Suspense, anxiety and paranoia – films that get the pulse and mind racing. We presented a nail-biting season at BFI Southbank, on BFI Player and in selected venues across the UK.
From political conspiracy, espionage, paranoia and racial politics to erotic thrills, femme fatales and fake news, we ask the question: Who Can You Trust?
Back in cinemas around the UK
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An FBI agent requires help from a psychopath in order to catch a serial killer in this Oscar®-laden classic thriller.
Explore the thriller genre
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Beyond Blade Runner and Chinatown, there’s a world of lesser-known modern noirs that reward rediscovery.
Thursday 23 November 2017 -
Brunch with Bogart: hardboiled heroes and eggs over easy
Why big breakfasts and hard liquor are key to the classic film noir In a Lonely Place, starring Humphrey Bogart as a screenwriter with dangerous appetites.
Tuesday 21 November 2017 -
One great film noir for every year (1940-59)
To celebrate #Noirvember, we select one essential film from each of the peak years of classic American noir.
Friday 17 November 2017 -
Video: How ‘Lotion’, a Silence of the Lambs spoof song, spawned a film career
The story of the Chicago skateboarders who, with their band Greenskeepers, developed their crush on The Silence of the Lambs serial killer Buffalo Bill into an alt-rock hit.
Friday 3 November 2017 -
10 great thrillers set on trains
From Agatha Christie to Alfred Hitchcock, trains have always provided an exciting setting for a good thriller. All aboard for 10 of the best.
Thursday 2 November 2017 -
How Clarice Starling ushered in a new generation of female agents
For a long time, FBI agents and police detectives were roles that only went to men. Jodie Foster’s Oscar-winning turn as Clarice Starling in The Silence of the Lambs helped change all that.
Tuesday 31 October 2017 -
10 things you (probably) never knew about the shower scene in Psycho
Perhaps the most famous scene in the history of cinema, the shower killing in Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho is examined in forensic detail in the new documentary 78/52. Director Alexandre O. Philippe tells us what he found behind the curtain.
Wednesday 25 October 2017 -
Is North by Northwest the ultimate origin story?
Dale Cooper, Don Draper, James Bond… all roads lead back to Cary Grant’s wrong-man-in-peril Roger O. Thornhill. Just watch out for swooping cropdusters.
Thursday 19 October 2017 -
An introduction to Henri-Georges Clouzot in seven films
Even Hitchcock had to doff his cap to Henri-Georges Clouzot, the French master of suspense behind classic thrillers The Wages of Fear and Les Diaboliques.
Wednesday 18 October 2017 -
Behind the scenes on Hitchcock’s North by Northwest
We celebrate the return of Hitchcock’s thrilling masterpiece to UK cinemas with a selection of behind-the-scenes photographs from the film’s shoot.
Friday 6 October 2017 -
10 great dangerous journey films
Peril lurks round every bend in these thrill-packed movies about treacherous trips.
Friday 13 October 2017 -
Six ways cult show The Prisoner prepared us for the modern world
Fifty years after Patrick McGoohan’s surreal spy series The Prisoner first aired on TV, are we all now living in The Village?
Friday 29 September 2017 -
50 years of Point Blank: five later thrillers that bend and fragment time
From Christopher Nolan to David Lynch, many thriller directors have messed with our heads with fractured timelines and broken-up rhythms. Half a century ago, revenge thriller Point Blank paved the way…
Wednesday 30 August 2017 -
BFI Thriller announced as major project for autumn 2017
Highlights include a major season at BFI Southbank with new and classic thrillers, special events, a new BFI Compendium, BFI Player collection, a touring programme and a UK-wide re-release of The Silence of the Lambs.
Tuesday 1 August 2017 -
Where to begin with Jean-Pierre Melville
Your next obsession: the laconic noirs of Jean-Pierre Melville
Tuesday 1 August 2017 -
In search of the locations for the Dirk Bogarde thriller Victim
The landmark 1961 blackmail thriller Victim traces a secretive gay London while also filming in some of the capital’s most exclusive areas. More than 50 years later, how have its locations fared?
Wednesday 26 July 2017 -
What makes a French film noir?
Cordon noir: here are the prime ingredients that go into the French version of film noir, which produced many classic crime movies from the 1930s to 1970s.
Tuesday 25 July 2017 -
Film of the week: It Comes at Night, an astute and ruthless thriller
While America is ravaged by plague, monstrous forces are unleashed in a besieged family home in Trey Edwards Shults’s expertly handled horror, writes Jason Anderson.
Wednesday 5 July 2017 -
The BFI Podcast: Murder, mystery and meal-times with Claude Chabrol
Special guest Sam Wigley introduces Claude Chabrol, “the French Hitchcock”, whose 50-plus films explored the psychology of murder with mischievous flair.
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L.A. Confidential 20th anniversary: five films that influenced the neo-noir classic
One of the milestone American movies of the 1990s, Curtis Hanson’s L.A. Confidential riffed on film noir and 1950s cop movies to create a sprawling epic about corruption in Los Angeles. As it turns 20, we round up five films that helped inspire it.
Thursday 11 May 2017 -
Film of the week: Elle – far deeper (and more disquieting) than a rape-revenge thriller
Isabel Huppert’s darkly defiant bourgeois renegade turns the tables on her rapist in Paul Verhoeven’s masterfully twisted meditation on human bondage, write Adrian Martin and Cristina Álvarez López.
Friday 10 March 2017 -
Five reasons to watch Cold War thriller The Man Between
Why it’s time for Carol Reed’s Berlin-set thriller The Man Between to come out of the shadow of The Third Man.
Wednesday 11 January 2017 -
Blowup: in search of the swinging London locations
Visiting swinging London to make Blowup in 1966, Michelangelo Antonioni played fast and loose with geography to make the definitive existential thriller of its time. Filmmaker Adam Scovell took a walk of the capital 50 years later to try to piece Antonioni’s city back together.
Friday 16 December 2016 -
Five films that paved the way for David Fincher’s Se7en
Featuring masterful performances from Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman, David Fincher’s neo-noir thriller Se7en pushed the envelope on how horrific a mainstream film could be. But which films laid the groundwork for this landmark serial killer movie?
Friday 25 November 2016 -
Black noir: 10 essential black performances in film noir and neo-noir
The history of black actors in film noir in 10 key performances – from occasional stereotype-busting roles in classic noir to blaxploitation to the 90s wave of neo-noir thrillers.
Wednesday 9 November 2016 -
Hell Drivers: remembering Stanley Baker and Patrick McGoohan in a British action classic
A brilliant cast of British actors, including a young Sean Connery, star in the newly restored Hell Drivers, a tough and thrilling trucking movie shot on the B roads of Buckinghamshire.
Thursday 6 October 2016 -
12 masterful Brian De Palma set-pieces
Brian De Palma has always been a divisive filmmaker, but these dozen sequences from a selection of his best films are sure to leave your jaw on the floor.
Friday 23 September 2016 -
Claude Chabrol: 10 essential films
Known as the ‘French Hitchcock’, Chabrol was the most prolific of the new wave directors, leaving behind a huge number of icily brilliant thrillers. These are some of his best.
Friday 24 June 2016 -
10 great films that influenced Alfred Hitchcock
By any measure, Alfred Hitchcock is one of the most influential of all filmmakers, but where did he get his own inspiration from? As new documentary Hitchcock/Truffaut goes on release, we did some digging…
Tuesday 1 March 2016 -
Where to begin with the Coen brothers
Your next obsession: the inspired, magpie movies of Joel and Ethan Coen.
Monday 22 February 2016 -
Your next obsession: the dark and dangerous world of modern noir.
Tuesday 26 January 2016 -
Base instincts and fatal attractions abound in these 10 unmissably sexy thrillers.
Thursday 10 December 2015 -
Fritz Lang: 10 essential films
He was born 126 years ago, before sci-fi films, serial killer movies and film noir were invented. He’d help invent them all. Fritz Lang was one of the giants of cinema, and these 10 films find him at the top of his game.
Friday 4 December 2015 -
Infographic: What makes a film noir?
An infographic dedicated to the shadowy world of one of classic Hollywood’s most beloved subgenres.
Wednesday 22 July 2015 -
Location, location, location: Vienna and The Third Man
There’s much to admire in Carol Reed’s noir masterpiece, but its stunning evocation of postwar Vienna is the real star of the show.
Wednesday 24 June 2015 -
With the classic thriller Cry of the City, filmed on the streets of Little Italy, back in cinemas, we take a walk on the wild side with 10 of the best film noirs set in New York.
Thursday 16 April 2015 -
Moviegraphic: The Ipcress File
Everything you need to know about the classic spy film directed by Sidney Furie and starring Michael Caine as Harry Palmer.
Wednesday 18 March 2015 -
Gene Hackman: 10 essential films
We remember 10 of the finest films starring Gene Hackman, one of the great actors to emerge from the New Hollywood of the 1960s and 70s.
Friday 30 January 2015 -
Fritz Lang’s M: the blueprint for the serial killer movie
Long before Psycho, The Silence of the Lambs or Se7en, one far-ahead-of-its-time German film struck fear into viewers’ hearts with its tale of a child-killer at loose in the city. Even today, Fritz Lang’s M still looks astonishingly modern.
Thursday 4 September 2014 -
Hitchcock’s masterpiece Rear Window turns 60
Peek inside the press book produced for the original release of Alfred Hitchcock’s classic suspense thriller Rear Window, now 60 years old.
Monday 4 August 2014 -
We turn back the clock to the golden age of Hollywood to select 10 of the best American film noirs.
Thursday 24 July 2014 -
On this day in 1944: Double Indemnity premiered
On 24 April 1944, one of the all-time great film noirs had its first public screening: Billy Wilder’s Double Indemnity.
Thursday 24 April 2014 -
10 great films about committing the perfect crime
With murder-plot thriller Lift to the Scaffold due back in cinemas, let’s see if we can get away with this list of 10 classic perfect crime movies.
Thursday 30 January 2014 -
Take a step-by-step journey through the invention, wit and dazzling technical skill that made Hitchcock cinema’s master of suspense
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Hitchcock and the mystery of the tea cup
How a cup of tea shed new light on The Pleasure Garden, Alfred Hitchcock’s very first film as director.
Friday 2 August 2013 -
With the rerelease of Chinatown, Geoff Andrew reflects on how this classic crime film represents a career-best for so many of the talents involved.
Wednesday 2 January 2013 -
Critic, filmmaker and trailblazer of the French New Wave.
Thursday 16 September 2010 -
As Hitchcock’s Vertigo is rereleased nationwide, Geoff Andrew ponders the steady rise in critical esteem of a cruel and complex film now considered the ‘greatest ever made’.
Friday 7 September 2012 -
A Hitch in time: my top 12 Hitchcock films
Choosing your favourite Hitchcocks is a difficult task, as the greatest ones all shift and change in the mind over time.
Tuesday 14 August 2012 -
Forever falling: what makes Vertigo great
In our series on contenders for our Greatest Films of All Time poll, Miguel Marías finds himself falling once again for the fathomless mysteries of Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo.
Wednesday 25 July 2012 -
Hitchcock writes home from the making of his first film.
Tuesday 26 June 2012 -
Oscar-winning costume designer Julie Harris was a perfect suit for Alfred Hitchcock. Designs from the BFI National Archive reveal their mutual love for muted tones, used in Hitchcock’s 1972 film, Frenzy.
Wednesday 13 June 2012
Sight & Sound magazine
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Reviews, interviews and features from the international film magazine.
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