10 Best Thrillers About Siblings If You Like ‘Black Rabbit’

Jude Law and Jason Bateman may seem like an odd pair to play brothers on screen, but the two are starring together in the new Netflix thriller Black Rabbit. Law plays a restaurant owner named Jake who brings his brother, Vince, played by Bateman, into the family business. By doing so, he opens up both of them to danger, and they must try to outrun some debts or pay major consequences. The show was created by Zach Baylin, who wrote the terrific film The Order, which starred Law last year.

Bateman, with his scraggly beard and longer hair, looks disheveled in the series and like the black sheep of his family. It’s a role he seems born to play, which is surprising to some, as he is typically thought of as a family man or comedic presence. But it also shows that no one can pick their family, and there have been many interesting sibling stories in both film and TV over the years.

Here are some more good stories, 5 movies and 5 TV series, based around siblings if you’ve been enjoying Black Rabbit.

‘Good Time’ (2017)

The Safdie Brothers broke out in Hollywood with 2017’s Good Time. The critical praise for the film led to their star growing, and their next film, Uncut Gems, made them incredibly famous. In Good Time, Robert Pattinson’s Connie is trying to break his brother Nick out of Rikers Island. The two brothers had held up a bank, and Nick (Benny Safdie) got caught while Connie remained on the lam.

The film mostly follows Connie through insane twists and turns, including finding LSD at an amusement park and befriending a pit bull. The movie also stars Barkhad Abdi, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Buddy Duress, Necro, and Talilah Lennice Webster. It shows the lengths that people will go, even in criminal situations, to help their siblings. The movie serves as a stark reminder to always ensure that the prisoner you break out of jail is actually the one you meant to release.

‘Dead Ringers’ (1988)

David Cronenberg’s Dead Ringers was shocking when it came out. Loosely based on The Twins by Bari Wood and Jack Geasland, the film features Jeremy Irons in dual roles, playing Beverly and Elliot Marcus, identical twin gynecologists. Elliot would seduce patients and sleep with them and then pass them on to Beverly when he got bored with them.

Beverly strikes up a relationship with one of them and, after being caught for their ruse of pretending to be one another, he goes into deep clinical depression while using drugs. Beverly gets locked away in a clinic, and Elliot starts taking drugs to feel synchronized with his brother. The ending is incredibly wild and stunning, and the film has Cronenberg’s unique touch on it throughout. The film was turned into a TV adaptation starring Rachel Weisz in 2023.

‘We Own the Night’ (2007)

Joaquin Phoenix and Mark Wahlberg play brothers on either side of the law who join forces in We Own the Night. James Gray wrote and directed the film, which features Phoenix as a nightclub manager who is arrested for working alongside a drug lord. He’s bailed out by his brother (Wahlberg), an NYPD captain, and father (Robert Duvall), an NYPD Deputy Chief. He agrees to try and help with the bust of the drug lord, which goes awry and ultimately brings him into the family business.

It’s a well-acted film with good performances from the main three stars, along with Eva Mendes and Alex Veadov. Phoenix has more of a starring role than Wahlberg, but the scenes with the two of them work well because of their commitments to the characters. The movie made $55.3 million at the box office.

‘The Boondock Saints’ (1999)

The Boondock Saints is a cult classic and features Sean Patrick Flanery and Norman Reedus as Connor and Murphy McManus, two Irish brothers living in Boston. They are forced to kill two members of the Russian mafia one night as an act of self-defense. They then take it upon themselves to become vigilantes and rid Boston of its underworld of crime. They are joined by their best friend Rocco (David Della Rocco) as the brothers believe they were sent by God to do this.

Willem Dafoe plays an FBI agent who is tracking the killings and the brothers. Billy Connolly has an epic part in the film as a world-famous hitman. The movie is immensely popular on home media and spawned a sequel, with a potential third one coming. It was written and directed by Troy Duffy.

‘Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead’ (2007)

Sidney Lumet’s Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead was widely lauded by critics when it was released in 2007. It didn’t catch on at the box office, but has earned more appreciation as time has passed, most notably for the work of Ethan Hawke and Philip Seymour Hoffman as brothers who decide to commit the perfect crime: rob their family’s jewelry store. When things don’t go the way they’d planned, their father (Albert Finney) takes matters into his own hands without realizing he’s hunting down his own sons.

The script was written by Kelly Masterson, and the story is told in a nonlinear fashion, so the audience must keep track of what they’ve seen before and how it intersects into the timeline. Marisa Tomei plays Hoffman’s wife, and Rosemary Harris plays the brother’s mother. It’s a taut crime thriller that begs the question of whether or not you can truly trust your family.

‘Ozark’ (2017 – 2022)

Why not look back at Bateman’s previous Netflix thriller for a good companion to Black Rabbit? Ozark features Bateman and Laura Linney as a couple who move to the Land of the Ozarks after a failed money laundering scheme dries up. He was previously doing work for a Mexican drug cartel as a financial adviser and, to make amends, must move to set up a bigger money laundering scheme to support the cartel. He has to bring along his kids, who become entangled with the local criminals and drug gangs in that area of Missouri.

Sofia Hublitz and Skylar Gaertner star as the Byrde children, and Julia Garner steals scenes as Ruth Langmore, a member of a local family of criminals. The series was created by Bill Dubuque and Mark Williams and ran for four seasons. Julia Garner won a Golden Globe and three Emmy Awards for her role, and Jason Bateman won an Emmy for directing the series.

‘Sharp Objects’ (2018)

Talk about a messed-up family dynamic. Sharp Objects, based on the blistering novel by Gillian Flynn, ran on HBO in 2018 and stars Amy Adams as Camille Preaker, an alcoholic crime reporter who must travel back to her hometown to investigate the murder of two girls. While home, she must deal with her controlling mother, Adora (Patricia Clarkson), her stepfather (Henry Czerny), and her half-sister Amma (Eliza Scanlen). Adora is overbearing and victimizing, making Camille fall back into habits she had as a child.

Watching Amma and Camille’s relationship makes this series fascinating, along with just how awful Adora is. The finale is an absolute shocker as Flynn co-wrote the episode with series creator Marti Noxon. Jean-Marc Vallee deftly directs the entire series, which was nominated for eight Emmy Awards.

‘The Fall of the House of Usher’ (2023)

Based on a number of Edgar Allan Poe short stories, The Fall of the House of Usher is a miniseries for Netflix created by Mike Flanagan. It tells the story of a corrupt pharmaceutical CEO named Roderick, played by Bruce Greenwood, and his sister and COO, Madeline, played by Mary McDonnell, who rise to power. When all six of Roderick’s children die within a two-week span, he recounts his life to an investigator, played by Carl Lumbly.

The series is dripping with Gothic themes and features Carla Gugino in a dastardly performance as a mysterious woman from the family’s past. The show goes back in time to tell the stories of Roderick and Madeline’s lives growing up, and leads all the way up to the children’s deaths. It is a dark and twisted look at family dynamics and features great performances from the entire cast.

‘Bloodline’ (2015 – 2017)

Bloodline features a family that must go to extreme lengths to bury their past. It features a terrific cast with Kyle Chandler playing John Rayburn, the second-oldest son and detective. Ben Mendelsohn plays Danny, the oldest son and black sheep of the family. Norbert Leo Butz plays Kevin, the third-oldest and bad-tempered son, and Linda Cardellini plays Meg, the youngest sibling and an attorney. Sam Shepard and Sissy Spacek play Robert and Sally, the parents.

The family owns a hotel in the Florida Keys. When Danny returns after years of being away, it’s up to his siblings to decide if he should stay. When the repercussions of their decision have catastrophic consequences, it’s up to them to clean up the mess. The show wowed critics right away, and Mendelsohn won an Emmy for his Season 1 work.

‘The Haunting of Hill House’ (2018)

Another Mike Flanagan Netflix series, The Haunting of Hill House is based on the Shirley Jackson novel of the same name. It tells the story of five adult siblings (Michiel Huisman, Elizabeth Reaser, Oliver Jackson-Wilson, Kate Siegel, and Victoria Pedretti) and their father (Timothy Hutton) looking back on their lives. When they were younger, their mother (Carla Gugino) and father bought the mansion, Hill House, with plans to renovate and sell it. After experiencing paranormal threats and a tragedy, the family flees the home.

Only when another tragedy occurs 26 years later does the family reconnect and confront what occurred all those years ago. The show is told in two timelines: one earlier at Hill House and the other years later when the family reconnects. The child versions of the siblings are played by Paxton Singleton, Lulu Wilson, Julian Hilliard, McKenna Grace, and Violet McGraw, and Henry Thomas plays the younger version of the father. It’s a chilling tale that received rave reviews, particularly with how it stuck the landing with a satisfying and scary conclusion. Flanagan followed this up with The Haunting of Bly Manor.