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Best Crime Movies After A Breakup From The 80S And 90S That Are Actually Worth Watching

The best crime movies after a breakup from the 80s and 90s that are actually worth watching. Includes Police Story, Sonatine, Menace II Society and more — cu...

The best films to watch after a breakup are the ones that make you forget, then make you feel something that has nothing to do with what just happened.

Go back far enough and you find films that had no idea they'd become classics. The 80s and 90s produced more of them than any other era.

The best crime films understand that most criminals aren't monsters. They're people who made a series of choices.

Police Story movie poster
1
1985 · ★★★½☆ 7.5/10

Officer Chan Ka Kui manages to put a major Hong Kong drug dealer behind the bars practically alone, after a shooting and an impressive chase inside a slum. Now, he must protect the boss' secretary, Selina, who will testify against the gangster in court.

Sonatine movie poster
2
1993 · ★★★½☆ 7.5/10

Murakawa, an aging Tokyo yakuza tiring of gangster life, is sent by his boss to Okinawa along with a few of his henchmen to help end a gang war, supposedly as mediators between two warring clans. He finds that the dispute between the clans is insignificant and whilst wondering why he was sent to Okinawa at all, his group is attacked in an ambush. The survivors flee and make a decision to lay low at the beach while they await further instructions.

Menace II Society movie poster
3
1993 · ★★★½☆ 7.5/10

A young street hustler attempts to escape the rigors and temptations of the ghetto in a quest for a better life.

Batman: Mask of the Phantasm movie poster
4
1993 · ★★★½☆ 7.5/10

Andrea Beaumont leaves her father to return to Gotham, rekindling an old romance with Bruce Wayne. At the same time, a mysterious figure begins to hunt down Gotham's criminals, wrongly implicating Batman in the murders. Now on the run from the law, Batman must find and stop the culprit, while also navigating his relationship with Andrea.

A Perfect World movie poster
5
1993 · ★★★½☆ 7.5/10

A kidnapped boy strikes up a friendship with his captor: an escaped convict on the run from the law, headed by an honorable U.S. Marshal.

The crime films worth your time are the ones where the moral calculus is genuinely complicated. Not every villain is a monster. Not every hero is clean.

Miller's Crossing movie poster
6
1990 · ★★★½☆ 7.5/10

Set in 1929, a political boss and his advisor have a parting of the ways when they both fall for the same woman.

Scream movie poster
7
1996 · ★★★½☆ 7.4/10

A year after the murder of her mother, a teenage girl is terrorized by a masked killer who targets her and her friends by using scary movies as part of a deadly game.

Crimes and Misdemeanors movie poster
8
1989 · ★★★½☆ 7.4/10

A renowned ophthalmologist is desperate to cut off an adulterous relationship…which ends up in murder; and a frustrated documentary filmmaker woos an attractive television producer while making a film about her insufferably self-centered boss.

The Godfather Part III movie poster
9
1990 · ★★★½☆ 7.4/10

In the midst of trying to legitimize his business dealings in 1979 New York and Italy, aging mafia don, Michael Corleone seeks forgiveness for his sins while taking a young protege under his wing.

Boys Don't Cry movie poster
10
1999 · ★★★½☆ 7.4/10

A young transgender man explores his gender identity and searches for love in rural Nebraska.

The best measure of whether a film is worth watching is whether you'd recommend it to someone you respect. These all qualify.

The best crime films stay with you because they refuse to let you feel entirely comfortable about who you were rooting for.