Best Thriller Movies of 1948

A hurricane swells outside, but it's nothing compared to the storm within the hotel at Key Largo. There, sadistic mobster Johnny Rocco holes up - and holds at gunpoint hotel owner James Temple, his widowed daughter-in-law Nora, and ex-GI Frank McCloud.

The Naked City portrays the police investigation that follows the murder of a young model. A veteran cop is placed in charge of the case and he sets about, with the help of other beat cops and detectives, finding the girl's killer.

Leona Stevenson is confined to bed and uses her telephone to keep in contact with the outside world. One day she overhears a murder plot on the telephone and is desperate to find out who is the intended victim.

Stroud, a crime magazine's crusading editor has to post-pone a vacation with his wife, again, when a glamorous blonde is murdered and he is assigned by his publishing boss Janoth to find the killer. As the investigation proceeds to its conclusion, Stroud must try to disrupt his ordinarily brilliant investigative team as they increasingly build evidence (albeit wrong) that he is the killer.

Phillipe, the son of an ambassador in London, idolizes Baines, his father's butler, a kind of hero in the eyes of the child, whose perception changes when he accidentally discovers the secret that Baines keeps and witnesses the consequences that adults' lies can cause.

A former prisoner of war, Frank Enley is hailed as a hero in his California town. However, Frank has a shameful secret that comes back to haunt him when fellow survivor Joe Parkson emerges, intent on making Frank pay for his past deeds.

Centring on the activities of a gang of assorted criminals and, in particular, their leader – a vicious young hoodlum known as "Pinkie" – the film's main thematic concern is the criminal underbelly evident in inter-war Brighton.

A revenge-seeking gangster is sent to prison after being framed for a crime he didn't commit. After seducing a beautiful young woman, he uses her to help him carry out his plot for vengeance, leading him to the crazy pyromaniac who set him up.

A night club owner becomes infatuated with a torch singer and frames his best friend/manager for embezzlement when the chanteuse falls in love with him.

An insurance man's affair with a blonde leads to guilt, murder and a confession to his wife.

When heiress Jean Courtland attempts suicide, her fiancée Elliott Carson probes her relationship to John Triton. In flashback, we see how stage mentalist Triton starts having terrifying flashes of true precognition. His partner, Whitney Courtland, uses Triton's talent to make money; but Triton's inability to prevent what he foresees, causes him to break up the act and become a hermit. Years later, Triton has new visions and desperately tries to prevent tragedies in the Courtland family. Can his warnings succeed against suspicion, unbelief, and inexorable fate?

After two gang-related killings in "Center City," a suspect (who was framed) is arrested, released on bail...and murdered. Inspector Briggs of the FBI recruits a young agent, Gene Cordell, to go undercover in the shadowy Skid Row area (alias George Manly) as a potential victim of the same racket. Soon, Gene meets Alec Stiles, neurotic mastermind who's "building an organization along scientific lines." Stiles recruits Cordell, whose job becomes a lot more dangerous.

Bill Saunders, a former prisoner of war living in England, whose experiences have left him unstable and violent, gets into a bar fight in which he in kills a man and then flees. He hides out with the assistance of a nurse, Jane Wharton, who believes his story that the killing was an accident.

A woman wakes up in the middle of the night on board a train, but she can't remember how she got there. Danger and suspense ensue.

Pursued by the big-time gambler he robbed, John Muller assumes a new identity—with unfortunate results.

Robert Ryan leads a group of Allied agents fighting an underground Nazi group in post-war Europe.

After accidentally killing her lecherous producer, a famous actress tries to hide her guilt.

Horace Vendig always gets what he wants. Even as a poor youth, he charmed his way into high society by getting the father of his friend, Martha, to foot the bill for his Harvard education. When Vic, another childhood pal, is invited to Horace's mansion for a party, he brings along Mallory Flagg, who happens to bear a striking resemblance to Martha. As Vic and Horace reunite, old resentments rise to the surface.

On the beach one night, Christine Faber, two years a widow, thinks she hears her late husband Paul calling out of the surf...then meets a tall dark man, Alexis, who seems to know all about such things. After more ghostly manifestations, Christine and younger sister Janet become enmeshed in the eerie artifices of Alexis; but he in turn finds himself manipulated into deeper deviltry than he had in mind...

A gang hold a family hostage in their own home. The leader of the escaped cons is bothered by a recurring dream that the doctor of the house may be able to analyze.

A young painter stumbles upon an assortment of odd characters at an English estate where he has been hired to give art lessons to beautiful Laura Fairlie. Among them are Anne Catherick, a strange young woman dressed in white whom he meets in the forest and who bears a striking resemblance to Laura; cunning Count Fosco, who hopes to obtain an inheritance for nobleman Sir Percival Glyde, whom he plans to have Laura marry; Mr. Fairlie, a hypochondriac who can't stand to have anyone make the slightest noise; and eccentric Countess Fosco who has her own dark secret. The artist also finds himself drawn to Marion Halcomb, a distant relation to Laura for whom the Count also has plans.

A golddigging femme fatale leaves a trail of men behind her, rich and poor, alive and dead.

Detective Charlie Chan springs into action when top officials of a New Orleans chemical company begin dropping like flies.

A couple discovers that their friend has gone missing. Their investigation leads them to believe that anti-semites are behind the disappearance.

A killer hides out in a small-town boarding house.

Spies pursue a stolen diary aboard the Orient Express.

In the late 19th century, on board a ship sailing from Jamaica to England, Olivia Harwood, a recent widow, takes on the task of caring for several malaria patients, including Mark Bellis, a mysterious and tormented painter.

A man (James Donald) and his wife (Valerie Hobson) take to their house some men they rescue from a road crash and then find they have picked up some dangerous criminals.

Penniless governess Blanche Fullerton takes a job at the estate of her rich relations, the Fury family. To better her position in life, Blanche marries her dull cousin, Laurence Fury, with whom she has a daughter. But before long, boredom sets in, and Blanche begins a tempestuous romance with stableman Philip Thorn. Together, they hatch a murderous plan to gain control of the estate.

Eddie, (Dane Clark) a small-time hoodlum is forced to care for Marie (Geraldine Brooks) he accidentally hits with his car during a crime. He is broke and hits up his very displeased mob boss for cash. To make matters worse, Eddie and Marie begin to fall for each other.

A convict sentenced to three years for killing a detective escapes from a prison and goes on the run aided by a local girl.

A treasury agent becomes obsessed with exposing an international drug ring.

Behind the locked doors of a mental institution resides crooked politico Judge Drake (Herbert Heyes), free from prosecution so long as he pretends to be crazy. To get the goods on Drake, private detective Ross Stewart has himself committed to the asylum as a patient. Meanwhile, reporter Kathy Lawrence (Lucille Bremer), posing as Stewart's wife, acts as his liaison to the outside world.

A British army officer becomes fascinated by the portrait of a young woman. He travels to Germany to find her, only to discover that she is suffering from amnesia.

A mysterious barber hides a secret identity that eventually leads to tragedy.

Prisoners battle each other -- and the police -- when they escape the Colorado State Penitentiary.

A wheelchair-bound woman manipulates her family to a point where they suspect she may be unhinged.

In Ballyconnen, Emmy Baudine (Siobhan McKenna) is a beautiful but disturbed young woman who works for the local priest. When the carnival comes to town, she encounters a handsome young boxer called Dan (Maxwell Reed) and lays his face open with her fingernails when he expects sexual favours from her. Hurriedly packed off by Father Corcoran (Liam Redmond) to Yorkshire, Emmy is taken in by a farming family and manages to suppress the strange feelings of fascination and repulsion that she experiences in the presence of the opposite sex. Until, that is, the carnival comes to town and brings with it the vengeful Dan...

A man falls in love with a beautiful young woman and begins to suspect that he may have also loved her in a previous life.

War hero turned villain George Martin escapes from the police, but he is handcuffed to a naive young crook Willie Stannard. After using a clever plan to obtain railway tickets, and with the police and the press in hot pursuit, George has to find a way of breaking loose from Willie, and to make his escape.

The Iron Curtain is based on the actual 1945 case of Soviet cipher clerk Igor Gouzenko, (Dana Andrews), who, after careful training, was assigned to the U.S.S.R. Embassy in Ottawa, Canada in the midst of World War II. Eventually, Gouzenko defected with 109 pages of material implicating several high level Canadian officials, outlined the steps taken to secure information about the the details of the nuclear bomb via numerous sleeper cells established throughout North America. The scandal that resulted when details of this case were publicized by American columnist Drew Pearson in early 1946 involved Canada, Britain and the United States.

Private eye Slim Callaghan is summoned to the country home of a Colonel Stenhurst, but the latter is murdered before he can talk to the detective. Was one of the Colonel's three daughters responsible?

An escaped World War 2 Nazi doctor, impersonates a murdered English doctor so he can work on a vaccination to protect the Germans in their planned germ warfare.

Good and bad characters are stuck in a ski chalet near buried Nazi gold in the Alps.

A gold mine in Arizona, that was formerly losing a lot of money, suddenly turns into a veritable money-making machine. However, the owner, instead of being happy about his now profitable business, insists to Charlie that something is fishy and that someone is out to murder him. Charlie and his "crew" travel to the mine, pretending to be tourists staying at a nearby dude ranch so as not to arouse suspicion, and discover that the owner may well be right--it looks like the mine is being used as a cover for criminal activities, and that someone is indeed out to murder him.

A curio dealer sells a monkey's paw that can grant the possessor three wishes but warns that disaster will follow.

An innocent man -- due to a case of mistaken identity -- is beaten. Once recovered, the stockbroker tries to find the actual intended target -- a gangster-- and warn him.

A stock broker embezzles a million bucks and plans to take off to Shanghai. A number of obstacles stands in his path, however.

This one has Nylon, an American dancer fleeing Morocco after her employer gets into trouble with the police, and she stops off at Tangiers on her way to Gibraltar. $50,000, in gold, is stolen from the ship's safe and the captain tells the police that the purser was the thief and that he had to kill him in self defense, but the purser must have hidden the money before he got dead. The purser isn't in any position to make a disclaimer. Everybody buys that with the exception of an insurance detective, Shapley, who, along with the audience, suspects the captain of being the thief shows up to investigate further. Written By Les Adams