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• The Vanishing (1988)

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Many movies have centered their plots around getting kidnapped in Europe, but none has ever compared to the 1988 film The Vanishing. The film features only three main characters, one of which "vanishes" in the first 20 minutes. The rest of the film is dedicated to the love interest obsessing over their disappearance while the sociopathic kidnapper watches from afar.

There are several great things about this movie. For one, the plot is incredibly well thought out and executed. For having such a simple premise, the director and author of the novella the film is based on (titled The Golden Egg) do a great job of adding enough detail to create suspense and wonder. The thoughts and feelings of the characters are so well-articulated, that you can't help but feel sorry and terrified for all parties involved. The foreshadowing is also incredibly subtle. In the first ten minutes of the movie, the characters are stuck inside a tunnel discussing a dream one of them had. This scene seems out of place until the big reveal at the end of the movie when the kidnapper confronts the scorned lover.

The realism of the movie is what is most striking. Every action that takes place seems wholly possible. The kidnapper is a classic example of a sociopath; someone who would seem normal to the average person. The lover is not a secret FBI agent, but a typical backpacker who's girlfriend disappears completely at random. The characters in this film may as well be anyone you know, and that's what makes everything so frightening.

While Taken shows how easily someone can disappear, and a series like Dexter humanizes serial killers, The Vanishing takes these two elements and fuses them together in a film that is not only classic but very likely set the bar for psychological thrillers.