A good first date film gives you something to talk about without making you explain yourself. It should open a conversation, not close one down.
The 2000s produced a remarkable run of intelligent, ambitious cinema - a decade that took genre seriously and rewarded patient audiences.
Mystery cinema works because it turns passive watching into active thinking. Every frame is a question.
Justin Quayle is a low-level British diplomat who has always gone about his work very quietly, not causing any problems. But after his radical wife Tessa is killed he becomes determined to find out why, thrusting himself into the middle of a very dangerous conspiracy.
An introverted man receives an anonymous letter from an ex-lover informing him that he has a son who may be looking for him. A freelance sleuth neighbor motivates the man to embark on a cross-country search for his past flames, seeking answers.
Two French policemen, one investigating a grisly murder at a remote mountain college, the other working on the desecration of a young girl's grave by skinheads, are brought together by the clues from their respective cases. Soon after they start working together, more murders are committed, and the pair begin to discover just what dark secrets are behind the killings.
Eight women gather to celebrate Christmas in a snowbound cottage, only to find the family patriarch dead with a knife in his back. Trapped in the house, every woman becomes a suspect, each having her own motive and secret.
A military veteran goes on a journey into the future, where he can foresee his death and is left with questions that could save his life and those he loves.
A great mystery never cheats. These films play fair - which makes it all the more impressive when they still manage to surprise you.
A teenage loner pushes his way into the underworld of a high school crime ring to investigate the disappearance of his ex-girlfriend.
In 1930s England, a group of pretentious rich and famous gather together for a weekend of relaxation at a hunting resort. But when a murder occurs, each one of these interesting characters becomes a suspect.
David Aames has it all: wealth, good looks and gorgeous women on his arm. But just as he begins falling for the warmhearted Sofia, his face is horribly disfigured in a car accident. That's just the beginning of his troubles as the lines between illusion and reality, between life and death, are blurred.
A woman in the midst of an unpleasant divorce moves to an eerie apartment building with her young daughter. The ceiling of their apartment has a dark and active leak.
Matthew, a young advertising executive in Chicago, puts his life and a business trip to China on hold when he thinks he sees Lisa, the love of his life who left him without a word two years earlier, walking out of a restaurant one day.
An ending is everything. It's the last thing you carry with you. These films understand that - and they make it count.
Great mystery cinema changes how you watch everything else. You start looking for the clues in every story.