Crime backdrop

Crime movies

A deep dive into the underworld of gangsters, detectives, and heists where the line between right and wrong blurs.

Subgenres include: Organized Crime, Heist, Con Artist Crime.

Deep Cover

1641. Deep Cover

Action Thriller Crime
7.0

19921h 48min

United States

Director: Bill Duke

Black police officer Russell Stevens applies for a special anti-drug squad which targets the highest boss of cocaine delivery to LA—the Colombian foreign minister's nephew. Russell works his way up from the bottom undercover, until he reaches the boss.


Thunderheart

1642. Thunderheart

Crime Mystery Thriller
6.8

19921h 59min

United States

Director: Michael Apted

A young mixed-blood FBI agent is assigned to work with a cynical veteran investigator on a murder on a poverty-stricken Sioux reservation.


American Me

1643. American Me

Crime Drama
7.1

19922h 5min

United States

Director: Edward James Olmos

During his 18 years in Folsom Prison, street-gang leader Santana rules over all the drug-and-murder activities behind bars. Upon his release, Santana goes back to his old neighborhood, intending to lead a peaceful, crime-free life. But his old gang buddies force him back into his old habits.


Juice

1644. Juice

Crime Drama Thriller
7.0

19921h 36min

United States

Director: Ernest R. Dickerson

Four Harlem friends -- Bishop, Q, Steel and Raheem -- dabble in petty crime, but they decide to go big by knocking off a convenience store. Bishop, the magnetic leader of the group, has the gun. But Q has different aspirations. He wants to be a DJ and happens to have a gig the night of the robbery. Unfortunately for him, Bishop isn't willing to take no for answer in a game where everything's for keeps.


Naked Lunch

1645. Naked Lunch

Crime Drama
6.9

19911h 55min

Canada, United Kingdom

Director: David Cronenberg

Blank-faced bug killer Bill Lee and his dead-eyed wife, Joan, like to get high on Bill's pest poisons while lounging with Beat poet pals. After meeting the devilish Dr. Benway, Bill gets a drug made from a centipede. Upon indulging, he accidentally kills Joan, takes orders from his typewriter-turned-cockroach, ends up in a constantly mutating Mediterranean city and learns that his hip friends have published his work -- which he doesn't remember writing.


Rush

1646. Rush

Crime Drama
6.7

19912h

United States

Director: Lili Fini Zanuck

Undercover cop Jim Raynor is a seasoned veteran. His partner, Kristen Cates, is lacking in experience, but he thinks she's tough enough to work his next case with him: a deep cover assignment to bring down the notoriously hard-to-capture drug lord Gaines. While their relationship turns romantic during the assignment, they also turn into junkies, and will have to battle their own addictions if they want to bring down Gaines once and for all.


Bugsy

1647. Bugsy

Crime Drama Mystery
6.8

19912h 16min

United States

Director: Barry Levinson

New York gangster Ben 'Bugsy' Siegel takes a brief business trip to Los Angeles. A sharp-dressing womanizer with a foul temper, Siegel doesn't hesitate to kill or maim anyone crossing him. In L.A. the life, the movies, and most of all strong-willed Virginia Hill detain him while his family wait back home. Then a trip to a run-down gambling joint at a spot in the desert known as Las Vegas gives him his big idea.


Shadows and Fog

1648. Shadows and Fog

Comedy Mystery Crime
6.7

19911h 25min

United States

Director: Woody Allen

With a serial strangler on the loose, a bookkeeper wanders around town searching for the vigilante group intent on catching the killer.


Cape Fear

1649. Cape Fear

Drama Crime Thriller
7.3

19912h 8min

United States

Director: Martin Scorsese

Sam Bowden is a small-town corporate attorney. Max Cady is a tattooed, cigar-smoking, Bible-quoting, psychotic rapist. What do they have in common? 14 years ago, Sam was a public defender assigned to Max Cady's rape trial, and he made a serious error: he hid a document from his illiterate client that could have gotten him acquitted. Now, the cagey Cady has been released, and he intends to teach Sam Bowden and his family a thing or two about loss.


High Heels

1650. High Heels

Drama Comedy Crime
7.0

19911h 54min

Spain, France

Director: Pedro Almodóvar

After being estranged for 15 years, flamboyant actress Becky del Paramo re-enters her daughter Rebeca's life when she comes to perform a concert. Rebeca, she finds, is now married to one of Becky's ex-lovers, Manuel. The mother and daughter begin making up for lost time, when suddenly, a murder occurs...