Best Crime Movies to Watch (Page 9)
If there’s one thing that Bosco does that’s really worth admiring, it’s that it works around its lower budget much for effectively than many other films its size. It would be easy to make a prison drama—set mostly between bare walls and corridors—look cheap, but this one clearly puts in the effort to communicate how […]
Light-hearted and compassionate, Raining Stones is one of Ken Loach’s lesser-known films. It’s also one of his funniest, telling the story of an unemployed chancer trying to raise enough money to buy his daughter her first Communion dress. Desperate for the cash, he falls foul of ruthless loan sharks. As ever, Ken Loach is keenly […]
This miniseries is based on a Margret Atwood novel and was also produced by her. The script was written by Canadian filmmaker extraordinaire Sarah Polley (Stories We Tell). Grace is a poor but bright Irish immigrant in Upper Canada who is accused and convicted of a double murder. 15 years into her life sentence, a […]
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 […]
Even if Crimes of Fashion: Killer Clutch faithfully sticks to the general template of a mystery film, that doesn’t guarantee its quality. It may have structure and suspects and motive but it doesn’t inject its own color into the expected story beats. Maybe it’s a consequence of the film being made for a network that […]
In this stunning coming-of-age drama, Hou Hsiao-hsien takes us to the neon-lit streets of Taiwan and the dull beige house of the Lin family. The film is centered around the eldest daughter, Lin Hsiao-yang (portrayed by the Taiwanese pop star Lin Yang), who takes care of her whole family after her mother dies and her […]
The Perfect Couple is an uneven show. Some parts of it work, particularly the dramatic exchanges between members of the rich but strained Winbury family and the performances of its great actors. But most of it falls apart. The scenes where characters in the interrogation room provide information on the main characters aren’t just unhelpful, […]
A screwball comedy following two crass female cops sounds, well, nice. But without a compelling mystery, believable chemistry, and funny jokes, Nice Girls fails to live up to its name. The crime that drives the movie’s plot feels flimsy and Disney-esque, a formula of a mystery you’ve seen a hundred times before. The chemistry between […]
Aggressive, grungy, and rebellious, writer-director Fruit Chan’s debut film captures teen nihilism amidst abandonment in uncertain times. Immediately, the first look of this film is reminiscent of Wong Kar Wai with its use of character narration, hazy green scenes, and over-exposed film. However, Chan pairs these aesthetic techniques with the storyline of a revenge film […]
You don’t come into a Tyler Perry movie expecting to be dazzled, but you do expect to be entertained. Mea Culpa evokes neither of those feelings, at least not in the first half of the film. Between the predictable plot and Rhodes’ bewilderingly flat performance, it’s a mighty challenge to stay awake. Rhodes is, of […]
Buddy comedies, especially those that pair up total opposites, are almost guaranteed to be fun at the beginning, just from the surprise factor of having these personalities clash. But a show needs more than that to sustain interest, and The Brothers Sun just doesn’t fill out its characters enough beyond their respective archetypes within the […]
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This excellent British detective drama is from Sally Wainwright, writer and creator of Happy Valley. It premiered back in 2011 and now has five seasons to dive into for an extended binge. Rachel Bailey and Janet Scott are two murder-unit detectives in Manchester, England. The show is as much about their cases as it is […]
Terriers is a fun take on the detective genre that lasted only one season and has been developing into a cult classic. An ex-cop and his best friend start an unlicensed private investigator operation in L.A, pretty much just to help out friends. If that sounds irresponsible, wait until you meet these two. It’s difficult […]
This six-part BBC crime drama is about two detectives who try to solve cold murder cases. In the first season, they try to solve the murder of a young man from the 70s who left a diary full of seemingly unconnected names. Like most BBC mysteries, it’s grounded, believable, and consistent. Still, the second and […]
With a title as generic as Bandidos, the series is set up exactly how you’d expect: a charming group of antiheroes and weirdos somehow coming together and pulling off improbable schemes while cracking jokes and flirting with each other. There’s a reason this formula works, of course, and the show’s charismatic cast helps greatly in […]
The atmosphere communicated within the title Hurricane Season comes off incredibly clearly on screen: this is a film that just feels humid and full of foreboding for a coming storm, with people feeling all manner of guilt while secluded in their own homes. Cinematographer María Secco’s gorgeous colors and brown tones fill the 4:3 aspect […]
This is the first film directed by actor Macon Blair (so good in both Blue Ruin and Green Room), and while it is shaggy and tonally all over the place, there is a lot to recommend here. First off, I’m a huge fan of the (underrated) Melanie Lynskey, so I was primed to like this […]
Before he developed his signature dollhouse visual style, Wes Anderson made his feature debut with this lowkey, heartwarming, and decidedly not-symmetrically-perfect comedy about a bunch of misfits. Bottle Rocket isn’t as much of an outlier in its director’s storied filmography as might initially seem, however. Written in partnership with college buddy Owen Wilson — who, […]
As has become increasingly common among Disney-Marvel projects, there’s plenty of culture and character at the heart of Echo—that all gets flattened by the franchise’s usual action-thriller formula. In its first two episodes watched for this review, the miniseries doesn’t develop the titular hero as much as she deserves, but it does sketch out the […]
This documentary follows eight men whose convictions were recently overturned based on exonerating evidence. Proven innocent after many years in the US prison system, they are suddenly free to return to the communities they had been expelled from, without any of the usual obligations (or resources) associated with parole or probation. The exonerations featured in […]
As documentaries go, They Called Him Mostly Harmless is pretty standard, if not forgettable, fare. There isn’t a lot of information regarding the case it focuses on, so it relies heavily on interviews with related persons and “internet sleuths” who have taken it upon themselves to solve the mystery of this hiker’s identity. It moves […]
Bosch returned recently for a fifth season, with a sixth one confirmed. It’s a sleeper hit that you may not have heard of, but with time should get the coverage it deserves. Titus Welliver (Lost, Sons of Anarchy, Argo) plays an L.A.P.D. homicide detective who is on trial for using questionable methods during a fatal […]
Murder mysteries don’t have to be full of twists to be worthwhile, but if you’re going the predictable route, you might as well make it an exciting one. Killer Heat, despite its name, feels cold and dragging. Gordon-Levitt’s Bali shoots for mysterious and debonair, like the detectives of noir past, but instead, he feels more […]
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 […]
It’s hard not to compare Dirty Pop with Quiet on the Set, a documentary that also recently exposed the dirty machinations that went into creating teen stars. But where Quiet on the Set was compelling and revelatory, Dirty Pop is just frustrating. It stretches its story so that you’re not really sure, up until the […]
Dark and almost too realistic, Wentworth is the women’s prison drama that I’ve been waiting for. This Australian show might have the same set-up as Orange is the New Black — following a recently incarcerated woman as she discovers a new world — but the two series couldn’t be more different. Wentworth is more Breaking […]
With a driver protagonist, trying to reintegrate with the rougher parts of his home city, forming a connection with a woman way out of his league, Soho-based Mona Lisa has spawned comparisons to the New York-classic Taxi Driver (1976), but this British neo-noir has a completely different tone and spirit, with a completely different conclusion. […]
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 […]
Stilted and awkward from the beginning, the first two episodes of Sanctuary: A Witch’s Tale that were watched for this review promise a rough start for a series that just doesn’t have enough of its own personality. Characters and conflict are introduced in ham-fisted fashion, with this fantasy world never given enough shape to make […]
When a group of percussionists illegally carry out a city-wide performance act, it’s up to policeman Amadeus Warnebring to stop them. The musical fugitives perform on stolen objects and disrupt public spaces, but Warnebring has his own reasons to pursue them so determinedly: he’s tone-deaf for one and born into a family of snobby musical […]
The Panic in Needle Park thankfully strays from the often sensationalized and exploitative portrayal of drug abuse. Instead, the two characters we follow, Helen (Kitty Winn) and Bobby (Al Pacino) are portrayed in a humane, compassionate, but still realistic way. The filmmakers’ backgrounds explain the almost documentary-like approach. Screenwriters Joanne Didion and husband Gregory Dunne […]
You don’t need to have watched the first Code 8 (released in 2019) to enjoy Part II, which speaks to how this sequel has improved as a piece of sci-fi entertainment—but also hasn’t done anything particularly interesting with its characters or themes. At the end of the day this really isn’t all that different from […]
As a documentary, The Darkness Within doesn’t dig as deep as it probably could have. It doesn’t offer a particularly specific account of how La Luz del Mundo has achieved its popularity and what exactly keeps it in power today. However, due to the fact that many church members seem to remain loyal to its […]
Despite what its title suggests, the real thrill of this documentary isn’t the mysterious 1998 robbery of a royal Austrian jewel, but the many other criminal escapades of Gerald Blanchard’s that are chronicled here. Blanchard, who appears on camera for much of the doc, remains cagey (for legal reasons) about how exactly he orchestrated the […]
Better known through its original Spanish name El Infierno, Hell is an underrated crime thriller that satirizes Mexico at the time of the Drug War. It follows an immigrant, Benjamin Garcia, who subsequently dives into a life of crime, though it’s not as lucrative as he expects. What ensues ends up becoming a darkly humorous, […]
