Dig in to these cinematic nail-biters!

Nov 11, 2016 — This week’s Friday Night Double Feature on the Criterion Channel demonstrates how much suspense a superb director can wring from an intriguing premise without resorting to yelling “boo!” or splashing gore.

Nov 13, 2024 — Spend the holiday season with the Pope of Trash, the Master of Suspense, MTV Productions’s turn-of-the-century thrills, and Columbia Pictures’s pre-Code button-pushers.

Sep 10, 2019 — The Criterion Channel’s series of prison-break classics showcases eight masterful takes on this most nerve-wracking of suspense subgenres.

Once widely misunderstood, this French master of suspense dealt in misanthropic, black-humored tales and is now recognized to be among the greatest directors of the 1950s.

Jun 24, 2025 — The product of a famously tumultuous production, William Friedkin’s nerve-jangling adaptation of the classic suspense novel The Wages of Fear infuses the mechanics of genre with rough-hewn realism and the New Hollywood’s renegade spirit.

Mar 18, 2022 — Ukrainian cinema, suspense vs. dread, and the opposite of synesthesia are on our minds this week.

Jun 30, 2017 — Film scholar Linda Williams explores the political implications of Sam Peckinpah’s brutal suspense film and its highly controversial intermingling of sex and violence.

Dec 13, 2016 — John Huston’s meticulously calibrated crime film combines nail-biting suspense with a mood of Chekhovian regret.

Jan 22, 2009 — Last fall the Criterion Collection and Janus Films joined forces to acquire a first-run film for theatrical distribution—a rare move for two companies best known for handling the classics of cinema history. Revanche, both an existential thriller and a quiet,...