---
question: "The best thriller of the last five years"
kind: "guide"
canonical: "https://film.one/guides/the-best-thriller-of-the-last-five-years"
answered: "2026-09-21T09:58:19.277201+00:00"
checked: "2026-09-21T09:58:19.277201+00:00"
region: "US"
licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL."
---

# The best thriller of the last five years

*Conclave* is the thriller to start with from the last five years.

It is rare to see a thriller this tidy, and the pleasure of watching good actors in good rooms is real. Set it beside the 1970s conspiracy films it resembles and it is shorter, prettier and less angry [^1]. Watch it in company, because the arithmetic is more fun done aloud, and do not expect to remember the plot in a fortnight.

*Missing* keeps the first hour sharp about how the internet actually works, with a password reused across three accounts and a true-crime series playing in a corner of the screen [^2]. The tension holds at the airport and through the digging, but the script spends its plausibility once the twists begin to queue.

*Last Breath* turns a documentary into a lean procedural that stays as tense as the genre gets for its middle stretch [^3]. The calm voice on the radio carries the dread when air runs out on the seabed, though the people on either side of the accident remain sketched.

After these, *A Haunting in Venice* improves on its series by keeping to one building and a dozen people for 104 minutes [^4]. Avoid *A House of Dynamite*, where the repeated scenes turn fear into waiting [^5].

## The picks

1. [*Conclave*](https://film.one/film/conclave.md) (2024) — Fi1m 76: Tidy, short and best watched aloud
2. [*Missing*](https://film.one/film/missing.md) (2023) — Fi1m 64: Sharp on the internet for an hour · streaming on Disney+, Tubi in the US
3. [*Last Breath*](https://film.one/film/last-breath-2025.md) (2025) — Fi1m 66: Tense on the radio, thin on people · streaming on Amazon Prime Video, Peacock, The Roku Channel in the US

[^1]: [*Conclave*](https://film.one/film/conclave.md) (2024), Fi1m 76: Conclave (2024). Most critics are a little warmer than we are. It is rare to see a thriller this tidy, and the pleasure of watching good actors in good rooms is real. Set it beside the 1970s conspiracy films it resembles and it is shorter, prettier and less angry. It is a 12A and
[^2]: [*Missing*](https://film.one/film/missing.md) (2023), Fi1m 64: Missing (2023). Fi1m review standfirst: The screen-bound follow-up to *Searching* is quick, clever and, for an hour, properly tense. Then the twists arrive in a queue, and a story that ran on plausibility starts spending it. Storm Reid holds it together longer than the script des
[^3]: [*Last Breath*](https://film.one/film/last-breath-2025.md) (2025), Fi1m 66: Last Breath (2025). Fi1m review standfirst: Alex Parkinson turns his own documentary into a lean, procedural thriller, and for its middle stretch it is as tense as the genre gets. The people on either side of the accident, though, stay about as sketched as their radio call signs.
[^4]: [*A Haunting in Venice*](https://film.one/film/a-haunting-in-venice.md) (2023), Fi1m 65: A Haunting in Venice (2023). The solution is delivered at speed, in one room, and it puts the whole thing to bed in about five minutes. We will not say who did it. We will say that Christie’s plots run on the pleasure of watching the pieces fit, and Green’s script has the pieces 
[^5]: [*A House of Dynamite*](https://film.one/film/a-house-of-dynamite.md) (2025), Fi1m 73: A House of Dynamite (2025). The structure is where the film costs itself. Oppenheim divides the eighteen minutes in three and hands each third to a different set of rooms, and the idea is sound: the same phone call sounds different depending on which end you are holding. But the 

Ask the follow-up on Discover: https://film.one/discover?q=The%20best%20thriller%20of%20the%20last%20five%20years

---
© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/guides/the-best-thriller-of-the-last-five-years