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MOVIEPIQ · CRIME · CURATED LIST

Best Crime Movies When You’re Bored Based On A True Story

These crime films were selected by the Moviepiq editorial team for when you need something actually worth watching. Popularity and critic scores don't factor in here. Emotional fit does.

The best crime movies when youre bored based on a true story. Includes Taxi Driver, Joker, Better Days and more - curated by Moviepiq.

When nothing sounds good and you've scrolled through everything twice, the answer is usually a film you wouldn't normally reach for. Try something from this list.

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

Taxi Driver movie poster
1
1976 · ★★★★☆ 8.1/10

Suffering from insomnia, disturbed loner Travis Bickle takes a job as a New York City cabbie, haunting the streets nightly, growing increasingly detached from reality as he dreams of cleaning up the filthy city.

Joker movie poster
2
2019 · ★★★★☆ 8.1/10

During the 1980s, a failed stand-up comedian is driven insane and turns to a life of crime and chaos in Gotham City while becoming an infamous psychopathic crime figure.

Better Days movie poster
3
2019 · ★★★★☆ 8.1/10

A bullied teenage girl forms an unlikely friendship with a mysterious young man who protects her from her assailants, while she copes with the pressures of her final examinations.

Reservoir Dogs movie poster
4
1992 · ★★★★☆ 8.1/10

A botched robbery indicates a police informant, and the pressure mounts in the aftermath at a warehouse. Crime begets violence as the survivors -- veteran Mr. White, newcomer Mr. Orange, psychopathic parolee Mr. Blonde, bickering weasel Mr. Pink and Nice Guy Eddie -- unravel.

Prisoners movie poster
5
2013 · ★★★★☆ 8.1/10

Keller Dover is facing every parent's worst nightmare. His six-year-old daughter, Anna, is missing, together with her young friend, Joy, and as minutes turn to hours, panic sets in. The only lead is a dilapidated RV that had earlier been parked on their street.

These films don't romanticise crime - they examine it. The best of them leave you uncertain about who you were rooting for.

Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels movie poster
6
1998 · ★★★★☆ 8.1/10

A card shark and his unwillingly-enlisted friends need to make a lot of cash quick after losing a sketchy poker match. To do this they decide to pull a heist on a small-time gang who happen to be operating out of the flat next door.

Double Indemnity movie poster
7
1944 · ★★★★☆ 8.1/10

An insurance representative is seduced by a dissatisfied housewife into a scheme of insurance fraud and murder that arouses the suspicion of his colleague, a claims investigator.

Big Deal on Madonna Street movie poster
8
1958 · ★★★★☆ 8.1/10

Best friends Peppe and Mario are thieves, but they're not very good at it. Still, Peppe thinks that he's finally devised a master heist that will make them rich. With the help of some fellow criminals, he plans to dig a tunnel from a rented apartment to the pawnshop next door, where they can rob the safe. But his plan is far from foolproof, and the fact that no one in the group has any experience digging tunnels proves to be the least of their problems.

The Hate U Give movie poster
9
2018 · ★★★★☆ 8.1/10

Raised in a poverty-stricken slum, a 16-year-old girl named Starr now attends a suburban prep school. After she witnesses a police officer shoot her unarmed best friend, she's torn between her two very different worlds as she tries to speak her truth.

Some Like It Hot movie poster
10
1959 · ★★★★☆ 8.1/10

In Prohibition-era Chicago, musicians Joe and Jerry witness a mob hit, and flee the state in an all-female band disguised as Josephine and Daphne, but further complications set in.

True stories carry a different weight. Knowing it happened - knowing real people made these choices - changes how you watch.

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

From the Blog

READ Movies When You're Bored & Tired
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