A Glean movie guide
Adrenaline & Anxiety: Movies to Keep You Awake
Don't forget to breathe.
High-tension thrillers and relentless survival stories that refuse to let you look away.
Handpicked for this guide
The movie list
- 01
Uncut Gems
A relentless, anxiety-inducing spiral of high-stakes bets and escalating consequences.
A charismatic New York City jeweler always on the lookout for the next big score makes a series of high-stakes bets that could lead to the windfall of a lifetime. Howard must perform a precarious high-wire act, balancing business, family, and encroaching adversaries on all sides in his relentless pursuit of the ultimate win.
- 02
Whiplash
An electrifying look at the brutal psychological and physical cost of achieving perfection.
Under the direction of a ruthless instructor, a talented young drummer begins to pursue perfection at any cost, even his humanity.
- 03
Mad Max: Fury Road
A masterpiece of continuous, high-speed action that barely pauses for breath.
An apocalyptic story set in the furthest reaches of our planet, in a stark desert landscape where humanity is broken, and most everyone is crazed fighting for the necessities of life. Within this world exist two rebels on the run who just might be able to restore order.
- 04
Green Room
A visceral and claustrophobic survival thriller that maintains a sense of immediate physical danger.
A punk rock band is forced to fight for survival after witnessing an act of violence at a skinhead bar.
- 05
Good Time
A frantic, neon-soaked odyssey through the underworld driven by increasingly desperate decisions.
After a botched bank robbery lands his younger brother in prison, Connie Nikas embarks on a twisted odyssey through New York City's underworld to get his brother Nick out of jail.
- 06
A Quiet Place
A masterclass in sound-based suspense that turns every noise into a life-or-death situation.
A family is forced to live in silence while hiding from creatures that hunt by sound.
- 07
1917
A real-time race against the clock filmed to feel like one continuous, urgent shot.
At the height of the First World War, two young British soldiers must cross enemy territory and deliver a message that will stop a deadly attack on hundreds of soldiers.
- 08
Don't Breathe
A high-concept home invasion thriller that uses silence to create unbearable tension.
A group of teens break into a blind man's home thinking they'll get away with the perfect crime. They're wrong.
- 09
Train to Busan
A high-speed zombie survival story that balances emotional stakes with non-stop intensity.
When a zombie virus pushes Korea into a state of emergency, those trapped on an express train to Busan must fight for their own survival.
- 10
Gravity
An immersive and stressful survival epic that traps you in a series of life-threatening obstacles.
Dr. Ryan Stone, a brilliant medical engineer, is on her first Shuttle mission, with veteran astronaut Matt Kowalski in command of his last flight before retiring. But on a seemingly routine spacewalk, disaster strikes. The Shuttle is destroyed, leaving Stone and Kowalski completely alone-tethered to nothing but each other and spiraling out into the blackness of space. The deafening silence tells them they have lost any link to Earth and any chance for rescue. As fear turns to panic, every gulp of air eats away at what little oxygen is left. But the only way home may be to go further out into the terrifying expanse of space.