Hidden gem movies
Highly rated, but seen by far fewer people than the big names.
Swipe this deck
The Vanishing
1988
Thriller · Mystery
Rex and Saskia, a young couple in love, are on vacation when they stop at a busy service station. Saskia is abducted in broad daylight and three years pass with no answers or closure surrounding her disappearance. Rex has nearly given up all hope when he suddenly begins receiving letters from her abductor.
← no→ yes↑ maybeCtrl Z undo
Swipe this deck with friends →
In the mood for something else? Build your own deck →
Everything in this deck
The Vanishing1988
Thriller · Mystery
Rex and Saskia, a young couple in love, are on vacation when they stop at a busy service station. Saskia is abducted in broad daylight and three years pass with no answers or closure surrounding her disappearance. Rex has nearly given up all hope when he suddenly begins receiving letters from her abductor.
Death Becomes Her1992
Comedy · Fantasy · Horror
Madeline is married to Ernest, who was once her arch-rival Helen's fiancé. After recovering from a mental breakdown, Helen vows to kill Madeline and steal back Ernest. Unfortunately for everyone, the introduction of a magic potion causes things to be a great deal more complicated than a mere murder plot.
Kill the Irishman2011
Action · Crime · Thriller
Over the summer of 1976, thirty-six bombs detonate in the heart of Cleveland while a turf war raged between Irish mobster Danny Greene and the Italian mafia. Based on a true story, Kill the Irishman chronicles Greene's heroic rise from a tough Cleveland neighborhood to become an enforcer in the local mob.
Long Day's Journey Into Night2018
Drama · Mystery
Luo Hongwu returns to Kaili, the hometown from which he fled many years ago. He begins the search for the woman he loved and whom he has never been able to forget.
The Invitation2016
Thriller · Horror
Will and his new girlfriend Kira are invited to a dinner with old friends at the house of Will’s ex Eden and her new partner David. Although the evening appears to be relaxed, Will soon gets a creeping suspicion that their charming host David is up to something.
Big Trouble in Little China1986
Action · Adventure · Comedy
Truck driver Jack Burton gets embroiled in a supernatural battle when his best friend Wang Chi's green-eyed fiancée is kidnapped by henchmen of the sorcerer Lo Pan, who must marry a girl with green eyes in order to return to the human realm.
Gaslight1944
Thriller · Drama · Mystery
A newlywed fears she's going mad when strange things start happening at the family mansion.
The Salton Sea2002
Crime · Drama · Mystery
After the murder of his beloved wife, a man in search of redemption is set adrift in a world where nothing is as it seems. On his journey, he befriends slacker Jimmy "The Finn", becomes involved in rescuing his neighbor Colette from her own demons, and gets entangled in a web of deceit full of unexpected twists and turns.
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang2005
Comedy · Crime · Mystery
A petty thief posing as an actor is brought to Los Angeles for an unlikely audition and finds himself in the middle of a murder investigation along with his high school dream girl and a detective who's been training him for his upcoming role...
Mother2009
Crime · Drama · Mystery
A mother lives quietly with her son. One day, a girl is brutally killed, and the boy is charged with the murder. Now, it's his mother's mission to prove him innocent.
New Jack City1991
Thriller · Crime · Drama
A gangster, Nino, is in the Cash Money Brothers, making a million dollars every week selling crack. A cop, Scotty, discovers that the only way to infiltrate the gang is to become a dealer himself.
Kimi2022
Thriller · Mystery · Crime
A tech worker with agoraphobia discovers recorded evidence of a violent crime but is met with resistance when she tries to report it. Seeking justice, she must do the thing she fears the most: leave her apartment.
Shadow of a Doubt1943
Thriller · Mystery · Crime
In sleepy Santa Rosa, restless young Charlie’s world brightens when her sophisticated Uncle Charlie arrives for a long visit. But as his behavior grows increasingly strange, she begins to suspect that her beloved uncle may be hiding a terrible secret—and that danger has quietly entered her home.
White Dog1982
Drama · Horror · Thriller
Samuel Fuller’s throat-grabbing exposé on American racism was misunderstood and withheld from release when it was made in the early eighties.Today, the notorious film is lauded for its daring metaphor and gripping pulp filmmaking. Kristy McNichol stars as a young actress who adopts a lost German shepherd, only to discover through a series of horrifying incidents that the dog has been trained to attack black people, and Paul Winfield plays the animal trainer who tries to cure him. A snarling, uncompromising vision, White Dog is a tragic portrait of the evil done by that most corruptible of all animals; the human being.
Diabolique1955
Thriller · Mystery
The cruel and abusive headmaster of a boarding school, Michel Delassalle, is murdered by an unlikely duo -- his meek wife and the mistress he brazenly flaunts. The women become increasingly unhinged by a series of odd occurrences after Delassalle's corpse mysteriously disappears.
Dirty Rotten Scoundrels1988
Comedy · Crime
Con artist Lawrence Jamieson is a longtime resident of a luxurious coastal resort, where he enjoys the lavish fruits of his deceptions -- that is, until a competitor, Freddy Benson, shows up. When the new guy's lowbrow tactics impinge on his own sophisticated work and believing him to be the infamous conman 'The Jackal', Lawrence resolves to get rid of him. Confident of his own duplicitous talents, he challenges Freddy to a winner-takes-all competition: whoever swindles their latest mark, American heiress Janet Colgate, out of $50,000 first can stay, while the other must leave town.
Stir of Echoes1999
Horror · Mystery · Thriller
After being hypnotized by his sister-in-law, Tom Witzky begins seeing haunting visions of a girl's ghost and a mystery begins to unfold around her.
The Cremator1969
Horror · Drama · Comedy
In 1930s Prague, a Czech cremator who firmly believes cremation relieves one from earthly suffering is drawn inexorably to Nazism.
Booksmart2019
Comedy
Two academic teenage superstars realize, on the eve of their high school graduation, that they should have worked less and played more. Determined to never fall short of their peers, the girls set out on a mission to cram four years of fun into one night.
Companion2025
Horror · Sci-Fi · Thriller
During a weekend getaway at a secluded lakeside estate, a group of friends finds themselves entangled in a web of secrets, deception, and advanced technology. As tensions rise and loyalties are tested, they uncover unsettling truths about themselves and the world around them.
Cop Land1997
Crime · Drama · Thriller
Freddy Heflin is the sheriff of a place everyone calls “Cop Land” — a small and seemingly peaceful town populated by the big city police officers he’s long admired. Yet something ugly is taking place behind the town’s peaceful facade. And when Freddy uncovers a massive, deadly conspiracy among these local residents, he is forced to take action and make a dangerous choice between protecting his idols and upholding the law.
Martyrs2008
Horror · Drama · Thriller
A young woman’s quest for revenge against the people who kidnapped and tortured her as a child leads her and her best friend, also a victim of child abuse, on a terrifying journey into a living hell of depravity.
Four Lions2010
Comedy · Crime · Drama
Four Lions tells the story of a group of British jihadists who push their abstract dreams of glory to the breaking point. As the wheels fly off, and their competing ideologies clash, what emerges is an emotionally engaging (and entirely plausible) farce.
Motherless Brooklyn2019
Drama · Thriller
New York City, 1957. Lionel Essrog, a private detective living with Tourette syndrome, tries to solve the murder of his mentor and best friend, armed only with vague clues and the strength of his obsessive mind.
…and more in the deck
About this deck
The films come from published “best of” lists for this mood, checked by hand and ordered by how often they're recommended. The list above names the top 24. Picks include The Vanishing, Death Becomes Her, and Kill the Irishman.
Swipe it on your own and the deck deals 12 cards at random from the whole list — yes, no or maybe. Your yeses become a shortlist, and if you still can't choose, the dice pick one. No account needed.
Deciding with others? Swipe with friends: everyone swipes the same cards on their own phone, and pickaru finds the one you all said yes to — or your top picks.