The best thrillers to watch on Netflix this July

Summer is finally here, and unfortunately, in most places that means it’s now too hot to do anything at all outside. Instead, why not settle into the AC and relax with a nice thriller or two?

Every month, we handpick a few thrillers on Netflix that fit the current season. Sometimes they pair well with an upcoming release. Other titles might be new additions to the platform.

But these are all just prime summer viewing — with a healthy dose of serial killing mixed in. This time around, we’ve got a modern South Korean classic about finding friends and the joy and tragedy of sunsets; Christian Bale’s most deranged performance; and a survival thriller that’s sure to keep you out of the woods this summer.

Editor’s pick: Burning

Director: Lee Chang-dong
Cast: Yoo Ah-in, Steven Yeun, Jeon Jong-seo

Lee Chang-dong’s psychological thriller starts out simply enough: Lee Jong-su (Hellbound’s Yoo Ah-in), an aspiring novelist living in Seoul, runs into Shin Hae-mi (Jeon Jong-seo), an old classmate, while out delivering a package for his day job. Hae-mi is about to leave on a trip to Africa and asks Jong-su to look after her cat while she’s away. So far, so good. It’s when Hae-mi returns from Africa with Ben (Steven Yeun), a wealthy man she’s bonded with, that things begin to spiral into unsavory territory.

What is the true nature of Ben and Hae-mi’s relationship? Did she really take a trip to Africa, and if not, where did she really go? I can’t promise you’ll find definitive answers to those questions by watching Burning. What I can promise, however, is that you’ll be treated to one of the most viscerally unsettling, tragic, and unforgettable films of the 2010s. —Toussaint Egan

American Psycho

Image: Columbia Pictures

Director: Mary Harron
Cast: Christian Bale, Willem Dafoe, Jared Leto

In his 1986 sci-fi novel Count Zero, William Gibson wrote, “the exceedingly rich were no longer even remotely human.” He could have easily been talking about the homicidal yuppie protagonist of Bret Easton Ellis’ 1991 novel American Psycho. Mary Harron’s adaptation of Ellis’ novel stars Christian Bale as Patrick Bateman, a misanthropic investment banker who moonlights as a serial killer during the height of late-’80s excess, taking out his anger on anyone unlucky enough to be around him. Sex workers, unhoused people, rival colleagues, you name it. Patrick’s depravity knows no end, and neither does the inhumanity of high-powered corporate finance, which seemingly indulges his episodes of ruthless violence.

Harron’s film peers deep into the inky black void at the heart of American financial institutions to better understand the emptiness and horror that roils beneath the surface of its stunning corner offices and immaculately well-pressed suits. It’s a harrowing, violent, and disorienting fugue dream of a horror film, and a damn good thriller to boot. —TE

Alone

Image: XYZ Films/Magnet Releasing

Director: John Hyams
Cast: Jules Willcox, Marc Menchaca, Anthony Heald

Keeping the serial-killer theme going is one of the best survival thrillers of the last several years, Alone, which follows a young woman who gets kidnapped and imprisoned in a small cabin in the middle of nowhere. Like all great survival movies, Alone is mostly process-driven. We watch our main character, Jessica, played with tremendous grit by Jules Wilcox, methodically work through her predicaments and plot her escape, all while her unnamed assailant (Marc Menchaca) plots her murder.

Action director John Hyams (Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning) films the scenes where Jessica is trapped with his usual relentless, utilitarian precision, making the audience feel her every escape attempt in the pit of their stomachs. But for all the effectiveness of these confinement scenes, Hyams excels most at the moments where Jessica has to literally fight for her life. That elevates Alone from a solid thriller to something truly harrowing. —Austen Goslin