20 Movies to Show Your Kids to Get Them into Psychological Thrillers
As kids get older, they'll get tired of the latest Disney flicks and crave something more substantial. Unfortunately, teens and tweens often assume an R-rating guarantees mature content. Sure, there are some R-rated masterpieces, but gore is not inherently sophisticated and - not to mention - certain thrillers or horror films are not necessarily appropriate for a prepubescent audience. Fear not! We have the psychological thriller, psychological being the operative word. These movies don't just make you scream - they make you think! There are plenty of psychological thriller movies for beginners that are perfectly appropriate - and even enriching - for a younger audience! Below, you'll find some suggestions of excellent films to get kids into psychological thrillers.
There are plenty of classic psychological thriller movies kids can watch without picking up any colorful language or seeing anything too, too graphic. The Sixth Sense features some spooky specters, but there's also some intellectually intelligent themes about cultural erasure and communication. The Ring may be terrifying, but it's definitely a film that keeps audiences thinking to solve the mystery and the gore is pretty minimal. With a little fishing, you should be able to find a great psychological thriller to show your kids.
Which movies do you think are the best films to introduce kids to the psychological thriller genre? Vote up your favorites below!
- A newspaper photographer with a broken leg passes time recuperating by observing his neighbors through his window. He sees what he believes to be a murder, and decides to solve the crime himself. ...more
- An illusion gone horribly wrong pits two 19th-century magicians, Alfred Borden (Christian Bale) and Rupert Angier (Hugh Jackman), against each other in a bitter battle for supremacy. Terrible ...more
- Having concluded a case, detective Hercule Poirot (Albert Finney) settles into what he expects will be a relaxing journey home aboard the Orient Express. But when an unpopular billionaire is murdered ...more
- In the wake of her grandmother's funeral, hotel manager Lisa Reisert (Rachel McAdams) is waiting to fly back home when she meets charming Jackson Rippner (Cillian Murphy) at check-in. She thinks it ...more
- While in the process of an ugly divorce from his wife (Maria Bello), writer Mort Rainey (Johnny Depp) relocates to his remote cabin in upstate New York for solitude. Attempting to recover his mental ...more
- Facing unemployment and his girlfriend's rejection, writer Eddie Morra (Bradley Cooper) is sure that he has no future. That all changes when an old friend gives him a drug that produces enhanced ...more
- What if you had the chance to travel back in time and change just one event in your life? What would it be? For John Sullivan (Jim Caviezel), there is no question. He would undo the events of October ...more
- Airplane engineer Kyle Pratt (Jodie Foster) is heading home from Germany to New York on a double-decker Elgin 474 to bury her husband. But three hours into the flight, she awakens to find her young ...more
- To be young and carefree amid the blue waters and idyllic landscape of sun-drenched Italy in the late 1950s; that's la dolce vita Tom Ripley (Matt Damon) craves- and Dickie Greenleaf (Jude Law) ...more
- Fast-paced thriller in which a young family on a white-water rafting adventure in Montana are taken hostage by a pair of dangerous fugitives. The rafting holiday - a birthday gift for the New England ...more
- 11Vincent Freeman (Ethan Hawke) has always fantasized about traveling into outer space, but is grounded by his status as a genetically inferior "in-valid." He decides to fight his fate by purchasing ...more
- 12Computer programmer Angela Bennett (Sandra Bullock) starts a new freelance gig and, strangely, all her colleagues start dying. Does it have something to do with the mysterious disc she was given? Her ...more
- After the parents of Ruby (Leelee Sobieski) and her younger brother, Rhett (Trevor Morgan), are killed in a car crash, their parents' best friends, Erin and Terry Glass (Diane Lane, Stellan ...more
- Based on true events in Point Pleasant, Virginia, "The Mothman Prophecies" examines a series of inexplicable occurrences through the eyes - and mind- of one man. A man (Richard Gere) is driven to ...more
- On a routine journey through space to a new home, two passengers, sleeping in suspended animation, are awakened 90 years too early when their ship malfunctions. As Jim and Aurora face living the rest ...more
- In a funny, moving and distinctly mind-bending journey through suburban America, one extraordinary but disenchanted teenager is about to take Time's Arrow for a ride. After surviving a freak ...more
- 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 (Laurence Harvey) is ...more
- Publisher Will Atenton (Daniel Craig) quits a lucrative job in New York to relocate his wife, Libby (Rachel Weisz), and their daughters to a quaint town in New England. As they settle into their ...more
- When a successful ghostwriter, the Ghost (Ewan McGregor), agrees to finish the memoirs of Adam Long (Pierce Brosnan), England's former prime minister, his publisher assures him it's the chance of a ...more
- 20Working-class waitress Slim (Jennifer Lopez) finds her life transformed when she marries wealthy contractor Mitch (Billy Campbell). She settles into an idyllic suburban life and seems to have ...more
