Sort by Popularity - Most Popular Movies and TV Shows tagged with keyword "tension"
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1. Oppenheimer (I) (2023)
R | 180 min | Biography, Drama, History
The story of American scientist J. Robert Oppenheimer and his role in the development of the atomic bomb.
Director: Christopher Nolan | Stars: Cillian Murphy, Emily Blunt, Matt Damon, Robert Downey Jr.
Votes: 733,085 | Gross: $326.11M
2. The Good Wife (2009–2016)
TV-14 | 43 min | Crime, Drama, Mystery
Alicia Florrick has been a good wife to her husband, a former state's attorney. After a very humiliating sex and corruption scandal, he is behind bars. She must now provide for her family and returns to work as a litigator in a law firm.
Stars: Julianna Margulies, Chris Noth, Josh Charles, Matt Czuchry
Votes: 82,829
3. The Creator (2023)
PG-13 | 133 min | Action, Adventure, Drama
Against the backdrop of a war between humans and robots with artificial intelligence, a former soldier finds the secret weapon, a robot in the form of a young child.
Director: Gareth Edwards | Stars: John David Washington, Madeleine Yuna Voyles, Gemma Chan, Allison Janney
Votes: 161,138
4. The Hateful Eight (2015)
R | 168 min | Crime, Drama, Mystery
In the dead of a Wyoming winter, a bounty hunter and his prisoner find shelter in a cabin currently inhabited by a collection of nefarious characters.
Director: Quentin Tarantino | Stars: Samuel L. Jackson, Kurt Russell, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Walton Goggins
Votes: 660,527 | Gross: $54.12M
5. Dunkirk (2017)
PG-13 | 106 min | Action, Drama, History
Allied soldiers from Belgium, the British Commonwealth and Empire, and France are surrounded by the German Army and evacuated during a fierce battle in World War II.
Director: Christopher Nolan | Stars: Fionn Whitehead, Barry Keoghan, Mark Rylance, Tom Hardy
Votes: 740,859 | Gross: $188.37M
6. Bodies Bodies Bodies (2022)
R | 94 min | Comedy, Horror, Mystery
When a group of rich 20-somethings plan a hurricane party at a remote family mansion, a party game turns deadly in this fresh and funny look at backstabbing, fake friends, and one party gone very, very wrong.
Director: Halina Reijn | Stars: Amandla Stenberg, Maria Bakalova, Myha'la, Rachel Sennott
Votes: 68,654
7. Jackie Brown (1997)
R | 154 min | Crime, Drama, Thriller
A flight attendant with a criminal past gets nabbed by the ATF for smuggling. Under pressure to become an informant against the illegal arms dealer she works for, she must find a way to secure her future without getting killed.
Director: Quentin Tarantino | Stars: Pam Grier, Samuel L. Jackson, Robert Forster, Bridget Fonda
Votes: 375,357 | Gross: $39.67M
8. Apollo 13 (I) (1995)
PG | 140 min | Adventure, Drama, History
NASA must devise a strategy to return Apollo 13 to Earth safely after the spacecraft undergoes massive internal damage putting the lives of the three astronauts on board in jeopardy.
Director: Ron Howard | Stars: Tom Hanks, Bill Paxton, Kevin Bacon, Gary Sinise
Votes: 315,867 | Gross: $173.84M
9. Warrior (2011)
PG-13 | 140 min | Action, Drama, Sport
The youngest son of an alcoholic former boxer returns home, where he's trained by his father for competition in a mixed martial arts tournament - a path that puts the fighter on a collision course with his estranged, older brother.
Director: Gavin O'Connor | Stars: Tom Hardy, Nick Nolte, Joel Edgerton, Jennifer Morrison
Votes: 498,208 | Gross: $13.66M
10. Cloverfield (2008)
PG-13 | 85 min | Horror, Sci-Fi, Thriller
A group of friends venture deep into the streets of New York on a rescue mission during a rampaging monster attack.
Director: Matt Reeves | Stars: Mike Vogel, Jessica Lucas, Lizzy Caplan, T.J. Miller
Votes: 420,970 | Gross: $80.05M
11. The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974)
R | 83 min | Horror
Five friends head out to rural Texas to visit the grave of a grandfather. On the way they stumble across what appears to be a deserted house, only to discover something sinister within. Something armed with a chainsaw.
Director: Tobe Hooper | Stars: Marilyn Burns, Edwin Neal, Allen Danziger, Paul A. Partain
Votes: 183,851 | Gross: $30.86M
12. Captive State (2019)
PG-13 | 109 min | Action, Horror, Sci-Fi
Set in a Chicago neighborhood nearly a decade after an occupation by an extraterrestrial force, 'Captive State' explores the lives on both sides of the conflict - the collaborators and dissidents.
Director: Rupert Wyatt | Stars: John Goodman, Ashton Sanders, Jonathan Majors, Vera Farmiga
Votes: 58,029 | Gross: $5.96M
13. Trigger Point (2022– )
TV-MA | 60 min | Action, Crime, Drama
Drama series following Lana Washington, an experienced bomb disposal officer working for the Metropolitan Police.
Stars: Vicky McClure, Eric Shango, Nabil Elouahabi, Kerry Godliman
Votes: 8,420
14. No Escape (I) (2015)
R | 103 min | Action, Thriller
In their new overseas home, an American family soon finds themselves caught in the middle of a coup, and they frantically look for a safe escape from an environment where foreigners are being immediately executed.
Director: John Erick Dowdle | Stars: Lake Bell, Pierce Brosnan, Owen Wilson, Thanawut Ketsaro
Votes: 93,313 | Gross: $27.29M
15. The Perfect Storm (2000)
PG-13 | 130 min | Action, Adventure, Drama
An unusually intense storm pattern catches some commercial fishermen unaware and puts them in mortal danger.
Director: Wolfgang Petersen | Stars: George Clooney, Mark Wahlberg, John C. Reilly, Diane Lane
Votes: 178,072 | Gross: $182.62M
16. The Hunt for Red October (1990)
PG | 135 min | Action, Adventure, Thriller
In November 1984, the Soviet Union's best submarine captain violates orders and heads for the U.S. in a new undetectable sub. The American CIA and military must quickly determine: Is he trying to defect or to start a war?
Director: John McTiernan | Stars: Sean Connery, Alec Baldwin, Scott Glenn, Sam Neill
Votes: 214,903 | Gross: $122.01M
17. Das Boot (1981)
R | 149 min | Drama, War
A German U-boat stalks the frigid waters of the North Atlantic as its young crew experience the sheer terror and claustrophobic life of a submariner in World War II.
Director: Wolfgang Petersen | Stars: Jürgen Prochnow, Herbert Grönemeyer, Klaus Wennemann, Hubertus Bengsch
Votes: 264,502 | Gross: $11.49M
18. Serenity (2005)
PG-13 | 119 min | Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi
The crew of the ship Serenity try to evade an assassin sent to recapture telepath River.
Director: Joss Whedon | Stars: Nathan Fillion, Gina Torres, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Alan Tudyk
Votes: 305,788 | Gross: $25.51M
19. La haine (1995)
Not Rated | 98 min | Crime, Drama
24 hours in the lives of three young men in the French suburbs the day after a violent riot.
Director: Mathieu Kassovitz | Stars: Vincent Cassel, Hubert Koundé, Saïd Taghmaoui, Abdel Ahmed Ghili
Votes: 196,713 | Gross: $0.31M
20. Retribution (I) (2023)
R | 91 min | Action, Thriller
A bank executive receives a bomb threat while driving his children to school that his car will explode if they stop and get out.
Director: Nimród Antal | Stars: Liam Neeson, Noma Dumezweni, Lilly Aspell, Jack Champion
Votes: 20,982
21. WarGames (1983)
PG | 114 min | Action, Drama, Sci-Fi
A young man finds a back door into a military central computer in which reality is confused with game-playing, possibly starting World War III.
Director: John Badham | Stars: Matthew Broderick, Ally Sheedy, John Wood, Dabney Coleman
Votes: 110,863 | Gross: $79.57M
22. Child's Play (1988)
R | 87 min | Horror, Thriller
A struggling single mother unknowingly gifts her son a doll imbued with a serial killer's consciousness.
Director: Tom Holland | Stars: Catherine Hicks, Chris Sarandon, Alex Vincent, Brad Dourif
Votes: 116,867 | Gross: $33.24M
23. Scream 4 (2011)
R | 111 min | Comedy, Horror, Mystery
Ten years have passed, and Sidney Prescott, who has put herself back together thanks in part to her writing, is visited by the Ghostface Killer.
Director: Wes Craven | Stars: Neve Campbell, Courteney Cox, David Arquette, Lucy Hale
Votes: 171,323 | Gross: $38.18M
24. Papillon (1973)
R | 151 min | Biography, Crime, Drama
A French convict in the 1930s befriends a fellow criminal as the two of them begin serving their sentence in the South American penal colony on Devil's Island, which inspires the man to plot his escape.
Director: Franklin J. Schaffner | Stars: Steve McQueen, Dustin Hoffman, Victor Jory, Don Gordon
Votes: 138,459 | Gross: $53.27M
25. Funny Games (2007)
R | 111 min | Crime, Drama, Thriller
Two psychopathic young men take a family hostage in their cabin.
Director: Michael Haneke | Stars: Naomi Watts, Tim Roth, Michael Pitt, Brady Corbet
Votes: 103,892 | Gross: $1.29M
26. Inland Empire (2006)
R | 180 min | Drama, Fantasy, Mystery
As an actress begins to adopt the persona of her character in a film, her world becomes nightmarish and surreal.
Director: David Lynch | Stars: Karolina Gruszka, Krzysztof Majchrzak, Grace Zabriskie, Laura Dern
Votes: 62,459 | Gross: $0.75M
27. The Good Son (1993)
R | 87 min | Drama, Thriller
A young boy stays with his aunt and uncle and becomes friends with his cousin, a boy of the same age who shows increasing signs of violent and psychopathic behavior.
Director: Joseph Ruben | Stars: Macaulay Culkin, Elijah Wood, Wendy Crewson, David Morse
Votes: 45,787 | Gross: $44.59M
28. Goldfinger (1964)
PG | 110 min | Action, Adventure, Thriller
While investigating a gold magnate's smuggling, James Bond uncovers a plot to contaminate the Fort Knox gold reserve.
Director: Guy Hamilton | Stars: Sean Connery, Gert Fröbe, Honor Blackman, Shirley Eaton
Votes: 202,673 | Gross: $51.08M
29. Titane (2021)
R | 108 min | Drama, Horror, Sci-Fi
Following a series of unexplained crimes, a father is reunited with the son who has been missing for ten years.
Director: Julia Ducournau | Stars: Vincent Lindon, Agathe Rousselle, Garance Marillier, Laïs Salameh
Votes: 56,245
30. Green Room (2015)
R | 95 min | Crime, Drama, Horror
A punk rock band is forced to fight for survival after witnessing a murder at a neo-Nazi skinhead bar.
Director: Jeremy Saulnier | Stars: Anton Yelchin, Imogen Poots, Alia Shawkat, Patrick Stewart
Votes: 139,357 | Gross: $3.22M
31. High Noon (1952)
PG | 85 min | Drama, Thriller, Western
A town Marshal, despite the disagreements of his newlywed bride and the townspeople around him, must face a gang of deadly killers alone at "high noon" when the gang leader, an outlaw he "sent up" years ago, arrives on the noon train.
Director: Fred Zinnemann | Stars: Gary Cooper, Grace Kelly, Thomas Mitchell, Lloyd Bridges
Votes: 110,255 | Gross: $9.45M
32. Grindhouse (2007)
R | 191 min | Action, Horror, Thriller
Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez's homage to exploitation double features in the '60s and '70s with two back-to-back cult films that include previews of coming attractions between them.
Directors: Robert Rodriguez, Eli Roth, Quentin Tarantino, Edgar Wright, Rob Zombie | Stars: Kurt Russell, Rose McGowan, Danny Trejo, Zoë Bell
Votes: 191,248 | Gross: $25.04M
33. Miami Vice (2006)
R | 132 min | Action, Crime, Drama
Based on the 1980s TV action/drama, this update focuses on vice detectives Crockett and Tubbs as their respective personal and professional lives become dangerously intertwined.
Director: Michael Mann | Stars: Colin Farrell, Jamie Foxx, Gong Li, Naomie Harris
Votes: 123,810 | Gross: $63.45M
34. Sorcerer (1977)
PG | 121 min | Adventure, Drama, Thriller
Four unfortunate men from different parts of the globe agree to risk their lives transporting gallons of nitroglycerin across dangerous Latin American jungle.
Director: William Friedkin | Stars: Roy Scheider, Bruno Cremer, Francisco Rabal, Amidou
Votes: 27,738 | Gross: $12.00M
35. Cube (1997)
R | 90 min | Horror, Mystery, Sci-Fi
A group of strangers awaken to find themselves placed in a giant cube. Each one of them is gifted with a special skill and they must work together to escape an endless maze of deadly traps.
Director: Vincenzo Natali | Stars: Nicole de Boer, Maurice Dean Wint, David Hewlett, Andrew Miller
Votes: 247,793 | Gross: $0.50M
36. Conquest of the Planet of the Apes (1972)
PG | 88 min | Action, Sci-Fi
In a futuristic world that has embraced ape slavery, Caesar, the son of the late simians Cornelius and Zira, surfaces after almost twenty years of hiding out from the authorities, and prepares for a slave revolt against humanity.
Director: J. Lee Thompson | Stars: Roddy McDowall, Don Murray, Ricardo Montalban, Natalie Trundy
Votes: 36,063 | Gross: $9.81M
37. The Night of the Hunter (1955)
Not Rated | 92 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
A self-proclaimed preacher marries a gullible widow whose young children are reluctant to tell him where their real dad hid the $10,000 he'd stolen in a robbery.
Director: Charles Laughton | Stars: Robert Mitchum, Shelley Winters, Lillian Gish, James Gleason
Votes: 97,458 | Gross: $0.65M
38. Crawl (I) (2019)
R | 87 min | Action, Adventure, Horror
A young woman, while attempting to save her father during a category 5 hurricane, finds herself trapped in a flooding house and must fight for her life against alligators.
Director: Alexandre Aja | Stars: Kaya Scodelario, Barry Pepper, Morfydd Clark, Ross Anderson
Votes: 94,111 | Gross: $39.01M
39. This Is England (2006)
Not Rated | 101 min | Crime, Drama
A young boy becomes friends with a gang of skinheads. Friends soon become like family, and relationships will be pushed to the very limit.
Director: Shane Meadows | Stars: Thomas Turgoose, Stephen Graham, Jo Hartley, Andrew Shim
Votes: 128,793 | Gross: $0.33M
40. Halloween (2007)
R | 109 min | Horror
After being committed for 15 years, Michael Myers, now a grown man and still very dangerous, escapes from the mental institution and immediately returns to Haddonfield to find his baby sister, Laurie.
Director: Rob Zombie | Stars: Scout Taylor-Compton, Malcolm McDowell, Tyler Mane, Brad Dourif
Votes: 130,637 | Gross: $58.27M
41. Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982)
PG | 113 min | Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi
With the assistance of the Enterprise crew, Admiral Kirk must stop an old nemesis, Khan Noonien Singh, from using the life-generating Genesis Device as the ultimate weapon.
Director: Nicholas Meyer | Stars: William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley, James Doohan
Votes: 129,291 | Gross: $78.91M
42. Ordinary People (1980)
R | 124 min | Drama
The accidental death of the older son of an affluent family deeply strains the relationships among the bitter mother, the good-natured father and the guilt-ridden younger son.
Director: Robert Redford | Stars: Donald Sutherland, Mary Tyler Moore, Judd Hirsch, Timothy Hutton
Votes: 56,722 | Gross: $54.80M
43. Cabin Fever (2002)
R | 93 min | Horror
Five college graduates rent a cabin in the woods and begin to fall victim to a horrifying flesh-eating virus, which attracts the unwanted attention of the homicidal locals.
Director: Eli Roth | Stars: Jordan Ladd, Rider Strong, James DeBello, Cerina Vincent
Votes: 83,745 | Gross: $21.16M
44. Battle Los Angeles (2011)
PG-13 | 116 min | Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi
A squad of U.S. Marines becomes the last line of defense against a global invasion.
Director: Jonathan Liebesman | Stars: Aaron Eckhart, Michelle Rodriguez, Bridget Moynahan, Ramón Rodríguez
Votes: 185,234 | Gross: $83.55M
45. Breakdown (I) (1997)
R | 93 min | Crime, Drama, Mystery
A man searches for his missing wife after his car breaks down in the middle of the desert.
Director: Jonathan Mostow | Stars: Kurt Russell, J.T. Walsh, Kathleen Quinlan, M.C. Gainey
Votes: 61,823 | Gross: $50.13M
46. Fleishman Is in Trouble (2022–2023)
TV-MA | 48 min | Drama
Toby Fleishman knew what to expect when he and his wife of almost 15 years separated: weekends and every other holiday with the kids, some residual bitterness, and the occasional moment of tension in their co-parenting negotiations.
Stars: Jesse Eisenberg, Claire Danes, Lizzy Caplan, Adam Brody
Votes: 16,683
47. Jigsaw (I) (2017)
R | 92 min | Horror, Mystery, Thriller
Bodies are turning up around the city, each having met a uniquely gruesome demise. As the investigation proceeds, evidence points to one suspect: John Kramer, the man known as Jigsaw, who has been dead for over 10 years.
Directors: Michael Spierig, Peter Spierig | Stars: Matt Passmore, Tobin Bell, Callum Keith Rennie, Hannah Emily Anderson
Votes: 92,357 | Gross: $38.05M
48. The Gift (2000)
R | 111 min | Drama, Fantasy, Horror
A fortune teller with extrasensory perception is asked to help find a young woman who has mysteriously disappeared.
Director: Sam Raimi | Stars: Cate Blanchett, Katie Holmes, Keanu Reeves, Giovanni Ribisi
Votes: 74,820 | Gross: $12.01M
49. Eye in the Sky (2015)
R | 102 min | Action, Drama, Thriller
Col. Katherine Powell, a military officer in command of an operation to capture terrorists in Kenya, sees her mission escalate when a girl enters the kill zone triggering an international dispute over the implications of modern warfare.
Director: Gavin Hood | Stars: Helen Mirren, Aaron Paul, Alan Rickman, Barkhad Abdi
Votes: 91,550 | Gross: $18.70M
50. New Jack City (1991)
R | 97 min | Action, Crime, Drama
A crime lord ascends to power and becomes megalomaniacal while a maverick police detective vows to stop him.
Director: Mario Van Peebles | Stars: Wesley Snipes, Ice-T, Allen Payne, Chris Rock
Votes: 38,862 | Gross: $47.62M