates
Votes: 39,396 | Gross: $17.31M
22. Jagged Edge (1985)
R | 108 min | Drama, Mystery, Thriller
A wealthy woman is murdered in her beach house. The husband is allegedly knocked out first. He inherits all. He has a female ex criminal prosecutor represent him in court.
Director: Richard Marquand | Stars: Jeff Bridges, Glenn Close, Peter Coyote, Robert Loggia
Votes: 16,830 | Gross: $40.50M
23. Dead Calm (1989)
R | 96 min | Horror, Thriller
After a tragedy, John Ingram and his wife Rae are spending some time isolated at sea, when they come across a stranger who has abandoned a sinking ship.
Director: Phillip Noyce | Stars: Nicole Kidman, Sam Neill, Billy Zane, Rod Mullinar
Votes: 43,721 | Gross: $7.83M
24. Eye of the Needle (1981)
R | 112 min | Romance, Thriller, War
A ruthless German spy, trying to get out of Britain with vital information about D-Day, must spend time with a young woman and her crippled husband.
Director: Richard Marquand | Stars: Donald Sutherland, Kate Nelligan, Stephen MacKenna, Philip Martin Brown
Votes: 11,863 | Gross: $17.58M
25. Blow Out (1981)
R | 108 min | Crime, Drama, Mystery
A movie sound recordist accidentally records the evidence that proves that a car accident was actually murder and consequently finds himself in danger.
Director: Brian De Palma | Stars: John Travolta, Nancy Allen, John Lithgow, Dennis Franz
Votes: 63,373 | Gross: $13.75M
26. Extremities (1986)
R | 89 min | Drama, Thriller
A woman takes revenge on the man who invades her home and tries to rape her.
Director: Robert M. Young | Stars: Farrah Fawcett, James Russo, Alfre Woodard, Diana Scarwid
Votes: 4,301 | Gross: $13.42M
27. Fatal Attraction (1987)
R | 119 min | Drama, Thriller
A married man's one-night stand comes back to haunt him when that lover begins to stalk him and his family.
Director: Adrian Lyne | Stars: Michael Douglas, Glenn Close, Anne Archer, Ellen Latzen
Votes: 97,191 | Gross: $156.65M
28. 8 Million Ways to Die (1986)
R | 115 min | Action, Crime, Drama
A former police detective, still recovering from his alcohol addiction, is seemingly drawn into L.A's criminal underworld after stumbling upon a local drug ring.
Director: Hal Ashby | Stars: Jeff Bridges, Rosanna Arquette, Alexandra Paul, Randy Brooks
Votes: 5,951 | Gross: $1.31M
29. Extreme Prejudice (1987)
R | 105 min | Action, Crime, Drama
A Texas Ranger and a ruthless narcotics kingpin - they were childhood friends, now they are adversaries...
Director: Walter Hill | Stars: Nick Nolte, Powers Boothe, Michael Ironside, Maria Conchita Alonso
Votes: 8,768 | Gross: $11.31M
30. Angel Heart (1987)
X | 113 min | Horror, Mystery, Thriller
A private investigator is hired by a man who calls himself Louis Cyphre to track down a singer named Johnny Favorite. But the investigation takes an unexpected and somber turn.
Director: Alan Parker | Stars: Mickey Rourke, Robert De Niro, Lisa Bonet, Charlotte Rampling
Votes: 95,881 | Gross: $17.19M
31. Still of the Night (1982)
PG | 93 min | Crime, Drama, Mystery
A Manhattan psychiatrist probes a patient's murder and falls for the victim's mysterious mistress.
Director: Robert Benton | Stars: Roy Scheider, Meryl Streep, Jessica Tandy, Joe Grifasi
Votes: 5,812 | Gross: $5.98M
32. The Morning After (1986)
R | 103 min | Crime, Mystery, Romance
A washed up, alcoholic actress who is prone to blackouts wakes up next to a murdered man. Did she kill him and, if not, is she in danger?
Director: Sidney Lumet | Stars: Jane Fonda, Jeff Bridges, Raul Julia, Diane Salinger
Votes: 7,437 | Gross: $25.15M
33. The Bedroom Window (1987)
R | 112 min | Crime, Mystery, Thriller
A young executive starts an affair with his boss's wife which then escalates into a nightmare after he lies to the police in order to protect her.
Director: Curtis Hanson | Stars: Steve Guttenberg, Elizabeth McGovern, Isabelle Huppert, Paul Shenar
Votes: 6,828 | Gross: $12.64M
34. Betrayed (1988)
R | 127 min | Crime, Drama, Thriller
An FBI agent posing as a combine driver becomes romantically involved with a Midwest farmer who lives a double life as a white supremacist.
Director: Costa-Gavras | Stars: Debra Winger, Tom Berenger, John Heard, Betsy Blair
Votes: 7,017 | Gross: $25.82M
35. The Stepfather (1987)
R | 89 min | Horror, Thriller
After murdering his entire family, a man marries a widow with a teenage daughter in another town and prepares to do it all over again.
Director: Joseph Ruben | Stars: Terry O'Quinn, Jill Schoelen, Shelley Hack, Charles Lanyer
Votes: 18,206 | Gross: $2.49M
36. Manhunter (1986)
R | 120 min | Crime, Mystery, Thriller
Former FBI profiler Will Graham returns to service to pursue a deranged serial killer dubbed "the Tooth Fairy" by the media.
Director: Michael Mann | Stars: William Petersen, Kim Greist, Joan Allen, Brian Cox
Votes: 80,986 | Gross: $8.62M
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