Movies about Serial Killers: Best Films
This watch list presents a diverse selection of exceptional serial killer movies, showcasing masterful filmmaking across different eras and approaches. Fritz Lang's M established the template in 1931 with its groundbreaking psychological depth and social commentary. Dario Argento's Deep Red perfected the Italian giallo style with stunning visuals and elaborate set pieces.
Jonathan Demme's The Silence of the Lambs became the genre's definitive achievement, winning Best Picture and creating an indelible cultural icon in Hannibal Lecter. David Fincher contributes two masterworks: Se7en's nihilistic thriller about a methodical killer using the seven deadly sins, and Zodiac's meticulous procedural about obsession and unsolved mystery.
Mary Harron's American Psycho offers brilliant satire on 1980s excess, while Bong Joon Ho's Memories of Murder brings a Korean perspective to the procedural format. Finally, Lars von Trier's The House That Jack Built provides provocative art cinema examining the mind of a killer across decades.
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M
In this classic German thriller, Hans Beckert, a serial killer who preys on children, becomes the focus of a massive Berlin police manhunt. Beckert's heinous crimes are so repellant and disruptive to city life that he is even targeted by others in the seedy underworld network. With both cops and criminals in pursuit, the murderer soon realizes that people are on his trail, sending him into a tense, panicked attempt to escape justice.

Deep Red
An English pianist living in Rome witnesses the brutal murder of his psychic neighbor. With the help of a tenacious young reporter, he tries to discover the killer using very unconventional methods. The two are soon drawn into a shocking web of dementia and violence.

The Silence of the Lambs
Clarice Starling is a top student at the FBI's training academy. Jack Crawford wants Clarice to interview Dr. Hannibal Lecter, a brilliant psychiatrist who is also a violent psychopath, serving life behind bars for various acts of murder and cannibalism. Crawford believes that Lecter may have insight into a case and that Starling, as an attractive young woman, may be just the bait to draw him out.

Se7en
Two homicide detectives are on a desperate hunt for a serial killer whose crimes are based on the "seven deadly sins" in this dark and haunting film that takes viewers from the tortured remains of one victim to the next. The seasoned Det. Somerset researches each sin in an effort to get inside the killer's mind, while his novice partner, Mills, scoffs at his efforts to unravel the case.

American Psycho
A wealthy New York investment banking executive hides his alternate psychopathic ego from his co-workers and friends as he escalates deeper into his illogical, gratuitous fantasies.

Memories of Murder
A sadistic serial rapist and murderer of young women terrorizes a small province in 1980s South Korea. To prevent further crimes, three increasingly desperate detectives with conflicting methods race against time to unravel the violent mind of the killer in a futile effort to solve the case.

Zodiac
Over the course of a decade, editors of the San Francisco Chronicle entice themselves in the murders of the Zodiac Killer. However, as time runs its course, interest in the case dwindles in the eyes of the professionals. The Killer stops interacting with the public. However, believing he has the answers, an amateur cartoonist from the initial sightings races against time to prevent what he believes is another murder.

The House That Jack Built
Failed architect, engineer and vicious murderer Jack narrates the details of some of his most elaborately orchestrated crimes, each of them a towering piece of art that defines his life's work as a serial killer for twelve years.
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