From Millennium to Infernal Affairs: 6 Greatest Thriller Movie Trilogies of All Time

Millennium’s linked investigations

The Swedish adaptations of Stieg Larsson’s Millennium novels star Michael Nyqvist as journalist Mikael Blomkvist and Noomi Rapace as hacker Lisbeth Salander. Across the three films, the pair investigate murders, corruption, abuse and powerful conspiracies.

The story moves from a missing-person case and buried crimes to Lisbeth becoming a murder suspect, then to a confrontation with institutional corruption. Blomkvist and Lisbeth’s dynamic helps connect the shifting investigations, and all three movies arrived in the same year.

Infernal Affairs’ double lives

Infernal Affairs II works as a prequel, tracing the characters’ origins and their mentors. The third film follows the aftermath of the first and takes a more psychological approach, using a nonlinear narrative.

Three faces of Hannibal Lecter

The trilogy of The Silence of the Lambs, Hannibal and Red Dragon stars Anthony Hopkins as psychiatrist and serial killer Hannibal Lecter. The films range from very good to classic, with Hopkins playing Lecter as both urbane and manipulative.

The Silence of the Lambs is the strongest of the three, while Ridley Scott’s Hannibal has its own identity. Red Dragon follows profiler Will Graham, played by Edward Norton, as he hunts the Tooth Fairy killer, played by Ralph Fiennes, and deals with his complicated connection to Lecter.

Park Chan-wook’s revenge cycle

Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, Oldboy and Lady Vengeance are not linked by plot or characters. Directed by Park Chan-wook, the films instead examine revenge, guilt, justice and the consequences of violence.

The first follows a man whose effort to save his sister brings tragedy and retaliation. In Oldboy, a man imprisoned for fifteen years is released and tries to learn who ruined his life; Lady Vengeance follows a woman seeking justice against the man who destroyed her future.