Cinema has always been in love with crime. Perhaps it could be reasoned that crime feels like such a natural fit for the medium because the cinema is all about fantasy, and crime is something that the majority of us will never touch - at least, not in the capacity or to the heights that the characters in motion pictures often do. As a result, audiences have been captivated by the notion of crime on the big screen ever since cinema first sprung to life. Crime movies are not afraid to take their characters to the bottom of the morality barrel, but there is a kind of glamour to be associated with crime movies, too; characters are often depicted as having it all as a result of a crime well done; a fancy criminal lifestyle to which audience members might find themselves attracted or drawn. That is, until the inevitable moment where things go wrong - because it always goes wrong, doesn't it? There are may sub-genres inherent to crime; mafia and gangster movies, police procedurals, crime thrillers, noir movies... the list goes on. Here, the attempt was to conjure up a list of 20 crime movies that both general movie-goers and cinephiles should see before their time on this Earth is up. These are the best of the best; those movies that exemplify the crime genre and all its facades, though obviously tons of omissions had to be made...
Sam Hill is an ardent cinephile and has been writing about film professionally since 2008. He harbours a particular fondness for western and sci-fi movies.
