10 Short Thriller Movies Under 100 Minutes You Can Stream Tonight

When it comes to thrillers that will make you laugh, there’s no better movie than The Blackening. It tells the story of seven friends who go away for a weekend and end up trapped in a cabin with a killer who has a vendetta, and they have to use their street smarts and horror movie knowledge to get out alive. 

The best part of this movie is that it seamlessly walks a delicate tightrope between thriller, comedy, and horror while also adding social commentary on the Black experience. Even better, it has a primarily Black cast with a Black director (Tim Story) and Black writers (Tracy Oliver, Dewayne Perkins, Josalynn Henry). That makes what you’re watching on screen feel real, honest, and grounded.

The Blackening is perfect for the kind of viewer who understands humor is the only way to get through things sometimes and who enjoyed movies like Nope (2022) and Bodies Bodies Bodies (2022).

While The Blackening leans more into the horror comedy, Escape Room is all psychological thriller with a whodunnit twist. Instead of focusing on a group of friends, it’s about six strangers who find themselves in a maze of deadly mystery rooms and must use their wits to survive. 

This is creative from top to bottom. Every single room that these strangers have to escape from leans into their unique skills while utilizing every part of the room to deadly means. Also, no room is like the one before it, which really makes you wonder what shadowy organization thinks this is something they A) want to spend money on B) design in the first place. 

Escape Room is perfect for fans of whodunnits like Knives Out (2019) that want a little more death and mayhem in the mix. If you like the socioeconomic themes prevalent in Squid Game (2021) but want something a little more digestible, this could also be the movie for you. 

Thoroughbreds tells the story of two upper-class teenage girls who rekindle their unlikely friendship and hatch a plan to kill one of their stepdads and solve their problems along the way. It’s got a heavy dose of dark comedy for viewers who like American Psycho (2000) but wish it was a little bit more Heathers (1989), but also a play. 

Honestly, Thoroughbreds is on this list of short thriller movies under 100 minutes for two primary reasons. One, it has Olivia Cooke and highlights how talented she was way before House of the Dragon (2022). Two, it has Anya Taylor-Joy and is one of her first movies before she hit superstardom with The Queen’s Gambit (2020). Both icons. Both killing it for ages. 

Like Escape Room, there are no real laughs in You Were Never Really Here. This thriller tells the story of a traumatized veteran who tracks down missing girls for a living. When a job spins out of control, this veteran’s nightmares overtake him as he stumbles into a mystery way bigger than him. 

This is a little brutal for the casual viewer because it doesn’t shy away from trauma. But if you like Joaquin Phoenix and the classic everyday vigilante taking things into their own hands, this might just be up your alley. If you need a little more perspective on the dark tone of this film, Lynne Ramsey directed it right after We Need to Talk About Kevin (2011), and that movie is just as heavy—maybe more.

Instead of being a thriller about the time before a murder like in Thoroughbreds, Blow the Man Down is about what happens after. In this movie, Mary Beth and Priscilla Connolly try to cover up a scary encounter with a dangerous man that ends with murder in their small coastal town. To keep everything under wraps, they end up discovering that even their small town has a criminal underbelly. 

While this falls under the thriller category, Blow the Man Down leans a little more into the dark comedy, like Fargo (1996) but not as intensely as Hot Fuzz (2007). Blow the Man Down is different from other criminal thrillers because when the men are out fishing, a matriarchal system decides the fate of those like Mary and Priscilla. And I’m always down for women behaving badly and using the fact that men see them as “weak” to get away with doing said bad things.

Not to be confused with Fran Drescher’s The Nanny (1993), Nanny has a dose of thriller with heaps of supernatural horror and psychological drama. It follows Aisha, a young immigrant nanny trying to raise enough money to bring her son to the US for a better life. But, of course, things aren’t what they seem in this new home in NYC; neither is the family nor the visions that plague her. 

Movies about nannies (or babysitters) going through it when it comes to a new home and family aren’t a new thing. Just look at The Boy (2016) or even Halloween (1978). But what makes this movie stand out is that it has its sweet moments and some romance. It’s also about healing in the same way that we saw happen in Mama (2013). Basically, this movie has interesting layers upon layers. 

This list of short thriller movies under 100 minutes desperately needed more supernatural horror (even if this one is four minutes over; blame the credits). Run Sweetheart Run starts as an innocent date in the style of any rom-com, but things quickly turn terrifying when Cherie is attacked by her date, Ethan. Turns out, this was all a ruse. The date was actually a jumping-off point for a sick game he plays where he hunts her down. However, if she survives the night, he’ll let her live. 

The supernatural horror and the violent action sequences are basically a vehicle to explore misogyny. According to misogyny and the patriarchy, men are superior to women, and women should be subservient to men. But if that were true, women wouldn’t get up time and time again and fight against that misogyny, and this movie explores that through Cherie and the women she meets. 

Run Sweetheart Run is for the viewer who likes a tense game of survival like in Ready or Not (2019) with some of the nightmarish dynamics from The Invisible Man (2020).

If you barely have 100 minutes and you can only watch one movie on this list, I’d recommend Creep, hands down. It’s a found-footage movie about a young videographer who answers an online ad for a one-day job in a remote town. There he meets a man who wants to record his last testament because he’s dying. Not so lucky for the videographer, though, because the man is odd, a little too intense, and might be up to something more than just having his last messages recorded. 

Creep might scare some people off because it’s found footage, but it’s Mark Duplass’ best film. He’s the creep in question, and he plays him with a heartfelt honesty that makes you double-take because there’s a creepiness simmering underneath everything he does, yet you can’t look away. Even better, there’s a sequel to this movie, Creep 2 (2017). That one is even more unsettling than Creep. Plus, there’s an upcoming series too. 

Ever since It Follows (2015), I knew that Maika Monroe would be someone to watch in Hollywood. She proved that in Villains (2019), Longlegs (2024), and Victorian Psycho (2026). She also proved it in Watcher. The thriller tells the story of a young American woman who moves with her husband to Bucharest. As she’s adjusting, she begins to suspect that a stranger that she can see from her apartment window may be a serial killer. 

Overall, the concept is very simple and isn’t breaking new ground. What sets it apart is Monroe’s grounded performance, the fact that everything matters, and how contained the story is. Also, while you’re worrying with the lead about the neighbor, you’ll have someone to hate in her husband. If you watch this and want more Monroe, I’d also recommend another one of her movies, How to Be Alone (2019).

Host is about connection, specifically the connection between people during the COVID-19 lockdown, but also connection with something supernatural. At the center of this movie are six friends who hire a medium to hold a seance via Zoom during the pandemic. Since this is a movie, of course they end up calling forth something malicious that turns this found-footage horror thriller into a slasher. 

This movie sits firmly in the category of “this would never happen to me because I would never risk it.” But I do appreciate movies like this sometimes because it’s creative filmmaking. Maybe not the best when it comes to found footage as a genre. But it challenges the actors and the people directing the film. That’s what happened with Host, and if you want an elevated example of this kind of found-footage movie, follow this thriller up with Searching (2018).