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Best Thriller Movies of the 1960s, Ranked by IMDb, Rotten Tomatoes, Metacritic and TMDB
114 thriller films from the 1960s are in our catalog; the 50 best are ranked below. Top of the list is Psycho (1960), at 8.5 on IMDb. The average IMDb score across this list is 7.7. Biggest split between audiences and critics: Army of Shadows, 8.1 on IMDb against 99 on Metacritic.
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| # | Movie | Genre | IMDb | Tomato | Meta | TMDB | Director |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Psycho '1960 | Horror / Thriller / Mystery | 8.5 | 97% | 97 | 8.4 | Alfred Hitchcock |
| 2 | High and Low '1963 | Drama / Crime / Thriller / Mystery | 8.4 | 97% | 90 | 8.4 | Akira Kurosawa |
| 3 | Le Trou '1960 | Drama / Thriller / Crime | 8.5 | - | - | 8.2 | Jacques Becker |
| 4 | Yojimbo '1961 | Drama / Thriller | 8.2 | 96% | 93 | 8.1 | Akira Kurosawa |
| 5 | Woman in the Dunes '1964 | Drama / Thriller | 8.4 | 100% | - | 8.2 | Hiroshi Teshigahara |
| 6 | Rosemary's Baby '1968 | Drama / Horror / Thriller | 8.0 | 97% | 96 | 7.8 | Roman Polanski |
| 7 | What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? '1962 | Horror / Thriller | 8.0 | 91% | 75 | 7.9 | Robert Aldrich |
| 8 | Z '1969 | Thriller / Crime / Drama | 8.1 | 94% | 86 | 7.8 | Costa-Gavras |
| 9 | Army of Shadows '1969 | Drama / Thriller | 8.1 | 97% | 99 | 7.9 | Jean-Pierre Melville |
| 10 | Le Samouraï '1967 | Crime / Thriller / Drama | 8.0 | 92% | 90 | 7.8 | Jean-Pierre Melville |
| 11 | The Manchurian Candidate '1962 | Thriller / Drama | 7.9 | 96% | 94 | 7.5 | John Frankenheimer |
| 12 | Fail Safe '1964 | Thriller / Drama | 8.0 | 93% | 75 | 7.8 | Sidney Lumet |
| 13 | The Bad Sleep Well '1960 | Crime / Drama / Thriller | 8.0 | 100% | - | 7.7 | Akira Kurosawa |
| 14 | Goldfinger '1964 | Action / Thriller | 7.7 | 99% | 87 | 7.4 | Guy Hamilton |
| 15 | Cape Fear '1962 | Thriller / Drama / Crime | 7.7 | 89% | 76 | 7.4 | J. Lee Thompson |
| 16 | The Train '1964 | War / Thriller | 7.8 | 94% | 80 | 7.6 | John Frankenheimer |
| 17 | The Birds '1963 | Horror / Thriller | 7.6 | 95% | 90 | 7.5 | Alfred Hitchcock |
| 18 | Purple Noon '1960 | Crime / Drama / Thriller | 7.7 | 92% | - | 7.6 | René Clément |
| 19 | Seven Days in May '1964 | Drama / Thriller | 7.8 | 92% | 73 | 7.4 | John Frankenheimer |
| 20 | Wait Until Dark '1967 | Thriller / Crime / Horror | 7.7 | 96% | 81 | 7.3 | Terence Young |
| 21 | Le Doulos '1962 | Drama / Thriller / Crime | 7.7 | 96% | - | 7.4 | Jean-Pierre Melville |
| 22 | Peeping Tom '1960 | Thriller / Horror | 7.6 | 96% | - | 7.4 | Michael Powell |
| 23 | Eyes Without a Face '1960 | Drama / Horror / Thriller | 7.6 | 97% | 90 | 7.6 | Georges Franju |
| 24 | The Time Machine '1960 | Thriller / Fantasy / Sci-Fi / Romance | 7.5 | 77% | 67 | 7.4 | George Pal |
| 25 | Repulsion '1965 | Drama / Thriller / Horror | 7.5 | 96% | 91 | 7.4 | Roman Polanski |
| 26 | Victim '1961 | Drama / Crime / Thriller | 7.7 | 100% | 85 | 7.5 | Basil Dearden |
| 27 | Seconds '1966 | Sci-Fi / Thriller / Horror | 7.6 | 79% | 71 | 7.4 | John Frankenheimer |
| 28 | Knife in the Water '1962 | Drama / Thriller | 7.4 | 97% | 83 | 7.3 | Roman Polanski |
| 29 | The Spy Who Came In from the Cold '1965 | Drama / Thriller | 7.5 | 86% | - | 7.1 | Martin Ritt |
| 30 | Hush... Hush, Sweet Charlotte '1964 | Horror / Mystery / Thriller | 7.5 | 84% | - | 7.3 | Robert Aldrich |
| 31 | Shoot the Piano Player '1960 | Drama / Thriller / Crime | 7.4 | 90% | - | 7.2 | François Truffaut |
| 32 | Bullitt '1968 | Action / Crime / Thriller | 7.4 | 98% | 81 | 7.2 | Peter Yates |
| 33 | Experiment in Terror '1962 | Thriller / Crime | 7.3 | 100% | 69 | 7.1 | Blake Edwards |
| 34 | Blow-Up '1966 | Drama / Mystery / Thriller | 7.4 | 87% | 82 | 7.3 | Michelangelo Antonioni |
| 35 | The Collector '1965 | Thriller | 7.5 | 81% | - | 7.4 | William Wyler |
| 36 | Seance on a Wet Afternoon '1964 | Crime / Thriller / Drama | 7.6 | 82% | - | 7.3 | Bryan Forbes |
| 37 | From Russia with Love '1963 | Action / Thriller | 7.3 | 97% | 83 | 7.1 | Terence Young |
| 38 | Blast of Silence '1961 | Crime / Drama / Thriller | 7.4 | 83% | 75 | 7.0 | Allen Baron |
| 39 | Taste of Fear '1961 | Thriller / Mystery / Horror | 7.4 | 100% | 65 | 7.1 | Seth Holt |
| 40 | Our Man in Havana '1960 | Comedy / Thriller | 7.2 | 95% | - | 6.7 | Carol Reed |
| 41 | This Man Must Die '1969 | Thriller / Drama / Crime | 7.6 | 100% | - | 7.3 | Claude Chabrol |
| 42 | Shock Corridor '1963 | Drama / Thriller / Mystery | 7.3 | 94% | - | 7.0 | Samuel Fuller |
| 43 | Dr. No '1962 | Action / Thriller | 7.2 | 95% | 78 | 7.0 | Terence Young |
| 44 | Underworld U.S.A. '1961 | Crime / Thriller | 7.3 | 100% | - | 7.1 | Samuel Fuller |
| 45 | Bunny Lake Is Missing '1965 | Mystery / Thriller | 7.3 | 87% | 77 | 7.3 | Otto Preminger |
| 46 | Youth of the Beast '1963 | Thriller / Crime / Action / Mystery | 7.3 | 86% | - | 7.0 | Seijun Suzuki |
| 47 | The Italian Job '1969 | Crime / Comedy / Thriller | 7.2 | 82% | 70 | 6.9 | Peter Collinson |
| 48 | The Bedford Incident '1965 | Drama / Thriller / War | 7.3 | 87% | - | 7.0 | James B. Harris |
| 49 | The Naked Prey '1965 | Thriller | 7.3 | 86% | 64 | 6.7 | Cornel Wilde |
| 50 | Targets '1968 | Thriller / Crime / Horror | 7.3 | 89% | - | 7.1 | Peter Bogdanovich |
Our catalog covers roughly the 8,800 most-rated films on TMDB, so lesser-known titles may be missing. Order uses a confidence-weighted IMDb score so a perfect score from a handful of votes does not beat a well-established classic; the scores shown are the raw ones.
All thriller movies
All movies of the 1960s
Thriller in other decades
Thriller of the 1930s Thriller of the 1940s Thriller of the 1950s Thriller of the 1970s Thriller of the 1980s Thriller of the 1990s Thriller of the 2000s Thriller of the 2010s Thriller of the 2020s
Other genres in the 1960s
Action of the 1960s Animation of the 1960s Comedy of the 1960s Crime of the 1960s Drama of the 1960s Fantasy of the 1960s Horror of the 1960s Mystery of the 1960s Romance of the 1960s Sci-Fi of the 1960s War of the 1960s Western of the 1960s
Directors on this list
Alfred Hitchcock Akira Kurosawa Jacques Becker Roman Polanski Robert Aldrich Costa-Gavras Jean-Pierre Melville John Frankenheimer Sidney Lumet Guy Hamilton J. Lee Thompson René Clément
Actors on this list
Anthony Perkins Janet Leigh Toshirō Mifune Tatsuya Nakadai Mia Farrow John Cassavetes Bette Davis Joan Crawford Yves Montand Lino Ventura Alain Delon François Périer