The 18 Best Revenge Thriller Movies of All Time

Cold-blooded vendettas span arthouse gut-punches, stylish action spectacles, and slow-burn payback served decades cold. Where does your loyalty lie? Cast your vote!

1

Oldboy

Park Chan-wook's 2003 South Korean masterpiece about a man seeking vengeance after a mysterious 15-year imprisonment.

1000pts

2

Cape Fear

Martin Scorsese's 1991 thriller in which a vengeful ex-convict terrorizes the lawyer who failed him.

762pts

3

Death Wish

The 1974 thriller about a mild-mannered architect who becomes a vigilante after his family is attacked.

746pts

4

I Saw the Devil

A brutal 2010 South Korean thriller about a secret agent who methodically torments his wife's serial-killer murderer.

746pts

5

John Wick

The 2014 action thriller in which a retired hitman unleashes lethal vengeance after the killing of his dog.

746pts

6

Léon: The Professional

Luc Besson's 1994 thriller about a hitman who helps a young girl avenge the murder of her family.

703pts

7

Prisoners

Denis Villeneuve's 2013 thriller about a desperate father taking the law into his own hands after his daughter vanishes.

653pts

8

Memento

Christopher Nolan's 2000 reverse-chronology thriller about a man with amnesia hunting his wife's killer.

653pts

9

Promising Young Woman

Emerald Fennell's 2020 thriller about a woman exacting calculated revenge for a friend's assault.

653pts

10

Munich

Steven Spielberg's 2005 thriller following a covert squad hunting those behind the 1972 Olympics massacre.

594pts

11

Kill Bill: Vol. 1

Quentin Tarantino's 2003 stylized epic about an assassin hunting down the team that betrayed her.

594pts

12

Taken

The 2008 action thriller about a former CIA operative who tears through Paris to rescue his abducted daughter.

594pts

13

Lady Vengeance

The 2005 finale of Park Chan-wook's Vengeance Trilogy, following a woman's elaborate revenge after wrongful imprisonment.

522pts

14

Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance

Park Chan-wook's bleak 2002 thriller that opens his Vengeance Trilogy with a kidnapping gone tragically wrong.

522pts

15

Nobody

The 2021 action thriller in which a seemingly ordinary family man reveals a violent past against Russian mobsters.

522pts

16

Django Unchained

Tarantino's 2012 Western about a freed slave who tracks down the brutal plantation owner holding his wife.

435pts

17

The Crow

The gothic 1994 cult thriller about a murdered musician resurrected to avenge his and his fiancee's deaths.

435pts

18

Blue Ruin

Jeremy Saulnier's tense 2013 indie thriller about a drifter who returns home to avenge his parents' murder.

435pts