A first date movie needs to do several things at once: be engaging enough to talk about, not so intense it kills the mood, and ideally leave you both with something to say when the credits roll.
The 2010s were defined by a wave of filmmakers who understood that the best genre films work on multiple levels simultaneously. hold a hard, clear-eyed lens to ambition, desperation, and the systems that push people toward both.
Crime cinema at its best is a mirror — not a celebration of lawbreaking, but an examination of what drives people to it.
The aging patriarch of an organized crime dynasty transfers control of his clandestine empire to his reluctant son.
The story of Henry Hill and his life in the mob, covering his relationship with his wife Karen Hill and his mob partners Jimmy Conway and Tommy DeVito.
Violence and mayhem ensue after a hunter stumbles upon a drug deal gone wrong and more than two million dollars in cash near the Rio Grande.
A group of professional bank robbers start to feel the heat from police when they unknowingly leave a clue at their latest heist.
The lives of two mob hitmen, a boxer, a gangster and his wife intertwine in four tales of violence and redemption.
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.
An idealistic FBI agent is enlisted by a government task force to aid in the war against drugs at the border area between the US and Mexico.
In the slums of Rio de Janeiro, two boys growing up in a violent neighbourhood take different paths — one becomes a photographer, the other a drug dealer.
When Keller Dover's daughter and her friend go missing, he takes matters into his own hands as the police pursue a suspect.
An undercover cop and a mole in the police attempt to identify each other while infiltrating an Irish gang in South Boston.
As corruption grows in 1950s LA, three policemen — one straight-laced, one brutal, and one sleazy — investigate a series of murders.
A twist only works if the film has earned it. These films plant their revelations early, play fair, and still manage to blindside you.
The best crime films stay with you because they refuse to let you feel entirely comfortable about who you were rooting for.