Film

Nerve

Name: Nerve
Genre: Mystery, Adventure, Crime
Released: 2016
Cast: Emma Roberts, Dave Franco, Emily Meade, Miles Heizer, Juliette Lewis

Action
Thriller
Relentless

A high school senior gets swept into an anonymous online dare game that escalates from mildly embarrassing to genuinely dangerous. Slick, propulsive thriller that captures the real thrill and genuine dread of internet peer pressure. For anyone who's felt that hot flutter of wanting to be watched, and anyone spooked by how quickly digital games can turn darker than intended.

TMDb rating

3.5

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you enjoy a slick, pulse-quickening thriller where a high-concept premise does the heavy lifting and the set pieces arrive thick and fast, with a bright, glossy sheen over the menace.

Skip it if you need characters with real depth before the stakes land, since the people here are sketched quickly and the premise carries most of the weight.

What it asks of you: It runs a brisk ninety-six minutes and rarely slows down, so it asks you to go along with a big, improbable setup and keep moving rather than stopping to interrogate it.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

Unfriended2014

Entirely shot through computer screens, this horror film about a vengeful online presence has the same claustrophobic dread and escalating danger. Genuinely unsettling without relying on jump scares—the threat lives in the technology itself.

But The screen-bound format can feel gimmicky, and the pacing sags in the middle when there's not much happening on camera.

Cam2018

A webcam model discovers her account being used by a doppelgänger, and it's a deeply unnerving exploration of performance, identity, and losing control of your own image online. Shares Nerve's fascination with the dark side of internet participation.

But Very specific kind of horror that dwells on humiliation and violation. The premise is harder to watch than many thrillers, even when nothing graphic is shown.

The Circle2017

Tom Hanks and Emma Watson in a paranoid tech thriller about surveillance and complicity. Like Nerve, it's about the seductive promise of a system that slowly reveals itself as predatory.

But The film flattens the novel's complexity and comes across as preachy rather than tense. It tells rather than shows why you should be worried.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Nerve

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Cyberbully2015

Both treat online harassment and digital humiliation as actual trauma rather than a rite of passage. Neither film lets the audience off the hook by treating it as entertainment.

A feature-length Disney Channel film that takes internet harassment seriously as genuine psychological threat. Sharktooth sincerity about how real and devastating online cruelty is, without condescension or easy resolution.

But It's Disney Channel and it looks like it—the production values and tone will feel childish to many adult viewers. Also very earnest, without irony to ease the heavy subject matter.

Scream1996

The original modernist slasher that understands how pop culture and performance shape how we respond to danger. Funny, scary, and genuinely smart about media literacy in ways that feel fresh now.

But The kills are graphic and frequent. If gore makes you squeamish, this will feel more grueling than thrilling.

Ingrid Goes West2017

Aubrey Plaza's obsession with an Instagram influencer becomes a psychological spiral. Darkly funny exploration of how social media warps desire and judgment, with a similar sense of a normal person getting pulled into something airless and weird.

But The second half leans harder into comedy when the setup promised something darker. Tonal whiplash makes the ending land softer than it should.

Unsane2018

Shot entirely on an iPhone and deeply disorienting as a result. A woman in a psychiatric hospital may or may not be being stalked, and the grainy, vertiginous cinematography puts you in her fractured headspace.

But The premise hinges on a twist some will spot early. Also genuinely difficult to watch if psychiatric settings are triggering for you.

Searching2018

A father searches for his missing daughter entirely through computer screens and search engine results. The tension comes from the fragmentary way you learn information, and the despair of the internet's vastness when what you need is close but hidden.

But Some find the screen-bound format exhausting rather than clever. The plot requires its characters to make some implausible decisions.

Blackhat2015

Michael Mann's fever dream about a hacker pulled out of prison to stop a digital attack. Gorgeous cinematography applied to invisible threats—you see the characters moving through a networked world that has become a landscape of danger.

But The plot is genuinely hard to follow if you're not paying close attention, and some found it baffling when it arrived. Also glacially paced for a thriller.

The Bling Ring2013

Sofia Coppola's film about real teens who became celebrities by robbing celebrities. Explores how social media and surveillance make performance and theft impossible to separate; you end up sympathizing with kids committing real crimes.

But The protagonists are vapid and occasionally hard to root for. Long stretches where not much happens narratively, though the mood is everything.

The Platform2019

Both explore how a system designed to be fun becomes dehumanizing the moment people treat it seriously. Both understand that the structure itself is the threat, not individual bad actors within it.

A Spanish science fiction film about a vertical prison where food is distributed from above, and those below fight over scraps. Visually inventive allegory for internet dynamics: status, scarcity, complicity, and the cruelty that emerges when the system is structured to demand it.

But Very violent and graphically so. The dialogue-heavy middle section slows momentum. Also: subtitles, and a bleak worldview that offers no catharsis.

Eighth Grade2018

Both are about the performance anxiety of being watched and judged by invisible audiences. Both nail the particular electricity of wanting to be seen and absolutely terrified of it at the same time.

Bo Burnham's devastating comedy about the last day of middle school. Captures the excruciating self-consciousness of performing yourself online—the gap between who you are and who you appear to be—with tenderness and no easy answers.

But It's a slow character study, not a plot-driven thriller. Also painfully awkward by design. Some will find it too uncomfortable to finish.