Some crime movies have kept things pretty simple on a narrative front and proved compelling nonetheless. There are tons of classic gangster movies, for example, that have a rise-and-fall narrative, like The Public Enemy, Scarface (and the 1983 remake), and Little Caesar, for example. And the phrase “rise-and-fall” kind of sums up the story in each: someone becomes powerful, thanks to crime, and then eventually loses everything.
But if you want masterful crime movies that get a little more complicated on a narrative front, then the following classics (plus a few newer films) are well worth checking out. These films balance lots of characters and/or thematic ideas while telling stories that are ambitious, intricate, and oftentimes unique. They’re exceptional for multiple reasons, sure, but the screenplay found in each is particularly worthy of praise.
10
‘Heat’ (1995)
Written and directed by Michael Mann
Heat is an action film alongside being a crime/heist movie, doing a great deal within a runtime that comes pretty close to three hours in total. Essentially, it sees one determined cop going up against a master thief and his criminal gang, the latter of whom are trying to undertake an ambitious heist which the aforementioned cop – and his team – want to stop.
So, simple, right? Well, Heat takes a simple premise and transforms it into something of an unexpected epic, with so many characters and moving parts that all fit together somehow. Michael Mann makes something that’s both complex and nuanced while also being bombastic and approachable, and he gives a remarkable cast (headed by Al Pacino and Robert De Niro) a great deal of excellent material to work with.
9
‘The Irishman’ (2019)
Directed by Martin Scorsese, written by Steven Zaillian
There’s an argument to be made that Goodfellas or Casino should count as Martin Scorsese’s best crime movies, sure, but if the topic at hand is great crime movies with complex storytelling, then The Irishman might be worth mentioning over those classics. It’s a film that covers more ground and goes deeper emotionally, being as much about aging, legacy, and regret as it is about organized crime.
The Irishman feels like a culmination of everything Martin Scorsese had done crime movie-wise up until that point.
It’s the sort of thing Scorsese could’ve only made at such a late stage in his filmmaking career, and as a result, The Irishman feels like a culmination of everything he’d done crime movie-wise up until that point. It’s another very long film, sure, but the number of things it manages to do within that runtime is impressive, and it’s all paced a good deal better than many give it credit for.
8
‘Once Upon a Time in America’ (1984)
Directed by Sergio Leone, written by Leonardo Benvenuti, Piero De Bernardi, Enrico Medioli, Franco Arcalli, Franco Ferrini, Sergio Leone
As one of the greatest epics of the past few decades, Once Upon a Time in America kind of has to be considered up there with the best – and most ambitious – crime films of all time. It goes one step further than The Irishman, even, which looked at a character during his adult life and as an old man. In Once Upon a Time in America, the same characters are explored as children, young adults, and then old men.
It does all this while not playing out in strict chronological order, which is confusing at first, but it ends up working wonders on a structural front. Once Upon a Time in America is a massive film, a sometimes troubling one, and an oftentimes haunting watch. How it all came together as a screenplay, which was then executed flawlessly on a directorial front by Sergio Leone? It’s really something to behold.
7
‘Gangs of Wasseypur – Part 2’ (2012)
Directed by Anurag Kashyap, written by Zeishan Quadri, Akhilesh Jaiswal, Sachin Ladia, Anurag Kashyap
For hopefully obvious reasons, you do have to watch the first part of Gangs of Wasseypur before the second, but it’s that second half that’s most complex on a narrative front. Both movies end up telling one massive story, with conflict between families playing out over decades/generations, with the second movie being the one that is the most sprawling, dramatic, and unpredictable.
Gangs of Wasseypur feels like a crime epic blown up to wild proportions, and hyped up enough to make other gangster epics look tame by comparison. To try and get to the bottom of everything that goes on here, and how it all works so well, in just a couple of paragraphs would be impossible, but the important thing to stress is that it’s a must-watch for anyone who likes crime movies that aren’t afraid to go big and get explosive.
6
‘City of God’ (2002)
Directed by Fernando Meirelles, Kátia Lund, written by Bráulio Mantovani
City of God is considered to be one of the best international films of the past few decades, and for good reason. It manages to feel almost like an epic, despite having a relatively lean runtime. For something that only just exceeds two hours in length, it sure does cover a great deal of ground, largely thanks to it focusing on a few core characters both as children and, later on, as young adults.
The setting is Rio de Janeiro, with most of the narrative taking place inside crime-ridden favelas; places where some people thrive, and others long to break out of. City of God gets quite dark at times, but isn’t overwhelmingly depressing all the time. It balances a good many emotions and characters, all the while having breathless pacing and being deeply moving in more ways than one.
5
‘The Departed’ (2006)
Directed by Martin Scorsese, written by William Monahan
While The Irishman was great, the most complex Martin Scorsese film, at least of his crime-related efforts, is probably The Departed. This one is about an hour shorter than The Irishman, sure, but it’s more of a thriller and unfolds at such a fast pace, with the narrative here revolving around two men who are both undercover, in effect: one is a police officer who’s infiltrated a criminal gang, and the other is a criminal who’s infiltrated the police.
When you’ve got a premise like that, things are inevitably going to get twisty and kind of complex, but The Departed is executed in a way that never feels confusing in a detrimental way. It gets the balance right, keeping you, as a viewer, on your toes, all the while still being followable and immensely engrossing.
4
‘High and Low’ (1963)
Directed by Akira Kurosawa, written by Hideo Oguni, Ryūzō Kikushima, Eijirō Hisaita, Akira Kurosawa
High and Low is probably the best Akira Kurosawa film that doesn’t involve samurai, and honestly, it’s up there among his best works, even if you do include the ones that are samurai-related. It’s a film about an extortion plan gone wrong, with the kidnapping criminal going along with his plan despite snatching the wrong kid, with this leading to an intense investigation and moral complications for the person targeted.
It’s a movie with a story that’s hard to predict, and it balances all the different ideas and characters well throughout, feeling patiently paced, but never slow or boring. High and Low is about something that goes out of control, but behind the camera, one can feel Kurosawa was always in control of the film as a whole, and it holds up so exceedingly well for something that’s more than 60(!) years old.
- Release Date
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March 1, 1963
- Runtime
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143 Minutes
- Director
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Akira Kurosawa
- Writers
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Ryûzô Kikushima, Hideo Oguni, Eijirô Hisaita, Akira Kurosawa
3
‘Pulp Fiction’ (1994)
Directed by Quentin Tarantino, written by Quentin Tarantino, Roger Avary
A film with a very clueless central character, but a very intelligently written screenplay, Pulp Fiction is lots of things, and it’s also undeniably its own thing. It tells three stories that, on their own, would be relatively straightforward (and indeed pulpy), but it’s the way they’re combined and told out of chronological order that makes them all more interesting.
Oh, the dialogue helps, too, with Tarantino’s screenplay (co-written with Roger Avary) having so many quotable lines, and also just feeling creative in general, even with the core stories here being straightforward and sometimes familiar. Pulp Fiction also builds to an incredible ending that’s not even really the ending, given scenes happen after it, chronologically speaking, but it all comes together; it all works astoundingly well, in the end (and the middle, and the beginning).
2
‘L.A. Confidential’ (1997)
Directed by Curtis Hanson, written by Brian Helgeland, Curtis Hanson
Thanks to a complex methodology, L.A. Confidential was recently declared the #1 movie of all time on Rotten Tomatoes, and, fittingly, it’s also a complex one as far as the screenplay goes. Granted, it simplifies things in its source material, given James Ellroy writes dense, complicated, and nerve-wracking stories that often need adjusting for movie adaptations, but it gets the flavor of the text down, and is sufficiently complex by movie standards.
So, to break down the plot as best as possible, L.A. Confidential is kind of about a series of killings and the investigations done by three police officers, with those investigations uncovering corruption and various shocking things. It unfolds at a thrilling pace, and is also exceptionally well-acted, it needs to be stressed… but the writing of L.A. Confidential is its strongest component, and ultimately what makes it something of a modern classic.
1
‘The Godfather Part II’ (1974)
Directed by Francis Ford Coppola, written by Francis Ford Coppola, Mario Puzo
Building expertly upon what The Godfather had already laid down, The Godfather Part II pushes the story forward while also looking back, and mines deeper thematic territory than the already moving first movie did. It continues the story of the Corleone crime empire, now run by Al Pacino’s Michael, but it contrasts this very effectively with scenes in the past showing Vito (now played by Robert De Niro after Marlon Brando played him the first time around) building the empire Michael would eventually – and inadvertently – destroy.
The Godfather Part II is like a tragedy that plays out in slow motion without ever feeling slow. It knows just when to look back at the past, and when to advance things forward, and it combines these two periods in history together to stunning effect. It was released during a decade when Francis Ford Coppola was at his peak filmmaking-wise, and still feels like it could (arguably) be the most ambitious film he ever directed.