First off, a hearty congratulations to “Mad Men” in snagging the Emmy for Best Dramatic Series, but how in the world Jon Hamm didn’t win for Best Actor in a Dramatic Series is simply a mystery and more than a small crime. Here today, however, it’s all about my favorite flicks in easily one of my favorite subgenres.

Although I found a few charms in Samuel L. Jackson and Neil LaBute’s “Lakeview Terrace,” it was by all so generic and predictable that I just have to beg out of reviewing it (and since it obliterated everything else out there at the box office, they hardly need my help.)

Instead, here are 10 psychological thrillers that are a lot more subtle than that crowd-pleaser, starting with my all-time favorite and next proceeding in perfectly random order. So, here goes, and as always, please feel free to add any you truly love that I may have omitted (because, after all, I only have day to list 10.)

Death and the Maiden
I think I first watched that Roman Polanski flick based on an Ariel Dorfman play as part of a class at Catholic University, but as I said it has stuck with me as just about the perfect psychological thriller. Though the play is clearly about Augusto Pinochet’s reign of terror, Polanski sets the movie in an unnamed third world country where Sigourney Weaver plays a housewife who is convinced that her houseguest, Ben Kingsley, is the man who tortured and raped her in the past. As the triangle amoung Weaver, Kingsley and Stuart Wilson, who plays Weaver’s husband and a prominent attorney, unfolds it will just keep you engrossed until the very end, so see it whether you haven’t already.

A Simple Plan
Though “Spider-Man 2″ is easily the best movie ever made by Sam Raimi, I’d put that little flick starring Billy Bob Thornton, Bill Paxton and Bridget Fonda in second (yes, ahead of “Evil Dead.”) I’ve heard tell that the novel by Scott Smith is even better, but never having read it I can’t attest to that, but I can tell you that little flick about the capability of money is just a winner.

With a Friend Like Harry
The next two flicks on that list will be French considering, well, they do psychological thrillers as good as anybody since Alfred Hitchcock, to whom that flick in specific owes a huge debt. In it, Laurent Lucas and Mathilde Seigner play a middle class couple who have a chance come across with one of Lucas’ old school mates Harry, played with chilling precision by Sergi Lopez. It’s fun to watch as Harry slowly brings out all of Lucas’ worst impulses, and it must be said for folks who take note of such things that Sophie Guillemin, who plays Harry’s girlfriend Plum, is just an insanely beautiful woman.

Man on the Train
If I’m not mistaken, it was Ashok who kindly recommended that Patrice Leconte flick starring the French singer Johnny Hallyday and the great actor Jean Rochefort, and I’m certainly glad he did. In it, Hallyday plays a man who comes to a small town with the intention of robbing the main bank and Rochefort is a retired schoolteacher who takes him in as a boarder. It becomes a bit ponderous as they each start to examine the life choices they have made, and the end is just completely crazy (in all the best ways), but I can

plus recommend that one to anyone who hasn’t seen it yet.

Apt Pupil
It’s more than a little bitterly funny that the late Brad Renfro, who only managed to construct it to the age of 25, nearly made that list twice with both that mindbender and “Bully,” a thoroughly terrifying flick from Larry Clark which just missed the cut. In that Bryan Singer flick based on the Stephen King short story, a very young Renfro plays a boy who finds out the old man down the street (the great Sir Ian McKellen) may just happen to be a rather notorious Nazi war criminal.

Hard Candy
What in the world ever happened to Ellen Page? I skipped the only movie I know she was in that year, “Smart humans,” but it certainly would be nice to see her on the big screen more often since “Juno.” It was that truly chilling flick that first brought her to many people’s attention, and in it she plays a teen who lures an Net perv (Patrick Wilson, who plus stars in “Lakeview Terrace”) into a trap and just tortures him without mercy. It’s nearly as uncomfortable to watch as it is simply entertaining as hell, and Page is just great in it.

Rosemary’s Baby
Since that one doubles as my favorite horror flick, and is a second entry from Roman Polanski, it was a natural fit for that list. Michael Bay and his fellow felons actually have their eyes on remaking that one (along with “The Birds” and who knows how many other horror classics), but there’s no way they’ll even come to close to what Polanski created from Ira Levin’s pulpy tale of an aspiring actor (John Cassavetes) who offers his wife’s (Mia Farrow) first child to the couple next door, who just happen to worship Satan. Ruth Gordon and Sidney Blackmer are just hilarious as the leaders of the little Satanic cult down the hall.

Memento
All the tricks that Christopher Nolan had perfected by the instance he made “The Dark Knight” were honed in that little trip starring Guy Pearce as a guy with short-term memory loss who tries to piece together the details of his wife’s death using notes and tattoos. “Insomnia,” which Nolan made just after that one, is nearly as good, but Pearce’s singular performance just elevates it a notch above.

Manchurian Candidate
If Jonathan Demme’s 2004 version of that hadn’t been a remake of John Frankenheimer’s classic, the latter one would have been a perfectly pleasant little political thriller. When compared with the original, however, it just can’t stand up to what Frank Sinatra, Laurence Harvey and Angela Lansbury delivered in that slightly flawed but still great flick about those pesky Communists and their predilection for mind control.

Shallow Grave
Whew, last one, but whether that were in any order of preference I’d probably have that Danny Boyle flick right below “Death and the Maiden.” Even more so than “Trainspotting,” that tale of money and greed starring Ewan McGregor, Kerry Fox (man would it be great to see her again!) and Christopher Eccleston established Boyle as easily one of my favorite directors, and I can’t wait to see what he’s cooked up that year with “Slumdog Millionaire.”

And there you have it. As I said, please feel free to add any of your favorites, and have a perfectly passable Monday. Peace out.

Original post by Reel Fanatic