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Social thriller

{{short description|Genre combining thriller fiction with social commentary}}

{{good article}}

A social thriller is a film genre using elements of suspense to augment instances of apparent oppression in society. The genre gained attention by audiences and critics around the late 2010s with the releases of Jordan Peele's Get Out and Us,[https://movieweb.com/best-social-thriller-movies-of-all-time/ 10 Best Social Thriller Films of All Time - MovieWeb][https://gamerant.com/greatest-horror-filmmakers-rotten-tomatoes/ 10 Of The Greatest Horror Filmmakers Of All Time (According to Rotten Tomatoes) - Game Rant] each film highlighting occurrences of racial alienation (the former which veil a plot to abduct young African-Americans). Before Peele, other film actors, directors, writers, and critics had used the term to describe an emerging genre of cinema with examples from all over the globe.

Many social thrillers focus on issues of race, class, gender, sexuality, or nationhood, often within the format of genre films more broadly categorized as a black comedy, film noir, psychological drama, and horror cinema, among others.

Early usage

File:Poitier Belafonte Heston Civil Rights March 1963.jpg (left) at the 1963 March on Washington, alongside Harry Belafonte and Charlton Heston]]

"Social thriller" first appeared in film criticism to denote films using elements of suspense to heighten dramatic tension caused by social inequity. Often appearing in quotes, the term was being used as early as the 1970s to retrospectively describe political neo-noir cinema. An early example comes from cinema writer Georges Sadoul's characterization of El Wahsh ("The Monster"), an Egyptian crime film entered into the 1954 Cannes Film Festival.{{cite web |url=http://www.festival-cannes.com/en/archives/ficheFilm/id/3795/year/1954.html |title=Festival de Cannes: The Monster |access-date=2009-01-31|work=festival-cannes.com}} Sadoul sums up the film as "a social thriller based on an authentic police case about police pursuit of a drug-addicted gangster." Sadoul goes on to describe the film's documentary style and backdrop of life in the Egyptian countryside.{{cite book|last1=Sadoul|first1=Georges|title=Dictionary of Films|url=https://archive.org/details/dictionaryoffil000sado|url-access=registration|date=1972|publisher=University of California Press|location=Berkeley|isbn=9780520021525|page=[https://archive.org/details/dictionaryoffil000sado/page/411 411]|language=en}} Other early uses of the term can be found in descriptions of French New Wave films, such as The Nada Gang, Claude Chabrol's 1974 film inspired by the May 1968 events in France.{{cite book|last1=Atack|first1=Margaret|title=May 68 in French Fiction and Film: Rethinking Society, Rethinking Representation|date=1999|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=9780198715153|page=129|language=en}} In their book, French Culture Since 1945, Malcolm and Martin Cook wrote that "Chabrol's career has been almost exclusively devoted to what might be called the 'social thriller'" and go on to define the genre as, "films using a suspense format often akin to that of Hitchcock to comment on the deviousness and duplicity of French society."{{cite book|last1=Cook|first1=Malcolm|title=French Culture Since 1945|date=1993|publisher=Longman|location=London|isbn=9780582088061|page=86|language=en}}

Many other film critics bandied about the term in their reviews prior to the 2010s but seldom in a way that gave the social thriller its own status as a codified genre in cinema. Prior to 2017, most writers used the term only once, usually in a single review, and to characterize an individual film. In his biography on William Wyler, Axel Madsen calls the 1937 Humphrey Bogart picture Dead End a social thriller.{{cite book|last1=Madsen|first1=Axel|title=William Wyler: The Authorized Biography|date=2015|publisher=Open Road Media|isbn=9781504008600|language=en}} TLA Video reviewer David Bleiler described the 1950 Sidney Poitier film No Way Out as "an exceptionally made, tense drama which succeeds both as medical soap opera and social thriller."{{cite book|last1=Bleiler|first1=David|title=TLA Film and Video Guide 2000–2001: The Discerning Film Lover's Guide|date=2013|publisher=St. Martin's Press|isbn=9781466859401|language=en}} Douglas Brode called Spencer Tracy "the alienated anti-hero of the social thriller" for his 1955 performance in Bad Day at Black Rock.{{cite book|last1=Brode|first1=Douglas|title=Edge of Your Seat: The 100 Greatest Movie Thrillers|date=2003|publisher=Citadel Press|isbn=9780806523828|page=12|language=en}} Another Poitier film, 1967's In the Heat of the Night, got tagged as social thriller by Leonard Maltin,{{cite book|last1=Maltin|first1=Leonard|last2=Sader|first2=Luke|last3=Clark|first3=Mike|title=Leonard Maltin's 2009 Movie Guide|date=2008|publisher=Penguin|isbn=9780452289789|page=[https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780452289789/page/681 681]|language=en|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780452289789/page/681}} and was also cited as such on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives.{{cite journal |last1=Thompson |first1=Bennie G. |title=Etension of Remarks: A Tribute to Ms. Beulah "Beah" Richards |journal=Congressional Record |date=February 26 – March 10, 2004 |volume=150 |issue=3 |page=2872 |publisher=Government Printing Office |language=en}} Both Tracy and Poitier also appeared in 1967's Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, a film that would later be identified as a key "non-thriller" example of the social thriller genre.{{cite news|last1=Ebiri|first1=Bilge|title=Get Out's Jordan Peele Brings the 'Social Thriller' to BAM {{!}} Village Voice|url=https://www.villagevoice.com/2017/02/14/get-outs-jordan-peele-brings-the-social-thriller-to-bam/|access-date=16 August 2017|work=Village Voice|date=February 14, 2017}}

For films produced outside the U.S., more than one reviewer has named the 1961 British film Victim as a social thriller. As the first English language film on record to use the word "homosexual" in its dialogue, Victim raised controversy in the United Kingdom for its critique of Britain's anti-gay laws that would remain in place until the passing of Sexual Offences Act 1967 decriminalized homosexuality for men in England and Wales.{{cite book|last1=Kremer|first1=Daniel|title=Sidney J. Furie: Life and Films|date=2015|publisher=University Press of Kentucky|location=Louisville|isbn=9780813165981|page=58|language=en}}{{cite news|last1=Rose|first1=Steve|title=Dirk Bogarde: why 'the idol of the Odeons' risked everything for art|url=https://www.theguardian.com/film/2017/jul/17/how-dirk-bogarde-film-victim-changed-the-gay-narrative|access-date=14 August 2017|work=The Guardian|date=17 July 2017}} Ismal Xavier called the 1962 Brazilian political train robbery film O Assalto ao Trem Pagador ("Assault on the Payroll Train") a social thriller.{{cite book|last1=Balderston|first1=Daniel|last2=Gonzalez|first2=Mike|last3=Lopez|first3=Ana M.|last4=Ismal|first4=Xavier|title=Encyclopedia of Contemporary Latin American and Caribbean Cultures|date=2002|publisher=Routledge|location=London|isbn=9781134788521|pages=550|language=en}} Taiwanese director Bai Jingrui's 1982 film Offend the Law of God has been called "an exploitation social thriller"{{cite book|last1=Yeh|first1=Yueh-yu|last2=Davis|first2=Darrell|title=Taiwan Film Directors: A Treasure Island|date=2012|publisher=Columbia University Press|location=New York|isbn=9780231502993|language=en}} and the 1996 Spanish film Taxi, about the rise of the racist right wing, has also been given the label.{{cite book|last1=Mira|first1=Alberto|title=The A to Z of Spanish Cinema|date=2010|publisher=Scarecrow Press|isbn=9781461672173|page=277|language=en}}

In his Historical Dictionary of Russian and Soviet Cinema, author Peter Rollberg goes a bit further than the one-mention references of his peers. In describing the work of Russo-Belarusian director Aleksandr Faintsimmer, Rollberg writes, "Fainsimmer devoted himself to the traditionally underrepresented genre of the social thriller with blockbusters such as No Right to Fail (1974) and The Cafeteria on Piatnikskaia Street (1978)." Rollberg also names Leonid Filatov's 1982 film The Rooks and Vadim Derbenev's 1985 hit The Snake Catcher as landmarks of the genre in the Soviet Union.{{cite book|last1=Rollberg|first1=Peter|title=Historical Dictionary of Russian and Soviet Cinema|date=2016|publisher=Rowman & Littlefield|isbn=9781442268425|pages=179, 238, 243|language=en}}

21st century western cinema

At the onset of the 2000s, critics and scholars continued to label a number of contemporary films as social thrillers. The authors of Sociology: An Introductory Textbook and Reader wrote of the 2002 British film Dirty Pretty Things as being "not a documentary but a social thriller which blends aspects of the global urban legends about child kidnapping for organs and prostitutes drugging unsuspecting barflies who wake up in a hotel bathtub minus a kidney."{{cite book|last1=Nehring|first1=Daniel|last2=Plummer|first2=Ken|title=Sociology: An Introductory Textbook and Reader|date=2014|publisher=Routledge|location=London|isbn=9781317861737|language=en}} The New Yorker echoed this sentiment, saying, "Dirty Pretty Things is not a violent thriller. It might be called a social thriller—a creepy, tightly knit suspense film that, on the fly, reveals more about the lives of immigrants in London than the most scrupulously earnest documentary."{{cite news|last1=Denby|first1=David|title=Heartbreak Hotels|url=http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2003/09/15/heartbreak-hotels|access-date=16 August 2017|magazine=The New Yorker|date=September 15, 2003}} Other films labeled as social thrillers from the first decade-and-a-half of the new millennium include 2005's British production of The Constant Gardener{{cite book|last1=Beaver|first1=Frank Eugene|title=Dictionary of Film Terms: The Aesthetic Companion to Film Art|date=2006|publisher=Peter Lang|isbn=9780820472980|page=[https://archive.org/details/dictionaryoffilm0000beav/page/115 115]|language=en|url=https://archive.org/details/dictionaryoffilm0000beav/page/115}} and

the 2008 Italian film As God Commands, both based on the best-selling novels of the same names.{{cite book|last1=Maule|first1=Rosanna|title=Beyond Auteurism: New Directions in Authorial Film Practices in France, Italy and Spain Since the 1980s|url=https://archive.org/details/beyondauteurismn00maul|url-access=limited|date=2008|publisher=Intellect Books|isbn=9781841502045|pages=[https://archive.org/details/beyondauteurismn00maul/page/n122 122]–23|language=en}} The Wall Street Journal called 2010's The Social Network "Part morality play, part social thriller",{{cite news|last1=Murray|first1=Fiona|title=Armie Hammer: The Breakout|url=https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748704364004576132121264533538|access-date=16 August 2017|work=Wall Street Journal|date=25 February 2011}} the 2012 Canadian child abduction film The Tall Man got called a social thriller for its DVD release,{{cite news|last1=Hunter|first1=Rob|title=In Defense of Pascal Laugier's 'The Tall Man'|url=https://filmschoolrejects.com/underloved-the-tall-man/|access-date=31 August 2017|work=Film School Rejects|date=14 August 2017}} and the French film festival hit Corporate was called a social thriller in 2016, several months in advance of its 2017 release.{{cite news|last1=Goodfellow|first1=Melanie|title=Cannes: Indie Sales adds social thriller 'Corporate' to slate|url=http://www.screendaily.com/news/cannes-indie-sales-adds-social-thriller-corporate-to-slate/5103475.article|access-date=14 August 2017|work=een Daily|date=May 9, 2016|language=en}}{{cite news|last1=Guihéneuf|first1=Philippe|title="Corporate", thriller social utile de Nicolas Silhol|url=http://www.huffingtonpost.fr/philippe-guiheneuf/corporate-thriller-social-utile-de-nicolas-silhol_a_22023163/|access-date=4 September 2017|work=Le Huffington Post|date=3 April 2017|language=fr-FR}}

Modern Indian cinema

File:Amitabh Bachchan.jpg speaking in April 2006]]

Like the West, Indian cinema has a longstanding tradition of identifying some movies as "social films" or "social problem films", genres that emerged when talking pictures first came to India in the 1930s.{{cite book|last1=Dwyer|first1=Rachel|title=100 Bollywood Films|date=2005|publisher=Lotus Collection, Roli Books|isbn=9788174364333|page=82|language=en}}{{cite book|last1=Bingham|first1=Adam|title=Directory of World Cinema: INDIA|date=2015|publisher=Intellect Books|isbn=9781841506227|page=78|language=en}}{{cite book|last1=Dwyer|first1=Rachel|title=Filming the Gods: Religion and Indian Cinema|url=https://archive.org/details/filminggodsrelig00dwye|url-access=limited|date=2006|publisher=Routledge|location=London|isbn=9781134380701|page=[https://archive.org/details/filminggodsrelig00dwye/page/n18 8]|language=en}} The rise of "social thriller" as a genre garnered familiarity in India, as it did in the U.S., in its association with a major box office hit. 2016's Pink, a courtroom drama that deals with rape, was India's highest-grossing film ever to be released. Pink starred longtime Bollywood icon Amitabh Bachchan, who named the film a social thriller.{{cite news|last1=Groves|first1=Don|title=Amitabh Bachchan Thriller Set To Clash With Horror Movie Starring Emraan Hashmi|url=https://www.forbes.com/sites/dongroves/2016/09/14/amitabh-bachchan-thriller-set-to-clash-with-horror-movie-starring-emraan-hashmi/#919766536016|access-date=12 August 2017|work=Forbes|date=September 14, 2016}} Bachchan said of Pink that, "the context and the premise of the film shall always be of prime interest," but that "much is not spelt out because of the nature of the story and, of course, the nature of its genre—a social thriller!”{{cite news|last1=IANS|title=Pink is a social thriller: Amitabh Bachchan|url=http://indianexpress.com/article/entertainment/bollywood/pink-amitabh-bachchan-social-thriller-3025821/|access-date=12 August 2017|work=The Indian Express|date=11 September 2016}}

Before Pink the term social thriller was applied occasionally by Bollywood's directors and marketers and then repeated by the press to describe selected movies, such as 2014's film Fugly starring olympic boxing medalist Vijender Singh.{{cite news|last1=PTI|title=Sana Saeed does an item song for Akshay Kumar's film – Indian Express|url=http://archive.indianexpress.com/news/sana-saeed-does-an-item-song-for-akshay-kumars-film/1197854/|access-date=12 August 2017|work=Indian Express|date=November 21, 2013|language=en-gb}}{{cite news|last1=Paul|first1=Amrita|title=Meet the Fuglies: A social thriller with a message|url=https://www.deccanchronicle.com/140603/entertainment-tollywood/article/meet-fuglies-social-thriller-message|access-date=12 August 2017|work=Deccan Chronicle|date=4 June 2014|language=en}} Prior to Fugly's release, the press were unfamiliar with the genre, and in a film preview the India Times said that it was "the movie that's been billed as a 'social thriller' (whatever that is)."{{cite news|last1=India Times|title=First Look: Akshay Kumar's Film Fugly (ft Vijender Singh)|url=http://www.indiatimes.com/entertainment/bollywood/first-look-akshay-kumars-film-fugly-ft-vijender-singh-139718.html|access-date=13 August 2017|work=India Times|date=April 7, 2014|language=en}} After Fugly, other social thriller tags followed suit, such as 2014's Bhopal: A Prayer for Rain about the Union Carbide Disaster,{{cite news|title=Kal Penn, Raajpal Yadav and Manoj Joshi bring Bhopal to Mumbai Film Festival|work=Bollyspice|date=October 22, 2014}} and 2016's Laal Rang about the organized crime trafficking in human blood.{{cite news|last1=IMDb|title=Laal Rang (2016) - IMDb|url=https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5600714/|access-date=18 August 2020}}

South Indian film columnists may have been using the term prior to their North Indian counterparts. G. Dhananjayan called the 2009 Tamil language film Achchamundu! Achchamundu! ("There is fear! There is fear!") a social thriller, citing it as "one of the rare mainstream Tamil films with the subject on pedophiles."{{cite book|last1=Dhananjayan|first1=G.|title=Pride of Tamil Cinema: 1931 to 2013: Tamil Films that have earned National and International Recognition|date=2014|publisher=Blue Ocean Publishers|page=492|language=en}} Tamil director Bramma G. called his 2014 debut film, Kutram Kaditha, a social thriller.{{cite news|title=Kutram Kadithal is meant for the masses as well: Bramma|url=https://www.deccanchronicle.com/150915/entertainment-kollywood/article/kutram-kadithal-meant-masses-well-bramma|access-date=13 August 2017|work=Deccan Chronicle|date=15 September 2015|language=en}}{{cite news|last1=Nath|first1=Parshathy J|title=A reel dream come true|url=http://www.thehindu.com/features/cinema/a-reel-dream-come-true/article6570737.ece|access-date=13 August 2017|work=The Hindu|date=November 6, 2014|language=en}} The same year Jean Marcose called his Malayalam film Angels a social thriller.{{cite news|title=Jean Markose talks about making his directorial debut|url=http://www.khaleejtimes.com/article/20140710/ARTICLE/307109975/1057|access-date=13 August 2017|work=Khaleej Times|date=July 10, 2014|archive-date=10 December 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181210131306/https://www.khaleejtimes.com/article/20140710/ARTICLE/307109975/1057|url-status=dead}} Film Beat's Akhila Menon used the term to describe both Puthiya Niyamam{{cite news|last1=Menon|first1=Akhila|title=Malayalam Cinema: Christmas Releases 2015|url=https://www.filmibeat.com/malayalam/news/2015/malayalam-cinema-christmas-releases-2015-206924.html|access-date=13 August 2017|work=Filmi Beat.com|date=30 November 2015|language=en}} and Evidam Swargamanu in 2015.{{cite news|last1=Menon|first1=Akhila|title=Mohanlal's 10 Underrated Movies|url=https://www.filmibeat.com/malayalam/news/2015/mohanlal-10-underrated-movies-183037.html|access-date=13 August 2017|work=Filmi Beat|date=12 May 2015|language=en}} Other Tamil social thrillers include 2016's Kabali,{{cite news|last1=Upadhyaya|first1=Prakash|title=Rajinikanth's 'Kabali' poster takes inspiration from Irrfan Khan's 'Madaari'?|url=http://www.ibtimes.co.in/rajinikanths-kabali-poster-takes-inspiration-irrfan-khans-madaari-684642|access-date=13 August 2017|work=International Business Times, India Edition|date=July 28, 2016|language=en}} and Aagam, of which director Vijay Anand Sriram claimed, "has a message but it will not be preachy. It's a social thriller with commercial elements in it".{{cite news|last1=Subhakeerthana|first1=S|last2=Subramanian|first2=Anupama|title=Not touched the darker side of politics in 'Aagam': Vijay Anand Sriram|url=https://www.deccanchronicle.com/entertainment/kollywood/310116/aagam-is-for-the-masses-too.html|access-date=13 August 2017|work=Deccan Chronicle|date=31 January 2016|language=en}}

Post-Pink social thrillers in Indian cinema have included Adanga Maru,{{cite news |last1=Cinema Express Features |title=It's almost a wrap for Adanga Maru |url=http://www.cinemaexpress.com/stories/news/2018/may/21/its-almost-a-wrap-for-adanga-maru-6116.html |access-date=11 June 2018 |work=Cinema Express |date=May 21, 2018}} Jhalki...Ek Aur Bachpan,{{cite news |title=Screening of Kaagaz Ki Kashti… Biopic on Jagjit Singh by Brahmanand S Siingh! |url=https://www.apnnews.com/screening-of-kaagaz-ki-kashti-biopic-on-jagjit-singh-by-brahmanand-s-siingh/ |access-date=11 June 2018 |work=APN News |date=2018}} Mulq,{{cite news |title=Freeze frame: Taapsee Pannu, Emraan Hashmi, Jenna Dewan |url=https://www.telegraphindia.com/entertainment/freeze-frame-232832 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180524232208/https://www.telegraphindia.com/entertainment/freeze-frame-232832 |url-status=dead |archive-date=May 24, 2018 |access-date=11 June 2018 |work=The Telegraph |date=May 25, 2018 |language=en}}{{cite news |title=Mulk first look: Taapsee Pannu returns to the courtroom as a lawyer in Anubhav Sinha's film |url=https://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/mulk-first-look-taapsee-pannu-returns-to-the-courtroom-as-a-lawyer-in-anubhav-sinhas-film-4477337.html |access-date=11 June 2018 |work=FirstPost |date=May 21, 2018}} Pinu,{{cite news |title=Ronnie Screwvala, Siddharth Roy Kapur collaborate to co-produce social thriller 'Pihu' |url=http://www.televisionpost.com/ronnie-screwvala-siddharth-roy-kapur-collaborate-to-co-produce-social-thriller-pihu/ |access-date=11 June 2018 |work=Television Post |date=May 23, 2018 |archive-date=26 August 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180826235107/http://www.televisionpost.com/ronnie-screwvala-siddharth-roy-kapur-collaborate-to-co-produce-social-thriller-pihu/ |url-status=dead }} Parari,{{cite news |last1=George |first1=Nina C. |title=Metrolife: An ode to all mothers |url=https://www.deccanherald.com/metrolife/metrolife-lifestyle/ode-all-mothers-674224.html |access-date=11 June 2018 |work=Deccan Herald |date=10 June 2018 |language=en}} Blue Whale,{{cite news |last1=Prabhu |first1=Mani |title=Blue Whale: Actress Poorna turns ACP for social thriller |url=https://www.newindianexpress.com/entertainment/tamil/2018/nov/08/blue-whale-actress-poorna-turns-acp-for-social-thriller-1895320.html |access-date=31 January 2019 |work=The New Indian Express |date=November 8, 2018}} and Marainthirunthu,{{cite news |last1=Ramachandran |first1=Mythily |title='Marainthirunthu' is a Tamil social thriller |url=https://gulfnews.com/entertainment/south-indian/marainthirunthu-is-a-tamil-social-thriller-1.2266203 |access-date=31 January 2019 |work=Gulf News |date=August 14, 2018 |language=en}} all released in 2018.

''Get Out'' and after

File:Jordan Peele 2012.jpg performing in 2012]]

Broadly categorized as a horror film,{{cite news|last1=Bruni|first1=Frank|title=The Horror of Smug Liberals|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/18/opinion/sunday/the-horror-of-smug-liberals.html|access-date=12 August 2017|work=The New York Times|date=18 March 2017}} director Jordan Peele stated that his directorial debut, Get Out, was part of a lineage of social thrillers, meaning that whatever scary things manifest onscreen, society is actually the true evil. In a February 2017 interview, Peele told the Chicago Tribune, "I define 'social thriller' as thriller/horror movies where the ultimate villain is society."{{cite news |last1=Phillips |first1=Michael |title=Jordan Peele's 'social thriller' launches a directorial career |url=http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/movies/ct-jordan-peele-get-out-interview-20170224-column.html# |access-date=22 August 2018 |work=chicagotribune.com |date=February 24, 2017}}

In March he told the New York Times that social thrillers "all deal with this human monster, this societal monster. And the villain is us."{{cite news|last1=Castillo|first1=Monica|title=Where to Stream the Movies That Influenced 'Get Out'|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/10/watching/get-out-movie-influences-what-to-watch.html|access-date=12 August 2017|work=New York Times|date=March 10, 2017}} He later told New York Magazine, "I was trying to figure out what genre this movie was, and horror didn't quite do it. Psychological thriller didn't do it, and so I thought, Social thriller. The bad guy is society—these things that are innate in all of us, and provide good things, but ultimately prove that humans are always going to be barbaric, to an extent. I think I coined the term social thriller, but I definitely didn’t invent it."[https://www.vulture.com/2018/02/making-get-out-jordan-peele.html How Jordan Peele's 'Get Out' Got Made|Vulture]

To coincide with the release of Get Out, Peele curated a film series for the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) called The Art of the Social Thriller.{{cite web|title=Jordan Peele: The Art of the Social Thriller|url=http://www.bam.org/film/2017/jordan-peele|website=Brooklyn Academy of Music|access-date=12 August 2017|archive-date=10 March 2017|archive-url=https://archive.today/20170310012659/http://www.bam.org/film/2017/jordan-peele|url-status=dead}} The series featured classic horror films like Rosemary's Baby, Night of the Living Dead, The Shining, The Silence of the Lambs, Candyman, The People Under the Stairs, and the first film of Wes Craven's Scream series. Peele also included films outside of the horror genre, such as psychological thrillers Funny Games and Misery, Hitchcock's mystery thriller Rear Window, and comedy-thriller The 'Burbs. The sneak preview of Get Out was preceded by the 1967 comedy-drama Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, the first Hollywood film to address interracial marriage{{cite news|last1=Alexander|first1=Chris|title=Jordan Peele to Curate Horror Series at BAMcinematek|url=http://www.comingsoon.net/horror/news/801491-new-york-jordan-peele-to-curate-horror-series-at-bamcinematek#/slide/1|access-date=14 August 2017|work=ComingSoon.net|date=9 January 2017}} and a big influence on the premise for Peele's own film.{{cite news|last1=Atkinson|first1=Sophie|title='Get Out': Check Out This List of Movies Which Inspired it|url=http://www.highsnobiety.com/2017/06/08/get-out-inspired-movies/|access-date=12 August 2017|work=Highsnobiety|date=June 8, 2017}}{{cite news|last1=Ferri|first1=Jessica|title=Stepford Whites: On Get Out and the Social Thriller|url=http://www.comingsoon.net/horror/features/832123-stepford-whites-on-get-out-and-the-social-thriller|access-date=12 August 2017|work=ComingSoon.net|date=30 March 2017}} When asked about its inclusion in the series, Peele told the Village Voice, "It's not an actual thriller, it's just a great exploration of the social phenomenon of how we deal with race, putting it in a package that everyone can understand. Anybody can relate to the fear of meeting your potential in-laws for the first time... At a certain point with Get Out, I realized that I was making a sort of thriller take on Guess Who's Coming to Dinner."

After Get Out's success, Peele announced that he had plans to make four more social thrillers in the next decade. In an interview with Business Insider he said, "The best and scariest monsters in the world are human beings and what we are capable of especially when we get together. I've been working on these premises about these different social demons, these innately human monsters that are woven into the fabric of how we think and how we interact, and each one of my movies is going to be about a different one of these social demons."{{cite news|last1=Guerrasio|first1=Guerrasio|title=Jordan Peele plans to direct a whole series of horror movies about 'social demons'|url=http://www.businessinsider.com/get-out-jordan-peele-horror-movie-series-social-demons-2017-2|access-date=12 August 2017|work=Business Insider|date=February 17, 2017|language=en}} By the time Peel's second film, Us, was under production, it had veered away from its original inceptions as a "social" thriller and fell more squarely into the horror genre. Whereas Peele's treatment of Get Out{{'}}s black protagonist and white antagonists made it a film about race, he strove to make Us not be about race. “It’s important to me that we can tell black stories without it being about race,” Peele told Rolling Stone in early 2019. “I realized I had never seen a horror movie of this kind, where there’s an African-American family at the center that just is. After you get over the initial realization that you’re watching a black family in a horror film, you’re just watching a movie. You’re just watching people. I feel like it proves a very valid and different point than Get Out, which is, not everything is about race. Get Out proved the point that everything is about race. I’ve proved both points!”{{cite news |last1=Hiatt |first1=Brian |title=The All-American Nightmares of Jordan Peele |url=https://www.rollingstone.com/movies/movie-features/director-jordan-peele-new-movie-cover-story-782743/ |access-date=31 January 2019 |magazine=Rolling Stone |date=29 January 2019}}

By mid-2017 the press had started touting upcoming films as belonging to the genre, including international Cannes Film Festival favorites like Colombia's Matar a Jesús,{{cite news|last1=Pablos|first1=Emiliano De|title=Cannes: Latido Boards Colombian Social Thriller 'Killing Jesus'|url=https://variety.com/2017/film/festivals/latido-64a-colombian-social-thriller-killing-jesus-1202438945/|access-date=14 August 2017|work=Variety|date=21 May 2017}} France's L'Atelier;{{cite news|last1=Mintzer|first1=Jordan|title='The Workshop' ('L'Atelier'): Film Review {{!}} Cannes 2017|url=http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/workshop-latelier-film-review-cannes-2017-999872|access-date=14 August 2017|work=The Hollywood Reporter|date=May 22, 2017|language=en}} Brazil's Rifle,{{cite news|last1=Mintzer|first1=Jordan|title='Rifle': Film Review {{!}} Berlin 2017|url=http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/rifle-review-974885|work=The Hollywood Reporter|date=February 12, 2017|language=en}} and the remake of Argentina's La Patota.{{cite news|last1=Betancourt|first1=Manuel|title=Director Santiago Mitre On Fighting the Patriarchy by Remaking a 1960s Argentine Film|url=http://remezcla.com/features/film/paulina-interview-santiago-mitre/|access-date=14 August 2017|work=Remezcla|date=June 2017}} Variety wrote that animated film Tales of the Hedgehog was both "a children’s thriller" and "a social thriller-fable" after director Alain Gagnol described it as a “suspenseful social fable.”{{cite news|last1=Hopewell|first1=John|title=Annecy: 'Cat in Paris' Directors Prepare 'The Tales of the Hedgehog' (EXCLUSIVE)|url=https://variety.com/2017/film/festivals/annecy-gagnol-felicioli-the-tales-of-the-hedgehog-1202459862/|access-date=14 August 2017|work=Variety|date=9 June 2017}} From Hollywood, the social media scandal movie Assassination Nation,{{cite news|last1=Jao|first1=Charline|title=Social Thriller Assassination Nation Adds Anika Noni Rose to Their Amazing Cast|url=https://www.themarysue.com/assassination-nation-anika-noni-rose/|access-date=14 August 2017|work=The Mary Sue|date=April 19, 2017|language=en}} and Greg McLean and James Gunn's The Belko Experiment,{{cite news|last1=Douglas|first1=Edward|title=The Belko Experiment Review: A Grim But Effective Social Thriller|url=http://lrmonline.com/news/the-belko-experiment-review-a-grim-but-effective-social-thriller|access-date=14 August 2017|work=LRM Online|date=May 17, 2017}} were promised as social thrillers, as was Kathryn Bigelow's Detroit as part of the social thriller canon.{{cite news|last1=Bianco|first1=Julia|title=The Dark Tower headed for $20 million opening weekend|url=http://www.looper.com/78532/dark-tower-opening-weekend-box-office-projection/|access-date=14 August 2017|work=Looper.com|date=August 2017}}

Musician/author Boots Riley's 2018 directorial debut Sorry to Bother You was tapped as being a social thriller by both The Guardian and Deadline, and multiple reviewers compared Riley's film to Get Out.{{cite news |last1=Pardee |first1=Grant |title=Sorry to Bother You: why Boots Riley's surreal race allegory is this year's Get Out |url=https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/jul/20/sorry-to-bother-you-boots-riley |access-date=31 January 2019 |work=The Guardian |date=20 July 2018}}{{cite news |last1=Ramos |first1=Dino-Ray |title=Sundance Vanguard Recipient Boots Riley Talks Social Timeliness Of 'Sorry To Bother You' |url=https://deadline.com/2018/06/boots-riley-sorry-to-bother-you-sundance-institute-vanguard-lakeith-stanfield-armie-hammer-tessa-thompson-steven-yeun-annapurna-1202411181/ |access-date=31 January 2019 |work=Deadline |date=15 June 2018 |language=en}} That same year Rolling Stone posited Tyrel, a drama about one black man's weekend getaway with a bunch of drunk white men, as a social thriller.{{cite news |last1=Fear |first1=David |title=25 Movies We Can't Wait to See at Sundance 2018 |url=https://www.rollingstone.com/movies/movie-lists/25-movies-we-cant-wait-to-see-at-sundance-2018-202922/tyrel-204037/ |access-date=31 January 2019 |magazine=Rolling Stone |date=15 January 2018}} In 2019 Luce, a film about the external expectations placed on young black men in America, got the social thriller tag after its debut at the Sundance Film Festival.{{cite news |last1=Yamato |first1=Jen |title=Sundance social thriller 'Luce' asks tough questions about race, expectations and privilege |url=https://www.postbulletin.com/entertainment/sundance-social-thriller-luce-asks-tough-questions-about-race-expectations/article_85d86128-6ed1-5ccc-9997-8807b653a5d5.html |access-date=31 January 2019 |work=Minnesota Post-Bulletin |agency=Los Angeles Times |date=January 28, 2019 |language=en }}{{Dead link|date=September 2024 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }} On the eve of the 2019 Academy Awards The A.V. Club added Cam, a psychological horror film told from the perspective of an online sex worker, to the genre's roster, saying, "One year after Get Out, another social thriller deserves Oscar love for its script.{{cite news |last1=Rife |first1=Katie |title=One year after Get Out, another social thriller deserves Oscar love for its script |url=https://www.avclub.com/one-year-after-get-out-another-social-thriller-deserve-1831841939 |access-date=31 January 2019 |work=AV Film |publisher=AV Club |date=January 19, 2019}} Likewise the website Insider clamored "to see Lee Chang-dong's tense social thriller Burning in this race" for Best Foreign Language Film at the 2019 Academy Awards.{{cite news |last1=Gelbart |first1=Bryn |title=12 films that don't deserve their 2019 Oscar nominations — sorry |url=https://www.thisisinsider.com/oscars-nominated-movies-that-dont-deserve-it-2019-1#rbg-should-make-way-for-wont-you-be-my-neighbor-or-shirkers-8 |access-date=31 January 2019 |work=Insider |publisher=Insider Inc. |date=January 23, 2019}} A 2019 Cannes Film Festival The Associated Press headline proclaimed that "South Korean director Bong Joon-ho’s social thriller Parasite wins Palme d’Or" and that third-place jury prizes were also awarded to "two socially conscious thrillers: The French director Ladj Ly’s feature-film debut Les Miserables and Brazilian director Kleber Mendonça Filho’s Bacurau."{{cite news |last1=Associated Press |title=Cannes 2019: South Korean director Bong Joon-ho's social thriller Parasite wins Palme d'Or |url=https://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/cannes-2019-south-korean-director-bong-joon-hos-social-thriller-parasite-wins-palme-dor-6701961.html |access-date=20 June 2019 |work=Firstpost |date=26 May 2019 |language=en}} With Get Out helping to codify the genre, critics have continued to apply the term retrospectively, with more than one review adding the 1975 science fiction thriller The Stepford Wives to the canon.

Critique

Use of social thriller as a genre term has come under scrutiny since its widened use. One critique is that niche genres such as horror are re-labeled to draw a more mainstream fanbase. In a news piece about 2017's most successful horror films, journalist Haleigh Foutch wrote that "Get Out is being billed as a 'social thriller' now that the film has dominated at the box office and conjured early awards buzz."{{cite news|last1=Foutch|first1=Haleigh|title=The Highest Grossing Horror Movies of the 21st Century, Ranked|url=http://collider.com/highest-grossing-horror-movies-21st-century-ranked/|access-date=14 August 2017|work=Collider|date=20 July 2017}} Critic Jacob Knight has also cited uses of "social thriller", "social horror" and "elevated horror" to describe Get Out and the 2018 films Hereditary and A Quiet Place, saying, "'elevated horror' (or even 'social horror', for that matter) doesn’t exist. It never did, and it never will. Filmmakers have been attempting to distance themselves from the 'horror' label for decades, as it’s a genre that’s been ghettoized for most of its existence."{{cite news |last1=Knight |first1=Jacob |title=There's No Such Thing as an "Elevated Horror Movie" (And Yes, 'Hereditary' is a Horror Movie) |url=https://www.slashfilm.com/elevated-horror/ |work=/Film |date=8 June 2018}} In an opinion piece for SYFY Wire Emma Fraser wrote that "social thriller" refers to a specific kind of horror but that "by dressing this genre up, it actually does it a disservice." Fraser goes on to say that filmmakers like George A. Romero, David Cronenberg and John Carpenter have used the horror genre to address social issues such as racism or the AIDS epidemic, and that many horror films bear social significance without relying on the social thriller label.{{cite news |last1=Fraser |first1=Emma |title=Jordan Peele's Us and the labeling of horror movies |url=https://www.syfy.com/syfywire/jordan-peeles-us-and-the-labeling-of-horror-movies |access-date=31 January 2019 |work=SYFY WIRE |date=18 January 2019 |language=en |archive-date=23 July 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210723153609/https://www.syfy.com/syfywire/jordan-peeles-us-and-the-labeling-of-horror-movies |url-status=dead }}

In other media

=Literature=

File:RuthRendell.png

Outside the medium of cinema, literary critics have used the term "social thriller" as early as the first decade of the 2000s. Writing on the psychological crime novels of Ruth Rendell in 2002, Lidia Kyzlinková at Masaryk University remarked, "Rendell may be seen as having developed a kind of social thriller, in which various representations around region, class, race, gender, or age form an important part of the plot."{{cite journal |last1=Kyzlinková |first1=Lidia |title=Ruth Rendell/Barbara Vine : social thriller on The crocodile bird and Asta's book |journal=Brno Studies in English |date=2002 |volume=28 |pages=137–146 |url=https://digilib.phil.muni.cz/bitstream/handle/11222.digilib/104066/1_BrnoStudiesEnglish_28-2002-1_13.pdf?sequence=1 |access-date=23 August 2018}} Three years later Kyzlinková subtitled another chapter on Rendell, "Social Thriller,Ethnicity and Englishness", in which she characterized works whose plots focus less on detectives or police as being "socio-psychological, or social thrillers."{{cite journal |last1=Kyzlinková |first1=Lidia |editor1-last=Drabék |editor1-first=Pavel |editor2-last=Chovanec |editor2-first=Jan |title=Ruth Rendell/Barbara Vine: Social Thriller, Ethnicity and Englishness |journal=Theory and Practice in English Studies: Proceedings from the Seventh Conference in English, American and Canadian Studies |date=2005 |volume=2 |pages=109–114 |url=http://www.phil.muni.cz/angl/thepes/thepes_02_15.pdf |access-date=23 August 2018 |publisher=Masaryk University |location=Brno |language=en}}

Also writing in 2002, The New York Daily News said that Iain Pears Riverhead's book The Dream of Scipio "uses a larger-than-ever canvas to construct this genre-bending historical and social thriller." Business Wire later called Kathleen Kaufman’s 2009 dystopian novel The Tree Museum "an environmental thriller that follows a world completely transformed by an enigmatic and powerful totalitarian force" in a review titled, "New Social Thriller, The Tree Museum, to Challenge the Ethics of State-Enforced Environmentalism."{{cite news |title=New Social Thriller, The Tree Museum, to Challenge the Ethics of State-Enforced Environmentalism |url=https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20090414005506/en/New-Social-Thriller-Tree-Museum-Challenge-Ethics |access-date=23 August 2018 |work=Business Wire |date=April 14, 2009 |language=en}} MacMillan Publishing described Six Suspects, Vikas Swarup's 2010 follow-up to Slumdog Millionaire as "a richly textured social thriller."{{cite web |title=Six Suspects {{!}} Vikas Swarup {{!}} Macmillan |url=https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780312630737 |website=US Macmillan |access-date=23 August 2018}}

After its proliferation as a cinematic genre, the term was used to describe DC/Vertigo comic book Safe Sex.{{cite news |last1=Arrant |first1=Chris |title=DC/Vertigo's SAFE SEX Jumps to IMAGE COMICS |url=https://www.newsarama.com/45703-dc-vertigo-s-safe-sex-jumps-to-image-comics.html |access-date=20 June 2019 |work=Newsarama |date=June 20, 2019 |language=en}}

=Theatre and television=

As film writers began applying the term with greater frequency after its 2017 upsurge, theatre critics followed suit. Time Out New York reviewer Adam Feldman wrote that the Broadway show Junk "melds a breadth of genres—crime story, tragedy, issue play, cautionary tale—into a fast-moving, broad-ranging social thriller."{{cite news |last1=Feldman |first1=Adam |title=Junk |url=https://www.timeout.com/newyork/theater/junk |access-date=23 August 2018 |work=Time Out New York |date=November 2, 2017 |language=en}} By 2018 the term had leapt to television, and was used to describe the Netflix series What/If{{cite news |last1=Chitwood |first1=Adam |title=Renée Zellweger to Lead "Social Thriller" Netflix Series 'What/If' |url=http://collider.com/renee-zellweger-netflix-series-what-if/ |access-date=23 August 2018 |work=Collider |date=17 August 2018}} and indian series Criminal Justice.{{cite news |last1=Winters |first1=Bryce J. |title=Criminal Justice is a Gripping Social Thriller with a Stunning Cast! |url=https://thenewscrunch.com/criminal-justice-is-a-gripping-social-thriller-with-a-stunning-cast/400/ |access-date=20 June 2019 |work=The News Crunch |date=25 May 2019}}

=Radio and podcasting=

In September 2018 The New York Times highlighted a number of fiction podcasts as contributions to the social thriller genre, chiefly the politically charged dystopian fantasy Adventures in New America by filmmakers Stephen Winter and Tristan Cowen.{{cite news |last1=Hess |first1=Amanda |title=The Best New Social Thriller Is a Podcast |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/13/arts/the-best-new-social-thriller-is-a-podcast.html |access-date=31 January 2019 |work=The New York Times |date=13 September 2018}} Audio fiction publisher Night Vale Presents touted the term on its own website, citing comparisons to Boots Riley's film Sorry to Bother You and the work of Jordan Peele.{{cite web |title=Adventures in New America |url=http://www.nightvalepresents.com/adventuresinnewamerica/ |website=Night Vale Presents |access-date=31 January 2019 |archive-date=11 November 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201111204843/http://www.nightvalepresents.com/adventuresinnewamerica |url-status=dead }} The Times also cited Gimlet Media's subterranean serial The Horror of Dolores Roach and Panoply Media's airline disaster whodunit Passenger List as being among the social thrillers cropping up in the new wave of serialized audio fiction.

List of selected social thriller films

{{Div col|colwidth=20em}}

{{div col end}}

=List of directors associated with social thrillers=

{{Div col|colwidth=20em}}

  • Aleksandr Faintsimmer
  • Alfred Hitchcock
  • Bong Joon-ho
  • George A. Romero
  • Jordan Peele{{cite news |last1=Dry |first1=Jude |title='Get Out' Is the First of Many 'Social Thrillers' Jordan Peele Has Planned |url=https://www.indiewire.com/2017/03/get-out-jordan-peele-social-thrillers-commentary-horror-1201789049/ |work=IndieWire |date=2 March 2017 |language=en}}{{cite news |last1=Pond |first1=Steve |title='Get Out' Director Jordan Peele on Why He Changed That Ending |url=https://www.thewrap.com/jordan-peele-get-out-director-why-ending-changed/ |access-date=26 April 2020 |work=TheWrap |date=3 January 2018}}{{cite news |last1=Lee |first1=Madison Ann |title=Jordan Peele's reboot of "The Twilight Zone" paves the way for more social thriller films {{!}} The Wellesley News |url=http://thewellesleynews.com/2019/02/21/jordan-peeles-reboot-of-the-twilight-zone-paves-the-way-for-more-social-thriller-films/ |access-date=26 April 2020 |work=The Wellesley News |publisher=Wellesley College |date=February 21, 2019}}
  • Wes Craven

{{div col end}}

See also

References

{{Reflist}}

External links

  • [https://www.bam.org/film/2017/jordan-peele BAM|Jordan Peele: The Art of Social Thriller] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230203111713/https://www.bam.org/film/2017/jordan-peele |date=2023-02-03 }}

Category:Film genres

Category:Films about social realism

Category:Literary criticism

Category:Neo-noir

Category:Thriller films

Category:Horror films

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Category:1950s in film

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Category:1970s in film

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Category:Postmodern art

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{{Horror film}}