The best thrillers to watch on Netflix this August

Summer is coming to an end, but there are still plenty of long evenings to fill with movie watching. And what better way to cool down than with some of Netflix’s best thrillers?

Each month we select a few thrillers on Netflix that fit the current season. Sometimes they’re a good fit for an upcoming release. Other titles could be new additions to the platform.

This time, to cap off your summer, we have a great little crime thriller about a missing person, a film about a 911 operator trying to save the day at a call center, and Quentin Tarantino’s spooky Wild West crime thriller.

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Editor’s Choice: Hateful Eight

Image: The Weinstein Company

Director: Quentin Tarantino
Pour: Samuel L. Jackson, Walton Goggins, Kurt Russell

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: Three lawmen, a female fugitive on death row, and a stagecoach driver walk into a dry goods store in the middle of a violent snowstorm. Inside the store are a cowboy, a hangman, and a man named Bob, who are minding the store while the owners are away. Each of them is connected to the other’s past in one way or another, and one or more of these men are not who they say they are. Can you find the wolves in this picture?

The hateful eight earns its title through its characters, each of whom is guilty of duplicity and ruthlessness to some degree. Inspired by western series from the 60s such as Goldmine And The VirginianTarantino’s chamber period drama is a brutal, sad and nerve-wracking thriller whose story unfolds like a tragedy waiting to happen. By the end, you won’t be wondering which of these men will make it out alive. The real question is, do any of them deserve to make it? –Toussaint Egan

Miss

Image: Temma Hankin/Sony Pictures

Director: Nicholas D. Johnson, Will Merrick
Pour: Storm Reid, Joaquim de Almeida, Megan Suri

One of the best and most entertaining mystery films of recent years. Miss is a thriller that takes place almost entirely on a computer screen. The film is about a young woman named June (Storm Reid) who lives with her mother in Los Angeles. Her mother goes on vacation with her new boyfriend Kevin, but when she is supposed to come home a few weeks later, she never shows up. This leads June to investigate to find her missing mother, mainly using some very clever tricks on the Internet.

Miss is clever and sophisticated in its use of online tools in exactly the way that most movies get it wrong. It understands the limitations and potential of search engines, password phishing and more, but pushes them just a little to create a great thriller. —Austen Goslin

The guilty

Photo: Netflix

Director: Antoine Fuqua
Pour: Jake Gyllenhaal, Christina Vidal Mitchell, Ethan Hawke

Jake Gyllenhaal is one of the finest actors of his generation, known for his melodramatic ability to portray brooding, calculating characters whose barely suppressed anger and fear simmer beneath their otherwise steely facade. This quality is at the forefront in The guiltya one-room crime thriller in which Gyllenhaal plays Joe Baylor, an LAPD cop working as a 911 operator while a chaotic wildfire engulfs the city in smoke. After receiving an alarming call from a distraught woman (Riley Keough) he believes has been kidnapped by her abusive ex-husband (Peter Sarsgaard), Joe goes above and beyond to make amends for his own troubled past.

Although it was not as well received by critics as the 2018 Danish film on which it is based, The guilty is still an excellent demonstration of Gyllenhaal’s acting range, capturing his character’s jaded cynicism and his fleeting but defining moments of vulnerability and self-reflection. It’s an intimate and shocking thriller that relies entirely on its terrific lead performance, making it absolutely worth watching. -THE