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The best thriller audiobooks, ranked by the data

Ranked by weighted listener rating, the best thriller audiobook in our dataset is Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir — 4.49★ across 171 ratings and 14.7 estimated listening hours. We scored every published thriller audiobook in our dataset: 118 qualify — thriller-shelved titles with full pages here — carrying 12,244 listener ratings between them. The top 20 are below. No opinions: the formula in the method note decides the order.

118books qualify
12,244listener ratings behind the list
13.3avg hours (est.)

The top 20

  1. Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir

    14.7 hrs est. · 4.49★ · 171 ratings · weighted score 4.39

    About 15 days at an hour a day — 14% longer than the average thriller audiobook.

  2. Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo

    15.1 hrs est. · 4.54★ · 90 ratings · weighted score 4.37

    About 16 days at an hour a day — 23% longer than the average fantasy audiobook.

  3. The Sea of Monsters by Rick Riordan

    8.4 hrs est. · 4.45★ · 181 ratings · weighted score 4.36

    About 9 days at an hour a day — 32% shorter than the average fantasy audiobook.

  4. The Martian by Andy Weir

    12 hrs est. · 4.40★ · 331 ratings · weighted score 4.35

    About 12 days at an hour a day — right at the average fantasy length.

  5. The Complete Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle

    33.2 hrs est. · 4.51★ · 47 ratings · weighted score 4.28

    About 34 days at an hour a day — 265% longer than the average mystery audiobook.

  6. The Green Mile by Stephen King

    13.8 hrs est. · 4.33★ · 108 ratings · weighted score 4.24

    About 14 days at an hour a day — 7% longer than the average thriller audiobook.

  7. Le Comte de Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas

    17.5 hrs est. · 4.29★ · 194 ratings · weighted score 4.24

    About 18 days at an hour a day — 94% longer than the average romance audiobook.

  8. Reaper Man by Terry Pratchett

    8.9 hrs est. · 4.34★ · 71 ratings · weighted score 4.22

    About 9 days at an hour a day — 28% shorter than the average fantasy audiobook.

  9. The Stand by Stephen King

    34.1 hrs est. · 4.31★ · 87 ratings · weighted score 4.22

    About 35 days at an hour a day — 164% longer than the average thriller audiobook.

  10. I, Robot by Isaac Asimov

    7.2 hrs est. · 4.25★ · 187 ratings · weighted score 4.21

    About 8 days at an hour a day — 44% shorter than the average thriller audiobook.

  11. Anathem by Neal Stephenson

    27.7 hrs est. · 4.30★ · 74 ratings · weighted score 4.20

    About 28 days at an hour a day — 125% longer than the average fantasy audiobook.

  12. And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie

    6.6 hrs est. · 4.24★ · 169 ratings · weighted score 4.20

    About 7 days at an hour a day — 49% shorter than the average thriller audiobook.

  13. Night by Elie Wiesel

    4 hrs est. · 4.33★ · 49 ratings · weighted score 4.19

    About 4 days at an hour a day — 56% shorter than the average romance audiobook.

  14. The Sign of Four by Arthur Conan Doyle

    4.6 hrs est. · 4.25★ · 88 ratings · weighted score 4.18

    About 5 days at an hour a day — 49% shorter than the average mystery audiobook.

  15. The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón

    15.6 hrs est. · 4.29★ · 48 ratings · weighted score 4.17

    About 16 days at an hour a day — 21% longer than the average thriller audiobook.

  16. The Vampire Lestat by Anne Rice

    17.9 hrs est. · 4.29★ · 48 ratings · weighted score 4.17

    About 18 days at an hour a day — 99% longer than the average romance audiobook.

  17. Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton

    13.5 hrs est. · 4.18★ · 194 ratings · weighted score 4.15

    About 14 days at an hour a day — 5% longer than the average thriller audiobook.

  18. The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett

    30.8 hrs est. · 4.22★ · 72 ratings · weighted score 4.15

    About 31 days at an hour a day — 139% longer than the average thriller audiobook.

  19. The Shining by Stephen King

    15 hrs est. · 4.17★ · 282 ratings · weighted score 4.15

    About 15 days at an hour a day — 16% longer than the average thriller audiobook.

  20. the girl with the dragon tattoo by Stieg Larsson

    17 hrs est. · 4.19★ · 97 ratings · weighted score 4.14

    About 17 days at an hour a day — 32% longer than the average thriller audiobook.

How this ranking works

Every published thriller audiobook in our dataset qualifies — 118 books. Each is scored by its Open Library listener rating weighted by its rating count — score = (v·R + 50·C) ÷ (v + 50), where R is the book's rating, v its number of ratings, and C = 4.06★ the mean across all 500 published books we measured. Fewer ratings pull a score toward that mean, so a high rating on a handful of votes can't outrank a slightly lower one backed by hundreds. Genre shelves come from Open Library's subject data — a book qualifies when its subjects carry the thriller signal. No editorial picks, no sponsored placement. Dataset build 2026-07-06; rankings recompute with every data refresh. Full methodology · All thriller audiobooks we measured

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