Best Crime Movies to Watch

The Seed of the Sacred Fig bravely takes on the increasingly violent patriarchy and theocracy in modern-day Iran. It follows a family of four—Iman, Najmeh (Soheila Golestani), Rezvan (Mahsa Rostami), and Sana (Setareh Maleki)—and reveals how the political can creep into the personal. Iman, the father, has just been promoted at work (he’s one step […]

You would expect a courtroom drama to be built around damning pieces of evidence, passionate speeches, or certain social issues lending weight to the investigation. But what makes Justine Triet’s Palme d’Or-winning Anatomy of a Fall so remarkable is how direct it is. Triet doesn’t treat this case like a puzzle for the audience to […]

The Order is set in the 1980s, but it may as well have taken place in the present; the terror of white supremacists and the desire to storm the Capitol are eerily relevant. However, as political as The Order is, it works better as a cop drama. Director Justin Kurzel has the thrill of the […]

A big part of Strange Darling’s charm is its ability to surprise you with one twist after another, so it’s best not to get into too many details here. What we will say is that director J.T. Mollner and his cast execute those twists with great finesse, making sure not to waste even a second […]

Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon isn’t a whodunnit; in fact, it’s closer to a who-didn’t-do-it. We know from the very beginning who is responsible for committing the brutal serial murders of wealthy Osage Native Americans in 1920s Oklahoma that the film chronicles: pretty much every single one of their white neighbors, spearheaded by […]

At first, Marmalade just seemed like a good ol’ fashioned Bonnie and Clyde story being told by one inmate to another. As Baron tells Otis about his titular Bonnie in Joe Keery’s Southern drawl, there’s a charming bittersweet romance about a man pushed into crime because of healthcare costs and a compelling Camila Marrone as […]

If you’re craving for the fast-paced fights, hand-to-hand combat, and insane stunts of Hong Kong action cinema, you might enjoy Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In. This novel adaptation has a gangster storyline we’ve seen before, but the action? Impeccable. The action sequences are unrelenting with its underground fighter protagonist stumbling into a convoluted web […]

Nothing about Saint Omer is easy. A female Senegalese migrant (Guslagie Malanga) is put to trial for committing infanticide, but throughout the film, it becomes clear how much of a victim she is too, of an uncaring and deeply prejudiced society. “What drove her to madness?” Her attorney asks at one point. We’re not sure. […]

Juror #2 is the kind of film that doesn’t waste time: it’s immediately compelling as it throws questions about morality, guilt, and conscience straight to your face. There are familiar people in this stacked cast, including Chris Messina and J.K. Simmons, but it’s Nicholas Hoult as the titular second juror and Toni Collete as the […]

Invisible Victim may not be all that different from the plethora of true crime documentaries available on Netflix and other streaming platforms, but it is worth watching if only to see how misogyny continues to be rampant at best and deadly at worst. Despite being beaten, kidnapped, drugged, and eventually murdered by the superstar footballer […]

Shot for only 20 days with a budget of a million dollars, The Last Stop in Yuma County is a small film, but it achieves significant feats, thanks in large part to first-time feature director Francis Galluppi’s strong vision. The set is stylish, the characters feel lived in, and the central mystery—will these robbers get […]

Stoic, unflinching, and almost near silent, Ballerina takes a fitting approach to enact its protagonist’s revenge. Within its lean 90 minute runtime, ex-bodyguard Ok-ju single-mindedly searches for answers, through following the lead from her friend’s suicide note. The film shares nothing personal, no doubts, worries, or fears from Ok-ju – except for her affection for […]

On the one hand, How to Blow Up a Pipeline is a tense thriller—an excellently set-up heist that makes you wonder, until the end, whether the low-budget operation succeeds or not. On the other hand, it’s a thoughtful rumination on the evil and influence of Big Oil, which despite its relentless destruction of environments and […]

After years of relatively tame, tearjerking LGBTQ+ dramas, finally comes a sexy, erotic thriller made for and by sapphic women that pushes past convention. Love Lies Bleeding is an unexpected sophomore film from British director Rose Glass, not just because it’s set in New Mexico, but because of the 80s B-movie vibe literally on steroids […]

Gangster films have an issue of glorifying organized crime, and in some ways The Pig, The Snake, and The Pigeon does the same. There are excellent, action-packed fight scenes that makes Ethan Juan as Chen Kui-lin look so damn cool, and the journey Chen takes as a stern criminal out for his legacy definitely romanticizes […]

Hit Man is many things—a romance, neo-noir, comedy, and thriller. And though it sometimes feels like it doesn’t quite reach its full potential in all those areas, it’s hard not to be blown away by Powell’s Rolodex of characters and his palpable chemistry with Arjona. The story itself isn’t as sturdy as I hoped it […]

Mystery films and whodunits have placed the rich and powerful in their crosshairs for generations now, and Murder Mubarak proudly follows in that tradition through a tried and tested formula. So while there isn’t anything particularly surprising here, the film nails the tone it needs, smartly placing the focus away from the central crime and […]

Not much happens in Women Talking, but what it lacks in action it more than makes up for in message. As the wronged women of an insular Christian colony decide whether they should leave or stay in their community, valuable points on each side are raised and debated fiercely. Are the men at fault or […]

Real life violence is usually not a good idea, but when those in power would do anything to gain more power at the expense of those more vulnerable, sometimes those with the strength should wreak violence. After a fruitful action-comedy collaboration with Netflix, writer-director Timo Tjahjanto teams up with them again for a darker crime […]

As the third instalment in Paul Schrader’s “man in a room” trilogy after First Reformed (2017) and The Card Counter (2021), Master Gardner rounds up the issues at stake in a most profound way. For anyone who’s seen a film either scripted by Schrader (such as Taxi Driver) or directed by him, there will be […]

Jaane Jaan is one of those thrillers where you hope that the main characters would get away with murder. Based on the 2005 Japanese novel, the Hindi adaptation still has the cat-and-mouse dynamic between the relentless detective and math genius protecting the suspect, along with their elaborate chess-like mind games. However, the film changes a […]

With Netflix producing countless true crime documentaries, you’d be forgiven for dismissing How to Rob a Bank as usual, forgettable fare. But the documentary ever so slightly curbs cliches by focusing on a theme—in this case Hollywood, in honor of Scurlock’s pseudonym and love of movies—without losing sight of the bigger picture. Which is to […]

Sometimes, especially when you’ve gone without it for so long, you would do anything for a shred of respect. LaRoy, Texas depicts exactly that, with a store owner Ray being so unwilling to stand up for himself that his wife cheats on him with his brother, who steals from the family business. It’s a terrible […]

At once intimate and sweeping, A Thousand and One seamlessly weaves Inez’s personal turmoil and familial troubles with the systemic inequality that was rampant in ’90s New York. The hideous faces of gentrification, poverty, and police brutality are constantly appearing in the film, not merely because they lend weight to the story, but because they […]

More than anything, Netflix’s 116-minute Menendez Brothers documentary feels like a PR shield to protect the streamer against the onslaught of criticism its dramatized series (Ryan Murhphy’s Monsters) received. Netflix wants to have its cake and eat it too. If Monsters painted the brothers as evil and spoiled, The Menendez Brothers takes a more humane […]

As a crime thriller, Holy Spider is taut and terrifying, a modern noir that manages to unnerve despite the familiar moves it employs. The cat and mouse chase between serial killer and investigative reporter, for instance, is a classic tale, but that doesn’t make Holy Spider any less gripping. The film benefits from artful camerawork, […]

Argentina, 1985 is a legal drama about how a prosecutor and his young team were able to mount evidence—despite all threats and odds—against the officials behind a brutal military dictatorship. The public trial is supposedly the first of its kind in Latin America, a marker of true democracy that made a hero out of Julio […]

Red Rooms is a slow-burn thriller that follows Kelly-Anne (Juliette Gariépy) as she gets drawn into the case of a suspected serial killer in Montreal. She religiously attends every trial, even camping outside the courthouse to secure a seat, and eventually neglects work for it. Her obsession—maybe more than the case itself—is the film’s true […]

At the fringes of society, sometimes, all you have is your family. You would do all you can to feed, clothe, and protect them, and your fate hangs in the balance of what they do in return. Abang Adik is centered on two undocumented orphans in Malaysia, and because they only have each other, Abang […]

With an urgent subject and plenty of that trademark Netflix polish, Bhakshak is nothing if not watchable and consistently engaging. However, for all of its motivated performances and high production values, there actually doesn’t seem to be much that happens in the film by way of investigation or character development. Much of the plot seems […]

A twitchy, uncomfortable noir film for the digital age, Decision to Leave blends the trappings of a restless police procedural with an obsessive forbidden romance. Here, director Park Chan-wook flips every interrogation and piece of evidence on its head, pulling us away from the whodunit and towards the inherently invasive nature of a criminal investigation. […]

Based on four different books by Colombian author Mario Mendoza, The Initiated (or Los Iniciados) is perhaps too much of a good thing at times, as it struggles to have its many different pieces cohere into one thematic idea. These separate pieces are intriguing on their own, for sure: poisoned water supply, underground activists, the […]

David Fincher’s return to form almost ten years after Gone Girl turns the eponymous French graphic novel series into a stone-cold stunner. The Killer can be described as a crime thriller and a neo noir, but it’s perfectly Fincherian in the ways it withholds information from the viewer, building up suspense in a masterful rhythm. […]

It seems unfair to call Neeyat India’s (and Amazon Prime’s) answer to the Knives Out series of films, but it often feels that way. It’s a murder mystery that sides with the poor and satirizes the rich, and it mostly takes place in a grand manor that forces its colorful cast of characters to interact […]

There are plenty of things that The Thicket does well. For starters, the performances are great, with Game of Thrones’ Peter Dinklage taking his charisma to a wintry Western, and Juliette Lewis matching this intensity as his raspy, iron-willed rival. The style is certainly great too, with excellent costumes, dynamic violins, and lingering, meticulously framed […]

The humor, oh the humor! It’s a breath of fresh air to be laughing with a Woody Allen film and not at it. He is so good at capturing the cheekiness in meet-cutes, secrecies, and lies, all powdered with exaggerated Frenchness. Forgive my surprised tone, but Coup de Chance surpasses all expectations in the way […]

Based on a bizarre true story, Woman of the Hour follows Cheryl (Anna Kendrick), a struggling actor, and Rodney (Daniel Zovatto), a serial killer, as they participate in a dating game show. Part of the film is about the tense cat-and-mouse chase that happens between the two, but other parts are less tight. There are […]

In The Killer, Director John Woo resurrects his famous 1989 film of the same name but swaps neon-lit Hong Kong for sumptuous Paris, and steel-faced Ah-jong (Chow Yun-fat) for banter-prone Zee (Nathalie Emmanuel). The result is less than stellar, but enjoyable nonetheless. The script feels contrived in some instances (“Never send a man to do […]

Through this action-packed, absolutely crazy ride of a movie, writer-director Atlee and Bollywood legend Shah Rukh Khan team up in Jawan to question the country’s corruption in multiple fields, including, but not limited to the agricultural sector, the healthcare industry, and the electoral system. They do so through an amped-up, explosion-filled spectacle led by a […]

George Clooney and Brad Pitt are two of the coolest actors to come out of Hollywood, and this film is a testament to this fact. Watching them, you’ll be reminded of how leading men should be effortlessly funny and charming, but there is such a thing as too cool. Clooney and Pitt are so relaxed […]

Reminiscent of classic gang films, The Bikeriders comes as a familiar but still enjoyable piece of Americana. It’s properly nostalgic and structured much like Goodfellas, with someone narrating the entire thing and smartly teasing the surprising end. In this case, the brooding leading man’s wife, Kathy (Comer), softens the film’s rough macho edges. But as […]

The story of how Dave Kroupa excitedly joined online dating sites only to meet a murderous stalker is both distressing and fascinating. You feel for the guy and wonder how a person could commit such heinous crimes. That in itself is a feat: to be genuinely shocked despite the prevalence of true crime documentaries. But […]

Everyone has those days where nothing goes right, but no one’s having as bad of a day as detective Yuji Kudo is in Hard Days. It isn’t just that nothing goes right– everything goes wrong, and he’s just a hair away from losing it all each time. This Japanese adaptation might take a slightly more […]

Jailbreak: Love on the Run could be many things depending on where you stand. You could see it as the tragic story of how an inmate successfully seduced his jailer into letting him escape. Or you could see it as the romantic tale of a woman finding her soulmate after years of denying herself companionship […]

Kenneth Branagh’s third Hercule Poirot movie does everything it can to divorce itself from the quaintness of a typical Agatha Christie adaptation. Loosely based on the novel Hallowe’en Party, this outing swaps exotic locales for the claustrophobic confines of a gothic Venetian palazzo and flirts outright with horror. The film, shot through more Dutch angles […]

Saturated colors, numerous plot twists, and a quirky hot-headed detective bring this whodunit murder mystery/dark comedy to life. On the eve of a big storm, Sai and her British husband Earl visit Sai’s family’s farmhouse, and the night ends in a gruesome mass murder. The horrific setup is quickly undercut by Detective Nawat who, convinced […]

If you’re new to the story, I Don’t Expect Anyone to Believe Me feels difficult to understand. The film adaptation portrays the novel through abruptly cut sequences, meticulously framed naturalistic frames, and monologue and dialogue that mean more than what’s being said, on top of Juan Pablo’s gradual descent into a criminal network. It’s as […]

A harrowing family loss sets off a poetic exploration of grief in this experimental film from Haitian-Canadian filmmaker Miryam Charles. The focus of the movie is Charles’ own cousin, who was found murdered in her Connecticut bedroom in 2008. Rather than let her cousin’s life remain frozen at that point in time, Charles unmoors her […]