The 40 most popular 1960s thriller movies, ranked. Click any film for ratings, reviews, trailers, and where to watch.


Psycho
1960 · 1h 49m
country: United States
When larcenous real estate clerk Marion Crane goes on the lam with a wad of cash and hopes of starting a new life, she ends up at the notorious Bates Motel, where manager Norman Bates cares for his housebound mother.


Dr. No
1962 · 1h 50m
country: United Kingdom
Agent 007 battles mysterious Dr. No, a scientific genius bent on destroying the U.S. space program. As the countdown to disaster begins, Bond must go to Jamaica, where he encounters beautiful Honey Ryder, to confront a megalomaniacal villain in his massive island headquarters.


You Only Live Twice
1967 · 1h 57m
country: United Kingdom
A mysterious spacecraft captures Russian and American space capsules and brings the two superpowers to the brink of war. James Bond investigates the case in Japan and comes face to face with his archenemy Blofeld.


From Russia with Love
1963 · 1h 55m
country: United Kingdom
Agent 007 is back in the second installment of the James Bond series, this time battling a secret crime organization known as SPECTRE. Russians Rosa Klebb and Kronsteen are out to snatch a decoding device known as the Lektor, using the ravishing Tatiana to lure Bond into helping them. Bond willingly travels to meet Tatiana in Istanbul, where he must rely on his wits to escape with his life in a series of deadly encounters with the enemy.


Night of the Living Dead
1968 · 1h 36m
country: United States
A ragtag group barricade themselves in an old Pennsylvania farmhouse to remain safe from a horde of flesh-eating ghouls ravaging the Northeast.


On Her Majesty's Secret Service
1969 · 2h 22m
country: United Kingdom
With the help of Marc-Ange Draco, head of the Unione Corse crime syndicate, and Draco's troubled daughter Tracy, James Bond tracks his archnemesis, Ernst Stravro Blofeld, to a mountaintop retreat in the Swiss Alps, where he is training an army of beautiful, lethal women.


Goldfinger
1964 · 1h 50m
country: United Kingdom
Special agent 007 comes face to face with one of the most notorious villains of all time, and now he must outwit and outgun the powerful tycoon to prevent him from cashing in on a devious scheme to raid Fort Knox -- and obliterate the world's economy.


The Birds
1963 · 1h 59m
country: United States
Thousands of birds flock into a seaside town and terrorize the residents in a series of deadly attacks.


Rosemary's Baby
1968 · 2h 18m
country: United States
A young couple, Rosemary and Guy, moves into an infamous New York apartment building, known by frightening legends and mysterious events, with the purpose of starting a family.


Thunderball
1965 · 2h 10m
country: United Kingdom
A criminal organization has obtained two nuclear bombs and are asking for a 100 million pound ransom in the form of diamonds in seven days or they will use the weapons. The secret service sends James Bond to the Bahamas to once again save the world.


High and Low
1963 · 2h 22m
country: Japan
A Yokohama shoe executive faces a wrenching choice when kidnappers mistakenly seize his chauffeur’s son but demand the ransom anyway.


Le Samouraï
1967 · 1h 45m
country: France
After carrying out a flawlessly planned hit, Jef Costello, a contract killer with samurai instincts, finds himself caught between a persistent police investigator and a ruthless employer, and not even his armor of fedora and trench coat can protect him.


Bullitt
1968 · 1h 53m
country: United States
Senator Walter Chalmers is aiming to take down mob boss Pete Ross with the help of testimony from the criminal's hothead brother Johnny, who is in protective custody in San Francisco under the watch of police lieutenant Frank Bullitt. When a pair of mob hitmen enter the scene, Bullitt follows their trail through a maze of complications and double-crosses. This thriller includes one of the most famous car chases ever filmed.


In the Heat of the Night
1967 · 1h 49m
country: United States
African-American Philadelphia police detective Virgil Tibbs is arrested on suspicion of murder by Bill Gillespie, the racist police chief of tiny Sparta, Mississippi. After Tibbs proves not only his own innocence but that of another man, he joins forces with Gillespie to track down the real killer. Their investigation takes them through every social level of the town, with Tibbs making enemies as well as unlikely friends as he hunts for the truth.


The Swimming Pool
1969 · 2h 3m
country: France
Set in a magnificent villa near a sun-drenched St. Tropez, lovers Jean-Paul and Marianne are spending a happy, lazy summer holiday. Their only concern is to gratify their mutual passion - until the day when Marianne invites her former lover and his beautiful teenage daughter to spend a few days with them. From the first moment, a certain uneasiness and tension begin to develop between the four, which soon escalates in a dangerous love-game.


Purple Noon
1960 · 1h 58m
country: France
Tom Ripley is a talented mimic, moocher, forger and all-around criminal improviser; but there's more to Tom Ripley than even he can guess.


What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?
1962 · 2h 15m
country: United States
A former vaudeville child star viciously torments her paraplegic sister in their decaying Hollywood mansion.


The Italian Job
1969 · 1h 40m
country: United Kingdom
Charlie's got a 'job' to do. Having just left prison he finds one of his friends has attempted a high-risk job in Torino, Italy, right under the nose of the mafia. Charlie's friend doesn't get very far, so Charlie takes over the 'job'. Using three Mini Coopers, a couple of Jaguars, and a bus, he hopes to bring Torino to a standstill, steal a fortune in gold and escape in the chaos.


Blow-Up
1966 · 1h 51m
country: United Kingdom
A successful mod photographer in London whose world is bounded by fashion, pop music, marijuana, and easy sex, feels his life is boring and despairing. But in the course of a single day he unknowingly captures a death on film.


Yojimbo
1961 · 1h 50m
country: Japan
A nameless ronin, or samurai with no master, enters a small village in feudal Japan where two rival businessmen are struggling for control of the local gambling trade. Taking the name Sanjuro Kuwabatake, the ronin convinces both silk merchant Tazaemon and sake merchant Tokuemon to hire him as a personal bodyguard, then artfully sets in motion a full-scale gang war between the two ambitious and unscrupulous men.


Coogan's Bluff
1968 · 1h 34m
country: United States
Coogan, an Arizona deputy sheriff goes to New York to pick up a prisoner. While escorting the prisoner to the airport, he escapes and Coogan heads into the city to recapture him.


The Unfaithful Wife
1969 · 1h 34m
country: France
A man begins to believe his wife is cheating on him.


Woman in the Dunes
1964 · 2h 27m
country: Japan
A vacationing entomologist suffers extreme physical and psychological trauma after being taken captive by the residents of a poor seaside village and made to live with a woman whose life task is shoveling sand for them.


Peeping Tom
1960 · 1h 41m
country: United Kingdom
Loner Mark Lewis works at a film studio during the day and, at night, takes racy photographs of women. Also he's making a documentary on fear, which involves recording the reactions of victims as he murders them. He befriends Helen, the daughter of the family living in the apartment below his, and he tells her vaguely about the movie he is making.


The Time Machine
1960 · 1h 43m
country: United States
A Victorian Englishman travels to the far future and finds that humanity has divided into two hostile species.


Ocean's Eleven
1960 · 2h 7m
country: United States
Danny Ocean and his gang attempt to rob the five biggest casinos in Las Vegas in one night.


Marnie
1964 · 2h 10m
country: United States
Marnie is a beautiful but emotionally withdrawn thief, stealing from employers before disappearing under new identities. When her new boss, Mark Rutland, discovers her secret, his fascination turns to obsession, and he blackmails her into marriage, convinced he can cure her. But as he probes deeper into Marnie’s fractured mind, long-buried fears and compulsions begin to surface.


The Manchurian Candidate
1962 · 2h 6m
country: United States
Near the end of the Korean War, a platoon of U.S. soldiers is captured by communists and brainwashed. Following the war, the platoon is returned home, and Sergeant Raymond Shaw is lauded as a hero by the rest of his platoon. However, the platoon commander, Captain Bennett Marco, finds himself plagued by strange nightmares and soon races to uncover a terrible plot.


Le Trou
1960 · 2h 12m
country: France
Four prison inmates have been hatching a plan to literally dig out of jail when another prisoner, Claude Gaspard, is moved into their cell. They take a risk and share their plan with the newcomer. Over the course of three days, the prisoners and friends break through the concrete floor using a bed post and begin to make their way through the sewer system – yet their escape is anything but assured.


Cape Fear
1962 · 1h 46m
country: United States
Sam Bowden witnesses a rape committed by Max Cady and testifies against him. When released after 8 years in prison, Cady begins stalking Bowden and his family but is always clever enough not to violate the law.


The Thomas Crown Affair
1968 · 1h 42m
country: United States
A debonair, adventuresome bank executive believes that he has pulled off the perfect multi-million dollar heist--until he must match wits with an insurance investigator who will do anything to get her man.


Harper
1966 · 2h 1m
country: United States
Harper is a cynical private eye in the best tradition of Bogart. He even has Bogie's Baby hiring him to find her missing husband, getting involved along the way with an assortment of unsavory characters and an illegal-alien smuggling ring.


Repulsion
1965 · 1h 45m
country: United Kingdom
Beautiful young manicurist Carole suffers from androphobia (the pathological fear of interaction with men). When her sister and roommate, Helen, leaves their London flat to go on an Italian holiday with her married boyfriend, Carole withdraws into her apartment. She begins to experience frightful hallucinations, her fear gradually mutating into madness.


Topaz
1969 · 2h 7m
country: United States
Copenhagen, Denmark, 1962. When a high-ranking Soviet official decides to change sides, a French intelligence agent is caught up in a cold, silent and bloody spy war in which his own family will play a decisive role.


Point Blank
1967 · 1h 32m
country: United States
After being double-crossed and left for dead, a mysterious man named Walker single-mindedly tries to retrieve the rather inconsequential sum of money that was stolen from him.


The Ipcress File
1965 · 1h 49m
country: United Kingdom
Sly and dry intelligence agent Harry Palmer is tasked with investigating British Intelligence security, and is soon enmeshed in a world of double-dealing, kidnap and murder when he finds a traitor operating at the heart of the secret service.


Love and Crime
1969 · 1h 32m
country: Japan
Discover 4 famous Japanese murderers: Takahashi Oden, the last woman beheaded in Japan, Sada Abe, a crazy lover, Kunihiko Kodaira, a rapist-killer and finally, the Toyokaku case, a woman who did everything to own a hotel.


Torn Curtain
1966 · 2h 7m
country: United States
During the Cold War, an American scientist appears to defect to East Germany as part of a cloak and dagger mission to find the formula for a resin solution—but the plan goes awry when his fiancee, unaware of his motivation, follows him across the border.


Wait Until Dark
1967 · 1h 48m
country: United States
After a flight back home, Sam Hendrix returns with a doll he innocently acquired along the way. As it turns out, the doll is actually stuffed with heroin, and a group of criminals led by the ruthless Roat has followed Hendrix back to his place to retrieve it. When Hendrix leaves for business, the crooks make their move -- and find his blind wife, Susy, alone in the apartment. Soon, a life-threatening game begins between Susy and the thugs.


Lord of the Flies
1963 · 1h 32m
country: United Kingdom
Following a plane crash a group of schoolboys find themselves on a deserted island. They appoint a leader and attempt to create an organized society for the sake of their survival. Democracy and order soon begin to crumble when a breakaway faction regresses to savagery with horrifying consequences.
The 1960s broke the old rules everywhere at once — the French New Wave, the collapse of the Hollywood Production Code, and new waves across Europe and Japan reshaping what a film could show and say.
Thrillers are engineered for tension: the pace, the withholding, the sense that something is closing in. The genre blends freely with crime, horror, and science fiction, and it's where a lot of the sharpest genre craft happens.