7 Thriller Shows Better Than Most Thriller Movies
With its basis on Old Hollywood grandeur and its big-screen appeal, many regard thrillers as being a genre that is ruled by the movies. However, with the meteoric rise in the popularity and prestige of television drama throughout the 21st century, small-screen suspense has gradually become a more prominent, and even acclaimed, platform for stories that get the heart racing.
The medium’s unique ability to allow a story to unfurl gradually over many hours while delving into specific subplots and backstories with great depth and patience makes it an ideal platform for thrillers, inviting everything from slow-burn sensations to propulsive, pulsating tales full of thrills. Ranging from series that find suspense in their cerebral, sci-fi premises to spy dramas that exhilarate and excite, and even to a television icon from many decades ago, these seven series are true highlights of television tension.
7
‘Counterpart’ (2017–2019)
One of the best sources of small-screen thrills in the 21st century has come in the form of the vast array of spy-based dramas that the medium has been treated to. Among the very best of them is the criminally underrated sci-fi series Counterpart, which injects an intriguing dose of grounded sci-fi into the fold as it transpires amid a Cold War-esque struggle between Earth and a secret alternate reality known as the “Prime” world. It focuses on meek U.N. office worker Howard Silk (J. K. Simmons) as he becomes embroiled in the ongoing conflict when he encounters his counterpart from the Prime world, an accomplished, hard-edged spy striving to maintain peace between the realities.
Series creator Justin Marks combines genres with both intelligence and precision, with the dual-dimensional spy games of sleeper agents and double crosses being realized with an impressive simplicity, given the innate intricacies of the story. Further buoyed by Simmons’ typically outstanding dual performance and an enrapturing grandiosity courtesy of its cinematic flourishes, Counterpart is one of the most creative and intense spy thrillers audiences have ever seen.
6
‘Yellowjackets’ (2021–)
A defining series of 2020s television so far, Yellowjackets uses its non-linear story of trials, tribulations, and trauma to conjure a ferociously intense and dramatic viewing experience. With three seasons released so far, it revolves around a plane crash in 1996 that left the surviving members of a girls’ soccer team stranded in the Canadian wilderness for nineteen months. The series explores both the extreme lengths the girls had to go to in order to survive and the lives the survivors lead 25 years later as they still suffer from what they endured.
Defined by its impressive tonal ambition, Yellowjackets excels at juggling inflections from multiple genres, yet it is always at its absolute best when it commits to thrilling audiences, with its gift for sequences of spine-tingling suspense leading to many of the series’ most powerful moments. Also bolstered by an incredible ensemble cast and an atmospheric gravitas, Yellowjackets is utterly absorbing as a slow-burning thriller complemented by waves of chilling mystery and psychological dread.
5
‘The Twilight Zone’ (1959–1964)
When many think of the best thriller movies, their minds wander back to the divinity of the ‘50s and ‘60s and, more precisely, to the pictures of the Master of Suspense himself, Alfred Hitchcock. The small screen also had a pretty iconic chiller of that era as well, with The Twilight Zone an enduring masterpiece of speculative fiction that incorporates elements of sci-fi, fantasy surrealism, psychological horror, and, of course, the cold eeriness of thriller.
Running as an anthology series with each episode following different characters as they are confronted by unnatural phenomena, The Twilight Zone has aged impeccably, courtesy of its sharp stories of morality and its focus on timeless themes surrounding the human condition. Even just its opening sequence, complemented by Marius Constant’s piercing and chilling theme music, is more unsettling than many thriller movies.
4
‘Slow Horses’ (2022–)
While it started out as a bit of an underrated offering from Apple TV+, Slow Horses has gradually come to be celebrated by the masses as one of the best and most compelling TV series of the decade thus far. Based on the ‘Slough House’ novels by Mick Herron, the series immerses itself in the disgraced MI5 agents residing in Slough House, an assignment reserved for spies who have committed career-ending mistakes. Under the charge of the crude and obnoxious, though deceptively cunning, Jackson Lamb (Gary Oldman), the agents of Slough House find themselves embedded in serious cases that pose a threat to Britain.
While it is comfortable throwing doses of black comedy into the mix, Slow Horses ultimately excels as a grounded and gritty take on espionage work, one bereft of the glamorous allure many other spy movies and series indulge in. Smart adaptation and a taut and tidy tempo only elevate the series’ appeal, giving it a propulsive momentum that hooks viewers into its enchanting atmosphere of suspense, mystery, and redemption.
3
‘Severance’ (2022–)
With its cerebral sci-fi premise, its masterful storytelling depth, and its penchant for pulsating thrills, Severance has become arguably the defining highlight of 2020s television. It follows employees of a corporation who have had their memories surgically divided so that their professional and private lives are completely detached. When severed worker Mark Scout (Adam Scott) has an unexpected encounter with a former colleague who claims he had his procedure reversed, he embarks on a journey to discover the truth about his job.
Delving into themes of identity, corporate exploitation, and the nature of the work-life balance of the modern day, Severance compels with its heightened, dystopian reality as well as with its intricacies and resonance. With the mystery surrounding Lumon Industries’ true nature unraveling gradually alongside the development of the extended story world, the series maintains an air of unease that is both enrapturing and disconcerting, making Severance an outstanding work of sustained suspense that eclipses what most movies in the genre have been able to produce.
2
‘The Americans’ (2013–2018)
The greatest spy drama the small screen has ever seen, The Americans prides itself on realizing all the ferocious intensity and high-stakes suspense the genre is known for, while also featuring outstanding character development and intelligent, intricate plotting. Set in the 1980s, it follows two KGB sleeper agents embedded in Washington, D.C. as they carry out dangerous yet decisive assignments to aid the Soviet Union’s efforts in the Cold War, all while striving to raise their two children who know nothing about their parents’ espionage.
Its ability to combine the story’s inherent tension with a powerful emotional core ensures every episode of The Americans is relentlessly enthralling and exciting. Its willingness to explore all the central characters with complexity and moral ambiguity only makes the thrills more impactful as it weaves the risks of espionage with intriguing internal conflicts to conjure moments of profound intensity and suspense. It stands comfortably among the best spy thriller stories of any medium this century, and is a defining title of television thrills from the peak of the medium’s golden era.
1
‘Mindhunter’ (2017–2019)
Crime dramas typically bring an element of tension by the nature of their spectacle, by the combination of realism, mystery intrigue, and grounded life-and-death stakes. However, Mindhunter extracts every modicum of suspense from its story to thrive as a genuine thriller. Buoyed by David Fincher’s involvement, the series follows two FBI agents and a psychologist as they travel around late ‘70s America interviewing detained serial killers to gain insights into their damaged psyches. They form the bureau’s Behavioral Science Unit and pioneer criminal profiling techniques that help solve active cases.
Distinguishing itself with its new approach to the crime genre and its flair for ambitious cinematic visuals, Mindhunter impresses with its innovation and style, conjuring a viewing experience that is as ceaselessly entrancing as it is chilling. The outcry from fans begging for additional seasons is a testament to its quality and its hypnotic allure. In this regard, it is quite possibly the greatest thriller story to have graced the screen (big or small) in the past decade.
