Thriller (genre)

Thriller is a genre of fiction with numerous, often overlapping, subgenres, including crime, horror, and detective fiction. Thrillers are characterized and defined by the moods they elicit, giving their audiences heightened feelings of suspense, excitement, surprise, anticipation and anxiety.^[1] This genre is well suited to film and television.

A thriller generally keeps its audience on the "edge of their seats" as the plot builds towards a climax. The cover-up of important information is a common element.^[2] Literary devices such as red herrings, plot twists, unreliable narrators, and cliffhangers are used extensively. A thriller is often a villain-driven plot, whereby they present obstacles that the protagonist or hero must overcome.

Roots of the genre date back hundreds of years, but it began to develop as a distinct style in the 1800s and early 1900s with novels like The Count of Monte Cristo (1848) and The Thirty-Nine Steps (1915). The films of Alfred Hitchcock are critical in the development of the thriller film during the mid-20th century.^[3] Some popular 21st-century mainstream examples include: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Gone Girl, The Girl on the Train, The Woman in the Window, and the British television series Utopia.