There is a particular strain of modern thrillers that weaponise intimacy. The tension does not depend on the presence of masked villains, but rather on the emotional closeness: on the extent to which two people understand each other and how cruelly that understanding can be exploited. A good recent example is The Housemaid. Looking for more movies like The Housemaid? Let’s go.
Another defining example is David Fincher’s Gone Girl. Starring Ben Affleck and Rosamund Pike, the film is based on Gillian Flynn’s brilliant psychological thriller novel of the same name. It introduces as a missing wife mystery. But then, it slowly unveils that the real theme of the movie is narrative control. Besides just orchestrating events, Amy Dunne is also manipulating people’s perception, of herself and of her husband. Oh, and also of what “a believable” woman looks like.
In The Housemaid, we trust Andrew Winchester not only because Millie trusts him and the story is told largely through her perspective. We also trust Andrew because he is incredibly good looking and charming and our brains are hardwired to associate good looks with positive traits. And also, handsome men are routinely granted moral benefit of the doubt long after they have earned suspicion in both fiction and real life. Also, we instinctively believe Nina’s pretend breakdowns as women are culturally coded as “too emotional” and inherently unstable. The story uses our biases and preconceptions to land the twist with maximum force.
Let’s dive into the list of movies that pull the rug under the audience’s feet at about halfway mark or towards the ending. Note that these movies do not necessarily have the biggest movie twists in history. The twist also doesn’t always come towards the middle. But they just become a whole different movie after that twist. The movies are rated according to IMDb ratings, from top to bottom.
8 thriller movies like The Housemaid that pull the rug out halfway in and never apologise
1 /8
Psycho (1960)IMDb rating: 8.5
Directed by: Alfred Hitchcock
Cast: Anthony Perkins, Janet Leigh, Vera Miles
Synopsis: Marion Crane (Leigh) steals a large sum of money and goes on the run, seeking refuge at a quiet roadside motel run by Norman Bates (Perkins). The film sets itself up as a crime thriller until the first act. Then it becomes a full blown horror movie as the woman we thought was the protagonist gets offed. And towards the end, it executes one of cinema’s most famous twists, which completely reframes its focus and stakes. Also one of the greatest movies ever made.
Watch Psycho on Prime Video2 /8
Parasite (2019)IMDb rating: 8.5
Directed by: Bong Joon-ho
Cast: Song Kang-ho, Lee Sun-kyun, Cho Yeo-jeong
Synopsis: The poor Kim family manage to infiltrate the wealthy Park family’s household. They take up jobs as staff by falsifying their credentials. The film is initially a biting social satire about class mobility (or lack of it). However, halfway through the film, a revelation in the Park house completely transforms the movie.
Watch Parasite on SonyLIV3 /8
Shutter Island (2010)IMDb rating: 8.2
Directed by: Martin Scorsese
Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Mark Ruffalo, Ben Kingsley
Synopsis: US Marshal Teddy Daniels (DiCaprio) goes with his partner Chuck Aule (Ruffalo) to a secluded island psychiatric facility to look into the disappearance of a patient. At first, the movie operates as a paranoia-packed institutional mystery. There are rumours of secret experiments and cover-ups. About halfway through, the investigation itself starts to seem shaky. The movie in the end becomes less of a detective story with an external search for truth and more of a psychological thriller movie with a confined mind.
4 /8
Gone Girl (2014)IMDb rating: 8.1
Directed by: David Fincher
Cast: Ben Affleck, Rosamund Pike, Neil Patrick Harris
Synopsis: When Amy Dunne (Pike) disappears on her fifth wedding anniversary, suspicion quickly falls on her husband Nick (Affleck). The first half unfolds like a classic missing-person case, shaped by media scrutiny and public judgment. Midway through, the film radically reorients itself. The real story, it turns out, is not about disappearance at all. Rather, it is all about about control and performance, not to mention who gets believed. A classic example of this kind of cinema and David Fincher hits it out of the park.
Watch Gone Girl on JioHotstar5 /8
The Game (1997)IMDb rating: 7.7
Directed by: David Fincher
Cast: Michael Douglas, Sean Penn, Deborah Kara Unger
Synopsis: Wealthy investment banker Nicholas Van Orton (Douglas) is gifted participation in an immersive live-action “game” that begins as a novelty and slowly takes over his life. What first appears to be an elaborate prank escalates into something far more destabilising, and by the midpoint the film subtly changes from paranoia thriller to psychological endurance test.
Watch The Game on Prime Video6 /8
The Others (2001)IMDb rating: 7.6
Directed by: Alejandro Amenábar
Cast: Nicole Kidman, Fionnula Flanagan, Christopher Eccleston
Synopsis: Grace Stewart (Kidman) lives in a secluded, mist-enshrouded manor with her two children. When things go bump in the night, she is convinced that their home is haunted. The film is structured like a traditional ghost story, full of locked doors, shadows, and unseen presences. But towards the end, the nature of the haunting begins to shift. Without spoiling anything, let’s just say the end twist reframes the fear from external threats to something far more personal.
Watch The Others on Prime Video7 /8
A Simple Favor (2018)IMDb rating: 6.7
Directed by: Paul Feig
Cast: Anna Kendrick, Blake Lively, Henry Golding
Synopsis: After her enigmatic friend Emily Nelson (Lively) vanishes, single mother Stephanie Smothers (Kendrick) starts digging into her past. And then everything changes. The film initially presents itself as a sleek suburban mystery, but midway through it abandons restraint. It pivots into a bolder, stranger thriller obsessed with reinvention and deception.
Watch A Simple Favor on Prime Video8 /8
The Girl on the Train (2016)IMDb rating: 6.5
Directed by: Tate Taylor
Cast: Emily Blunt, Rebecca Ferguson, Justin Theroux
Synopsis: Recently divorced and struggling with alcoholism, Rachel Watson (Blunt) spends her daily train commute fixating on a seemingly perfect couple she watches through the window. When the woman she has been observing disappears, Rachel becomes entangled in the investigation, despite large gaps in her own memory from the night in question. The film is structured around her fractured point of view, encouraging the audience to doubt her reliability, until the twist forces a reassessment of whose version of events has been shaping the story all along.
(Hero and Featured images: Courtesy of IMDb)Note : The information in this article is accurate as of the date of publication.