Browse Movies : 2008 : Thriller

When Leon Kaufman's latest body of work--a collection of provocative, nighttime studies of the city and its inhabitants--earns the struggling photographer interest from prominent art gallerist Susan Hoff, she propels him to get grittier and show the darker side of humanity for his upcoming debut at her downtown art space. Believing he's finally on track for success, Leon's obsessive pursuit of dark subject matter leads him into the path of a serial killer--Mahogany, the subway murderer who stalks late-night commuters, ultimately butchering them in the most gruesome ways imaginable. With his concerned girlfriend Maya fearing for his life, Leon's relentless fascination with Mahogany lures him further and further into the bowels of the subways and ultimately into an abyss of pure evil--inadvertently pulling Maya right along with him.

Twilight" is an action-packed, modern day love story between a vampire and a human. Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart) has always been a little bit different, never caring about fitting in with the trendy girls at her Phoenix high school. When her mother remarries and sends Bella to live with her father in the rainy little town of Forks, Washington, she doesn't expect much of anything to change. Then she meets the mysterious and dazzlingly beautiful Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson), a boy unlike any she's ever met. Intelligent and witty, he sees straight into her soul. Soon, Bella and Edward are swept up in a passionate and decidedly unorthodox romance. Edward can run faster than a mountain lion, he can stop a moving car with his bare hands – and he hasn't aged since 1918. Like all vampires, he's immortal. But he doesn't have fangs, and he doesn't drink human blood; Edward and his family are unique among vampires in their lifestyle choice. To Edward, Bella is that thing he has waited 90 years for – a soul mate. But the closer they get, the more Edward must struggle to resist the primal pull of her scent, which could send him into an uncontrollable frenzy. But what will Edward and Bella do when James (Cam Gigandet), Laurent (Edi Gathegi) and Victoria (Rachelle Lefevre), the Cullens' mortal vampire enemies, come to town, looking for her?

Television reporter Angela Vidal (Jennifer Carpenter) and her cameraman (Steve Harris) are assigned to spend the night shift with a Los Angeles Fire Station. After a routine 911 call takes them to a small apartment building, they find police officers already on the scene in response to blood curdling screams coming from one of the apartment units. They soon learn that a woman living in the building has been infected by something unknown. After a few of the residents are viciously attacked, they try to escape with the news crew in tow, only to find that the CDC has quarantined the building. Phones, internet, televisions and cell phone access have been cut-off, and officials are not relaying information to those locked inside. When the quarantine is finally lifted, the only evidence of what took place is the news crew's videotape.

"Quantum of Solace" continues the high octane adventures of James Bond (Daniel Craig) in "Casino Royale". Betrayed by Vesper, the woman he loved, 007 fights the urge to make his latest mission personal. Pursuing his determination to uncover the truth, Bond and M (Judi Dench) interrogate Mr White (Jesper Christensen) who reveals the organisation which blackmailed Vesper is far more complex and dangerous than anyone had imagined.

Forensic intelligence links an Mi6 traitor to a bank account in Haiti where a case of mistaken identity introduces Bond to the beautiful but feisty Camille (Olga Kurylenko), a woman who has her own vendetta. Camille leads Bond straight to Dominic Greene (Mathieu Amalric), a ruthless business man and major force within the mysterious organisation.

On a mission that leads him to Austria, Italy and South America, Bond discovers that Greene, conspiring to take total control of one of the world's most important natural resources, is forging a deal with the exiled General Medrano (Joaquin Cosio). Using his associates in the organisation, and manipulating his powerful contacts within the CIA and the British government, Greene promises to overthrow the existing regime in a Latin American country, giving the General control of the country in exchange for a seemingly barren piece of land.

In a minefield of treachery, murder and deceit, Bond allies with old friends in a battle to uncover the truth. As he gets closer to finding the man responsible for the betrayal of Vesper, 007 must keep one step ahead of the CIA, the terrorists and even M, to unravel Greene's sinister plan and stop his organization.

Paralyzed by learning disabilities, recovering alcoholic Jeff Nichols (Scott) is trying his darndest to figure who he is and how he's supposed to live his life... and nothing seems to be working.

After a plane crash, a young therapist, Claire (Anne Hathaway), is assigned by her mentor (Andre Braugher) to counsel the flight's five survivors. When they share their recollections of the incident -- which some say include an explosion that the airline claims never happened -- Claire is intrigued by Eric (Patrick Wilson), the most secretive of the passengers. Just as Claire's professional relationship with Eric -- despite her better judgment -- blossoms into a romance, the survivors begin to disappear mysteriously, one by one. Claire suspects that Eric may hold all the answers and becomes determined to uncover the truth, no matter the consequences.

In "Doomsday", a lethal virus spreads throughout a major country and kills hundreds of thousands. To contain the newly identified Reaper, the authorities brutally quarantine the country as it succumbs to fear and chaos. The literal walling-off works for three decades – until Reaper violently resurfaces in a major city. An elite group of specialists, including Eden Sinclair (Mitra), is urgently dispatched into the still-quarantined country to retrieve a cure by any means necessary. Shut off from the rest of the world, the unit must battle through a landscape that has become a waking nightmare.

"Eagle Eye" is a race-against-time thriller starring Shia LaBeouf, Michelle Monaghan, Rosario Dawson, Anthony Mackie and Billy Bob Thornton. Jerry Shaw (LaBeouf) and Rachel Holloman (Monaghan) are two strangers thrown together by a mysterious phone call from a woman they have never met. Threatening their lives and family, she pushes Jerry and Rachel into a series of increasingly dangerous situations – using the technology of everyday life to track and control their every move. As the situation escalates, these two ordinary people become the country's most wanted fugitives, who must work together to discover what is really happening – and more importantly, why.

Greg McLean's first acclaimed tour de force, "Wolf Creek," took audiences on a frightening, fact based road trip through the darkest parts of Australian Outback and the depraved human mind. Journeying home again, this time to the crocodile infested waters of Australia's remote wetlands, the director's wildlife boat tour is more down-under Jaws than Crocodile Dundee. Joining a beautiful local tour guide (Radha Mitchell) and an American writer on assignment (Michael Vartan), the rest of this thriller's food chain is composed of tourists and adventure seekers alike. Waiting in vain to be rescued on an ever-disappearing parcel of dry land, you will never guess their next move...as terror lies just beneath the surface.

A dark spy-comedy from Academy Award winners Joel and Ethan Coen. CIA agent Osborne Cox decides to pen his memoirs and is fired from the agency. The disc containing the memoirs inadvertently gets left in a ladies locker room at a gym, where Linda and co-worker Chad, hatch a plan to sell its contents to the highest bidder.

Ewan McGregor will play Jonathan, an accountant disconnected from life, who is reinvigorated by his new friend Wyatt (Hugh Jackman), a powerful and charismatic lawyer who introduces Jonathan to a mysterious sex club known as "The List". Shortly after meeting the woman of his dreams, Jonathan becomes the number one suspect in not only the woman's disappearance and possible murder, but also in a $20 million theft.

In his first independently produced zombie film in over two decades, George A. Romero returns to ground zero in the history of the living dead. When a group of film students making a horror movie in the woods discovers that the dead have begun to revive, they turn their cameras on the real-life horrors that suddenly confront them, creating a first person diary of their bloody encounters and the disintegration of everything they hold dear.

For photographer Ben and his new wife Jane, his new assignment--a lucrative fashion shoot in Tokyo--was supposed to be a kind of working honeymoon. With this exotic professional opportunity and the limitless possibilities of a new marriage, Ben and Jane arrive in Japan. But as they make their way on a mountain road leading to Mt. Fuji, their new life together comes to, literally, a crashing halt. Their car smashes into a woman standing in the middle of the road, who has materialized out of nowhere. Upon regaining consciousness after the accident, Ben and Jane cannot find any trace of the girl Jane believes she hit with the car. Shaken by the accident and by the girl's disappearance, Ben and Jane arrive in Tokyo, where Ben begins his glamorous assignment. Having worked in Japan before and fluent in the language, Ben is comfortable there, and he eagerly reunites with old friends and colleagues. Jane, a newcomer to the city, feels very much like a stranger in a strange land as she makes tentative, unsettling forays through the city. Ben, meanwhile, has discovered mysterious white blurs--eerily evocative of a human form--that have materialized on an entire day's work from the expensive photo shoot. Jane's concerns escalate as she believes the blurs in Ben's photos are the dead girl from the road, who is now seeking vengeance for them leaving her to die.

A family is on the run from an inexplicable and unstoppable event that threatens not only humankind--but the most basic human instinct of them all: survival.

"Strangers" is a suspense thriller revolving around a couple (Tyler and Speedman) in a remote suburban house who are targeted by three dangerous masked strangers. The resulting clashes force the couple to go well beyond what they thought themselves capable of in order to survive.

Superstar Tom Cruise heads an international cast as Col. Claus von Stauffenberg, the aristocratic German officer who led the heroic attempt to bring down the Nazi regime and end the war by planting a bomb in Hitler's bunker. The "July 20 Plot" on Hitler's life is one of the most heroic but least known episodes of World War Two. Severely wounded in combat, Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg returns from Africa to join the German Resistance and help create Operation Valkyrie, the complex plan that will allow a shadow government to replace Hitler's once he is dead. But fate and circumstance conspire to thrust Stauffenberg from one of many in the plot to a double-edged central role. Not only must he lead the coup and seize control of his nation's government... He must kill Hitler himself.

Thomas Barnes (Dennis Quaid) and Kent Taylor (Matthew Fox) are two Secret Service agents assigned to protect President Ashton (William Hurt) at a landmark summit on the global war on terror. When President Ashton is shot moments after his arrival in Spain, chaos ensues and disparate lives collide. In the crowd is Howard Lewis (Forest Whitaker) an American tourist video-taping the historic event to show his kids when he returns home. Also there is Rex (Sigourney Weaver) an American TV news producer who is reporting on the conference. It's only as we follow each person's perspective of the same 15 minutes prior to and immediately after the shooting that the terrifying truth behind the assassination attempt is revealed.

When a sudden plague of blindness devastates a city, a small group of the afflicted band together to triumphantly overcome the horrific conditions of their imposed quarantine. "Blindness", starring Julianne Moore, Gael Garcia Bernal, Mark Ruffalo, Sandra Oh and Danny Glover, is a harrowing tale about the fragility of mankind.

Based on Washington Post columnist David Ignatius' 2007 novel about a CIA operative, Roger Ferris (Leonardo DiCaprio), who uncovers a lead on a major terrorist leader suspected to be operating out of Jordan. When Ferris devises a plan to infiltrate his network, he must first win the backing of cunning CIA veteran Ed Hoffman (Russell Crowe) and the collegial, but perhaps suspect, head of Jordanian intelligence. Although ostensibly his allies, Ferris questions how far he can really trust these men without putting his entire operation – and his life – on the line.

"Nobel Son" is a venomous tale of familial dysfunction, lust, betrayal and ultimately revenge. Barkley Michaelson (Bryan Greenberg) is struggling to finish his Ph.D. thesis when his father, the learned Eli Michaelson (Alan Rickman), wins the Nobel Prize for Chemistry. But Eli's past indiscretions begin to collide with the present. When Barkley is kidnapped on the eve of his father accepting the prize, Eli refuses to pay the ransom. So starts a game of intrigue and deception that proves that payback's a bitch.