Crime has to be one of the most endurable of movie genres. While people may complain about an over-abundance of superhero films, no one is asking for there to be fewer crime films. Almost since the beginning of cinema, there have been crime films and the trend does not seem to be slowing down. It is also one of the best genres for foreign directors to get international attention.
Bong-Joon Ho's first international hit was a crime film, and it gained him a dedicated audience who would return later to see his thrillers and dramas. Of course, the genre is one of the few that seem to have international popularity. Throughout the decades, directors have risen to the challenge of those who came before them and then lifted the bar for those who come after. As a result, some of the most popular and acclaimed films ever made have been crime stories.
10 The Skin I Live In (2011) - 81%
Pedro Almodóvar is perhaps the greatest living Spanish director. Having made his name as a director of complex dramas, touching romances, and surreal comedies, The Skin I Live In is something of an outlier in his back catalog. Starring Antonio Banderas and Elena Anaya the film begins, deceptively, as a typical Almodóvar romantic drama. Everything, from the setting to the costumes to the dialogue is sumptuously gorgeous.
However, the tone of the relationship seems eerily surreal; for one thing, Banderas has t0 perform regular tests and surgeries on Anaya. When the film then shifts into a flashback, the true scope of the crime is finally revealed with a truly jaw-dropping twist. A creepy, strange but highly original film.
9 Oldboy (2003) - 82%
Arguably the film that truly opened the West up to Korean cinema, Oldboy has remained one of the most popular films of recent years. The second film in Chan-Wook Park's Vengeance Trilogy, Oldboy, opens on central character Dae-su drunk and causing trouble in a police station. As soon as he's released, seemingly at random, he completely disappears.
Kidnapped and locked in a single room by some anonymous figure Dae-su is kept in prison for 15 years, left to grow angry and bitter. Then, just as randomly, he is released and instantly sets about his revenge. Stylishly filmed and getting the perfect balance between action, comedy, horror, and drama, it is hard not to see why Oldboy was such an international hit.
8 The Secret In Their Eyes (2009) - 89%
Winner of the Best International Feature Oscar, The Secret In Their Eyes, is an Argentinian crime film about the power of obsession. Set over two time periods it follows an aging legal counselor who reflects on one of the biggest crimes of his career. While he is almost certain he knows who the old killer is, because of lack of evidence he cannot convict him.
The suspect's biggest obsessions and personality fit the profile perfectly, yet it is still not enough. In the present-day, the man is nowhere to be found and the counselor becomes just as obsessed with finding him again. Part crime thriller, part philosophical drama, this is a film that keeps driving forward, holding the audience's attention right to the very end.
7 City of God (2002) - 91%
Set amongst the street-gangs of Rio, City of God is a crime epic on a scale to rival the best of Martin Scorsese's films. It focusses on two boys, beginning as children then following them into adulthood and the two very different paths they take. While one seeks to escape the slums and pursue a career in photography, the other is far more attracted to the violence and power of life in the gangs.
A deep and complex drama that sees friends and family pitted against each other. So affected by unseen, outside forces, and the passage of time that it becomes impossible to decide who to support and who to blame. It makes excellent use of the vibrant Rio backstreets, making this one of the most visually stunning crime films.
6 Memories of Murder (2003) - 91%
Academy Award winner Bong-Joon Ho's first international hit, Memories of Murder has been hailed by the likes of Quentin Tarantino and Rian Johnson as one of the best films of recent years. Set in a rural South Korean town in the 1980s the film is based on a true murder story, but Director Bong's style is so distinct (and, in this case, firing at all cylinders) that it feels like an original story.
At times it is laugh-out-loud hilarious and then, within the same scene, the tone transition's into horror. Three well-intentioned, but incompetent detectives, must solve a series of unusual murders, but their own bickering, stupidity, and lack of funds keep getting in the way.
5 Cure (1997) - 92%
Kiyoshi Kurosawa, who is perhaps best known for his work during the J-horror boom of the early 2000s, writes and directs this startlingly original crime film. Based on Kurosawa's own novel the film follows a detective who has been tasked with solving a series of murders committed by people who have no memory of what they've done.
Obsessed with the idea that these people may not be in control of themselves the detective starts to suspect a hypnotist of manipulating them. Fascinating from beginning to end, and with some of the eeriest interview scenes in any crime film, Cure righty establishes Kurosawa as a talent to watch.
4 Infernal Affairs (2002) - 94%
Probably best known for the Western remake it inspired (Martin Scorcese's The Departed) is a Hong Kong crime film made by and starring people at the top of their game. It focuses on two men, one a mole for the mob working for the police department and the other an undercover cop working for the mob.
While it is a fascinatingly tense film, with some excellent set pieces, it also works as quite a complex psychological drama with both leads starting to get confused between themselves and their own morals. Starring Tony Chiu-Wai Leung and Andy Lau is a great example, to any newcomer, of Hong Kong cinema and is, arguably, better than the remake.
3 High and Low (1963) - 95%
Cinema legend Akira Kurosawa's crime masterpiece, High and Low, practically invented the template for police procedurals. Already a huge influence on Western cinema, Kurosawa adapts an original American novel, relocated it to Japan, and ended up influencing the West all over again.
An executive at a shoe company is caught between one of the most ambitious business takeovers of his careers and paying a kidnappers ransom. Caught in this terrible situation he is supported by the police force, who painstakingly trawl through what little evidence they have to identify the kidnapper. Nearly 60 years old and still as tense and exciting as it ever was.
2 The Guilty (2018) - 97%
While some crime films thrive in mystery others thrive on mysterious characters. The Guilty is one of the latter. Set in Denmark it follows Asger, a police officer who is working as an emergency response telephone operator. It becomes clear that this is not his usual job and the fact that he's irritated about it makes his assignment seem like a punishment. Just as he's about to leave for the day he receives a call from a crying woman who is claiming to be kidnapped.
Finally given this chance at redemption, Asger tried desperately to do all he can to save her from the desk he's stuck at. Fascinating and tense throughout and with an interestingly ambiguous title this is a fantastic crime drama that is practically begging to be seen by more people.
1 Breathless (1961) - 97%
From director Jean-Luc Goddard, Breathless is at once the crowning jewel of the crime genre and a film that practically reinvented the cinematic wheel. Part of the movement that became the French new-wave, Goddard wanted to make a film that would fit the fast-paced and chaotic tone of popular pulp crime novels.
The action jump cuts all over the place in, for the time, unprecedented ways; reflecting the incessant velocity of the central character as he continuously runs from the law. Almost effortlessly cool and infinitely inspirational, Breathless, remains a cinematic treat.
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