Film

Unsane

Claire Foy stars in this iPhone-shot psychological thriller about a woman confined to a psychiatric hospital, unsure whether the danger she perceives is real or a symptom of her condition. Shot entirely on mobile phone, it's a claustrophobic descent into paranoia with a deliberately cheap, disorienting visual style that serves the story's unreliable perspective.

TMDb rating3.2

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you are drawn to lean, paranoid thrillers where the dread comes from a claustrophobic setting and a restless camera, and a grubby, low-budget look doesn't bother you.

Skip it if you want a polished picture or a story that eases off; this one stays jittery and bleak, shot with the grain of phone footage, its pressure rarely relenting.

What it asks of you: Brisk at 98 minutes, it runs on tight scenes and steady unease rather than big set pieces, so it rewards close attention to every conversation.

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

If you liked this

Shutter Island2010

A masterclass in unreliable narration and institutional dread. DiCaprio's detective work mirrors your own attempts to separate truth from delusion in a psychiatric setting that's fundamentally wrong.

But Scorsese's deliberate pacing can feel slow; the twist is guessable if you've seen similar narratives before.

Shutter Island poster

The Killing of a Sacred Deer2017

Yorgos Lanthimos creates the same queasy uncertainty—is this psychological or supernatural? Watching it, you're never quite comfortable, and the performances are unnervingly precise.

But It's cold and strange in ways that repel rather than fascinate some viewers. Not a conventional thriller.

The Killing of a Sacred Deer poster

Bug2007

William Friedkin's chamber horror about two people whose paranoia metastasizes into something genuinely nightmarish. Intensely claustrophobic and performed with raw vulnerability.

But It's deliberately cramped and textureless; some find it more clinical than frightening. The final act is grim.

Bug poster

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

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Nightcrawler2014

Both films use an unreliable first-person POV to trap you inside a mind that may be fundamentally broken, and both force the question: if someone believes it, does the objective truth matter?

Like Unsane, it's about perceptual distortion and performance masking pathology. Jake Gyllenhaal's Lou Bloom is the inverse of Sawyer—a predator convinced of his own righteousness, making you complicit in his unreality.

But It's a character study of a sociopath, not a paranoid thriller. Bleak without offering the relief of resolution.

Nightcrawler poster
More like this (8)

The Invisible Man2020

Another take on gaslighting and institutional dismissal—a woman whose trauma nobody believes. Modern and furious, with a clever premise that reflects how abuse isolates.

But More action-thriller than psychological horror. Some prefer their terror quieter.

The Invisible Man poster

Take Shelter2011

Michael Shannon gives one of cinema's great performances as a man certain apocalypse is coming. You spend two hours inside his deteriorating mind, and it's oddly moving.

But It's a slow burn about someone possibly unwell; if you need plot momentum, this will test you.

Take Shelter poster

Under the Skin2014

Glazer's science-fiction dread achieves something like cosmic horror through stillness and alienation. Scarlett Johansson's performance is remote and unsettling in ways that linger.

But It's nearly dialogue-free and abstract; patience and ambiguity are non-negotiable.

Under the Skin poster

A Tale of Two Sisters2003

A South Korean psychological horror about trauma and denial, visually stunning and structured around a gut-punch of a revelation. Haunts you for days afterward.

But Subtitled, and the twist demands a rewatch to fully land. Some find it too elliptical.

A Tale of Two Sisters poster

Martha Marcy May Marlene2011

Elizabeth Olsen as a cult escapee trying to reintegrate; every interaction vibrates with her damage. It's about how trauma distorts perception, shot with documentary precision.

But Nothing is resolved. The ending is deliberately unsatisfying; designed to leave you uneasy, not catharted.

Martha Marcy May Marlene poster

Pacific Rim2013

A French body-horror film about a woman pregnant with a car that somehow examines identity and acceptance. Transgressive, strange, and committed to its premise.

But It's extremely weird and physically graphic. If you want recognizable psychology, you'll bounce off.

Pacific Rim poster

Mulholland Drive2001

Both pit a female protagonist against a reality that becomes increasingly unstable and hostile, using formal technique (Lynch's narrative fracture, Ayer's phone-shot claustrophobia) to mirror mental collapse.

Naomi Watts in a nightmare about Hollywood ambition that dissolves into pure psychological disintegration. It's dreamlike, structurally daring, and the performances are desperate and gorgeous.

But It's famously confusing and requires interpretation; Lynchian ambiguity can feel pretentious or frustrating depending on your tolerance.

Mulholland Drive poster

A Woman Under the Influence1974

Both are intimate explorations of how institutional authority and family judgment pathologize a woman's legitimate distress. The question in both is whether she's the problem or whether the world has failed her.

Cassavetes' raw, improvisational portrait of mental illness as relational failure. Gena Rowlands delivers one of cinema's greatest performances—unguarded, vulnerable, terrifying in its honesty about what it means to be judged as unwell.

But It's slow, deeply uncomfortable, and handheld in a way that predates modern cinema. Some find it painful rather than watchable.

A Woman Under the Influence poster

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Martha Marcy May Marlene, Nerve, Bamako