thriller
Americannoun
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thrillers
plural
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a person or thing that thrills.
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an exciting, suspenseful play or story, especially a mystery story.
noun
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a book, film, play, etc, depicting crime, mystery, or espionage in an atmosphere of excitement and suspense
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a person or thing that thrills
Discover More
In Great Britain, the word thriller is sometimes used for all mystery novels: “Martha Grimes, an American, writes British-style thrillers.”
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of thriller
1885–90; 1920–25 thriller for def. 2; thrill + -er 1
Explanation
A thriller is a suspenseful movie, TV show, book, or play. If you love thrillers, you probably enjoy mysterious plots, suspicious characters, and being on the edge of your seat. Thrillers are known for being exciting and sometimes scary, evoking emotions like anticipation, fear, and suspense. They tend to use plot twists and cliffhangers to keep an audience or reader intrigued, and they often feature a villain. The literary label thriller first appeared in the late 1800s, from the verb thrill, "give a shivering, excited feeling."
Vocabulary lists containing thriller
Literary Genres - Introductory
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Literary Genres - Advanced
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Reading: Literature - Literary Genres - Middle School
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
That includes “Reacher,” the Prime Video thriller that’s basically a string of run-and-gun flicks passed off as episodic TV.
From Salon ● Aug. 22, 2026
I’d rather revert to the days when every lazy thriller relied on a hijacked nuclear bomb.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 21, 2026
Her co-star Justin Chatwin has shared how the actress was "struggling" on the set of the thriller in early 2025.
From BBC ● Aug. 18, 2026
But I do believe to effectively assemble a thriller, a writer must contemplate all that is possible in the present to realistically construct what dark, fearful deeds are plausible in the future.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 13, 2026
A thriller that might require the light to be left on overnight.
From "The Bletchley Riddle" by Ruta Sepetys and Steve Sheinkin
Working with cinematographer Ashley Connor, DeYoung drew from 1970s conspiracy thrillers like “The Parallax View” and “All the President’s Men.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 12, 2026
From 12‑goal thrillers to 10-0 humiliations and penalty shootouts that threaten to last almost as long as the match itself, the EFL Cup has had it all over the years.
From BBC ● Aug. 8, 2026
Two thrillers, unalike in style and attitude yet with much in common, arrive Wednesday to television.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 15, 2026
Their fated romance is the final piece of the puzzle, the pièce de résistance that helps De Palma’s film rise above the other thrillers of its ilk.
From Salon ● Jul. 4, 2026
He’s been in thirty-eight dramas, twelve crime pictures and comedies, eleven thrillers, eight action films, seven Westerns, six war movies, four documentaries, three horror flicks, two sci-fi films, and a musical, among others.
From "The Tipping Point" by Malcolm Gladwell
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
