Thriller is a type of fiction with many different subgenres, such as crime, horror, and detective stories. Thrillers are known for the feelings they create, such as suspense, excitement, surprise, and worry. This genre is often used to make movies and TV shows that keep viewers interested.
A thriller usually keeps the audience excited as the story moves toward the most exciting part. Hiding important details is a common part of thrillers. Writers use tools like red herrings, plot twists, unreliable narrators, and cliffhangers to build tension. Thrillers often focus on a villain who creates challenges for the main character to solve.
The thriller genre has roots that go back many years, but it became a clear style in the 1800s and early 1900s with books like The Count of Monte Cristo (1848) and The Thirty-Nine Steps (1915). The films of Alfred Hitchcock played a key role in developing thriller movies during the mid-1900s. Popular examples from the 21st century include The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Gone Girl, The Girl on the Train, The Woman in the Window, and the British TV series Utopia.
Characteristics
Writer Vladimir Nabokov, in his lectures at Cornell University, said:
Thrillers may be defined by the main feeling they create: suspenseful excitement. In short, if it "thrills," it is a thriller. As the introduction to a major anthology says:
— James Patterson, June 2006, "Introduction," Thriller
Suspense is a key feature of the thriller genre. It gives the viewer a feeling of excitement mixed with worry, waiting, and tension. These emotions come from unexpected, mysterious, and exciting events in the story, which make the viewer or reader think about what might happen next. Suspense builds to make the final moments, even if short, the most memorable. The suspense in a story keeps the person interested in reading or watching until the climax is reached.
In terms of storytelling, suspense can be compared to curiosity and surprise. The goal is to tell a story with ongoing tension, surprises, and a constant feeling that something bad might happen. As film director Alfred Hitchcock explained, an audience feels suspense when they expect something bad to happen and believe they know more about the story than the characters, but they cannot stop it from happening.
Suspense in thrillers is often linked to hope and fear. These emotions come from waiting for the story’s ending—the hope that things will work out for the main characters and the fear that they might not. Another type of suspense happens when the audience knows or is certain about what will happen but still feels excited about it happening.
According to Greek philosopher Aristotle in his book Poetics, suspense is an important part of stories, and it is a key part of the thriller genre.
Thriller music has been shown to create feelings of distrust and uncertainty between the viewer and characters on screen when the music plays.
Common methods and themes in crime and action thrillers include kidnappings, heists, revenge, and ransoms. Mystery thrillers often involve investigations and the "whodunit" technique. Dramatic and psychological thrillers usually include plot twists, mind games, and themes of obsession. Science-fiction thrillers often feature robots, aliens, or mad scientists. Horror thrillers may include serial killers, deathtraps, or themes of fear. Paranoid thrillers often involve false accusations, unusual ideas, or feelings of being watched. Spy thrillers frequently include spies, assassins, or secret plans.
Characters in thrillers may include criminals, stalkers, innocent victims, police officers, terrorists, or people caught in dangerous situations. Themes often involve terrorism, political secrets, or conflicts between characters. Plots usually involve characters facing dangers from others or from outside forces.
The main character in a thriller is often placed in a difficult situation. No matter the type of thriller, the story focuses on the danger the main character faces. These characters are often regular people not used to danger, though in crime or action thrillers, they may be experienced people like detectives or police officers. While male characters have traditionally been the main characters, more stories now feature women as leads. In psychological thrillers, the main character relies on their mental strength, such as solving problems or dealing with their own thoughts. Suspense often comes from characters trying to outwit each other or cause harm to each other’s minds.
Thrillers often have a sense of danger and sudden violence, such as crime or murder. Tension usually happens when characters are in dangerous situations or traps that seem impossible to escape. Lives are often in danger because the main character is unknowingly involved in a dangerous situation.
Hitchcock’s films often placed an innocent person, like an average, responsible person, into a dangerous or terrifying situation, such as being wrongly accused.
Thrillers usually take place in normal cities or suburbs, though they may also happen in unusual places like deserts, foreign countries, or the ocean. These stories often feature heroes who are strong and clever but ordinary people facing villains who want to harm them, their country, or the world. In many thrillers, the main character faces big challenges with a limited time to solve problems, and they must make tough choices to help others.
History in literature
"The Three Apples," a story from the collection One Thousand and One Nights (also called Arabian Nights), is a murder mystery with unexpected turns and elements of detective fiction. In the tale, a fisherman finds a heavy, locked chest on the banks of the Tigris River and sells it to the Abbasid Caliph, Harun al-Rashid. The Caliph has the chest opened, only to discover the dismembered body of a young woman inside. He then asks his vizier, Ja'far ibn Yahya, to solve the crime and find the murderer within three days. This mystery story is sometimes called a detective story, even though it does not feature a detective.
The Count of Monte Cristo (1844) is a story about a man named Edmond Dantès, who is betrayed by his friends and sent to prison in the famous Château d'If. His only companion is an old man who teaches him subjects like philosophy, mathematics, and swordplay. Before the old man dies, he tells Dantès about a hidden treasure. Dantès escapes from prison, uses the treasure to change his identity, and becomes the Count of Monte Cristo. He then seeks revenge against those who ruined his life.
The first modern thriller is The Riddle of the Sands (1903) by Erskine Childers. In this story, two young Englishmen discover a secret German army preparing to attack their country.
The Thirty-Nine Steps (1915) is an early detective thriller by John Buchan. It follows an innocent man who is wrongly accused of murder and must flee from the police and enemy spies.
Fritz Lang’s film M (1931) is considered a major psychological thriller. It introduced new film techniques that use sound and visuals to create suspense, which are now common in movies.
The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1963) by John le Carré is set during the Cold War. It shows the world of professional spies and the clever battles between rival intelligence agents.