Driving can be stressful enough without thinking of the most deviously tense highway best thrillers ever made might take place in a handful of vehicles across a barren stretch of lonely road.

The specific subgenre of highway thrillers actually encomes a wider range of films than might first be expected. Some may maintain their tension through mystery and action, whereas others function more like road trip horror movies, stumbling blindly in fear into a sinister destination. Whatever the case, the highway makes for such a good setting for the genre that it's no wonder all sorts of different kinds of thrillers have made their way to them.

10 Freeway

A dark take on a classic fairy tale

A rare thriller that's able to balance its abhorrent action and dark themes with a bleak sense of comedy, Freeway is a well-traveled cult classic. The film follows a young girl who goes on a road trip to find her estranged grandmother in the wake of her own mom's arrest. She hitches a ride with her school counselor at first, only to realize that he is an infamous serial killer, prompting a cat-and-mouse chase across the highways.

Freeway is conceived as a dark modern-day retelling of the classic fairy tale Little Red Riding Hood, which becomes obvious once a viewer realizes the antagonist's name is Bob Wolverton. Perhaps not subtle in its allegory, Freeway is nevertheless a thrill ride that's able to keep up the adrenaline, laden with offensive humor that defiantly plants the film's feet in an audacious tone that dares a response. As great as the comedy is, it does nothing to dilute the terror of a modern big bad wolf.

9 Breakdown

Simple, but striking

An overlooked gem in star Kurt Russell's illustrious career, Breakdown presents a horrific scenario that is far more relatable than shapeshifting aliens or ancient Chinese sorcerers. Russell stars as one half of a married couple going on a cross-country drive who experience an unfortunate breakdown in the middle of the barren New Mexico desert. After trusting a trucker to give his wife a lift to safety, Kurt Russell's Jeff suddenly finds his wife missing.

Breakdown is a stunning example of just how terrifying a true-to-life missing persons case can be, even in the glow of broad daylight. While the plot has a certain amount of stumbling blocks, the frantic anxiety felt by Russell's character as he realizes his wife is missing is palpable enough to be transferred to the viewer, kicking off a frenzied race to save the damsel in distress. Sometimes the most deceptively simple stories can be the most effective at stretching tension to a dangerous snapping point.

8 Road Games

Redeems truck drivers across the world

A shining star in Australian horror, Road Games is a plucky slasher flick starring Jamie Lee Curtis of the Halloween series fame. The film posits Curtis as a hitchhiker who hitches a ride with a trucker in the rural Outback, only to be recruited to his quest - Finding and apprehending the culprit of a grisly series of murders along the isolated highway. Hot on the heels of his prey, the trucker soon engages in a dangerous game of deadly consequence.

Road Games is astonishing for how well it's able to transfer the sensibilities of a classic Hitchcockian thriller to the open Australian Outback. The paranoia of the protagonist is well-explored by the idle games he plays with his riders to the time, sinking the audience into a lowly place of uncertainty. The film also does a lot to repair the public image of truckers in film, making one out to be the hero detective rather than the perpetrator himself.

7 Wolf Creek

A roadbound slasher

Yet another Australian horror movie taking advantage of the country's long stretches of isolated road, Wolf Creek is decidedly more violent and turbulent compared to Road Games. The threadbare plot follows a young couple of British tourists traveling along with their Australian pal who are held captive by a murderous bushman after their vehicle breaks down, stranding them in a desperate bid for survival. Lean though the story may be, it makes for a perfectly upsetting thriller premise.

Essentially the Australian answer to The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Wolf Creek relies more on exploitative imagery rather than tension to generate its scares, which can easily come off as cheap to some. However, this method is no less effective at getting the average motorist to give their car a thorough once-over before setting out on any cross-country trips. The film doesn't skimp on out character development or tremendous performances, which helps make the horror of the scenario feel that much more chilling and grisly.

6 Duel

Jaws on the open road

One of the earliest works in famous director Stephen Spielberg's illustrious career, Duel is a roadway thriller that got many to take the young, hungry visionary seriously. The premise is exceedingly simple, featuring a man on a business trip who is chased off the road by a mysterious trucker after cutting him off. The trucker returns again and again in an attempt to run the hapless man down with his imposing 18-wheeler, resulting in a film that is essentially one long car chase.

It's interesting to see where Duel laid the foundation for Spielberg's later career-defining blockbuster Jaws, employing a similarly inhuman and relentlessly pursuing force of nature as an antagonist. Outside of a single arm and a lone cowboy boot, the truck's driver is never revealed, resulting in a delicious fear of the unknown manifested through the haunting grille of a rampaging semi-truck. Films like Duel emphasize just how absurd our society of normal people being trusted to pilot multi-ton weapons rocketing side-by-side is.

5 The Vanishing

A bleak fable on the dangers of curiosity

A frontrunner for the most depressing horror movie of all time, The Vanishing is a motorized thriller unlike any other. Like many highway-based thrillers, The Vanishing centers on a young couple simply trying to enjoy themselves on an idyllic road trip. When his wife vanishes without a trace while entering a gas station, Dutch vacationer Rex spirals into madness in an attempt to find out what happened to her.

The Vanishing pulls an interesting act in that it lays its cards out on the table fairly early in of answering its overarching mystery, introducing the monster responsible for the disappearance of Rex's beloved Saskia not long after she vanishes. It's in the relentless pursuit of answers that Rex ultimately dooms himself to enduring a similar fate. This is something that anyone watching can see coming, which somehow makes it all the more devastating when it eventually does happen.

4 Dead End

A spooky holiday chase through madness

A rare highway thriller that also doubles as a Christmastime horror movie, Dead End is a quietly unsettling film that adds a supernatural bent to the typical roadside antics of the genre. Dead End puts viewers in the seat of a van packed tight with a dysfunctional family. When the patriarch, played by Ray Wise, insists on taking a shortcut, the family find themselves on a haunting stretch of never-ending road going through a forest. Even worse, they seem to be perpetually chased by a mysterious hearse driven by a woman in white.

Dead End gets off as a sort of extended look into a nightmarish supernatural world, but still works as a highway thriller, albeit far from a traditional one. The supernatural elements and ever-present sense of dread build the tension to a ripe boiling point, and a few key moments of humor provide a good reprieve. The family are all brilliantly cast as well, turning the typical tension of trying to get along for the holidays into a life-or-death scenario.

3 The Hitcher

Presents a fascinating slasher antagonist

The concept of a murderous hitchiker is a common recurring campfire tale in pop culture, finally codified in 1986 with the horror film The Hitcher. The movie follows a young man on a cross-country road trip making his way through the barren landscape of West Texas, where he picks up a mysterious hitchhiker named John Ryder. Ryder soon reveals that he's a deranged serial killer, and challenges the driver to stop him from committing his latest murder.

The Hitcher is an endlessly fascinating slasher movie that begs the question of a villain who wants to be stopped. Rutger Hauer is incredible as the unknowable John Ryder, acting out of a sort of bizarre sense of obligation rather than personal glory or depravity. Unafraid to center some of its nastiest violence squarely in the barrel of the camera, The Hitcher is a disturbing trip through psychosis that begs the viewer to be put out of their misery.

2 Unhinged

One bad day can make all the difference

Navigating rush hour traffic can be an incredibly stressful experience, and Unhinged uses the typical struggle as the catalyst for the plot of one of the most stressful movies ever made. Russel Crowe stars as Tom Cooper, a disgruntled psychopath driving from the muder scene of his ex-wife and her new lover. After being honked at by an overworked mom driving her son to school, Cooper arbitrarily decides to set her in his sights as his next victim.

Violence resulting from road rage is a very real American epidemic, and Unhinged explores just how bad of a last straw something as simple as a honking car horn can be for unstable people. Crowe is phenomenal as the terrifying Cooper, who isn't just a relentless force of nature searching for something to take his rage out on, but a clever and insidious villain willing to do anything to prove his own petty point. Even it suffers from some cheesy dialogue, Unhinged keeps the pedal to the metal all the way through.

1 Death Proof

Tarantino's take on a typical horror movie

One of Quentin Tarantino's lesser-known films and one half of the iconic Grindhouse double feature, Death Proof is as classic an example of a highway thriller as there can be. This time around, Kurt Russell steps behind the wheel of a bad guy as the insidious Stuntman Mike, a crazed serial killer and stunt driver who uses his "death-proof" car to run down random women. He bites off more than he can chew, however, when his latest crop of would-be victims decide to fight back mercilessly.

Stuntman Mike is a deliciously despicable slasher villain who wields an entire car rather than a simple blade, making for an intriguing set-up for a straightforward horror film. It's also interesting how the film shifts to become more of a revenge-fantasy action flick rather than a thriller as the tables are turned on him, leaning into Tarantino's sensibilities. Still tense, exciting, and full of brilliant car chases, Death Proof is a stellar highway thriller.