THRILLERS | Serial Killers
'A serial killer is typically a person who murders three or more people, usually in service of abnormal psychological gratification, with the murders taking place over more than a month and including a significant period of time between them.' Wikipedia
Typical schemes:
List also includes giallo movies.
'Giallo (Italian pronunciation: [ˈdʒallo], plural gialli) is a 20th-century Italian thriller or horror genre of literature and film. Especially outside Italy, giallo refers specifically to a particular Italian thriller-horror genre that has mystery elements and often contains slasher, crime fiction, psychological thriller, psychological horror, and, less frequently, supernatural horror elements.' Wikipedia
Excluded: supernatural themes.
Typical schemes:
- cop chasing after serial killer,
- person closely related to the victim chasing after serial killer,
List also includes giallo movies.
'Giallo (Italian pronunciation: [ˈdʒallo], plural gialli) is a 20th-century Italian thriller or horror genre of literature and film. Especially outside Italy, giallo refers specifically to a particular Italian thriller-horror genre that has mystery elements and often contains slasher, crime fiction, psychological thriller, psychological horror, and, less frequently, supernatural horror elements.' Wikipedia
Excluded: supernatural themes.
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29 titles
- DirectorDon SiegelClint EastwoodStarsClint EastwoodAndrew RobinsonHarry GuardinoWhen a man calling himself "the Scorpio Killer" menaces San Francisco, tough-as-nails Police Inspector "Dirty" Harry Callahan is assigned to track down the crazed psychopath.
- DirectorLucio FulciStarsFlorinda BolkanBarbara BouchetTomas MilianWhen a southern Italian town is rocked by a string of child murders, the police and two urban outcasts search for the culprit amid scapegoating within the superstitious community.
- DirectorMassimo DallamanoStarsFabio TestiKarin BaalCristina GalbóA teacher who is having an affair with one of his students is reluctant to present an alibi when his lover witnesses the first in a series of murders connected to their school.
- DirectorDario ArgentoStarsDavid HemmingsDaria NicolodiGabriele LaviaA jazz pianist and a wisecracking journalist are pulled into a complex web of mystery after the former witnesses the brutal murder of a psychic.
- DirectorAlfred SoleStarsLinda MillerMildred ClintonPaula E. SheppardIn 1961, a divorced Catholic couple's life is turned upside-down when one of their two adolescent daughters is suspected of her younger sister's brutal murder during her First Holy Communion and a series of subsequent stabbings.In 1977 there was a book adaptation of the film titled Communion by Frank Lauria.
- DirectorCharles B. PierceStarsBen JohnsonAndrew PrineDawn WellsThe story of a hooded, berserk killer who terrorized the border town of Texarkana, Arkansas in 1946--leaving no fewer than five murder victims in his wake. He was never caught. Based on one of America's most baffling murder cases.'The film is loosely based on the actual crimes attributed to an unidentified serial killer known as the Phantom Killer; it claims that "the incredible story you are about to see is true, where it happened and how it happened; only the names have been changed." The actual Phantom attacked eight people between February 22 and May 3, 1946 in or near the town of Texarkana, Texas, which is on the Texas border with Arkansas. Most of the murders occurred in rural areas just outside Texarkana, in Bowie County, Texas, while the film has them occurring in Arkansas. However, the general outline of the murders largely follows reality, with mostly minor artistic license taken. As in the film, the real killer was never identified nor apprehended.
The film is loose enough with the facts that one family member of a victim filed a lawsuit in 1978, over its depiction of his sister. The fabricated facts in the film have also caused rumors and folklore to spread for generations around Texarkana. The film's tagline claims that the man who killed five people "still lurks the streets of Texarkana, Ark.", causing officials of that neighboring city to threaten Pierce over the ads in 1977; however, it remained on the posters.' Wikipedia. - DirectorAlfonso Gomez-RejonStarsAddison TimlinVeronica CartwrightAnthony Anderson65 years after a masked serial killer terrorized the small town of Texarkana, the so-called "moonlight murders" begin again. Is it a copycat or something even more sinister? A lonely high-school girl may be the key to catching him.Meta-sequel to The Town That Dreaded Sundown (1976).
- DirectorJanusz KidawaStarsWirgiliusz GrynJoanna KasperskaMiroslaw KrawczykSilesia in Poland, late 60s. Bodies of viciously murdered women are found in secluded locations at an alarmingly increasing rate, their deaths always preceded by heavy fog.
- DirectorJonathan DemmeStarsJodie FosterAnthony HopkinsScott GlennA young F.B.I. cadet must receive the help of an incarcerated and manipulative cannibal killer to help catch another serial killer, a madman who skins his victims.
- DirectorJon AmielStarsSigourney WeaverHolly HunterDermot MulroneyAn agoraphobic psychologist and a female detective must work together to take down a serial killer who copies serial killers from the past.
- DirectorOle BornedalStarsEwan McGregorNick NolteAnais EvansA law student, who takes a job as a night watchman at a morgue, begins to discover clues that implicate him as the suspect of a series of murders.
- DirectorTarsem SinghStarsJennifer LopezVince VaughnVincent D'OnofrioAn F.B.I. Agent persuades a social worker, who is adept with a new experimental technology, to enter the mind of a comatose serial killer in order to learn where he has hidden his latest kidnap victim.
- DirectorTim IacofanoStarsTessie SantiagoChris BrunoFrank WhaleyThe Cusp is a serial killer who kills his victims and then brings them back to life over and over, until they beg to die. Psychic Maya is an investigator who gained her powers after being in a one-year coma caused by being the Cusp's first victim. Now the Cusp is back, and with no time for preparation, Maya has to enter into the killer's mind to save his latest victim.
- DirectorDario ArgentoStarsAsia ArgentoCristian SolimenoAdam JamesAn American art student in Rome accidentally triggers the return of Mater Lachrymarum - the Third Mother - and must use her latent magical powers to end the witch's reign of terror.
- DirectorDavid FincherStarsJake GyllenhaalRobert Downey Jr.Mark RuffaloBetween 1968 and 1983, a San Francisco cartoonist becomes an amateur detective obsessed with tracking down the Zodiac Killer, an unidentified individual who terrorizes Northern California with a killing spree.
- DirectorRob SchmidtStarsEliza DushkuCary ElwesTimothy HuttonBased on the true story of the double initial killings in Rochester, NY.
- DirectorGregory HoblitStarsDiane LaneColin HanksJoseph CrossFBI agent Jennifer Marsh is tasked with hunting down a seemingly untraceable serial killer who posts live videos of his victims on the Internet. As time runs out, the cat and mouse chase becomes more personal.
- DirectorJonas ÅkerlundStarsDennis QuaidZiyi ZhangLou Taylor PucciA recently widowed detective still grieving over his wife's death discovers a shocking connection between a serial killing spree and the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.
- DirectorDario ArgentoStarsAdrien BrodyEmmanuelle SeignerElsa PatakyIn Italy, a woman fears her sister has been kidnapped; Inspector Enzo Avolfi fears it's worse. They team up to rescue her from a sadistic killer known only as Yellow.
- DirectorMarcus DunstanStarsJosh StewartAndrea RothJuan FernándezDesperate to repay his debt to his ex-wife, an ex-con plots a heist at his new employer's country home, unaware that a second criminal has also targeted the property, and rigged it with a series of deadly traps.
- DirectorMarcus DunstanStarsJosh StewartEmma FitzpatrickChristopher McDonaldA man who escapes from the vicious grips of the serial killer known as "The Collector" is then forced to help rescue an innocent girl from the killer's booby-trapped lair.Sequel to The Collector (2012).
- DirectorJulien MagnatStarsMilla JovovichJulian McMahonDavid AtrakchiA horror-thriller centered on a woman living with "face-blindness" after surviving a serial killer's attack. As she lives with her condition, one in which facial features change each time she loses sight of them, the killer closes in.
- DirectorJames McTeigueStarsJohn CusackAlice EveLuke EvansWhen a madman begins committing horrific murders inspired by Edgar Allan Poe's works, a young Baltimore detective joins forces with Poe to stop him from making his stories a reality.
- DirectorAriel VromenStarsMichael ShannonChris EvansJames FrancoThe story of Richard Kuklinski, the notorious contract killer and family man. When he was finally arrested in 1986, neither his wife nor his daughters had any clue about his real profession.Based on the true story of longtime notorious hitman Richard Kuklinski
- DirectorBrad AndersonStarsHalle BerryEvie ThompsonAbigail BreslinWhen a veteran 911 operator takes a life-altering call from a teenage girl who has just been abducted, she realizes that she must confront a killer from her past in order to save the girl's life.
- DirectorScott WalkerStarsNicolas CageVanessa HudgensJohn CusackAn Alaska State Trooper partners with a young woman who escaped the clutches of serial killer Robert Hansen to bring the murderer to justice. Based on actual events.Based on the crimes of real-life Alaskan serial killer Robert Hansen.
- DirectorJohn Erick DowdleStarsStacy ChboskyBen MessmerSamantha RobsonIn an abandoned house in Poughkeepsie, New York murder investigators uncover hundreds of tapes showing decades of a serial killer's work.
- DirectorLars von TrierStarsMatt DillonBruno GanzUma ThurmanIn five episodes, failed architect and vicious sociopath Jack recounts his elaborately orchestrated murders -- each, as he views them, a towering work of art that defines his life's work as a serial killer in the Pacific Northwest.
- DirectorJoe BerlingerStarsLily CollinsZac EfronAngela SarafyanA chronicle of the crimes of Ted Bundy from the perspective of Liz, his longtime girlfriend, who refused to believe the truth about him for years.