Late nights with no sleep call for a very specific kind of film. Absorbing enough to stop the thoughts. Good enough that you don't resent still being awake.
Despite everything, the 2020s have produced some genuinely remarkable cinema. Films made under pressure that somehow carry none of it.
Crime as a genre works because it forces moral clarity in situations designed to resist it.
Tired of the small-time grind, three Marseille cops get a chance to bust a major drug network. But lines blur when a key informant makes a big ask.
Washed-up revolutionary Bob exists in a state of stoned paranoia, surviving off-grid with his spirited, self-reliant daughter, Willa. When his evil nemesis resurfaces after 16 years and she goes missing, the former radical scrambles to find her, father and daughter both battling the consequences of his past.
After their late former Captain is framed, Lowrey and Burnett try to clear his name, only to end up on the run themselves.
Cherry drifts from college dropout to army medic in Iraq-anchored only by his one true love, Emily. But after returning from the war with PTSD, his life spirals into drugs and crime as he struggles to find his place in the world.
Now a detective-for-hire like her infamous brother, Enola Holmes takes on her first official case to find a missing girl, as the sparks of a dangerous conspiracy ignite a mystery that requires the help of friends - and Sherlock himself - to unravel.
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.
Brazil, 1977. Marcelo, a technology expert in his early 40s, is on the run. Hoping to reunite with his son, he travels to Recife during Carnival but soon realizes that the city is not the safe haven he was expecting.
Robert McCall finds himself at home in Southern Italy but he discovers his friends are under the control of local crime bosses. As events turn deadly, McCall knows what he has to do: become his friends' protector by taking on the mafia.
A journalist descends into the dark underbelly of the Iranian holy city of Mashhad as she investigates the serial killings of sex workers by the so called "Spider Killer", who believes he is cleansing the streets of sinners.
Using raw, firsthand footage, this documentary examines the disappearance of Shanann Watts and her children, and the terrible events that followed.
One man's campaign for vengeance takes on national stakes after he is revealed to be a former operative of a powerful and clandestine organization known as Beekeepers.
The best true story films don't over-dramatise. They trust that the truth is dramatic enough. These do.
These films work because they take their characters seriously - even the ones doing terrible things.