What’s going on? How will it end? A good mystery and suspense movie keeps us wondering while we enjoy the ride.
The movie review site Rotten Tomatoes totes up critical reviews to arrive at its 100 best cinema suspense films.
Here are the site’s top 10 made since 1990, together with each modern movie’s place on the overall top 100 list and it’s “freshness” rating – the percentage of positive reviews out of all the movie’s reviews:
1. "Gravity" (2013) (No. 6 overall, 97 percent)
In a movie praised to the hilt for its visual spectacle, the suspense comes from wondering how Sandra Bullock’s rookie astronaut will master unfamiliar and failing technology to get herself home safe.
Cinema Crazed’s Felix Vasquez Jr. calls it “a virtual battle for survival against the forces of momentum, motion, and zero gravity.”
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2. "Argo" (2012) (No. 14, 96 percent)
It’s the true-ish story of a fake movie that helped six Americans escape from Ayatollah Khomeini’s Tehran in the first days of the embassy hostage crisis. “‘Argo’ offers plenty of tension and
edge-of-your-seat breath-holding as the Americans inch their way toward freedom,” wrote Christopher Lawrence in the Las Vegas Review Journal.
3. "L.A. Confidential" (1997) (No. 19, 99 percent)
Good cops battle bad guys – including bad cops – and no one’s quite what they seem to be in this tale of the darkness beneath the glitter of 1950s Hollywood.
Jay Boyer of the Orlando Sentinel calls it “a morality play disguised as pulp fiction.”
4. "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 2" (2011) (No. 26, 96 percent)
The boy wizard and his allies, on the cusp of young adulthood, prepare for the final battle against "He Who Must Not Be Named."
The Las Vegas Review-Journal’s Carol Cling says star Daniel Radcliffe “captures the quiet determination of a young man determined to confront his life-or-death destiny.”
5. "The Babadook" (2014) (No. 34, 98 percent)
A child’s nightmares spin out of control and, with the discovery of a chilling children’s book, become real – or do they? Jim Slotek in
the Toronto Sun says the movie is “as much about imagination as it is about monsters. It presents grief as a demon, questions reality, and creeps out the viewer.”
6. "Nightcrawler" (2014) (No. 38, 95 percent)
A freelance cameraman (Jake Gyllenhaal) and his crew compete to capture the mayhem for the television news. Kimberly Gadette at
doddleme.com calls it “an unholy look at the seemingly chipper local TV news show that, behind the camera, has a vampiric thirst for a never-ending stream of physical mayhem resulting from crime, accidents, fire, suicide, etc.”
7. "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?" (1988) (No. 44, 98 percent)
A comedic meld of animation and live action explores prejudice and deceit while trying to figure out who’s selling out the “toons” and why. The “Dip” is not for the faint of heart.
The Chicago Tribune’s Dave Kehr calls the movie “brilliantly funny, bracingly smart and surprisingly moving.”
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8. "Skyfall" (2012) (No. 45, 92 percent)
The past comes back to haunt Bond and “M” as the franchise returns to its roots. “It ought to
win a prize just for reconnecting with what made the franchise successful in the first place,” wrote James Plath for Movie Metropolis.
9. "Three Colors: Blue" (1993) (No. 46, 100 percent)
A woman who lost everything and everyone important to her in a car crash tries to build a new life while forgetting the old.
Movie blogger Tim Brayton calls it “the story of how to become a new, better, more whole self ... and learning how to prevent past trauma from infecting the present. There is nothing less tragic than that.”
10. "Casino Royale" (2006) (No. 47, 95 percent)
The first James Bond movie to star current Bond Daniel Craig, "Casino Royale" is the story of 007’s first mission and the stakes, both in the field and at the poker table, are high.
Critic-blogger Jeffrey Lyles said the movie “hits all the right marks in rejuvenating the (Bond) franchise for a new generation.”
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