BFI Thriller

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

The Silence of the Lambs

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

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
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.
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
10 great erotic thrillers

Base instincts and fatal attractions abound in these 10 unmissably sexy thrillers.
Thursday 10 December 2015
39 Steps to Hitchcock

Take a step-by-step journey through the invention, wit and dazzling technical skill that made Hitchcock cinema’s master of suspense
Claude Chabrol, 1930-2010

Critic, filmmaker and trailblazer of the French New Wave.
Thursday 16 September 2010