Your Pre-Game Watchlist: 10 Twisty Indie Thrillers to Queue Up Before 'Kiss Me Kill Me'
The countdown to Kiss Me Kill Me is officially on, and we know some of you can't sit still. So the editorial team put our heads together and built the ultimate pre-game watchlist: ten indie thrillers that share our movie's DNA. Tight budgets, big twists, and romance that comes with a body count. Consider this your cinematic appetizer course.
1. Blue Ruin (2013)
Jeremy Saulnier's revenge thriller proves you don't need a studio budget to make an audience sweat through their shirt. A quiet drifter goes home to settle a score, and every step is messier than the last. If you like your tension slow-burn and your consequences brutal, start here.
2. The Invitation (2015)
A dinner party in the Hollywood Hills. Old friends. One very unsettling hostess. Karyn Kusama's film is a masterclass in dread — nothing "happens" for an hour and you still can't look away. The final act pays off like a snapped rubber band.
3. A Simple Favor (2018)
The closest cousin on this list to our film's blend of seduction and deception. Paul Feig wraps a genuinely dark mystery about a missing woman inside sharp comedy, and Anna Kendrick and Blake Lively spark beautifully. Twists you won't see coming, delivered with a wink.
4. Wind River (2017)
Taylor Sheridan's snowbound murder investigation is less a whodunit than a how-do-you-survive-it. Jeremy Renner and Elizabeth Olsen anchor a thriller that's as much about place as plot. Bring a blanket — the cold radiates off the screen.
5. The One I Love (2014)
A couple's romantic getaway goes very, very wrong in this high-concept gem. To say more would spoil it, so just trust us: it's a romance thriller about how well you can ever really know the person you're kissing. Sound familiar?
6. Nightcrawler (2014)
Dan Gilroy's LA nightmare follows Lou Bloom, the most unnervingly ambitious man in crime journalism. It's a bigger production than the others here, but its scrappy, indie-crafted energy and jaw-dropping third act earn its spot.
7. Coherence (2013)
Shot for essentially the cost of a dinner party, this sci-fi-tinged thriller about a dinner party during a comet sighting is proof that constraints breed ingenuity. The plot unravels like a thread you can't stop pulling.
8. Gone Girl (2014)
Yes, it's the famous one — but if you haven't revisited Fincher's marriage-gone-wrong saga recently, it plays even better in the current landscape of morally complex dangerous women. Rosamund Pike's performance is a masterclass in weaponized likability.
9. Enemy (2013)
Denis Villeneuve and Jake Gyllenhaal made a doppelgänger puzzle box that's been splitting audiences down the middle for a decade. moody, Toronto-set, and ending on one of the great "wait, WHAT?" shots in modern cinema.
10. Bone Tomahawk (2015)
Okay, it's a western — but S. Craig Zahler's rescue-mission horror is one of the most patient, punishing thrillers of the last decade. Kurt Russell leads a rescue party into the worst possible place. Not for the squeamish; absolutely for the thrill-seekers.
How to Watch
No homework required — each of these stands alone. But if you want the full runway into Kiss Me Kill Me, we suggest this order: start with The One I Love for the romance-gone-wrong vibes, build tension with The Invitation and Coherence, then save A Simple Favor and Gone Girl for last so the seduction-and-secrets energy is fresh.
Then come see us opening weekend. One kiss. One secret. No way out — and after this list, you'll be ready.
