Notice how we waste perfectly good time sitting through overhyped, predictable, often gooey stuff—Little Miss Sunshine anyone?—and miss out real gems that come and go so quietly they might be on tiptoe?

One such movie is the 2008 Transsiberian, an edge-of-your-seat taut thriller that channels Hitchcock like nobody’s business. Good from start to finish, even managing to avoid the usually absurd last fifteen-minute wrapup of most thrillers, it stars Woody Harrelson. He is in top form as a guileless American, one half of a couple finding itself in unnerving circumstances on the eponymous train. The supporting cast (Ben Kingsley, Emily Mortimer, Eduardo Noriega) is solid, the desolate frozen steppes ominous, the script truly original.

If you missed the theatrical release, you can rent it on video. You won’t be sorry.