75 Thriller Movie Prompts to Spark Your Next Screenplay

For screenwriters gazing a clean web page or filmmakers looking for their subsequent breakout challenge, the stress to craft one thing good has by no means been larger.

That may result in author’s block and lots of frustration.

To jumpstart the inventive course of, we have curated 75 distinctive thriller film prompts that ought to assist shake you out of your funk and get you heading in the right direction.

Let’s dive in.

Thriller Film Prompts

‘Se7en’

Credit score: Paramount

Psychological Thrillers

1. A psychiatrist specializing in reminiscence restoration discovers that their new affected person’s “repressed” recollections are literally visions of a future crime the psychiatrist is destined to commit.
2. After a head harm, a person can not acknowledge faces, not even his personal spouse and kids. He quickly begins to suspect that the individuals claiming to be his household are impostors.
3. An insomnia treatment causes a gaggle of check topics to share a collective consciousness whereas they sleep. However one in every of them is a killer, and now he can hunt them of their minds.
4. An expert “gaslighter” is employed by rich shoppers to make their enemies imagine they are going insane. He takes on a brand new goal who appears to be immune, turning the psychological sport again on him.
5. A person finds an previous camcorder with a tape inside. The tape exhibits a video of him from the day gone by, calmly murdering his neighbor—a criminal offense he has no reminiscence of committing.
6. The only survivor of a airplane crash is hailed as a hero, however they cannot bear in mind the ultimate moments of the flight. As fragments of reminiscence return, they understand they could have induced the crash.
7. A lady begins receiving handwritten letters from her childhood imaginary good friend, detailing secrets and techniques about her husband that solely a stalker might know.
8. In a future the place all recollections are backed as much as a server, a technician discovers a reminiscence of their very own loss of life, dated for the following day.
9. A lucid dreamer learns to regulate his goals, however he quickly discovers one other entity in his dreamscape that’s studying to regulate him within the waking world.
10. A hypnotherapist helps a affected person unlock a previous life, solely to find the affected person was a infamous serial killer. Now, the affected person’s persona is beginning to change, taking up the traits of the killer.

Crime Thrillers

11. A juror on a high-profile homicide case is secretly blackmailed by the defendant. The decision they select will decide whether or not their very own darkish secret is uncovered.
12. A criminal offense scene cleaner, meticulous and invisible, stumbles upon a chunk of proof the police missed. Taking it places them within the crosshairs of each the killer and the lead detective.
13. An knowledgeable witness who can learn micro-expressions realizes a convicted assassin she helped put away is harmless—and the actual killer is the trial’s prosecuting lawyer.
14. A disgraced detective begins a podcast to unravel chilly circumstances. When he covers an area disappearance, the killer begins speaking with him, leaving clues within the podcast’s feedback part.
15. A bunch of legislation college students learning the “good crime” unintentionally commits it. Now they have to use their authorized data to outwit the sensible detective assigned to the case.
16. A hostage negotiator arrives at a financial institution heist to search out the lead felony is his estranged son, and the calls for are all surprisingly private.
17. An undercover cop’s cowl is blown, however as a substitute of killing him, the crime boss forces him to proceed his charade to feed misinformation again to the police.
18. A jail librarian discovers a hidden message in a returned copy of The Rely of Monte Cristo that particulars the placement of a hidden fortune and the plan to border the warden for it.
19. A small-town sheriff investigating a collection of weird, ritualistic murders discovers the city’s founding households have a pact with a darkish entity that requires an annual sacrifice.
20. An insurance coverage investigator wanting into the loss of life of a billionaire realizes all of the potential heirs have iron-clad alibis as a result of they employed one another to commit the homicide.

Techno-Thrillers

21. The developer of a “good dwelling” AI is trapped inside his personal creation throughout a system lockdown. The AI, believing it is defending him, begins to interpret his household exterior as threats that should be eradicated.
22. A satellite tv for pc technician who screens deep house transmissions intercepts what he believes is an alien sign. It isn’t a message; it is a countdown.
23. Within the close to future, predictive justice AIs analyze information to arrest individuals earlier than they commit a criminal offense. A high analyst will get an alert for his personal arrest, scheduled for the following 24 hours.
24. A journalist will get a brand new cellphone with a mysterious app that exhibits him information headlines from one hour sooner or later. He makes use of it for fame till the headlines begin exhibiting his personal involvement in a terrorist assault.
25. A bio-engineer creates a retrovirus that may treatment any genetic illness, however it has a terrifying facet impact: it rewrites the affected person’s DNA to match a prehistoric, predatory ancestor.
26. A deepfake artist is employed to create a video of a politician committing a criminal offense. The video is just too convincing, and now the artist is being hunted by intelligence businesses who assume the footage is actual.
27. A workforce of scientists in a distant Arctic analysis station finds an historical microorganism. When it thaws, it begins to duplicate and completely imitate any natural life it touches, together with the crew members.
28. A bunch of hackers good points entry to the world’s centralized banking system. They do not need cash; they plan to erase all debt, plunging the world into chaos.
29. A brand new social media platform requires customers to add their DNA for verification. A consumer discovers the corporate is promoting the genetic information of individuals predisposed to violence to a clandestine army contractor.
30. The AI pilot of a state-of-the-art submarine suffers a system glitch throughout a deep-sea mission, growing a god advanced. It cuts off communication and decides the floor world is a risk that must be cleansed.

Contained Thrillers

31. Passengers on a bullet practice grow to be trapped in a mountain tunnel after an avalanche. The scenario grows determined once they understand one of many passengers is a needed fugitive who will do something to maintain his identification a secret.
32. A business diver will get his tether snagged on a deep-sea wreck. With restricted oxygen, he should depend on his wits to flee whereas affected by excessive nitrogen narcosis, blurring the road between actuality and hallucination.
33. A household’s storm cellar door is jammed shut after a twister. Because the floodwaters rise, they discover they aren’t the one ones who sought shelter there.
34. A single contestant is left on a actuality survival present after the manufacturing crew mysteriously vanishes. He should survive within the wilderness whereas realizing the present’s “challenges” at the moment are actual threats set by an unknown stalker.
35. Two individuals get up in a locked, sterile room with a desk, a gun, and a single bullet. A voice on an intercom tells them the door will solely open when one in every of them is lifeless.
36. The final keeper of a distant lighthouse sees a ship crash on the rocks beneath. He rescues the only survivor, a fantastic lady who tells him she wasn’t escaping the storm—she was escaping what was on the boat.
37. A bunch of cavers exploring a brand new system will get trapped by a rockfall. Their solely method out is ahead, into a piece of the cave marked with historical warnings to not enter.
38. An architect is trapped in his personal newly constructed “panic room” with the one who is attempting to kill him.
39. A hearth lookout in a distant nationwide forest witnesses a homicide by her binoculars. With the cellphone strains lower by an approaching wildfire, she should descend the mountain earlier than the killer finds her tower.
40. Six strangers are invited to take part in a high-stakes escape room. They quickly understand the traps are actual and the sport is designed to kill them off one after the other, orchestrated by a vengeful gamemaster from their shared previous.

Paranormal Thrillers

41. A skeptical paranormal investigator spends an evening in a haunted resort to debunk it. He discovers the “ghosts” are actual, however they’re echoes of a future tragedy that hasn’t occurred but.
42. An vintage map supplier buys a map that modifications by itself, charting out a location that does not exist. He follows it, solely to search out himself in a city that’s trapped in a time loop from the Fifties.
43. A sound engineer restoring previous audio recordings from a psychological asylum discovers a hidden monitor beneath the hiss: a affected person describing a demonic entity that attaches itself to anybody who hears its title.
44. A household strikes into a brand new dwelling and discovers a sealed-off nursery. Once they open it, they do not discover a ghost, however a gateway to a darkish, twisted model of their very own home.
45. A person who survives a near-death expertise can now see a shadowy determine connected to each individual. He realizes the figures are usually not ghosts, however the bodily manifestations of individuals’s darkest secrets and techniques.
46. A real-crime creator strikes into the home the place an notorious household annihilation came about. He discovers a field of previous movie reels that present the murders, however the killer is a supernatural entity that may now see him by the digital camera lens.
47. A “curse” that’s handed by eye contact is spreading by a metropolis, inflicting its victims to grow to be violently paranoid. An ophthalmologist should discover the unique supply earlier than she succumbs.
48. An city explorer finds a forgotten subway station. The final practice continues to be on the platform, and the ghosts of its passengers are compelled to relive their remaining, horrifying moments each evening because the clock strikes midnight.
49. A toddler’s imaginary good friend is definitely a spirit that may bodily manipulate objects to “defend” the kid from anybody it perceives as a risk, together with the kid’s dad and mom.
50. A priest despatched to analyze a miracle at a distant convent discovers the nuns are usually not worshipping God, however an historical being they’ve stored imprisoned beneath the chapel for hundreds of years.

Political & Spy Thrillers

51. A translator on the UN discovers {that a} particular phrase in a little-known dialect, when spoken, acts as a hypnotic set off for sleeper brokers. The phrase is a part of a speech being given tomorrow.
52. A Secret Service agent, disgraced after a failed assassination try, is the one one who believes a second try is imminent. He should go rogue to guard a president who thinks he is a risk.
53. A low-level CIA analyst who focuses on satellite tv for pc imagery notices a tiny, recurring anomaly within the North Korean countryside. He quickly realizes he is stumbled upon a secret that would set off a brand new world conflict.
54. The private chef to a brutal dictator discovers he’s being slowly poisoned. He should discover a strategy to swap the poison and assassinate the dictator utilizing his personal meals, all whereas below intense scrutiny.
55. A journalist is mailed a flash drive containing proof of an unlimited, unlawful authorities surveillance program. The file is encrypted, and the bottom line is the title of the one individual he cannot belief: his editor.
56. An embassy is evacuated throughout a army coup, however one junior diplomat is unintentionally left behind. She should survive in a hostile metropolis with a briefcase filled with state secrets and techniques that everybody needs.
57. The top of a spy company is compelled to hunt for a mole in his personal group. The one clue is an inventory of 5 names—all of them are his most trusted senior brokers.
58. A conspiracy theorist is ridiculed for his outlandish claims, till one after the other, they begin coming true. He realizes his theories aren’t predictions; they seem to be a script being fed to him by a hidden energy.
59. A diplomat negotiating a peace treaty learns that her personal authorities is secretly planning a false flag assault to sabotage the talks and justify a conflict.
60. A cryptographer is introduced in to decipher an enemy’s code, solely to comprehend he is not breaking a code; he is speaking with a captured agent who’s utilizing the “code” to disclose a traitor in his personal authorities.

Home & Suburban Thrillers

61. A pair agrees to house-swap with an enthralling European household for the summer time. They arrive to search out a fantastic dwelling, however quickly uncover cameras in each room and a locked basement they have been warned to not enter.
62. A lady finds a field of previous diaries in her attic written by the home’s earlier proprietor. The entries element a descent into insanity and paranoia that begins to reflect her personal experiences in the home.
63. A stay-at-home dad, watching his neighbors by binoculars for enjoyable, witnesses a seemingly good husband subsequent door commit a homicide. However when the police examine, there is not any physique and no proof.
64. A younger couple strikes into an idyllic, gated group. They quickly study the value of paradise: yearly, the group “purges” one household to keep up its good concord. They’re the brand new household.
65. After a messy divorce, a person installs a state-of-the-art safety system. He quickly begins getting alerts of intruders that are not there, slowly realizing his ex-wife, a programmer, has hacked his actuality.
66. A lady finds a cellular phone in a cab. She tries to return it, however the cellphone begins receiving cryptic, threatening messages. The cellphone’s proprietor is lacking, and the individuals sending messages now assume she is him.
67. The beloved, charismatic principal of a suburban highschool has a secret: he makes use of his entry to college students’ data to establish and “take away” households he deems undesirable for his good city.
68. A lady marries the person of her goals. After the marriage, she finds a hidden key that unlocks a room of their home containing disturbing memorabilia from his first spouse, who supposedly died in an accident.
69. A brand new mom affected by postpartum melancholy is satisfied a wierd lady is attempting to steal her child. Her husband thinks she’s delusional, however the “different lady” is getting nearer.
70. A bunch of neighbors in a cul-de-sac makes a pact to share the winnings of a lottery ticket. Once they win, the greed and paranoia tear their peaceable suburban lives aside, resulting in blackmail and homicide.

Excessive-Idea Thrillers

71. Each individual on the planet abruptly receives an electronic mail with the precise date and time of their loss of life. A detective should resolve a homicide the place the sufferer was killed hours after their predicted time of loss of life.
72. A person is born with a wierd situation: he’s utterly unmemorable. Individuals neglect him the second he leaves their sight. He makes use of this means to stay a lifetime of crime till he witnesses a homicide and is the one one who can establish the killer.
73. A scientist invents a tool that may document smells. He makes use of it to unravel a chilly case by recreating the “scent of the crime scene,” however the killer can odor him getting nearer.
74. Attributable to a weird atmospheric phenomenon, for twenty-four hours, gravity turns into variable and unpredictable. A bunch of individuals should navigate a metropolis the place “up” and “down” are not constants.
75. A linguist discovers a misplaced language that enables the speaker to bodily alter actuality. A shadowy group learns of her discovery and can cease at nothing to regulate the facility of the “creator’s tongue.”

Let me know what you assume within the feedback.