Most crimes are messy, and most criminals are sloppy. There’s no such thing as the perfect crime, but there are perfect crime movies. Aside from generally being played by people who are better-looking than their real-life counterparts, movie criminals also benefit from crisp direction, sharp writing and striking visuals. All those elements and more are what make up the most flawless crime thrillers ever made.
From classic noirs of the ’40s to true crime masterpieces of the ’00s, these flawless crime films come from major filmmakers and feature award-winning performances. They feature razor-sharp dialogue, bulletproof structures, and crackerjack timing. Heist thrillers, conspiracy thrillers and serial killer thrillers alike, these ten thrillers are all their own criminal beasts, but they all execute their cinematic crimes flawlessly.
‘Double Indemnity’ (1944)
Billy Wilder‘s classic film noir Double Indemnity features every essential element of the subgenre. It has a definitive anti-hero protagonist, an iconic femme fatale, a hard-boiled voiceover and stark black-and-white cinematography. Adapted by Wilder and crime novelist Raymond Chandler from the novel by James M. Cain, the dialogue crackles and the actors have a chemical reaction between them that burns up the screen. It’s a perfectly formed film noir, providing an ideal that all other members of the proud crime subgenre should aspire to.
Fred MacMurray plays insurance salesman Walter Neff, who crosses paths with the wicked Phyllis Dietrichson (Barbara Stanwyck), who pulls him into a plot to murder her husband and collect on the insurance policy. That plot comes with plenty of twists, turns and double crosses. MacMurray and Stanwyck are electric together, and the way the film skirts the Hays Code with suggestive imagery instead of explicit sexuality only increases the tension between them. Double Indemnity is one of Wilder’s best and belongs in any conversation of the greatest film noir ever made.
‘The Asphalt Jungle’ (1950)
Another classic noir, John Huston‘s The Asphalt Jungle set the diamond standard template that many of the heist thrillers that followed it were molded on. Influenced by neorealism, Huston imbued the film with a grittiness that would become ever more prevalent in crime thrillers but without sacrificing the heightened noir elements. It’s a foundational heist film that hasn’t yet been eclipsed by the many films it heralded.
Sam Jaffe plays an aging ex-con who assembles a team in a Midwestern city for a jewel heist, including Sterling Hayden as a brooding tough guy. The job is far from flawless, and the fallout from it leaves most of the crew six feet under. Despite being made under the same production code that prevented Double Indemnity from engaging in explicit content, The Asphalt Jungle has a much harder edge to it. Its heist may be far less complex than what later films would accomplish, but it’s no less impactful with its blunt force approach.
‘Le Samouraï’ (1967)
Inspired by classic noirs and inspirational to many crime thrillers that came after it, Jean-Pierre Melville‘s Le Samouraï features a cool, detached hitman whose characterization has been echoed in the works of major filmmakers like David Fincher, Jim Jarmusch, Michael Mann, and Martin Scorsese. The film is sparing, stripped down to its barest genre elements with a quiet, simplified style that makes it effortlessly cool. Le Samouraï is the laconic granddaddy of cinematic assassins, and is just as sharp.
Alain Delon plays Jef, a Parisian contract killer whose hermetically sealed lifestyle is punctured when he witnesses a killing and is betrayed by his employers. With both the police and other killers circling him, he tries to clean up every loose end while maintaining his control. Le Samouraï is an essential French crime thriller anchored by the definitive depiction of a professional killer.
‘The French Connection’ (1971)
The American crime thrillers of the ’70s have a distinctive grit and grime to them. Whether they’re set in New York or Los Angeles, some other major city or even in a rural area, they are almost universally unglamorous. While director William Friedkin was inspired by Le Samouraï for his cop thriller The French Connection, there’s a distinct difference in its more cruel approach. Popeye Doyle, played by Gene Hackman in an Academy Award-winning performance, is based on real-life cop Eddie Egan and is depicted as a virulent racist who breaks every rule in his pursuit of a ring of drug dealers, a man of violence who’s only fit to exist on the mean streets of ’70s New York City.
The film is a procedural that follows Doyle and his partner Buddy (Roy Scheider) as they try to bring down a French drug smuggler. It gets into the nitty and very gritty details of the investigation, which hits more than a few hitches, none bigger than when a would-be assassin attempts to take out Doyle and one of the greatest car chases in film history ensues. The chase is a perfect encapsulation of the film itself and the obsession of its lead character. It’s an intense, destructive and violent pursuit that’s ultimately futile.
‘The Taking of Pelham One Two Three’ (1974)
Another quintessential ’70s New York crime thriller, The Taking of Pelham One Two Three is a criminal caper given texture by its setting and the characters that inhabit it. Based on the novel by Morton Freedgood, the hijacking plot provides crackerjack entertainment. It’s got the grit of The French Connection but with a sparkling sense of humor layered with working-class cynicism.
Walter Matthau plays transit police lieutenant Zachary Garber, whose bad day at work gets worse when a group of hijackers, led by Robert Shaw, takes a subway train of passengers hostage. The characters all have a lived-in quality to them that’s reflected in the drab environments of the film. The Taking of Pelham One Two Three has an atmosphere that all the money in the world can’t replicate, as evidenced by its own slick remake. The jazzy, chaotic energy that runs through is made flawless because it has flaws.
‘Blood Simple’ (1984)
From the streets and subways of New York to the bars and back roads of Texas. Blood Simple, the debut film of the Coen Brothers, is a sweaty slice of pulpy neo-noir that’s flavored with the filmmakers’ distinctive dark humor and a twist of horror. It’s a fully formed debut that exudes a confident filmmaking style that the directors would continue to hone in many of their further crime films, like Fargo and No Country for Old Men. As perfect as those later films are, there’s a raw quality to this dark film that makes it particularly potent.
Frances McDormand plays Abby, the young wife of bar owner Julian (Dan Hedaya), whose affair with bartender Ray (John Getz) sets off a series of violent events. Julian hires Loren Visser, the world’s sweatiest private investigator played by M. Emmet Walsh, to follow and subsequently murder his wife and her lover. Confusion and betrayal reign supreme as blood gets spilled and bodies stack up until the film reaches its thrilling climax featuring the two least likely characters facing off. Blood Simple is bloody, simple, and flawless.
‘One False Move’ (1992)
The ’80s neo-noirs like Blood Simple presaged the genre’s major resurgence in the ’90s, exemplified by films like Pulp Fiction and L.A. Confidential. The most underrated of the ’90s neo-noirs is Carl Franklin‘s visceral One False Move. Co-written by Billy Bob Thornton, who also stars as a violent criminal, it’s a brutal portrait of America fueled by racial tension and the urban-rural divide.
Thornton plays Ray, one of a trio of criminals who cut a violent path of destruction from Los Angeles to a small town in Arkansas, where the local sheriff, played by Bill Paxton, hides secrets of his own. Franklin’s direction of the pulpy material is no-nonsense, presenting both the violence and the racial conflict of the story with a frankness that doesn’t belabor its themes and makes it far more effective. One False Move doesn’t make any false moves and is executed flawlessly.
‘Heat’ (1995)
Michael Mann‘s directorial career is mostly defined by his crime thrillers. From his cracking debut Thief to his hitman thriller Collateral to his underrated gritty reboot of Miami Vice, Mann has had a keen eye for the criminal world as well as the cops who try to combat it. That conflict is most perfectly balanced in his flawless crime epic Heat, chronicling the war between an elite team of thieves and the detectives dead set on bringing them down.
Robert De Niro plays Neil McCauley, a career criminal who leads a crew that specializes in armed robbery. Al Pacino plays Vincent Hanna, a cop living on the edge who has dedicated his life to bringing down crews like McCauley’s. Their conflicts cover the sprawl of Los Angeles, which is captured in cold steel blues and deep blacks, and it’s punctuated with flawless action that rattles with raw intensity. Heat is a masterclass in crime filmmaking, capturing both the obsession and personal toll that comes from being a criminal and hunting them.
‘Zodiac’ (2007)
Like Mann, David Fincher is an obsessive filmmaker who often builds his films on meticulous research. No film of his was more exhaustively researched than his investigative crime thriller Zodiac. In dramatizing the real-life killings of the Zodiac Killer and the obsession that drove those who investigated them, Fincher and his collaborators interviewed witnesses and hired specialists to re-examine evidence. That obsessiveness bleeds onto the screen, as Zodiac is one of the most patient and methodical crime thrillers.
Jake Gyllenhaal, Robert Downey Jr., and Mark Ruffalo make up the central core of the film as real-life figures Robert Graysmith, Paul Avery, and Dave Toschi, respectively, all of whose lives are fundamentally changed by the Zodiac Killer through their fanatical search for the truth. The focus on the minute details of the case set Zodiac apart from prior serial killer thrillers, and precipitated the true crime obsession that would take hold in the decade that followed. It’s an immaculately designed crime thriller and the most flawless film of Fincher’s career.
‘Hell or High Water’ (2016)
Hell or High Water was the second neo-Western crime thriller to come from writer Taylor Sheridan in the 2010s, following Sicario and preceding his directorial debut Wind River. It benefits from Sheridan’s sharp writing instincts, before they were dulled by years of soapy melodrama in Yellowstone, and the performances of its flawless cast. David Mackenzie gives the film an appropriate coating of blood and sweat, but avoids unnecessary flourishes and lets the film play out much like a traditional Western.
Chris Pine and Ben Foster play two brothers on a bank robbery spree in Texas, hellbent on saving their family ranch from foreclosure and breaking their cycle of poverty. Hot on their tail is Jeff Bridges as an aging Texas Ranger ready to ease into retirement. Hell or High Water doesn’t break any new ground and travels down roads well-worn by previous crime thrillers, but it does it all flawlessly.