20. “Girlhood” (2014)
Celine Sciamma’s “Girlhood” doesn’t really behave like what we think of as a traditional crime movie: there’s no shootouts or stylish ultraviolence, and it’s predominately focused on the coming-of-age of a young African-French woman, Marieme (the extraordinary Karidja Touré), with only the occasional bit of petty crime, gang fights or, in the final section, drug dealing really taking place. But it’s undoubtedly part of a tradition stretching back to “Mean Streets” and beyond, and more importantly, it’s just an extraordinary film. So naturalistic and grounded that it feels not so much that it was made as it was captured, but with Sciamma adding moments of real cinematic magic, immersing you so deeply in the lives of Marieme and her friends in the Parisian suburbs that by the time the credits roll, you feel like you know them.
19. “A Prophet” (2009)
“A Prophet” was the rare foreign language crime picture to really cross over and capture a wider imagination (as well as nine Cesars, a BAFTA and an Oscar nomination), and little wonder: it’s an utterly gripping, deeply powerful drama that crams more drama and detail into two and a half hours than most TV series now manage to do across ten. Jacques Audiard’s expansive look at the failures of the French prison system, and the rise of a petty criminal to a kingpin, stars the then-unknown Tahir Rahim as Malik, a French-Algerian teenager sentenced to six years in prison, who falls under the wing of a Corsican mobster while inside, and eventually on day release. The occasional touch of magic realism sometimes feels like a misstep, but otherwise, this is muscular, carefully plotted and impeccably made stuff with something to say.
18. “Revanche” (2008)
Not talked about much today despite having been an Oscar nominee and being picked for the Criterion Collection on its release less than ten years ago, “Revanche” is a more or less a must-see for fans of the genre, or just cinema in general. Initially, we follow two strands: an ex-con (Johannes Krisch) in Vienna who is planning to rob a bank so that he can escape to a new life with the Ukranian prostitute he loves (Irina Potapenko), and a policeman (Andreas Lust) and his wife who are having difficulties conceiving a child, with the two strands drawn together after a tragic incident. You could broadly class it as a revenge movie, but it’s about much more — love, grief, sacrifice, forgiveness, guilt — and it’s the rare heart-on-sleeve melodrama that feels genuinely powerful rather than manipulative.
17. “The Departed” (2006)
After a decade away from the genre he’s most associated with (and another decade since a gap soon to come to an end with “The Irishman”), Martin Scorsese returned to the gangster picture, and finally broke his Oscar duck, with “The Departed,” a remake of Hong Kong thriller “Infernal Affairs.” The premise of that — a cop undercover in the mob going head to head with a mobster undercover in the police — was so dramatically irresistible that it would have been hard to mess it up. But Scorsese actually improves on it, thanks to a textured, unexpectedly funny script from William Monahan, a style that feels more playful and pulpy than “Casino” did a decade earlier and fine performances across the board (Matt Damon has still never been better). It might not be the most substantial thing he ever made, but it’s one of the most enjoyable. Shame about that final shot, though…
16. “Sexy Beast” (2000)
Any Brits who lived through the post-Guy Ritchie wave of gangster movies will shudder in horror at the memory of most of them, but the absolute jewel in the crown of that early-00s period was Jonathan Glazer’s directorial debut “Sexy Beast.” Visually inventive and gloriously profane, it follows leather-skinned safecracker Gal (Ray Winstone), happily living out his retirement in Spain until psychotic, terrier-like former colleague Don (a revelatory, and Oscar-nominated Ben Kingsley) turns up in an attempt to enlist him into an ambitious heist run by crime lord Teddy (Ian McShane, in the role that led to “Deadwood”). It doesn’t quite end up in a satisfying place, but for 90% of its running time, it’s utterly gripping, darkly hilarious stuff, with a surreal visual sensibility that immediately, and correctly, marked Glazer as one of the most talented filmmakers of his generation.
15. “The Man Who Wasn’t There” (2001)
It’s never going to spawn festivals like “The Big Lebowski” or spin-off TV shows like “Fargo,” but “The Man Who Wasn’t There” is, to the more sophisticated Coen fans, a film that certainly ranks among the best. Almost willfully rejecting the popular audience that might have been drawn by the previous year’s surprise hit “O Brother Where Art Thou,” it’s a black-and-white noir about a taciturn barber (Billy Bob Thornton, superb) who attempts to blackmail his wife’s lover (James Gandolfini) for the money to start a dry cleaning business, with murder and mild mayhem following. Oh, and UFOs, too. It’s the kind of film that leads to accusations of cruelty and nihilism towards the Coens, but we’ve always found a humanism to their work, even here, thanks to the pathos that Thornton and the rest of the cast bring, even as the universe rips them apart.
14. “Nightcrawler” (2014)
News that its director and key cast members are reteaming for a new movie on Netflix this week has served as a handy reminder of just how brilliant Dan Gilroy’s debut feature, neo-noir character study “Nightcrawler,” was. Falling somewhere between “Sweet Smell Of Success,” “Network” and “The Talented Mr. Ripley,” it stars Jake Gyllenhaal as an ambitious, sociopathic man without much past who finds his calling in being a freelance video journalist who sells footage of crime scenes to local news. It’s an unusual approach, as darkly comic as it is horrifying (and illuminating of our current media culture), and Gilroy makes it one of the best nighttime-LA movies since Michael Mann last filmed the city. But it would be a lesser thing without its staggering central performance from Gyllenhaal, a monstrous anti-hero for the fake news era.
13. “Brick” (2005)
The idea of shifting the classic noir to high school wasn’t necessarily a brand new idea — indeed, only just before “Brick” hit, “Veronica Mars” had been a cult TV hit. But Rian Johnson’s secret was in the specificity: he builds an entire hard-boiled world reminiscent of Dashiel Hammett for his mystery to unfold him, with a palpable love of language and outsized stakes that make complete sense in this context. As outsider Brendan (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) attempts to solve the disappearance of his girlfriend (Emile de Ravin), it’s easy to get lost in the weeds, but the ingenuity of the execution and the commitment to the performances (there’s never a hint of a wink or a raised eyebrow in a way that would have killed it) pull you along even when the plot remains oblique.
12. “Animal Kingdom” (2010)
The interlinking of family and crime syndicates has become a familiar trope, but it turns out all we needed to make it fresh again was to take it down under, for David Miçhod’s utterly absorbing “Animal Kingdom.” Based very loosely on real events in a Melbourne crime family in the late 1980s, it sees teenager J (James Frecheville) move in with his grandmother (an Oscar-nominated Jacki Weaver) after his mother dies of an overdose, and become embroiled in the family business of drug-running and robbery. The individual beats might be familiar, but the characters feel totally fresh, particularly thanks to the stunning performances by Weaver and Ben Mendelsohn, and Michod directs like he’s been doing it every day of his life, turning in a movie that grabs you by the throat and squeezes hard for the next two hours. The TNT series isn’t bad, but this one’s the real deal.
11. “Exiled” (2006)
He’s never had the Western breakthrough that someone like John Woo got, but anyone who knows anything about the crime and action knows that Johnnie To is one of the best and most reliable names around, and he could have easily taken up four or five slots on this list, at least. In the end, just edging out “Election” and “Drug War,” (at no. 44), we went for the terrific “Exiled.” Set in the fascinating location of Macau, it sees four hitmen come to the city to kill a retired gangster, kicking off a gloriously complex plot of twists and turns that owes as much to the spaghetti Western as to classic Hong Kong action cinema. From the stunning opening sequence to the later shootouts, among the finest examples seen since Woo was last on form, this is To in tip-top form, and with a soulfulness that isn’t always in his work too.