Looking for a great heist, investigation, or twisty true crime film? From Steven Soderbergh's wild and flirty Out Of Sight to the unforgettably clever Inside Man by Spike Lee, crime movies can be unforgettable testaments to the power of great scripts and even better casts. There's a reason prestige directors like Antoine Fuqua, Steve McQueen, David Fincher, Jane Campion, and Martin Scorsese have all been drawn to the genre, which absorbs the fingerprints of creators and is almost cartoonishly easy to screw up.
To make a crime movie is to flex both dramatic chops and stylistic muscle and that confidence can be rewarded if, and only if, everyone and everything is working together. Great editing cannot save a bad crime movie, so we've decided to marvel at the best the genre has to offer.
Here are the 40 best crime movies that changed the game and got us talking.
This William Friedkin neo-noir masterpiece all but swept the 44th Academy Awards. The adaptation of Robin Moore's non-fiction book sees two detectives try to bring down a drug kingpin with complications arising at every turn. Countless films have tried to emulate its greatness since, but The French Connection is the modern blueprint of the genre for a reason. Gene Hackman who developed new shades of menace and gravitas with each passing year turns in a career-best performance as the determined and obsessive Detective Jimmy "Popeye" Doyle, who, along with Roy Scheider as his partner, seems truly willing to lose his life if it means catching Fernando Rey's Alain "Frog One" Charnier.
Friedkin knew where he wanted the camera for every shot, and that includes the famous car chase sequence, which still manages to instill dread and anxiety as Hackman crashes into vehicles while in hot pursuit of a villain on a train. It's ambitious, dogmatic, and insanely neglectful of everything but the pursuit of justice, a perfect metaphor for the film itself.
Where to watch The French Connection: Max
Francis Ford Coppola's career high mark gave audiences the American crime saga of the Corleone mafia family toward the end of the '50s, with Part II looking back on the criminal clan after Vito Corleone (Robert De Niro) moves to the States from Sicily. With an ensemble including Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, Diane Keaton, Talia Shire, Richard Bright, Abe Vigoda, and Bruno Kirby, the prequel was already destined to be memorable, but Coppola's sense of timing and rhythm makes the film feel like a true achievement even decades later.
In an era where movies increasingly suffer from bloated runtimes, Coppola made the first installment's three-hour length riveting, packing the story with a grand wedding, shootouts, a love story in Italy, surprise murders, and the death of a patriarch, all while having time left over for excursions in Hollywood and Las Vegas. With the role split between Brando and De Niro, Vito Corleone emerged as a tragic and vicious figure who looms over his family, leaving a legacy that haunts everyone he loves. Truly, the two performances gave us one of the most in-depth portraits of a fictitious character we've ever seen on screen.
Where to watch The Godfather: PlutoTV
After a long and illustrious career, no one expected any more surprises from Jack Nicholson, yet here he is, giving the complex Irish mafia boss Frank Costello the best he has to offer. With venom and shrewd determination, Nicholson paints his character as a swaggering monster who milks every syllable of his dialogue with vitriolic relish. When you factor in Leonardo DiCaprio's ongoing hot streak of dramatic roles around this time and that Mark Wahlberg was hitting his golden-era stride here as a mafia informant working for the police it's almost easy to overlook director Martin Scorsese's efforts behind the camera. Here, he manages to have his fingerprints all over the film without it feeling too wishy-washy or grandiose, an arguably new skillset for the director that came into sharp focus with The Aviator (2006), which also stars DiCaprio. The final sequence of The Departed features what might be the most surprising and stunning death in a Scorsese movie, to the point that it makes shoes wrapped in bagged booties a genuinely terrifying sight.
Where to watch The Departed: Amazon Prime Video
While Hollywood was busy churning out thrillers (and mostly bad comedies) in the 1980s, Quentin Tarantino was busy figuring out how he would define the next era of cinema. After populating his debut, 1992's Reservoir Dogs, with "that guy" actors, he managed to one-up himself with Pulp Fiction, recruiting Samuel L. Jackson, Uma Thurman, John Travolta, Bruce Willis, Tim Roth, and Christopher Walken to give voice to his quick-witted, pop-culture heavy banter, all while wrapping it in a plot so meticulous and elegant that it would influence a whole new generation of filmmakers. Tarantino proved himself to be a master of the unexpected here, as his gangsters brushed existential elbows with a boxer, a sex worker, an actor, an army vet, and desperate criminals all looking to make it through another day in California.
Where to watch Pulp Fiction: Max
Try as he might, David Fincher will likely never make a better film than Zodiac, as it's a work that's uniquely personal to him. The director was a school-age boy when the eponymous killer was running rampant in his home state of California, and getting the details right became so crucial that, according to his DVD commentary, he reportedly had orange trees flown to set so he could better replicate his memory.
A film by an obsessive about obsession, Jake Gyllenhaal is perfectly cast as the fastidious crossword writer determined to crack the case at the cost of his marriage. Robert Downey Jr. is dually excellent as a washed-up reporter in this pre-Iron Man career comeback film, with Mark Ruffalo holding steady as a San Francisco detective while John Carroll Lynch is the ever-creepy Arthur Leigh Allen, who lurks on screen as if conjured from the depths of Fincher's lived-experience fear. The director is known for his meticulous and tiring amount of takes, which are designed to break the actors of their quirks and get them to show us their raw selves on screen. In some of his other films, this can seem like auteur nonsense, but here, it only enhances the depths of despair and darkness that await these characters in the glittering lights of the city.
Where to watch Zodiac: Showtime
A damn fun product of its time, Goodfellas is a perfect film to start a decade following 10 years of excess, power suits, and explosions. By telling a relatively straightforward story that blends real people from the era of the Gotti mafia family with imagined characters, Martin Scorsese's dramedy biopic about a kid who falls in love with the gangster life is as even-keeled as anything the director has made. Prior to this film, he often had big ideas that felt hampered by a frenetic energy and less-than-clear direction. Here with generous assistance from Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci, and an excellent Ray Liotta as players in a propulsive story about the romance and horror of being a knockaround guy Scorsese finds momentum. The film not only clicked into place something for the director, but for culture as a whole, as the oft-imitated use of voiceover, classic rock, and a breezy approach to intense characters has been used to make television and movies pop ever since Goodfellas hit the scene.
Where to watch Goodfellas: Amazon Prime Video (to rent)
With an early example of the twisty, complicated narratives that would become popular in '90s thrillers (and 2010s middling Netflix shows), Jack Nicholson's Jake Gittes helps Faye Dunaway and gets pulled into her orbit and in over his head while investigating a murder conspiracy. The film's themes of city corruption and inexplicable injustice ripple across countless lesser projects, but the way Chinatown lands is so nihilistic that it's downright soul-crushing.
Where to watch Chinatown: Amazon Prime Video
With a script so violent and disgusting that it was called "evil" by multiple A-listers, Se7en defied Hollywood conventions and was a perfect match for David Fincher, who was then known for directing Alien 3 (1992) along with gritty and inventive music videos. Seeing two detectives (Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman), a young wife (Gwyneth Paltrow), and a serial killer (Kevin Spacey) murdering in accordance with his ideas of punishment for the seven deadly sins, the film benefited from the darkened skies, ultra-drab cityscape, and quiet longing in the performances that would all become Fincher staples. Of all the director's work, this ending still breaks your heart the most.
Where to watch Se7en: Hulu
A tale every bit as interesting, nuanced, and complex as The Godfather, the Hughes Brothers' central players are caught in a socio-economic system that's governed by an unforgiving set of implicit rules. Here, violence and death are daily occurrences, and getting ahead feels impossible but is always top of mind. In the poor, neglected, and overpoliced Watts and Crenshaw neighborhoods of L.A., Tyrin Turner's Caine Lawson and Larenz Tate's Kevin "O-Dog" Anderson (not to mention a brilliant turn from Jada Pinkett Smith) are just trying to hustle even if that means bodies have to pile up.
Neither overly sentimental nor unsympathetic, Albert and Allen Hughes craft realistic characters with more nuance and complexity than traditional gangster films. In Menace II Society, their motivations extend beyond simple obligation or loyalty to family, and the weight of it all is constantly resting on the shoulders of everyone around them, despite how much they want it to change.
Where to watch Menace II Society: Tubi
James Stewart is incredible as Nietzsche-obsessed teacher Rupert Cadell, but he's far from the most impressive aspect of Alfred Hitchcock's groundbreaking film. Shot in technicolor, occurring in real time, and edited to appear as four long takes, everything from Birdman to The Bear likely wouldn't exist without Hitchcock's ingenious work here circa 1940. The murder at the center a strangulation committed as an intellectual exercise, with the body hidden in the buffet used for hosting the victim's loved ones is grim for any era, and even the best modern crime movies rarely live up to such cruelty.
Where to watch Rope: Amazon Prime Video (to rent)
Brian De Palma's works between 1976 and 2000 are some of the oddest, most ambitious pieces of filmmaking out there, with The Untouchables serving as a great bellwether for his singular touch. More grounded than Scarface and tenfold beyond The Bonfire of the Vanities, the film focuses on Eliot Ness' attempt to bring down Al Capone during the 1930s prohibition. Kevin Costner and Robert De Niro dazzle as the two historical figures, but Sean Connery is the heart of the movie, playing courageous and upright agent James Malone, whose death gives Ness all the more reason to topple Capone's liquor empire.
Where to watch The Untouchables: Amazon Prime Video
Denzel Washington teams up with consummate collaborator Spike Lee for a film that uses cool energy to brilliant effect. With Clive Owen in the antagonist role of Dalton Russell, the film locks into a clever heist that mixes elements of Heat, Ocean's 11, and more into something that's distinctly a Lee joint. The director's love for capturing real people moving, unguarded, can be seen as Denzel's hostage negotiator talks things through with his team outside the bank. The ultimate reveal and Russell's decision to target Nazi money give the film a uniquely Lee quality, as it meditates on cosmic justice in an intricate way only he could manage. Owen is also undeniable here, turning in maybe the most memorable performance of a bank robber ever committed to film.
Where to watch Inside Man: Peacock
The film that gave us everything from True Romance to Queen & Slim, this Arthur Penn caper follows Clyde Barrow (Warren Beatty) and Bonnie Parker (Faye Dunaway) as criminal lovers destined for tragedy. Made toward the tail end of a romance boom we wouldn't see again until the '90s, Bonnie and Clyde perfected the intoxicating motif of two young people in love with each other and destruction. There's incredible chemistry between Beatty and Dunaway, who elevate a relatively straightforward movie into something that seems alive, as if the actors and the real historical characters are one and the same. When they are inevitably killed, it feels like the end of more than just a film, even if it's meant to capture the desperation of the Great Depression.
Where to watch Bonnie and Clyde: Amazon Prime Video (to rent)
John Cho is absolutely magnetic as a father trying to find his missing daughter in a film designed to hold your attention. Director Aneesh Chaganty contains the action to Cho interacting with the world through a computer the way a child would. As he moves from app to app uncovering more leads, you're increasingly hooked on the tension and convinced by the story's authenticity. Everything, from the way the clues are parsed out to typing on a cell phone, lights up a reward center in the viewer's brain that craves more. And in the center of it all is Cho, who turns in a performance so unforgettable that it reminds you he's deserved better this entire time.
Where to watch Searching: Amazon Prime Video (to rent)
Billy Wilder crafted this story of fraud and murder with crime writer Raymond Chandler. Another film that gave the genre a new language, Double Indemnity is a confession by shotty insurance salesman Walter Neff (Fred MacMurray) told mostly in flashbacks, detailing his involvement with a killing and cover-up that saw him pose as the dead man on a train. While retrospective scenes were not new to cinema (having been used in the 1939 adaptation of Wuthering Heights to great effect before), this was one of the first instances in a crime story. Impeccably acted and paced, the film launched Wilder to success, paving the way for his future classics like The Seven Year Itch (1955) and Some Like It Hot (1959).
Where to watch Double Indemnity: Amazon Prime Video (to rent)
As with all Robert Altman films, the magic is in the meandering. Here, Elliott Gould brings a deft touch to his hang-dog detective Philip Marlowe, moving with a lightness that's hard to pin down but is undeniably comic. The first 10 minutes are an incredible swirl of paranoia, alcoholism, and sluggish dumbness when Gould just needs to feed his cat. With a narrative split between Marlowe's mania and the world of Hollywood crime, Altman's sense of film language and impeccably composed shots tie the two together cohesively. If you don't mind hanging out, this is as good as it gets for messy, bumbling detectives and their cases and the harmonica playing at the end justifies the runtime alone.
Where to watch The Long Goodbye: Tubi
Delroy Lindo and Gene Hackman show their younger castmates how it's done in David Mamet's elegant story about two aging best friends and career criminals going in for one last burglary. Mamet is known for theater, but he's had an equally weird and interesting experience in Hollywood, where he essays distinct moments like the wild plane scene in Heist and its ending, which is so perfectly stupid in its logic that it's almost genius. Hackman and Lindo are more than believable as shifty men who are always fidgeting with energy, thinking about the next move while trying to seem present and calm. Then there's Sam Rockwell, Danny DeVito, and Rebecca Pidgeon, who all turn in serviceable performances for the leads to bounce off of like tennis balls.
Where to watch Heist: Amazon Prime Video
As the film that proved crime movies could be dryly funny and uniquely ironic, Fargo operates on its own frequency, following Frances McDormand's pregnant police officer as she tracks down killers in snowy Fargo, N.D. Dark humor and violence are on equal display here, as the Coen Brothers confidently showcase a young-ish Steve Buscemi, a woodchipper, and Midwest goofiness against the backdrop of a state where nothing and everything happens. The Coens would follow this odd template to success throughout the better part of their careers as co-directors.
Where to watch Fargo: Max
When you think of Ridley Scott, you might recall epic historical sagas and sci-fi films, but in Thelma and Louise, he proved he's just as apt at stripped-down crime movies. Susan Sarandon and Geena Davis star as the titular duo who kill a bad man and do their best to stay free until their last breath. A story about friendship may seem simple, but careful and acute chemistry is required to pull it off, and Davis and Sarandon manage to seem like true friends as they find pockets of fun in their bleak situation. Harvey Keitel and Stephen Tobolowsky round out the cast, while Brad Pitt enjoys his breakout role here.
Where to watch Thelma and Louise: Showtime
Arguably the defining crime film of a decade brimming with decadence, Scarface is excessive in every way, which only enhances its appeal. Focused on the rise and fall of cocaine tsar Tony Montana, the Brian De Palma film stars Al Pacino, Michelle Pfeiffer, and F. Murray Abraham. Though Pacino's portrayal of a Cuban refugee turned gangster is in poor taste, his brazen, simmering energy and willingness to go over the top is a perfect match for De Palma's vicious, neatly unhinged vision for Tony and his crew. While it's hard to tell whether the film is being critical of or celebrating Montana, the decapitation, debauchery, and almost cartoonish plot points toward the end make this spectacle a towering ode to the idea of crime as a fantasy, with the reality of it encroaching at the edges.
Where to watch Scarface: Netflix
Sharon Stone was on a hot streak when she teamed up with Martin Scorsese for this look inside the inner workings of a mafia-run casino. The film is fine, with Joe Pesci and Stone mostly stealing the show, but the real clincher is how Scorsese heaps problem after problem on Robert De Niro's Sam Rothstein, who is struggling to appease his bosses, keep his business healthy, and manage the brazen Pesci, playing a mob enforcer who is done listening to his bosses from across the country. Everything crescendos as expected, but the way Scorsese manages tension is something he'd begin working on more earnestly here and had mastered by the time he shot The Departed a decade later.
Where to watch Casino: Amazon Prime Video (to rent)
Farley Granger and Cathy O'Donnell charm as two lovers trying to find a way out of a life of crime while confronting danger at every turn. The film was an early effort to tell an ill-fated romance story set in the gruesome world of crooks and thieves, with a pregnancy providing the emotional motivation for all that happens in the back two-thirds of the runtime. It's also one of the few features on this list that considers escape a dream rather than a nightmare, a burden, or a failure. Granger's intentions are honorable, and O'Donnell sparks his performance with life, making his tragic end that much more gutting.
Where to watch They Live By Night: Not available to stream
Romantic from the first frame to the last, Park Chan-wook's 2022 masterpiece is a culmination of his steady and coherent approach to disturbing characters and his love for Hitchcock. Most of the films on this list paint dogged detectives as do-gooders in pursuit of their criminals, but here, we see a sleuth lovesick for the murderer he's supposed to be taking down. Park Hae-il's insomniac investigator Jang Hae-jun is brimming with longing despite having a loving wife, and Tang Wei's Song Seo-rae is sympathetic and flirtatious enough that you're willing to look the other way about their romance (and her killings). Decision to Leave may leave you in tears, be it from the love story or the way Chan-wook captures the beauty of everything from the crashing waves to falling snow.
Where to watch Decision to Leave: Amazon Prime Video
Crime movies are Steven Soderbergh's bread and butter, and here, he cracks open a (literally) colorful story about the way drugs are spawned, supplied, sold, and used in America, exploring the overlooked labor and death that go into meeting market demand. Don Cheadle, Luis Guzmn, Benicio del Toro, Michael Douglas, Catherine Zeta-Jones, and Topher Grace (playing a perfect asshole) help explain the complicated web of how things work for both the supplier and someone looking to buy some rock. Each narrative thread had its own distinct color to help the audience follow the storylines, but even with that assist, it's a tangled web that's a joy to unfurl.
Where to watch Traffic: Peacock
It's easy to recognize how great Queen Latifah is now, but in the 1990s, she was still fighting for recognition, be it for her musical talent, her impeccable comedy chops on the legendary Living Single, or as an actor in more dramatic fare. Here, F. Gary Gray manages to help her and the ensemble shine as women who turn to crime after getting fed up with racist work environments. Jada Pinkett Smith, Latifah, Vivica A. Fox, and the always-winning Kimberly Elise absolutely run circles around a very good Blair Underwood playing a loverboy and John C. McGinley as a detective trying to take them down. It's been nearly 30 years since Set It Off's release, and there's arguably no group of actors in a crime movie locked so fully into the same vibe before or since.
Where to watch Set It Off: AppleTV+ (to rent)
The best-composed film of Francis Ford Coppola's career, The Conversation seems to always be in motion, with the camera floating through different iterations of cinematic reality. Unsurprisingly by this point in the list, Gene Hackman plays a surveillance expert named Harry Caul, who captures a conversation he obsesses over to mesmerizing effect, with the film functioning as a character study and thriller in equal measure. Paranoid and living his life in as much privacy as possible, the film's ending is an incredible feat of powerful acting and a generous reminder that Hackman never lost a step in his effusive career.
Where to watch The Conversation: Showtime
The underrated Widows was Steve McQueen's follow-up to the incredible 12 Years a Slave, pivoting to tell a fluid and complex story that weaves meditations on marriage and betrayal. Liam Neeson casts a shadow over the film as an allegedly deceased career criminal/devoted husband; but the narrative centers Viola Davis, Cynthia Erivo, Brian Tyree Henry, Daniel Kaluuya, Michelle Rodriguez, Elizabeth Debicki, and Colin Farrell in a surprisingly explosive story about revenge, corruption, legacy racism in powerful families, and the flow of money from the underworld of crime to the underworld of politics. Come for the cast, stay for the hatred of Neeson's crooked con.
Where to watch Widows: Amazon Prime Video
This bombastic tale of a corrupt cop and a rookie trainee having one bad day together feels in line with the stark and serious cinematography of the time, yet it's so distinctly an Antoine Fuqua work. With Ethan Hawke's newbie simmering against the go-for-broke finesse of Denzel Washington's very bad, no-good officer, Training Day revels in tension, with washes of blue and green augmenting scenes where Hawke is bullied into getting high. But when things become too true to life, Fuqua knows to cut the style and let the actors carry the scene. We've seen Washington excel countless times, but the wild-eyed machismo he drenches his crooked character in here is yet to be topped.
Where to watch Training Day: Apple TV+ (to rent)
Charlize Theron proved herself capable of anything after winning an Oscar for playing real-life serial killer Aileen Wuornos, assuming a steely exterior and comporting her femininity into uniquely intimidating shapes. In Patty Jenkins' hands, Monster allows Theron to take up as much space as she wants, exploring the complex abuse that shaped Wuornos just as much as her crimes. There may never be another portrait of someone who's both a victim and perpetrator that feels so complete and urgent again.
Where to watch Monster: Tubi
Bill Duke, hot off 1991's A Rage in Harlem, directs this compelling story about identity, obsession, and the murkiness of police task forces. Laurence Fishburne turns in a tremendous performance as a DEA agent living a complicated life undercover as a cocaine dealer who slowly begins to see both sides of the corruption more clearly. Jeff Goldblum does a fine job as a drug trafficker who gets close to Fishburne, but it's the latter alone who makes the whole film sing.
Where to watch Deep Cover: Tubi
Michael Mann wanted audiences to take the journey with James Caan's career criminal, Frank, from getting out of jail to setting up shop, stealing, being double-crossed, and everything else that goes into the makings of fugative. Of course, as a Mann film, things aren't straightforward. In the tradition of classic crime movies, Frank's ambitions are complicated by love and parenthood, and when his life away from work is threatened by criminal boss Leo (an in-the-pocket Robert Prosky), he moves everyone to safety and blows up his own house. The image remains a stark and evocative metaphor for characters caught at a crossroads between one dark road and a dimly-lit path out of trouble.
Where to watch Thief: Showtime
There's something fascinating about what Michael Caine has come to represent to American audiences. After a long career playing leads and co-leads, he later gained a reputation as a gentle paternal figure (see: his Alfred in Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy). But here, in the strongest era of his leading man status, Caine is a dashing, moral, relentless badass who takes out an entire family of rich creeps. Director Mike Hodges uncorks him as a criminal with a good albeit violent heart, who is capable of true masculine terror. Get Carter doesn't just give him a great role; it gives us something to reference when we start to forget what he's capable of.
Where to watch Get Carter: Amazon Prime Video
George Clooney (in the midst of his ER run) and a dedicated Jennifer Lopez have more than enough room to heat up the screen in this sexy heist film about a charming thief, a formidable tender officer, and all the mischief within a mansion. Lopez is at the top of her acting game here, and the film catches Steven Soderbergh at a time when he wants to flex a bit, resulting in an unforgettable opener involving a body in a trunk and a finale shoot-out that's an impressive sequence for a director drowning in them.
Where to watch Out of Sight: Amazon Prime Video (to rent)
City of God is an indie that broke big in the aughts, and for good reason. Fernando Meirelles and Ktia Lund's film feels like a good novel, with art, crime, love, and squalor all intersecting in a cohesive story that manages to astonish. The cast was largely without acting experience, but it's hard to parse that as a viewer since there's a real naturalism to their performances, which creates a sense of freedom and discovery. Photography plays a large part in the story, with photos serving as both a means of expression and a running narrative device, and the way it connects to Seu Jorge's "Knockout Ned," the film's heart and soul, is beautiful in every instance.
Where to watch City of God: PlutoTV
The late Bill Paxton and Billy Bob Thornton serve as steady characters for Cynda Williams, Earl Billings, and the underrated Michael Beach to bounce off of in Carl Franklin's stunner of a film. One False Move rests somewhere comfortably between his Devil in A Blue Dress (1995) and the bonkers Out of Time (2003) in terms of voice. The story follows three Black men as they confront, confide, and cut deals in racist Arkansas, with one carrying an intimate connection with Paxton's sheriff. The film isn't particularly strange or different for the genre, but the confidence Franklin directs with and memorable performances from Williams and Beach make this something to seek out.
Where to watch One False Move: Amazon Prime Video (to rent)
In his absurd farce of a career criminal being brought in for one last job, Jonathan Glazer's film may be the first to consider how annoying it is to be a thief. Retired Gary Dove (Ray Winstone) just wants to live a good life in Spain, but British underworld recruiter Don Logan (Ben Kingsley) won't let him rest. If you've ever wondered how Kingsley landed his role as Trevor Slattery in the MCU, look no further. Here, he torments Winstone with a profane version of his character in the Marvel films. There's also an incredible underwater vault sequence that makes full use of Glazer's music video know-how.
Where to watch Sexy Beast: Paramount+
Park Hoon-jung's epic Korean film focuses on the oft-overlooked world of corporate crime, with undercover cop Lee Ja-sung (Lee Jung-jae) caught up in a war between an obsessive police captain and Moongold, the corporation syndicate he works for. The movie is a study of loyalty, with Ja-sung ultimately committing to the operation after having struggled and been lied to by his law enforcement mentor. Unlike every other film on this list, our protagonist isn't in it for himself, just trying to stay alive, or ultimately seeking a happy life. Instead, we watch a man who spent nearly a decade living a shadow life submit more and more to darkness in a stunningly shot movie.
Where to watch New World: Amazon Prime Video
Thiagarajan Kumararaja's directorial debut set the international film scene on fire with a story of class warfare that features a rooster as a key plot device. Two differing criminal factions want a load of cocaine, but when a poor farmer named Kaalayan (Guru Somasundaram) gets wind of it, his life briefly entangles with the crime bosses, resulting in a bloody final showdown and a delightful twist ending. The movie is operatic and impressive for a first feature, and fans looking to see how it's done outside the U.S. shouldn't sleep on it.
Where to watch Aaranya Kaandam: Hulu
Emerald Fennell's frothy take on revenge films smartly squares Carey Mulligan as a confident, too-smart-for-the-room woman who avenges her friend's assault and pretends to be drunk at bars so that she can shame and terrify creepy men when they bring her home. Adam Brody, Bo Burnham, Max Greenfield, Sam Richardson, and Chris Lowell play various shades of terrible people, and the intricate plot moves along at a clip, wasting no minutes in its sub-two-hour runtime. The ending is a thing of beauty, and while the story isn't exactly surprising, Promising Young Woman is nonetheless a trenchant and resonant film.
Where to watch Promising Young Woman: Amazon Prime Video
Jane Campion's stylish consideration of crime from an eyewitness' point of view raises many questions: Who can you trust? What does a believable relationship between siblings look like on screen? Why is Mark Ruffalo's penis making eye contact with me? Starring Ruffalo as (what else) a detective investigating a slaying, Jennifer Jason Leigh as an off-kilter sister to Meg Ryan's witness, Patrice O'Neal as a hustler, and Kevin Bacon as an obsessive, abusive ex-boyfriend, the film does its best to wrangle these performances into something mostly comprehensive. Campion has a knack for unsettling timing and imagery while, with a killer on the loose, Ryan has to contend with possibly being stalked and gore that needs to be seen to be believed. What the movie lacks in cohesion, it more than makes up for in atmosphere.
Where to watch In the Cut: Amazon Prime Video (to rent)
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The 40 best crime movies of all time - Entertainment Weekly News