Ten Of The Best Thriller Films

Recommended By Martin Scorsese

With Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon launching nationwide this Friday [Oct. 20], Taste of Cinema recently took a look at ten films the critically acclaimed director has singled out for praise during his 50-plus-year career. Having grown up as an asthmatic kid who spent most of his childhood binge-watching movies at the local movie theater while the other kids were playing sports outside, the Queens native has repeatedly acknowledged the great debt he owes to his cinematic heroes, crediting the influence of the many movies that shaped his critical voice while championing up-and-coming directors who are still in the midst of finding their own. This list includes the 1952 classic noir film Sudden Fear starring Joan Crawford, which he said was emblematic of “a post-war Hollywood that allowed filmmakers to probe the nature of evil and reveal the dark underbelly of American urban life”; the 1973 crime flick The Friends of Eddie Coyle, in which Robert Mitchum delivers a gnarly performance as a hard-edged, two-bit crook who decides to snitch on his criminal colleagues; The Conversation, a 1974 slow-burn thriller in which Gene Hackman (pictured) plays a private surveillance expert who gets roped into a murky conspiracy; and the 1980 classic The Long Good Friday, featuring Bob Hoskins as an amoral London crime boss whose desperate efforts of going legitimate to seal a lucrative real estate deal are suddenly put on hold after a number of his high-ranking henchmen are ruthlessly targeted in a string of murder attempts.

Keeping It In La Famille: Behind

A 200-Year-Old French Cult

Growing up in the 1950s, Denis Sandoz dreamed of escape. He was the youngest of 13 children living at 18 Rue d’Avron, in Paris’s 20th Arrondissement, and was the only family member to receive any formal education. In 1962, when his parents were out shopping, Sandoz took the leap and fled the confines of La Famille, a covert religious cult into which he had been born 20 years before. Few people in the U.S. have ever heard of this highly insular group, but it’s existed for over 200 years and today has between 3,000 and 4,000 active members, each belonging to one of eight families. The group is closed to new members (or “gentiles,” as they call them), so marriage between cousins is the norm. According to historian Jean-Pierre Chantin, the roots of La Famille stretch back to the French Revolution and several religious movements of the 17th, 18th, and early 19th centuries. Legend has it that it was founded in a Saint-Maur bistro in 1819, when religionists Jean Thibout and François Joseph Havet each placed a coin on a table only to see a third coin mysteriously appear. The miracle linked them together forever. Today, La Famille’s members still live alongside other Parisians in the 11th, 12th, and 20th Arrondissements. Because of centuries of inbreeding, many suffer from autoimmune diseases, rare pathologies, cancer, and learning difficulties, but leaving the group can be difficult and dangerous. As Denis Sandoz—now in his 80s—told Air Mail, “You have the world and you have La Famille. It is always a great pain to leave. The members of La Famille play that card: If you leave you will be all alone.”

The Brief, Bloody Story Of Los

Angeles’ Own “Bonnie And Clyde”

Nearly 90 years have passed since Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow were ambushed by police on a Louisiana backwoods road, cut to pieces by a continuing hail of gunfire. The couple has entered the cultural lexicon and remained there, the term “Bonnie and Clyde” has come to be stand for any dangerous enterprise that involves young lovers, and their exploits have inspired numerous movies, television shows, books, and documentaries. Several years before their deadly escapades captivated depression-era America, however, two other young star-crossed lovers named Lucille Walker and Alexander Mackay captured headlines as they led a six-week rampage of robberies across Los Angeles. Starting just before Thanksgiving 1930, they committed several dozen hold-ups at drug stores and hotels, and the city’s newspapers reveled in the story of a seemingly-innocent young woman who had been drawn into a life of crime. When she was first captured in January 1931, 19-year-old Walker admitted she planned and took part in nearly all the robberies, and she was arrested while trying to buy a pistol with the 23-year-old Mackay, which she called a “tough break.” As reported by James T. Bartlett in Crime Reads, “The pair met at a dance hall and, in a moment straight out of a movie, he asked her if she ‘had any nerve.’ She replied that yes, she did, and their criminal career was off and running…at least for a short while."

DNA COLD CASE

Over 4 Decades Later, Man Charged

In Sonoma Woman’s Brutal Murder

On June 27, 1983, the body of 37-year-old Noelle Russo was found in an unincorporated area of Rohnert Park near Sonoma State University in California. She had been beaten to death and, despite a thorough investigation that included numerous interviews and yielded considerable physical evidence, her murder was never solved. Over the next several decades the “cold case” would be reviewed, and in 2010 a team of investigators submitted several biological samples gathered at the original crime scene to the Santa Clara County Crime Lab and the Serological Research Institute. It wasn’t until this summer—40 years after the brutal murder—they got a hit on a 65-year-old man named Alfredo Carretero Jr., who was arrested two weeks ago (October 2) and booked into the Sonoma County Jail. One of the original suspects in Russo’s killing, he is scheduled to return to court on Oct. 18, 2023; at this point it is not clear how Carretero Jr. knew the victim.

10 Classic Alfred Hitchcock Movies

Everyone Should Watch At Least Once

When critics, reviewers, and moviegoers discuss the most influential figures of cinema, the conversation almost certainly comes around to Alfred Hitchcock. The acclaimed director and screenwriter was responsible for creating many of the most suspenseful and gripping mystery/thriller flicks of mid-20th century filmmaking, and his cinematic subtleties and nuances continue to influence the cinematic style of today’s movie industry. While many of his films have a distinct horror-vibe—The Birds (pictured) and Psycho immediately come to mind—he also was a master of the old-fashioned espionage genre, including such classics as North by Northwest and The Man Who Knew Too Much. Add to that his take on the psychological thriller with Vertigo, Rear Window, and Dial M For Murder, and there’s no question why Hitchcock was known as “the master of suspense.” While anyone would have difficulty identifying this movie maestro’s ten best pictures ever, Josiah Soto compiled this list for The Pioneer Woman. What do you think?

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INDIGO ROAD

“Indigo Road is a beautifully wrought, hard-biting story with elements of classic noir presented through a prism of modern sensibilities. A fantastic read.” –S.A. Cosby, bestselling author of Razorblade Tears 

While still slinging drinks fulltime at The Sandbar in Folly Beach, Jack Connor works a side gig as a licensed bounty hunter. One afternoon, as he's transporting his latest bail skip named Willis Ronson back to jail, his SUV is ambushed by a team of gunmen, killing Ronson instantly and seriously injuring his court-appointed attorney, Alisha Dupree. Connor can’t help but poke around the edges of the deadly incident and quickly learns that Ronson was a man of many secrets, including a mysterious woman from his past who has caused him to be sucked into a domestic terrorist fringe group.