Entertainment
10 Heaviest Crime Movies of All Time
Since a good many crime movies have a “crime doesn’t pay” thing going on (especially those made some time ago), it’s not exactly the happiest of genres. Even crime movies that focus on good people can showcase bad things happening to them, and then the really effective ones can also make you feel bad for people who themselves are doing bad things.
There’s a real variety here, and so even if all these movies stand out for being particularly bleak, they are downbeat for a wide range of reasons. They’re all among the heaviest crime movies ever made, and there will be an attempt not to go into too much detail, as far as spoilers are concerned. Knowing something is heavier than might be expected could be a spoiler, sure, but there will be an avoidance of too many details, especially regarding stuff that happens toward the end of these movies.
10
‘No Country for Old Men’ (2007)
The plot of No Country for Old Men concerns the aftermath of a drug deal gone wrong, with a man discovering the site and a large quantity of cash left abandoned there. Things get complicated because there’s also a ruthless assassin out to collect the money, and then an older sheriff is also following – and trying to solve – the whole messy case, but is continually at least one or two steps behind the assassin.
Technically, No Country for Old Men is a Western, or more specifically, a neo-Western. Either way, it ranks among the most distressing and anxiety-inducing Westerns of all time, and since it involves criminal characters and then has at least one prominent character on the right side of the law, it also fits quite neatly into the crime genre. However you want to classify it, the whole film is kind of a nightmare, albeit a very compelling one that’s nightmarish without technically belonging to the horror genre (but hey, there’s never been any rule that says a movie has to be a work of horror to feel frightening).
9
‘Se7en’ (1995)
Se7en is one of the best crime/thriller movies of the 1990s, and also a top-tier one as far as films that focus on a hunt for a serial killer are concerned. That’s almost another sub-genre in itself, with Se7en sticking out from the pack because its central killer is someone who’s basing all their murders on the seven deadly sins, and then also standing out further because of how grim it’s willing to get.
The entire film is thematically dark while also being visually dark and despondent, with a good deal of dread early on that increases in severity and intensity – infamously so – right near the film’s end. Se7en gets a lot of things right, and even if you don’t really like feel-bad movies, it’s still one worth checking out at some point, since it’s incredibly well-made on top of being, at times, incredibly morbid.
8
‘Uncut Gems’ (2019)
“Fun” might not be a very good word to use to describe Uncut Gems, yet it is probably the most traditionally entertaining movie here. Granted, you have to be okay with feeling on edge for most of its runtime, since Uncut Gems is notoriously stressful, albeit willing to balance all the anxiety with some very dark comedy (in that sense, Adam Sandler is well-utilized, since he gets some opportunities to be funny in a somewhat unusual manner here).
Basically, the whole film is about a man who gets himself in continually worsening trouble with various shady individuals, but he brings it on himself, since he’s chasing an unattainable high, and doing so involves gambling, hustling, and borrowing risky amounts of money. Uncut Gems is as much of an ordeal as its reputation suggests, yet it is darkly entertaining at times, and impressively breathless, too.
7
‘You Were Never Really Here’ (2017)
You could possibly call You Were Never Really Here a thriller of sorts if you really wanted to, though it’s certainly on the slow side of things, as far as that genre goes. Maybe it’s more of a psychological thriller/drama film, and then there’s also a noticeable crime element here, since it’s about a mercenary unraveling mentally while taking on a network of human traffickers, all in pursuit of rescuing a young girl.
The comparisons to Taxi Driver were fairly made, which is another crime movie of sorts about a troubled man who is something of a vigilante, and an exceptionally troubled one at that. You Were Never Really Here is also notable for clocking in at just an hour-and-a-half in length, but it’s fair to assume it’s the kind of thing that’ll stick with you long after it (rather quickly) comes to a close.
6
‘The Godfather Part II’ (1974)
Trying to find a problem with The Godfather (1972) is difficult, since it’s a pretty much perfect gangster movie and all. Maybe there’s a romanticization of the mafia, to some extent, which could very slightly/gently rub people a way that’s, if not quite wrong, then isn’t exactly right, but it’s a stretch. If that was a flaw, though, or if you feel it was a flaw, then The Godfather Part II goes a fair way in “correcting” it.
There were tragic scenes in The Godfather for sure, but The Godfather Part II is where the whole saga becomes an outright – and unapologetic – tragedy.
This is a much darker film, since there were a few more characters with redeeming qualities in the first movie, and they’re either dead by the time The Godfather Part II starts, or they’re in the process of shedding the redeeming qualities they might once have had (oh hi, Michael). There were tragic scenes in The Godfather for sure, but The Godfather Part II is where the whole saga becomes an outright – and unapologetic – tragedy in the classical sense.
5
‘Once Upon a Time in America’ (1984)
Another epic-length crime movie, Once Upon a Time in America condenses what could well have been a trilogy into one massive film. The sense of it being a little like a trilogy comes from the fact that it’s about three distinctive time periods, with the characters being explored as children, then as relatively young adults, and then some of them (those who survive) in old age. If told chronologically, it would make sense for three films – or three acts – to focus on each respective stage.
With Once Upon a Time in America, though, things aren’t told in a strictly chronological manner, which makes things extra interesting in ways that become more apparent as the film goes on. Also, all three stages of life depicted here are heavy in their own ways, with childhood tragedies, young adult depravities, and then old age regret making most of the movie difficult to watch and deeply troubling, just for varied reasons. It is still an incredible film, but you have to be in the right mood, and also prepared to sit with challenging stuff for almost four hours (or even a little longer, if you’re watching the longest cut of Once Upon a Time in America).
4
‘The Irishman’ (2019)
Martin Scorsese’s gangster movies made prior to 2019 certainly had their heavy moments (Casino demonstrates this particularly well), but none were quite as despair-filled as The Irishman. This one does something similar to Once Upon a Time in America, and also stars Robert De Niro (Joe Pesci is in both, too), but there’s an emphasis on old age in The Irishman, befitting the fact that its director and many of its stars were in their 70s while making the film.
The film spans many years, but drives home death as something that hangs over everyone to a particularly great extent, given the violent lifestyles they’re wrapped up in. The Irishman is one of the most effective movies about mortality of the century so far, and is uniquely heavy-going in large part thanks to the age of many important people involved in its production. If you’re not quite as old, then you can at least imagine the film hitting even harder once you are.
3
‘Killers of the Flower Moon’ (2023)
Yet for as somber as The Irishman was, Killers of the Flower Moon – which was Scorsese’s first film post-The Irishman – might’ve had it beat, in terms of sheer sadness and despair. This epic movie’s centered on a series of crimes committed against the Osage people during the 1920s, all done because the land they were on turned out to be rich in oil, and various other people wanted to do whatever they could to obtain the wealth that comes with, you know, having a lot of oil.
There Will Be Blood is more of a drama than a crime film, but deals with a somewhat similar thing, though Killers of the Flower Moon has it happening on an even greater scale, and with more death and (arguably) harder-to-watch devastation, too. Like The Irishman, it makes you feel down for a lengthy amount of time, too, since both epics clock in at just under three-and-a-half hours each.
2
‘Dancer in the Dark’ (2000)
Dancer in the Dark is a movie about a crime, and the ensuing trial, but it’s also a musical at the same time… one of the bleakest of all time, too. The main character is a woman named Selma (played by Björk), and she’s going blind while trying to earn enough money to get her son an operation that’ll prevent him from also going blind as he gets older. The musical elements come about because she’s a fan of musicals, and she daydreams her way through fantastical musical numbers to cope with the hardships of her life.
Those hardships are initially bleak, and then everything gets a lot bleaker once Dancer in the Dark eventually reveals itself as a crime movie, on top of being a musical. It’s a uniquely devastating film, and perhaps one of the rawest of the past few decades, not to mention one of those movies that’s easy to recommend people watch once, but much harder to recommend anyone revisit… the one time is probably enough.
1
‘Angst’ (1983)
Like Se7en, Angst is about a serial killer, but unlike Se7en – and a bunch of movies concerning serial killers – Angst is not about detectives trying to hunt down and stop a serial killer. The man who does the killing here is the central character, and Angst follows him as he targets a family, invades their home, and then carries out a series of crimes against them in horrific detail.
It runs the risk of feeling like exploitation, but there’s too much by way of genuinely great filmmaking craft to make Angst feel exploitative in a detrimental way. The film’s just brutal and uncompromising, succeeding in depicting the absolute terror that would be felt, if one were targeted by a violent home invader. It’s also all in the presentation and sheer effort toward feeling grounded and believable that makes Angst uniquely mortifying, and perhaps even the heaviest crime-related movie ever made.
Angst
- Release Date
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January 1, 1983
- Runtime
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75 Minutes
- Director
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Gerald Kargl
- Writers
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Gerald Kargl, Zbigniew Rybczyński
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Robert Hunger-Bühler
Psychopath (voice)
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