The film you watch at 2am when sleep has given up on you should earn your full attention without demanding you pay for it the next morning.
Crime cinema at its best is a mirror - not a celebration of lawbreaking, but an examination of what drives people to it.
A novice con man teams up with an acknowledged master to avenge the murder of a mutual friend by pulling off the ultimate big con and swindling a fortune from a big-time mobster.
The drug-induced utopias of four Coney Island residents are shattered when their addictions run deep.
When a impoverished widow's family moves to the big city, two of her five sons become romantic rivals with deadly results.
When her American lover visits London, a wealthy woman's jealous husband hatches a plan to murder her and inherit her fortune.
In Las Vegas, two best friends--a casino executive and a Mafia enforcer--compete for a gambling empire and a fast-living, fast-loving socialite.
These films don't romanticise crime - they examine it. The best of them leave you uncertain about who you were rooting for.
A true story about Frank Abagnale Jr. who, before his 19th birthday, successfully conned millions of dollars worth of checks as a Pan Am pilot, doctor, and legal prosecutor. An FBI agent makes it his mission to put him behind bars. But Frank not only eludes capture, he revels in the pursuit.
In 1970s London amidst the punk rock revolution, a young grifter named Estella is determined to make a name for herself with her designs. She befriends a pair of young thieves who appreciate her appetite for mischief, and together they are able to build a life for themselves on the London streets. One day, Estella's flair for fashion catches the eye of the Baroness von Hellman, a fashion legend who is devastatingly chic and terrifyingly haute. But their relationship sets in motion a course of events and revelations that will cause Estella to embrace her wicked side and become the raucous, fashionable and revenge-bent Cruella.
An assassin is shot by her ruthless employer, Bill, and other members of their assassination circle - but she lives to plot her vengeance.
Heroin addict Mark Renton stumbles through bad ideas and sobriety attempts with his unreliable friends --Sick Boy, Begbie, Spud and Tommy. He also has an underage girlfriend, Diane, along for the ride. After cleaning up and moving from Edinburgh to London, Mark finds he can't escape the life he left behind as Begbie and Sick Boy come knocking.
Llewelyn Moss stumbles upon dead bodies, $2 million and a hoard of heroin in a Texas desert, but methodical killer Anton Chigurh comes looking for it, with local sheriff Ed Tom Bell hot on his trail. The roles of prey and predator blur as the violent pursuit of money and justice collide.
Films that mess with your mind work best when they've earned your trust first. The disorientation only lands if you were fully in. These get you in.
Great crime cinema lingers because it doesn't offer easy resolution. The moral weight sits with you.