It's crazy to think that a thriller as bonkers as Tony Scott's Déjà Vu was green-lit by a major studio, let alone made over $180 million worldwide. Beyond its time-traveling plot and god-level technical craftsmanship, though, Scott focuses the hyperactive, super-saturated thriller style he perfected in Man on Fire on grounded, moving performances and his characters' subjective experience. Firing on all cylinders as well is Denzel Washington in a heart-melting turn as ATF agent Doug Carlin, who starts off trying to stop a terrorist bombing that already happened and ends up falling in love with a woman he may never meet, but feels compelled to save.

Bob Odenkirk was an unusual choice to helm an action-thriller franchise, but the runaway success of Nobodyin 2021 proved the former Mr. Show star/creator could shoot, stab, and mangle bad guys with the best of them. While Nobody 2underperformed at the box office compared to the first entry, it was packed with arguably even more — and even gorier — mayhem than the first. Plus, it had a villainous Sharon Stone chewing up and spitting out every bit of scenery she could.

Long before the Metaverse, Oculus, and Charlie Brooker's acclaimed speculative sci-fi series, master director David Cronenberg plumbed the depths of virtual reality's implications with his fleshy, frantic masterpiece Existenz. Featuring an uncanny lead performance by Jennifer Jason Leigh as the "game pod goddess" whose creations kick off the intrigue, as well as Jude Law and Willem Dafoe, it's an utterly unique vision of video gaming and the horror that can ensue when it bleeds into reality.