As we all know that some genres are easier to define than others. Family movies are intended for all audiences. But “thrillers” can be harder to tack down. Therefore, after all, many movies want to thrill you, which doesn’t mean that they all have death or life situations, serial killers, kidnappings, etc. in them.

Since there’s a lot of overlap, it’s worth noting that “thrillers” are not necessarily “horror movies” either. Horror movies are generally about tackling our fears of death. Thrillers are usually about tackling our fears of staying alive, the anxieties and fears that curse us every day, and the outcomes we fear that prevent us from living more exciting, although dangerous lives. Horror movies are about dying. Thrillers are about staying alive.

Thrillers are also about credibility. Once the trick or fantasy works its way into the storyline, the movie becomes less about normal people surviving disturbing situations and more about the mechanics of the fantasy world it now inhabits. The results of a thriller may be highly unlikely, but they could, at least in an indistinct way, happen in the real world. That’s what makes them fascinating. It could happen to you.

Of course, even with all that said, there’s still a lot of death, disintegration, and torture to be found in the best thrillers of the 21st century. Still, the excellent thrillers we have been getting are enthralling, fascinating examinations of our contemporary fears, our daily phobias, and our curious obsessions with crime, violence and shame.

These are my picks for the top 3 best thrillers of the 21st century (so far), presented in sequential order.

Memento (2000)

The modern structure of Memento works its way backward, so the audience shares Leonard’s ignorance of all the events that drove him to each fascinating scene, and the cleverness doesn’t stop there. Memento takes what could have been a novel editing stunt and builds an entire, gripping suspense narrative around the hero’s limited perception, and around his and the audience’s enthusiasm to trust whatever we’re shown. And that makes all of us easy to trick.

With a Friend Like Harry (2000)

An opportunity challenge to a public washroom brings back Michel (Laurent Lucas) to an old high school friend named Harry (Sergi Lopez), and even though Michel has no memory of Harry, Harry remembers everything about him. And Harry is disappointed to discover that in the years that followed, the young Michel who had so much potential, and ability has become saddled with a busted car, a judgmental spouse, poor children, and domineering parents.

Runaway Jury (2003)

The John Grisham version Runaway Jury was released to a shrugging audience upon its initial release, but perhaps no other Grisham version has aged as gracefully. John Cusack stars as Nick Easter, a casually selected juror on a momentous case, in which the family of a mass shooting victim is prosecuting the gun industry for their responsibility in his death. It’s such an important court case that the firearms producers enlist Franklin Rich (Gene Hackman) to snoop on and influence the jury to make sure the verdict goes their way.

But Rich has his work cut out for him: Nick and his accomplice, Marlee (Rachel Weisz), have a plan to influence the jury from within and sell the verdict to the highest bidder. The thing to follow is a crafty and unpredictable series of difficulties as director Gary Fleder exposes the corruption of the legal system and the massive uphill battle any victim faces on their path to justice. Grisham’s story is the thrilling and heroic standard for the course but this time it’s interestingly playful, yet impressively respectful of the serious (and increasingly serious) issue at the heart of the trial.