11. Teesri Manzil(1966) ; IMDb – 7.7/10
Teesri Manzil is a musical thriller directed by Vijay Anand.
The film begins with Sunita (Asha Parekh) who is deeply disturbed by her sister, Roopa’s suicide. All she was aware of was the fact that Roopa had committed suicide because of her involvement with Rocky (Shammi Kapoor), a live band drummer. She leaves for Dehradun and meets Anil whose stage name is Rocky. He stumbles across the fact that she had sworn revenge on Rocky. Narrating his version to his friend, Anil reveals that it was Roopa who was pursuing him and when he rejected her, she jumped from the 3rd floor. With the help of a rich patron of the hotel, Mr. Kunwar (Premnath), he presents himself as a rich heir. But as the truth about his identity is revealed, he tries to tell Sunita the truth about Roopa’s death. But she refuses to have any of it.
The police arrest Anil and they reveal that Roopa was actually murdered and even his life might be in danger. Anil suspects her co-dancer, Ruby (Helen) to be the killer but she is murdered before his eyes. Next, he suspects Roopa’s fiancé, Ramesh (Prem Chopra) but he doesn’t have any link to it. A mysterious phone call from a woman almost leads to Anil’s death. Anil follows the mysterious lady back to Mr. Kunwar’s hotel where he locks Anil in. Anil discovers that Mr. Kunwar was the killer and the mysterious lady was his mistress. She confesses to the police that Roopa had been a witness to Mr. Kunwar and herself burying the body of his wife whom he had accidentally shot. Kunwar chased Roopa to the hotel and threw her from the 3rd floor to protect his secret. Kunwar kills his mistress and gets into a scuffle with Anil. Anil overpowers him and the police arrive. Kunwar commits suicide. The film ends with Anil and Sunita getting reunited.
With the music and songs setting records, this movie is considered among the best offerings of R. D. Burman’s career.
12. Khamosh(1986) ; IMDb – 7.5/10
Khamosh is an Indian thriller directed by Vidhu Vinod Chopra.
Soni Razdan, Amol Palekar, Shabana Azmi, Ajit Vachchani and Pankaj Kapur comprise the filming unit that enters the beautiful city of Pahalgam in Kashmir for their next film. Razdan, a budding actress suddenly commits suicide casting a shadow on the proceedings. The police think that it’s an open and shut case of suicide. The entry of Naseeruddin Shah (a military man) thwarts their plan. He takes the reins and is hell bent on proving that it was a murder. On the verge of accusing Mrs. Bhal, a retired actress, he is arrested and his cover as the investigating officer is blown and he is arrested. He confesses to being Razdan’s estranged brother. Azmi seems to agree with Shah and both of them decide to apprehend the culprit by hook or by crook. Eventually all clues point to Vachchani,a film producer, who confesses that his mentally unstable brother, Kapur had killed Razdan in a fit of rage when she spurned his advances. He goes on a shooting spree and in the process kills Vachchani. But that’s not the end of it. Other facts surface that lead to the investigation continuing. Who is the mastermind behind all these murders?
13. Gumnaam (1965) ; IMDb – 7.2/10
Gumnaam is a Bollywood thriller film directed by Raja Nawathe. The film is an adaptation of the mystery novel And There Were None by Agatha Christie.
Khanna, a wealthy man, hires an assassin to murder his rival, Sohanlal. He then informs Sohanlal’s niece, Asha (Nanda) about his death on the phone. A few days later, Asha wins a trip to a foreign country with 6 others: Barrister Rakesh (Pran), Dharamdas (Dhumal), Kishan (Manmohan), Dr. Acharya (Madan Puri), Madhusudan Sharma (Tarun Bose) and Kitty Kelly (Helen). The plane has to make an emergency landing en route to the foreign country. The 6 people along with Anand, the crew member, are stranded on the island with the visions of a girl crooning softly. They find a mansion with only a butler for a resident. Meanwhile, Dharamdas finds a diary that reveals that they are all related to some or the other crime and that all of them will be killed. What ensues is the continuous, methodical elimination of all the characters. Budding love interest grows between Anand and Asha and Rakesh and Kitty. In the end it is revealed that it was all an elaborate scheme on the part of Sohanlal who had faked his own death to exact revenge on his partners in crime, Khanna and Madanlal. Anand and Asha manage to escape his clutches with the help of the butler. Sohanlal tries to escape but is captured by policemen who arrive on the island in a plane. Anand, Asha, the butler and the unknown girl, who happened to be the butler’s mentally ill sister, are rescued and whisked back to the safety of the mainland.
The movie is quite engrossing with the right proportions of engaging comedy, romance, some very good songs along with the mystery surrounding the murders and the killer, as each life gets snuffed out brutally. The title track – ‘Gumnaam Hain Koi’ manages to send chills through one’s spine. Mehmood’s song – ‘Hum Kaale Hain Toh Kya Hua Dilwale Hain’ sends the audience into peals of laughter. It is used and reused in Bollywood even to this day. The entire crew delivered a stellar performance.
14. Ittefaq(1969) ; IMDb – 4/10
Ittefaq is an Indian suspense thriller film produced by B. R. Chopra and directed by his brother, Yash Chopra. It is a remake of the American movie Signpost to Murder.
Dilip Roy (Rajesh Khanna) is a painter who, after having an argument with his wife, Sushma (Alka) storms out of the house and threatens to kill her. On returning, he finds her dead body. He is arrested based on Renu’s, Sushma’s sister (Bindu) testimony. He is sent for a psychiatric examination when he displays erratic behavior during his interrogation. He escapes from the hospital and ends up in Rekha’s (Nanda) house. He holds her at gun point and forces her to let him stay in her house. She doesn’t have a choice and complies against her wishes. When the police come knocking on her door, she pretends that she doesn’t know Dilip. He changes out of his prison uniform and they talk like friends for some time. He puts his faith on her and goes to sleep for some time. But when he wakes up in the middle of the night, he finds the dead body of a young man. When he confronts Rekha about him, she bats away his questions and tells him that he’s hallucinating. But he senses that something is wrong. When he becomes certain of Rekha’s deception, he calls the police telling them that she had murdered her husband. On enquiry, she denies that her husband was even in the city. But after some thorough searching they find his body outside the house. The Inspector accuses Dilip of killing him before entering into the house and also finds his prison uniform. Dilip confirms his suspicion about the fact that the Inspector was helping Rekha. With her back firmly against the wall and finding no way to escape her conscience, Rekha admits that she was having an affair with Inspector Diwan (Sujit Kumar) and that they killed her husband when he caught them red handed. She commits suicide out of guilt and remorse. Simultaneously, Inspector Karwe (Iftekhar) arrests Renu as the murderer of Sushma based on collected evidence. He clears Dilip of the murder charge.
15. Gupt: The Hidden Truth(1997) ; IMDb – 7.4/10
Gupt: The Hidden Truth is an Indian Hindi suspense thriller film directed by Rajiv Rai.
The story is based on a semi love triangle and how a person can go to crazy extents to have another person. Sahil Sinha (Bobby Deol) is the son of a prominent political figure, Governor Jaisingh Sinha (Raj Babbar). Isha is Ishwar Dewan (Paresh Rawal), Sinha’s Personal Secretary’s daughter. She and Sahil are in love with each other. On the other hand, Sheetal (Manisha Koirala) is also in love with him which he doesn’t reciprocate. One evening, Jaisingh throws a birthday party for Sahil and announces that him and Sheetal are engaged. Flying into a fit of rage, Sahil almost kills his father and leaves the party. When he returns, he finds him stabbed to death. Subsequently, he is arrested, tried and is found guilty and is sentenced to 14 years in prison. But he manages to escape and with the help of Sheetal, sets out on a mission to find the real killer. Following this, a slew of murders take place; murders that take pout the characters who could pose a problem to Sahil and Isha’s relationship. In the end, it is revealed that Isha had committed all those murders because she couldn’t bear to be separated from Sahil. Her last victim turns out to be Sheetal who is saved by Sahil in the nick of time. The police shoot Isha and she shares a last dramatic embrace with Sahil as she dies in his arms.
The last plot twist where we find Isha to be the killer couldn’t be more shocking. And the epic escape from jail through the sewage tunnel makes Gupt an all time favorite. Bollywood has yet to make another film like it. It shocked the audience when it was released and continues to garner viewers even to this day. Bobby Deol’s acting is perfectly convincing. We believe him when he accuses someone to be the killer and we believe him when he lets them go. Nobody in their right mind could predict Isha to be the killer. She was the soft-spoken girl who was blindly in love with Sahil. But oh! What an ending it was. Kajol fits the definition of femme fatale perfectly in this role. She delievers a flawless performance. She was rightfully awarded the Filmfare Award for the Best Villain, a title that was only bagged by men till that day. She is a woman who blazed a trail with her seemingly calm presence as well as the perfect psycho killer act throughout the movie. She left an unmistakable imprint on the audience’s mind.
16. Ajnabee(2001) ; IMDb – 6.6/10
Ajnabee is an Indian Hindi suspenseful thriller film directed by Abbas-Mustan. The film is an adaptation of the American thriller Consenting Adults (1992).
Raj (Bobby Deol) and Priya (Kareena Kapoor) meet by chance and fall in love after a whirlwind romance. They get married and settle in Switzerland, where they meet another Indian couple: Vikram (Akshay Kumar) and Sonia (Bipasha Basu). The couples befriend each other and decide to go to Mauritus on a Christmas vacation. Things change rapidly over the holidays. Raj sees Vikram getting cozy with another woman while Sonia tires to seduce Raj who rebuffs her advances. When Vikram brings up the topic of wife swapping, Raj gets into a serious altercation with him, which they hash out over drinks. Both men get drunk and end up in opposite houses. When Raj wakes up the next day, he finds an unknown dead woman there. He is arrested based on evidence but he manages to flee court. What follows is his desperate attempt to seek justice and find the real killer. He discovers that in Vikram’s world, money plays the pivotal role in all his actions instead of love. He planned to murder his rich wife, Sonia (Mink Brar) to get her insurance so that he and his girlfriend, Neeta (Bipasha Basu) could enjoy for the rest of their lives. But Raj thwarts his plans by transferring the entire money back to the company and recording Vikram’s haughty confession. When Vikram discovers his loss, a fight ensues that results in Neeta’s death. Eventually, Vikram dies while chasing Priya. In the end, Raj and Priya move back to India.
17. 100 Days(1991) ; IMDb – 6.5/10
100 Days is an Indian Hindi psychological thriller film. It follows the events in the life of a woman with extrasensory perception. This film was a super-hit. It was a remake of the Tamil film Nooravathu Naal (1984) which itself is an unofficial adaptation of the Italian film Sette note in nero (1977).
The film opens with a young woman, Devi (Madhuri Dixit) who gets visions of incidents yet to happen. Devi has a vision of her sister, Rama (Moon Moon Sen) getting murdered. It comes true and Rama’s body is hid in the wall of a mansion. Rama goes missing and Devi is convinced that she has been murdered. A few years later, Devi meets Ram Kumar (Jackie Shroff) when she goes to live with her uncle (Ajit Vachani). She is courted and gets married to Ram. They enter a mansion that was caught up in a legal battle which now belongs to Ram. Coincidentally, this was the mansion where Rama’s body was hid. When Devi starts having visions about Rama’s skeleton, she tears down a wall to find it. She is convinced that it is her sister but the police are doubtful. She gets visions about Parvati (Neelam Mehra), the Record Keeper of the Bombay Museum, being murdered which turns out to be true. She was blackmailing Rama’s killer with a videotape which ended her life. Devi gets her hands on the video tape and watches as brutal reality unfolds in front of her eyes.
It shows Ram to be Rama’s killer. Ram confesses saying that Jagmohan (Jai Kalgutkar), the security officer of the museum had killed Rama and made it look like Ram was the guilty one. The trio were part of a smuggling ring and Rama had caught on to them. No sooner had he finished speaking, than Jagmohan attacks and Ram loses consciousness. An altercation between Devi and Jagmohan results in him overpowering her. He buries her in the wall. Sunil comes in when he tries to escape and eventually discovers Devi. Ram gains consciousness and both of them are able to overpower Jagmohan. The police arrive and the film ends with Ram and Jagmohan being whisked away to prison.
18. Bees Saal Baad(1962) ; IMDb – 7.1/10
Bees Saal Baad is an Indian Hindi psychological thriller film. The film marks the directorial debut of Biren Nag. It is a loose adaptation of the Bengali hit thriller Jighansa (1951), which was based on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Hound of The Baskervilles as well as loosly based on Hemendra Kumar Roy’s novel Nishithini Bivhishika. The film topped the box office chart in 1962 and became a super-hit. Lata Mangeshkar won Filmfare Award for Best Female Playback Singer and Shakeel Badayuni won Filmfare Award for Best Lyricist for the song ‘Kahin deep jale’.
The story follows the consequence of the brutal actions of the lustful Thakur Of Chandanghat who rapes a young girl. She kills herself. Thereafter, the Thakur is killed by the spirit of the girl. This was the myth that was popularized by the local people. After him, his son got killed as well. It was said that their entire dynasty was cursed by the spirit. When his grandson, Vijay, comes to the estate, everyone begs him to leave. But he is staunch in his principles and is convinced that the spirit myth is just that, a myth. He continues living in the mansion where weird occurrences happen like mysterious lights on the terrace. A man gets killed who was wearing his jacket who turns out to be the servant, Laxman’s criminal brother-in-law. This reinforces the fact that someone out there was thirsty for vengeance. He meets a sweet girl named Radha who is the niece of an old man, Ramlal, the local doctor and strikes up a friendship with her. Ramlal forbids her from talking to Vijay, saying that the spirit will get vengeance on her as well. In the end, it is Ramlal who turns out to be the spirit who was exacting revenge on the Thakur dynasty for the rape and suicide of her daughter. He surrenders to the police and Vijay and Radha are blessed with a happily ever after.
The surprise element of who is the murderer is brought out till the end without making it tedious for the audience to sit through the entire film. The dark music throughout lens spookiness to the atmosphere which contributes to increasing the mystery and terror, making it a must watch classic.
19. Samay: When Time Strikes(2003) ; IMDb – 6.9/10
Samay is a thriller which is based on the Hollywood movie Se7en (1995).
ACP Malvika Chauhan (Sushmita Sen) is a widowed cop having a 10 year old daughter. She is called to investigate the murder of a famous businessman. But before she can get down to it, a famous heroine is murdered. She believes it to be the work of a serial killer. All her leads turn up to be dead ends. Neither the victims not their associates appear to be connected. Amidst all of this, she has to protect herself from a criminal who in turn ends up dead. She follows the evidence and ends up in a spectacles shop and has a conversation with the assistant. It turns out that the assistant was the killer in disguise. She pursues the list of potential victims and gives police protection to the man who seems to be the most likely target. But the killer confronts her and reveals that he had actually killed her daughter. She hadn’t noticed her daughter’s name on the list. Even as her aide implores her to not kill him, to let court serve justice, in a fit of rage and anguish, she shoots the killer.
20. Baazigar (1993); IMDb – 7.8/10
Directed by Abbas-Mustan, Baazigar is an Indian crime thriller. The story is inspired from a British movie A Kiss Before Dying (1991). This was the first film in which Shah Rukh Khan played the role of an anti-hero and the first which earned him a Filmfare Award for Best Actor. This was his breakthrough role as the sole lead and Kajol’s first commercial success. This was Shilpa Shetty’s debut film.
Ajay Sharma (Shah Rukh Khan) is a young man who seeks revenge from Madan Chopra (Dalip Tahil), who was responsible for his father’s death. He plans to snare his 2 daughters in his trap to exact revenge on him. He cozies up to Seema (Shilpa Shetty) as Vicky and introduces himself to Priya (Kajol) as Ajay. When Seema falls helplessly in love with him, she asks him to marry her. Citing his poor conditions, Vicky says that marriage would be impossible. He states that the only way for them to be together for eternity is through death. Seema agrees and Vicky teases her and makes a joke out of the situation. He manipulates Seema into leaving a suicide note and kills her. Priya refuses to believe that Seema had committed suicide and with her friend, Inspector Karan Saxena (Siddharth Ray) begins investigating her sister’s death. Ravi, one of Seema’s friends discovers a photograph with Vicky in it. When Vicky finds out, he forces him to write a suicide note taking the blame of Seema’s murder, following which he kills him. Thus the investigation ends a second time. Ajay slowly worms his way into Chopra’s heart. He gets a flashback about how his father had mercy on Chopra and how he had betrayed that trust by taking away his company and leaving them with nothing which resulted in his baby sister’s and his father’s death in poverty. Anjali, Seema’s friend gets a photograph of Vicky and realizes that Ajay and Vicky is the same guy. Before she can tell this to Priya, Ajay murders her. History repeats itself when Chopra hands over the company’s reins to Ajay and he takes over completely, kicking Chopra out of his company. When Anjali meets the real Vicky, she decides to go and confront Ajay where he tells her the entire truth: the entirety of his revenge story and how he pretended to be in love with Seema and Priya just to get close to Chopra and gain his trust. Chopra arrives with his platoon of goons and kills Ajay, but not before Ajay manages to kill Chopra as well. As Ajay lies in his mother’s arms, he sighs peacefully and breathes his last.
