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1920s
The origin of the thriller and suspense film begins in the 1920s with Alfred Hitchcock with "The Lodger" in 1926 and "Blackmail" in 1928. The other key director working on the early form of the genre was German born Fritz Lang who made "Spies" in 1928.
1930s
This growth of the thriller genre was lead by Alfred Hitchcock and Fritz Lang in the 1930s. Lang made the classic "M" in 1930 and Hitchcock turned out "Number 17", "The Man Who Knew Too Much", "The 39 Steps", "The Young and the Innocent" and "The Lady Vanishes"during the decade. Director WS Van Dyke contributed three thrillers of his own with "The Thin Man", "After The Thing Man", " and "Another Thin Man".
1940s
Alfred Hitchcock and Fritz Lang continued to lead the way in the thriller genre during the 1940s. Many of the stand out thriller films of 1940s were by Alfred Hitchcock who made "Foreign Correspondent", ""Rebecca", "Suspicion", "Shadow of a Doubt", "Spellbound", "Notorious" and "Rope". Other notable film were Jacques Tourneur's "Cat People", Andre De Toth's "Dark Waters", Billy Wilder's "Double Indemnity", Fritz Lang's "Woman in the Window", Robert Siodmak's "The Spiral Staircase", Orson Welles' "The Lady From Shanghai", Joseph H. Lewis' "Gun Crazy", Carol Reed's "The Third Man" and Raoul Walsh's "White Heat".
1950s
The thriller film continued to develop into the 1950s and Alfred Hitchcock made some of his finest suspense films in color. During this post war years of the paranoid 1950s there were a number of memorable thriller films made, including "The Asphalt Jungle:" by John Huston, " The Big Heat" by Fritz Lang, "The Desperate Hours" by William Wyler, "Killer's Kiss" by Stanley Kubrick, "A Kiss Before Dying" by Gerd Oswald, "Night and the Hunter" by Charles Laughton, "Mr. Arkadin" and "Touch of Evil" by Orson Welles. Alfred Hitchcock made a number of films such as "Stage Fright", "Strangers on a Train", "Dial M for Murder", "Rear Window", "The Man Who Knew Too Much", "Vertigo" and "North by Northwest".
1960s
A new kind of psychological thriller film began to emerge in the 1960s. Films such as Michael Powell's "Peeping Tom", Alfred Hitchcock's "Psycho", John Frankenheimer's "The Manchurian Candidate", Otto Preminger's "What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?:, "Fail Safe", "Bunny Lake Is Missing", "The Collector", Roman Polanski's "Repulsion", Michaelangelo Antonioni's "Blow Up", John Boorman's "Point Blank", Roman Polanski's "Rosemary's Baby"and Costa-Gavras'"Z" were notable films with a new modernist emphasis. Older and new directors were making films that reflected the climate of the 1960s.
1970s
The most memorable thriller films of the 1970s were made by a younger generation of directors such as "Dirty Harry" by Clint Eastwood, "The French Connection" by William Friedkin, "Klute" by Alan J Pakula, "Play Misty for Me" also by Clint Eastwood, "Straw Dogs" by Sam Peckinpah, "The Long Goodbye" by Robert Altman, "The Conversation" by Francis Ford Coppola, "Jaws" by Steven Spielberg, "The Parallax View" also by Alan J Pakula, "The Days of the Condor" by Sydney Pollack, "Assault on Precinct 13" by John Carpenter, "Carrie" by Brian DePalma, "Marathon Man" by John Schlesinger "The Tenant" by Roman Polanski, and "Coma" by Michael Crichton. Older director still working in the period were Billy Wilder who made "The Private Lives of of Sherlock Holmes", Sam Fuller made "Dead Pigeon on Beethoven Street", Alfred Hitchcock made "Frenzy" and Joseph L Mankiewicz made "Sleuth".
1980s
In the 1980s director Brian DePalma took up the master of suspense mantle with his Alfred Hitchcock inspired movies. During this decade, DePalma directed "Dressed to Kill", "Blow Out", "Body Double"and "The Untouchables". Some of the other choice thriller films were "Body Heat" by Lawrence Kasdan, "Thief" by Michael Mann, "First Blood" by Ted Kotcheff, "Sudden Impact" by Clint Eastwood, "The Star Chamber" by Peter Hyams, "Blood Simple" by Joel Coen, "To Live and Die in L.A." by William Friedkin, "Blue Velvet" by David Lynch, "The Big Easy" by Jim McBride, "Fatal Attraction" by Adrian Lyne, "House of Games" by David Mamet, "Dead Ringers" by David Cronenberg and "Dead Calm" by Phillip Noyce.
1990s
Some of the most interesting thriller films of the 1990s were "Bad Influence", "The Hunt for Red October", Joel Coen's "Miller's Crossing", Martin Scorsese's "Cape Fear", Oliver Stone's "JFK", Carl Franklin's "One False Move", Kathryn Bigelow's "Point Break", Curtis Hanson's"The Hand that Rocks the Cradle", Quentin Tarantino's "Reservoir Dogs", Curtis Hanson's "Single White Female", David Lynch's "Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me", Jonathan Kaplan's "Unlawful Entry", Andrew Davis'"The Fugitive", Tony Scott's "True Romance", John Dahl's "The Last Seduction", Michael Mann's "Heat", Quentin Tarantino's "Jackie Brown" and John McNaughton's "Wild Things".
2000s
The past decade a bunch of notable thriller films such as Danny Boyle's "The Beach", Tarsem Singh's "The Cell", Mike Hodges' "Get Carter", Rob Cohen's"The Fast and the Furious", Ridley Scott's "Hannibal", Richard Kelly's "Donnie Darko", Curtis Hanson's "Mulholland Dr.", Antoine Fuqua's "Training Day", Cameron Crowe's"Vanilla Sky", Doug Liman's "Bourne Identity", Stephen Frears's "Dirty Pretty Things", David Fincher's "Panic Room", Quentin Tarantino's "Kill Bill: Vol 1 and 2", Alex Proyass' "I, Robot", Jonathan Demme's "The Manchurian Candidate", Phillip Kaufman's "Twisted", M Night Shymalan's "The Village", Steven Spielberg's t"Munich", Robert Rodriquez's "Sin City", Stephen Gaghan's "Syriana", Geoffrey Sax's "White Noise", Alfonso Cuaron's "Children of Men", Justin Lin's "The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift", Spike Lee's "Inside Man", Michael Mann's "Miami Vice", David R. Ellis' "Snakes on a Plane", James McTeigue's "V for Vendetta", Paul Greengrass' "The Bourne Ultimatum", Joel Coen's "No Country for Old Men", Clint Eastwood's "The Changling" and Christopher Nolan's "The Dark Knight".
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