When it comes to crime dramas, Netflix is the place to be. From award-winning shows like Money Heist and Narcos to the beloved Harlan Coben franchise, the streaming giant has titles that portray every type of crime, while having viewers at the edge of their seats. One of the best TV shows to join the list in 2024 was The Gentlemen, a fabulous, action-packed series created and written by Guy Ritchie that’s about to return for Season 2.

In two weeks’ time, The Gentlemen will be back for a long-awaited sophomore season on September 3, 2026. And, as the trailer and the executive producer and co-writer Matthew Read suggest, the new installment will be raising the stakes, taking the drama to international waters and seeing the return of fan-favorite characters, while welcoming some new names to the list. With so much to look forward to, there’s no time like now to catch up.

‘The Gentlemen’ Is One of Netflix’s Best New Shows

For those unaware of the plot, The Gentlemen follows an aristocrat named Eddie Horniman (Theo James) as he unexpectedly inherits his father’s vast country estate, only to discover that the massive cannabis empire it contains and ties he’ll have to upkeep with the British criminal underbelly. When the series was first released, it was clear that Ritchie had a strong vision in mind for the series. By mixing an aristocratic British drama with gangster chaos, the series became one of Netflix’s most unique crime shows. It’s almost as like the series blended genres, and found an unusual combination of Breaking Bad-style drug empire storytelling with Downton Abbey-style aristocratic family drama.

The success of the series is especially the case when considering the story’s first production, the 2020 movie by the same name starring Matthew McConaughey and Colin Farrell. While the film received a solid reception, the series turned the story up a notch, while allowing episodes enough time to cover its cast of characters, while still maintaining Ritchie’s signature pace. “The 2020 film features a vast ensemble of characters with multiple storylines running in tandem and often overlapping with one another, and as entertaining as it is, it’s sometimes a bit convoluted,” Nate Richard stated in his review for Season 1 of the series for Collider. “That isn’t the case with The Gentlemen, which is successfully able to play like the best kinds of British crime series packaged in Ritchie’s particular way of film-making.”

What Can Fans Expect From ‘The Gentlemen’ Season 2?

Season 2 of The Gentleman will be taking off one year after Eddie inherited his family estate and business, and sees him joining forces with Susie Glass (Kaya Scodelario) and her luxuriously incarcerated father, Bobby (Ray Winstone). With the new level of power, Eddie plans to up the ante, taking them from Halstead to the lakeside villas of Italy. Per Tudum, their journey across Europe will have them facing Marco Moretti (Sergio Castellitto), a powerful Italian crime boss who is “extremely ruthless and elegant,” and the mercurial fixer Cico Maldini (Michele Morrone). “[Cico] is the man they’re entrusting to help them navigate their criminal enterprise in Italy, but he’s not a man to be trusted,” Read said.

As Eddie and Susie face life-or-death deals, betrayals and ruthless pursuits of money and influence, their connection will be tested the most. “There is great connection between them,” Read told Tudum. “In order to deepen that connection, we threw a lot of obstacles at them, and yet their affection and connection always comes through that.” In addition to returning cast members from Season 1, including Daniel Ings, Joely Richardson, Vinnie Jones, Ruby Sear, Pearce Quigley, and Giancarlo Esposito, the second season will also welcome new faces. Among them are Castellitto, Morrone, Hugh Bonneville, Benjamin Clementine, Benedetta Porcaroli, Amra Mallassi, Tyler Conti, British professional boxer Chris Eubank Jr., and TV host and entrepreneur Maya Jama.

All that said, while there are still two weeks until the long-awaited second season of The Gentlemen drops on Netflix, it’s clear that the series will continue to be a hit on the platform. With an impressive ensemble of actors, a story that’s ever-expanding and a creator that’s so sharp and fast-paced that he has a signature flare, The Gentlemen Season 2 is already a must-watch in the making.

Advertisement

Release Date

2024 – 2026-00-00

Advertisement

Network

Netflix

Advertisement

Directors

David Caffrey, Guy Ritchie, Eran Creevy, Nima Nourizadeh

Writers

Advertisement

Stuart Carolan, Guy Ritchie, Matthew Read, Billy Mason Wood, Haleema Mirza

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement

Charles Melton and Camille Summers-Valli are seemingly husband and wife five months after they became parents.

Melton, 35, referred to Summers-Valli as his “wife” in a new interview with People, the outlet reported on Thursday, August 20.

Us reached out to reps for Melton for comment.

The Riverdale alum previously used the title to describe Summers-Valli in his Gold Gala speech in May, calling her “my partner, my fiancée, my wife, my girlfriend.”

Melton’s latest comment comes after he revealed in March that he and the director welcomed their first baby, a daughter whose name they have kept private.

Related: Madelyn Cline Reacts to Being Shipped With Charles Melton

Madelyn Cline has a one-word response to suggestions about who she should date next. In a Wednesday, March 19, Instagram post, celebrity gossip account DeuxMoi shared the results of fans playing matchmaker for single celebrities, including Cline, 27. According to the post, fans ship the Outer Banks star with Riverdale alum Charles Melton. Cline wasted […]

Advertisement

“Our family,” the actor wrote via Instagram alongside photos of himself with Summers-Valli, their baby and their dog.

Summers-Valli announced her pregnancy in December 2025, captioning a series of maternity photos via Instagram, “Making a lil family.”

The photos showed Melton kissing Summers-Valli’s bare baby bump and joining her at a doctor’s appointment.

Melton and Summers-Valli have kept the details of their relationship and their family under wraps. However, in December 2023, the Her Private Hell star gushed about his own father’s influence on his life.

“I love him. He was in the Army for 26-plus years,” he told the Los Angeles Times. “Four of those years, my dad was serving in the Gulf War [including] in Desert Storm.”

Related: Riverdale’ Cast’s Dating History Through the Years

Cole Sprouse, Lili Reinhart, Camila Mendes and Vanessa Morgan are among the Riverdale stars whose offscreen relationships have made headlines over the years. Reinhart and Sprouse won over fans as lovebirds Betty and Jughead on the CW drama, which premiered in January 2017. So viewers were ecstatic to discover the duo were a real-life couple when they […]

Advertisement

He continued, “He talked about family, responsibility. He [described] what a good man was, how a good man would love his family. He said many beautiful things — he was asking me to take care of my sisters and my mom while he’s away. I remember looking at my dad, kind of emotional, but I’m not going to [cry]. I felt, in that moment, that I had to be strong and show my father that I can do this. If I’m crying and begging him to stay, it’s not going to change the fact that he is going to go away for a year. Who knows what could have happened?”

Thank You!

You have successfully subscribed.

Before his romance with Summers-Valli, Melton dated his Riverdale costar Camila Mendes on and off from 2018 to 2021. He was also linked to Chase Sui Wonders in 2022 and Chloe Bennet in 2023.

“People need to mind their own f***ing business, honestly,” he told Hunger magazine in 2019 of the attention on his relationships. “I don’t have Twitter and it’s one of the reasons why I don’t read through all my comments on social media because people are always going to talk.”

He continued, “No matter what, people have always talked, even before this age of Instagram, but back then you were less inclined to hear about someone talking about you, and honestly it’s not their place to have any authority over my relationships. Not everyone is going to be a supporter or a fan of your relationship and people need to remember that opinions aren’t facts.”

Nothing beats getting to say you read it first, and lately Hollywood is making that easy. Streaming is snapping up mystery novels faster than bookstores can shelve them.

The mystery books below are all somewhere in the pipeline to your screen. A few are already filming with names attached, others have been freshly optioned by producers still playing coy about which streaming platform has bid how much for the rights. Do the reading now, and you’ll have earned the right to be smug about it later.

‘Count My Lies’ (2025)

Image via Gallery/Scout Press

Hulu is betting on a full Lindsay Lohan renaissance here, pairing her with Shailene Woodley as the dueling leads and slotting Kit Harington in as the husband caught between them. Running the show are Isaac Aptaker and Elizabeth Berger, the pair behind This Is Us, and Sophia Bush, Katherine LaNasa, and Lou Diamond Phillips fill out the rest of the cast.

The book itself is a nervy little con. Sloane is a compulsive liar who tells one small fib to a man in a park and slowly threads her way into the lives of a glossy Manhattan couple, Violet and Jay Lockhart, whose marriage turns out to be keeping a few secrets of its own. Everything rides on how much you can trust Sloane as a narrator, and since a screen version has to rebuild that effect from the ground up, you’ll want her voice in your head before anyone else gets their hands on it.

‘The God of the Woods’ (2024)

Image via Riverhead Books

It’s the summer of 1975, and a thirteen-year-old named Barbara Van Laar has vanished from her bunk at an exclusive Adirondacks camp. Worse, she’s the daughter of the family that owns the place, and her brother disappeared under eerily similar circumstances years before. Author Liz Moore weaves the campers, the counselors, the investigators, and the Van Laars themselves into one slowly tightening knot, until the real subject becomes how money decides which missing kids ever get a real search.

Netflix is well into this one. Moore is co-showrunning with The Post‘s Liz Hannah for Sony Pictures Television, and Maya Hawke leads as Judy Luptack, the region’s first woman investigator, backed by Kerry Condon, Tracy Letts, and John Gallagher Jr. Directors were locked in by the summer of 2026, even if the episode order still hasn’t been announced. Because Moore keeps folding her timeline back on itself, this is the kind of book you’ll be glad you mapped out for yourself before a series comes along to straighten it.

‘Darling Girls’ (2023)

Image via St. Martin’s Press

Three foster sisters, Jessica, Norah, and Alicia, grew up together on an Australian farm under a foster mother, Miss Fairchild, whose warmth could turn to ice with no warning. Years later, a body surfaces beneath the old farmhouse and a detective calls, dragging the sisters back toward the childhood they’d spent decades trying to leave behind.

This one’s still early days, though Made Up Stories, the shop behind Big Little Lies, has optioned it. So the domestic-suspense pedigree is there, but nobody’s been cast and no network is attached. That long runway is actually the case for reading it now, because Hepworth’s real gift is making everyday family cruelty feel like a genuine horror story.

‘Lioness’ (2023)

Image via Bloomsbury

If you’re after the literary pick of the group, this is it. Lioness took the 2024 Ockham, New Zealand’s top book prize, and it swaps the usual whodunit machinery for something slower and more unnerving. Therese has married into money and a powerful family, but once her property-developer husband gets tangled in corruption allegations, her polished life starts coming apart. Meanwhile, a free-spirited neighbor named Claire keeps nudging her toward a messier, more honest version of herself.

Made Up Stories snapped this up too, with The Mentalist‘s Simon Baker producing, though there’s no cast and no date. Nearly all of the novel’s charge is internal, living inside Therese’s quiet unraveling and her slow-building fury, so it’ll be interesting to see how a TV series translates that.

‘Here One Moment’ (2024)

Image via Penguin Random House

Advertisement

On a delayed domestic flight, an ordinary-looking woman gets up from her seat and calmly tells each passenger how old they’ll be when they die, and what will kill them. Then her predictions start coming true, one after another, and a plane full of strangers who’ve taken to calling her the Death Lady are left to decide how much of their lives to reorganize around someone they’ll never see again.

The Big Little Lies gang is back together for this one, too: Nicole Kidman is attached along with Moriarty and producer Bruna Papandrea. Moriarty uses that one flight as a way into a dozen different experiences, and the novel hands you all of them in full. That’s the kind of sprawl a limited series will need to find a way to squeeze in.

‘The Husbands’ (2024)

Image via Doubleday

Advertisement

Lauren comes home to her London flat and finds a husband she’s never laid eyes on. He wanders up into the attic, and a moment later, a different husband comes back down. As she gradually works out, the attic is quietly manufacturing an endless run of husbands, each one nudging her life into a slightly different direction. It’s a comedy with a sci-fi engine and real heartbreak humming underneath, all about the lives we never got around to choosing.

On the comedy side, this is the furthest along of the bunch. Apple TV has ordered eight episodes with A24. Ted Lasso‘s own Keeley Jones, Juno Temple, is set to star as Lauren. Succession writer Miriam Battye is adapting the novel, and Craig Gillespie is directing the UK shoot.

‘All We Ever Wanted’ (2018)

Image via Ballantine

Advertisement

Start with the names attached, because they set the tone here. Netflix has Reese Witherspoon and Harlan Coben running this thing, and that pairing all but guarantees something glossy and full of twists. The rights came together in late 2025, so it’s still early days, with nobody cast. The novel is the oldest title here, from 2018, and maybe the one most primed to blow up a group chat.

In moneyed Nashville, a prep-school boy snaps a humiliating photo of a classmate at a party and passes it around. The fallout lands hard on his image-obsessed mother, Nina, and on the girl’s working-class single dad, Tom. Giffin keeps handing the narration around between the adults and the teenage girl at the center, and the loyalties get a lot murkier as readers venture deeper into the complicated class structure framing the driving mystery.

‘The One That Got Away with Murder’ (2024)

Image via Henry Holt and Co.

Advertisement

This is the list’s lone YA entry, and it’s a fast read. Lauren transfers to a new Pennsylvania town hoping for a clean slate and falls for Robbie Crestmont, whose ex-girlfriend is dead. So is his brother’s ex. The whole town has already decided the two siblings did it, but Lauren would rather dig up the truth on her own. That plan starts out looking brave and turns reckless in a hurry.

Hulu has it in development with Tawnya Bhattacharya and Ali Laventhol writing, and no cast so far. It’s a propulsive weekend read. The ingredients — its teen-noir bones, a small town where everyone’s already sure how the story ends, and a girl determined to prove them wrong — are the exact stuff streaming loves to spend money promoting in the queue.

‘The Midnight Feast’ (2024)

Image via William Morrow

Advertisement

A wellness retreat called The Manor throws open its doors on the Dorset coast over the summer solstice, run by a serenity-peddling influencer whose land carries an ugly local history. Lucy Foley moves among a handful of narrators, circling an old friendship gone rotten and a current of folk-horror dread out past the treeline, until the final pages turn up a body nobody will claim.

Universal International Studios is developing it with producer Sue Naegle attached, and thanks to a Reese’s Book Club stamp, the audience is more or less already waiting. Foley builds these as precision whodunits with the point of view passing between potential killers, and half the fun is watching all the timelines click together yourself.

‘All the Sinners Bleed’ (2023)

Image via Flatiron Books

Advertisement

Save the heavyweight for last. S. A. Cosby is the most decorated novelist on this list, and All the Sinners Bleed is peak S. A. Cosby. Titus Crown, the first Black sheriff of a small Virginia county, hunts a serial killer while the town’s buried racism keeps surfacing all around him. The plot is a bit pulpy, but nothing about the writing is. It’s also the most locked-in series of the group.

Netflix has ordered nine episodes with Black Panther‘s Joe Robert Cole showrunning. Ṣọpẹ́ Dìrísù plays Titus and Nicole Beharie, Giancarlo Esposito, and Murray Bartlett round out the county around him. The show was filmed in Georgia with Hans Zimmer‘s team on the score. Of everything on this list, this is the one most likely to leave you open-mouthed by the end.

The ABC police procedural, The Rookie, is one of the most beloved shows on television at the moment. In recent times, the crime drama scored a major streaming win, as the show has amassed 12.817 billion minutes viewed between January and June 2026, according to Nielsen’s streaming data. Following on from one of ABC’s biggest finales with The Rookie Season 8, the series secured an early Season 9 renewal in April as we look forward to its return later next year. With well over 140 episodes of the show available, The Rookie has demonstrated incredible staying power even as the show looks towards further expansion.

The Rookie: North will serve as the second spin-off of the franchise, looking to succeed where its predecessor, the first short-lived offshoot back in 2022, The Rookie: Feds, which was cancelled after only one season, didn’t. Feds followed Special Agent Simone Clarke (Niecy Nash), the oldest rookie in the FBI Academy, but unlike the original series, the offshoot failed to impress. Last year, ABC decided to try again, officially handing out a pilot order for a new spin-off, with extensive work ongoing behind the scenes since then. The Rookie: North will follow a middle-aged man who joins the Pierce County Police Department as its oldest rookie after a traumatic home invasion. Insecure and Top Gun: Maverick star Jay Ellis was, in November 2025, announced to have been cast in the series’ lead role as prospective rookie cop Alex Holland.

Since then, the series has worked to fill out its call sheet, adding Stranger Things favorite and This is Us alum Chris Sullivan to the cast as well. Froy Gutierrez (I Love LA), Janet Montgomery (New Amsterdam), Karen Fukuhara (The Boys), Mya Lowe (My Life with the Walter Boys), and Malik Watson were brought onboard in April 2026. Now, the show, which is set to premiere in 2027, has gone to bolster its ranks once more. According to Deadline, The Night Agent‘s Curtis Lum has been added to the cast in a recurring role. Lum is set to recur as Officer Charley Furst, a cheerful and relaxed officer who has a reputation for always finding the path of least resistance when it comes to the job.

Who Is Behind ABC’s ‘The Rookie: North’?

The Rookie creator, Alexi Hawley, returns to write and direct the series, which has Mark Gordon, Bill Norcross, and Michelle Chapman also executive producing. While still leading the original series as John Nolan, Nathan Fillion will also serve as executive producer on the new series, with series star Ellis serving as producer. Hopes are high for The Rookie: North, and while speaking with Collider’s Steven Weintraub at San Diego Comic-Con, series creator Hawley heightened it, teasing that a crossover with the upcoming spin-off is already being discussed, which would mark the franchise’s first crossover since The Rookie: Feds.

“There might be one in the works, for sure. We started shooting Season 9 on Tuesday, this last week. We start shooting North in a few weeks, early August, so we’re already into scripts on everything, obviously. There are some thoughts being put to who might go north or come south or both.”

The Rookie streams on Hulu. Stay tuned to Collider for future updates.

Advertisement

Release Date

Advertisement

October 16, 2018

Showrunner

Alexi Hawley

Advertisement

Directors

Tori Garrett, Chi-Yoon Chung, Michael Goi, Sylvain White, Lisa Demaine, Lanre Olabisi, Bill Johnson, David McWhirter, Liz Friedlander, Daniel Willis, Toa Fraser, Anne Renton, Jon Huertas, Cherie Nowlan, TK Shom, Rob Seidenglanz, Valerie Weiss, Barbara Brown, Charissa Sanjarernsuithikul, SJ Main Muñoz, Nelson McCormick, Marcus Stokes, Adam Davidson, Anna Mastro

Writers

Advertisement

Corey Miller, Bill Rinier, Zoe Cheng, Mary Trahan, Ally Seibert, Liz Alper, Nick Hurwitz, Racheal Seymour, Madeleine Coghlan, David Radcliff

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement

Despite being a celebrated comedian and popular character actor for almost the entirety of his career, Bob Odenkirk somehow transformed into an action star in the 2020s. It started with Nobody, a 2020 film written by John Wick creator Derek Kolstad, where he starred as a former assassin who becomes a family man. It was an interesting gimmick to see someone like Odenkirk, who wasn’t typically associated with the genre, star in a fast-paced, violent revenge thriller with some dark comedy sprinkled in, but his performance was so good that it became more than just a one-off. While Nobody did get a sequel, Normal was a different type of action vehicle for Odenkirk that satirizes small town communities in the style of Fargo.

Odenkirk stars as Ulysses, the new Sheriff of the town of Normal, Minnesota, which appears at first to be a run-of-the-mill small community where not much happens. Although Ulysses finds it strange how unwilling Mayor Kibner (Henry Winkler) is to give out any sort of specific details about the town, his suspicions are heightened when a botched robbery at a local bank turns into a coverup. Normal is the perfect “one-man army” thriller about a lone lawman doing his best to face off with a corrupt institution, and director Ben Wheatley’s background in horror ensures that it’s pulpy and gory enough to stand out amongst other John Wick imitators.

‘Normal’ Is an All-Out Action Bonanza

Normal works because it creates an underdog story that is not entirely implausible; it is explained that Ulysses is a veteran law enforcement officer who has become insular and lonely, which is why he is assigned to a post in the middle of nowhere. He’s seemingly someone that the residents of Normal don’t have to worry about because of how ineffective he is, but Ulysses immediately starts causing problems when he tries to show enthusiasm about his position and actually do his job. It’s an effective piece of commentary on how small communities can become closed-off to insiders, presenting hostility to anyone who tries to enter it.

Since Ulysses isn’t aware of the secret history of Normal, he is caught off-guard when a small crime becomes part of a massive conspiracy that involves international syndicates and smuggling operations. It’s again a scenario that makes some sense; since Normal is the last place that anyone would expect to be the centerpiece to be a criminal treasure trove, it has managed to avoid being snuffed out by authorities and rival gangs for generations.

Normal is another smart screenplay from Kolstad because it is well-paced and offers just the right amount of information to get the viewer intrigued about the broader world that it is set within. In John Wick, there are details about the Continental that hint at the underworld of assassins that operate behind closed doors, and Nobody is able to offer similarly intriguing clues about the protagonist’s backstory and how he came to be a covert, highly-trained killer. In Normal, the idiosyncrasies within the town all point to a secret that connects all the residents, which puts Ulysses at an even greater disadvantage when they determine that he knows too much to stay alive. It’s a perfect film of escalation, as the action gradually gets more extreme as more citizens are drawn into the bloodshed and the conspirators begin to suspect that their closely-guarded stashhouse is at risk of being discovered by the most unlikely of investigators.

‘Normal’ Has a Dark and Quirky Sense of Humor

Normal has a compelling hook because Ulysses is brought in as a replacement for a previous Sheriff who was killed after he learned too much, which makes his mission to take down the town official feel more like a quest of vengeance. While eliminating the criminals is just an abstract concept that is not necessarily emotionally affecting, it’s set up that by exposing this secret, Ulysses will stop other sheriffs from being sucked into the conspiracy, allowing anyone else trapped in the town to leave. There’s also an emotional component to the story involving the character of Alex Gunderson (Jess McLeod), the daughter of the previous sheriff, who teams up with Ulysses to get vengeance. Although it would have been very easy for this to feel like a cheesy and unnecessary subplot, Odenkirk is such an inherently likable actor that he’s able to make the surrogate paternal relationship feel completely sincere and much more emotional than it had any right to be.

Normal is proof that there’s room for creative action films done on a small scale, as it benefits from being shot with practical stunts on real locations with authentic makeup and gore effects, which are surely a result of Wheatley’s directorial touch. Given how many post-John Wick action films feel like complete copycats of the original 2014 masterpiece, it’s nice to see something like Normal that draws from a wider variety of influences, as there are a lot of similarities between Ulysses and Odenkirk’s character from the first season of FX’s Fargo. While no one would have expected that Odenkirk would become an action star after a near-fatal heart attack and an acclaimed run on one of the most beloved drama shows of the 21st century, it is an exciting new chapter that Normal helps solidify as being far more than just a one-off experiment.

Advertisement

Normal

Advertisement

Release Date

Advertisement

April 16, 2026

Runtime

91 minutes

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement

Bloated days have a funny way of making even your most reliable work tops feel like the enemy. But Elisabeth Moss just made a strong case for swapping anything clingy or restrictive for a loose, silky button-down that still looks completely polished — and we found a similar style on Amazon for just $24.

Moss was spotted in New York City on August 17, 2026, wearing a light blue satin button-down with matching trousers, white sneakers and a roomy black tote. The fluid shirt skimmed over her frame rather than hugging it, while the monochromatic blue pairing made the entire outfit feel elevated and office-ready.

Get the Damipow Long Sleeve Satin Button Down Shirt for just $24 (Was $32) at Amazon! Please note, prices are accurate at the date of publication, August 20, 2026, but are subject to change.

While we couldn’t track down Moss’ exact shirt, the Damipow Satin Button-Down Shirt on Amazon delivers a remarkably similar look for $24. The soft blue shade channels her outfit, but it also comes in black, champagne, burgundy and plenty of other versatile colors.

Related: Isla Fisher’s Romantic Floral Dress Is an End-of-Summer Dream

Advertisement

Consider this your sign to squeeze a few more romantic dresses into your wardrobe before summer slips away. Isla Fisher made the case for a dreamy floral maxi that works for everything from date nights to late-summer weddings, and we found a similar style on Amazon for $64. Fisher was spotted in New York City […]

Made from wrinkle-free satin with fine stitching, the blouse has a loose, flowy fit that leaves plenty of breathing room around the midsection. It comes in sizes S through 3X and can easily be tucked into tailored trousers.

More than 700 shoppers have given the shirt a five-star rating, with one buyer calling it “really flattering” thanks to “just that perfect drape” that “lays nicely on the body.” Another customer said it’s “easy to dress up or down” and “works for both the office and more casual outings.”

Consider Moss’ outfit permission to retire the tight work tops on days when bloating strikes. For $24, this loose satin blouse delivers the polished look of office wear with a forgiving, easy fit you’ll actually want to sit in for eight hours.

Shop more blue satin button-downs that we love:

Not your style? Explore more satin button downs here and don’t forget to check out all of Amazon’s Daily Deals for more great finds!

UsNow Summer Sale Alert: These Chic Fashion Finds are over 30% off – Plus Free Shipping

Welcome to summer with our biggest sale of the year. This summer’s chicest dresses, tops and swimsuits are all over 30% + free shipping. Inventory is limited so hurry before they’re gone.

Shop the UsNow Summer Sale –>

Related: Vanessa Hudgens’ Sparkly Date Night Bag Has a $24 Lookalike

Advertisement

Vanessa Hudgens found an accessory that can make even the simplest fall date night outfit feel instantly more glamorous. A sparkly silver bag adds just enough shimmer to jeans and a cute top, a little black dress or even a cozy sweater-and-skirt combo. And while her version looks seriously luxe, you can recreate the vibe […]

Shia LaBeouf has made a surprising admission about his relationship with alcohol months after insisting that drinking was not the real problem behind his latest legal troubles.

The “Transformers” star reportedly told authorities that he currently drinks alcohol every day while serving probation stemming from his chaotic New Orleans Mardi Gras bar brawl.

The revelation comes as LaBeouf continues completing court-ordered treatment and months after he questioned whether rehab could actually help him, creating a striking contrast with what he previously said about his struggles.

4

LaBeouf’s latest update emerged as authorities reviewed his progress following his guilty plea in the criminal case stemming from his February arrest.

According to court documents obtained by TMZ, the 40-year-old has remained compliant with his probation requirements and continues checking in with his probation supervisor.

The actor has also provided documentation indicating that he is expected to complete anger management and substance abuse treatment by September.

However, another detail in the filing stood out. LaBeouf reportedly self-reported that he “drinks alcohol daily” and declined mental health treatment.

The admission comes while the actor remains under two years of probation following his guilty plea to three counts of simple battery stemming from the New Orleans incident.

LaBeouf is scheduled for another court hearing on September 23, although the documents reportedly state that he will not attend in person because he is working on a film.

The Actor Previously Denied Having A ‘Drinking Problem’

LaBeouf’s admission is particularly notable because of how differently he characterized his relationship with alcohol following his arrest.

Shortly after the February incident, the actor sat down with journalist Andrew Callaghan and pushed back against suggestions that drinking was at the root of his behavior.

As The Blast previously reported, LaBeouf questioned whether he needed rehab and suggested that his problems were more closely connected to his anger and ego.

The actor acknowledged that he had been drinking during the chaotic Mardi Gras period but resisted framing alcohol as the underlying issue.

Instead, he spoke about confronting his insecurities and aggressive tendencies, while expressing doubts that rehabilitation would address what he believed was actually driving his behavior.

Those comments now stand in sharp contrast to the latest court filing.

Shia LaBeouf’s Mardi Gras Bar Brawl Led To Two Years Of Probation

4

The legal consequences LaBeouf is currently navigating stem from a turbulent Mardi Gras period in New Orleans.

As The Blast reported at the time, witnesses claimed the actor had been moving between bars before becoming involved in confrontations that ultimately brought police into the situation.

Video from one encounter showed a shirtless LaBeouf outside a bar during an altercation.

Police subsequently accused him of physically attacking multiple people, while reports from the incident also alleged that he repeatedly used homophobic slurs.

LaBeouf eventually pleaded guilty in June to three counts of simple battery.

He received a six-month suspended sentence and two years of probation, along with requirements that included substance abuse rehabilitation and anger management. He was also ordered to stay away from the victims and the establishment connected to the incident.

His attorney previously said LaBeouf wanted to accept responsibility for his role in what happened while characterizing the confrontation as a “minor Mardi Gras bar tussle.”

LaBeouf Was Seen Drinking Shortly After His Arrest

4

LaBeouf’s relationship with alcohol had already drawn attention almost immediately after the February arrest.

The Blast reported that the actor was photographed drinking beer only hours after being released from jail.

The images showed LaBeouf returning to the Mardi Gras celebrations after spending the night behind bars.

His decision to drink so soon after the arrest raised questions at the time about whether the incident would cause him to reconsider his relationship with alcohol.

The concerns were especially notable given LaBeouf’s previous public discussions about sobriety and addiction.

Years earlier, the actor had spoken about achieving more than 600 days of sobriety, making his return to drinking another dramatic turn in a recovery journey that has repeatedly played out in public.

Mia Goth Was Reportedly Concerned About Shia LaBeouf’s Drinking

4

LaBeouf’s alcohol use also reportedly became a source of concern for people closest to him.

Following his New Orleans arrest, reports claimed his estranged wife, Mia Goth, had urged the actor to seek treatment.

According to previous reporting highlighted on The Blast, Goth was said to be deeply concerned about LaBeouf following the Mardi Gras chaos and reportedly wanted him to enter rehabilitation to address his drinking.

The former couple, who share daughter Isabel, had already separated before his latest legal troubles became public.

LaBeouf subsequently turned toward his Catholic faith amid the fallout, as he was spotted visiting churches around New Orleans shortly after his arrest.

However, his latest disclosure indicates that alcohol remains present in his life even as he works through the legal and treatment requirements imposed following the altercation.

Matt Damon lit up theater screens this summer with The Odyssey, Christopher Nolan’s spectacular retelling of the Greek epic poem that saw him fighting giants, facing off with witches, and taking part in vast battles. If you go back to the beginning of his career, however, the actor made his name on a much smaller canvas.

Now available to stream for free on Pluto, Rounders is a 1998 thriller set in the world of underground poker that is a million miles away from the Trojan War, but offers its own unique brand of excitement. Released just a year after Damon’s breakthrough with Good Will Hunting, co-stars Edward Norton and John Malkovich help portray a world where wits will always triumph over muscle.

‘Rounders’ Sees Matt Damon Play a Card Shark in Troubled Waters

Image via Miramax

‘Rounders’ refers to people who travel between cities looking for high-stakes poker games, and focuses on one “rounder,” Mike McDermott (Damon). He’s a young New York City law student whose aptitude with his studies is outmatched only by his talent for playing poker. Chasing higher winnings at each table, his confidence is rocked when he loses his entire bankroll to Teddy “KGB” (Malkovich), which prompts him to promise to his girlfriend (Gretchen Mol) that he will give up gambling and focus on his degree. However, when his childhood friend Worm (Norton) is released from prison and runs into some serious debts, Mike must go back to the table to save both of them, a path that leads him back to his old nemesis.

A moderate box office hit at the time, the film’s reputation took off in the early 2000s thanks to the rise in popularity of poker and interest in the game’s strategies. There have been many stories based around the gaming table since then, but few capture the unfiltered thrill of those who need to know when to hold ‘em or fold ‘em.

Matt Damon’s Taut Thriller Shows You Don’t Need Effects to Be Gripping

Custom Image by Zanda Rice 

For a generation, cinema audiences have been used to conflict coming from alien invasions, Earth-ending weapons, or zombie apocalypses. Rounders echoes a time when the entire fate of the story relied instead on the protagonist’s next decision. The psychological stakes are what makes the film so compelling, as we see whether Mike can stay away from the thrill of the chase, avoid retribution from criminals, and save his relationship. They’re small, individual stakes in the grand scheme of things, but handled with deft storytelling by director John Dahl, who takes the skeleton of a sports movie and applies it to the world of gambling. We are following a personal journey of skill and redemption, with opponents who make the sedentary nature of the game more exciting.

This is coupled with performances that make those face-offs matter. Damon and Norton are volatile but bonded friends who are polar opposites but somehow inseparable. Mike is a decent man with a talent and competitive edge that pulls him into trouble. Worm is, in essence, the personification of those demons – charming, manipulative, and uncontrollable, he represents all the shadows Mike is trying to evade. It is a movie about psychology, weakness, and personalities. One of those personalities, however, stands out from the rest…

John Malkovich’s Performance is Like Nothing Else You’ve Seen Before.

Amid the double bluffs and all-in calls is the film’s secret weapon – antagonist Teddy “KGB,” played unforgettably by John Malkovich. Sporting a red sports jacket over a garish button-down shirt, there is not a drop of subtlety in the performance. His Russian accent is a continuing point of discussion, with exaggerated pronunciation and erratic volume (he would later describe it in an interview with GQ as “a decision to, as they say, ‘go big or go home’”). In a film where keeping your cool is a tool of the trade, he lashes out in fits of temper, goads his opponents, and makes himself as big as possible.

He is the antithesis of what you would expect from a movie set at a poker table, and yet that is precisely what makes his performance work. He exists as a supervillain in Mike’s world, grandstanding to the point where finding a “tell” would be pointless, because every emotion is so close to the surface. He is the perfect foil for our calculated hero, providing most of the movie’s landmark moments in a role that stands as an outlier in his career of quiet, intense characters.

Rounders may never have the broad popularity of Bourne, Oceans 11, or Damon’s latest hit, The Odyssey. However, it is a wildly entertaining early role in his career which finds him somewhere in between his dramatic and action-based roles. For devotees of the actor’s on-screen charisma and quiet presence, it’s a movie you’ll definitely want to gamble on.

Advertisement

Advertisement

Release Date

September 11, 1998

Runtime

Advertisement

121 minutes

Director

John Dahl

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement

Taylor Sheridan is responsible for many of the most talked-about shows from the last several years. This includes “Yellowstone,” “Land Man,” and more recently, “Marshalls” and “Dutton Ranch,” both of which are soon returning for their respective second seasons. However, the TV mastermind recently opened up about his life before fame, revealing he was homeless for a time.

5

Sheridan was interviewed by Town & Country in August 2026, discussing everything from his work as a television producer to his time as an actor, appearing on shows like “Sons of Anarchy.” During the interview, he became vulnerable and stated that he was homeless at times before breaking into the industry.

According to him, “I was homeless twice. I lived in my car.” The “Yellowstone” creator then shared that Ojai, California, was a popular location for him as it was “somewhere where I could safely sleep.” He continued, “I did that for six months. I could have decided at any point, ‘I’m going to go get a full-time job, and I’m going to give up this dream.’ And I chose to sleep in my car over that.” 

Taylor Also Opened Up About Later Buying Land

5

Sheridan didn’t go into detail about which point in his career included the two-month experience with homelessness. However, it should be noted that he began his career in the mid-1990s, landing his first credited role on “Walker, Texas Ranger.”

After that, he did a series of guest TV appearances in shows like “Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman,” “Party of Five,” and “NYPD Blue.” Later, he landed his first recurring role in “Veronica Mars.” He then turned to writing around 2010.

During his Town & Country interview, Sheridan discussed buying land after the success of 2012’s “Hell or High Water.” He said, “When I sold that first screenplay, I bought a little house on an acre on a river in Wyoming.”

Taylor Sheridan Is Now Among The Biggest Landowners In Texas

5

Years after his time using his vehicle for shelter and then buying land in Wyoming, Sheridan, via his investment group, finalized the purchase of the historic 6666 Ranch in January 2022. This came after a deal was initially reached in May 2021. According to The Land Report, the property consists of 267,000 acres, making him among the top 50 landowners in Texas.

Notably, CBS Viacom, now Paramount, announced plans in 2021 for a “Yellowstone” spin-off series set at the 6666 Ranch. However, in 2026, during a “Rodeo Time” podcast episode, Sheridan stated that there wouldn’t be a spin-off set at the ranch, despite the studio’s previous investor call announcement.

He said, “There’s never going to be one. I would never fictionalize that ranch. People thought that that was going to be a thing, but I would never do that.”

Regarding why fans won’t see the spin-off series, Sheridan explained, “So now I’m trivializing and fictionalizing something where real people work, and they raise their families there, and I could never do that to them.”

He continued, “I could never do that to the cowboys that dedicated themselves, and everybody that works on that ranch. I’m very protective of the Sixes, and it’s a big responsibility to be the person who has to protect that ranch, so I have to be very, very careful with it.”

The ‘Yellowstone’ Legacy Continues

5

“Yellowstone” ended in 2024, and two years later, in 2026, two new spin-offs of the beloved series premiered. The first, “Marshalls,” premiered on CBS in March. According to Deadline, the series premiere garnered 9.52 million viewers, marking the network’s first non-NFL broadcast since “FBI” in 2018.

Then, in May 2026, Paramount+ premiered “Dutton Ranch.” According to Deadline, the series was watched by 12.9 million people across its first seven days on the platform, becoming Paramount+’s biggest original series.

Taylor Sheridan Is Leaving Paramount

5

Most of Sheridan’s creative output has come from his partnership with Paramount. However, in October 2025, Puck News announced that he had signed a deal to leave Paramount for NBCUniversal. Per reporting from The Wrap, the film portion of his contract begins in 2026.

However, he remains under contract with Paramount until 2028 for television projects. The rest of his NBCUniversal contract will go into effect on January 1, 2029.

Neo-noirs have had an interesting journey over the decades, continuing the traditions of the classic noirs, sometimes adding unique aesthetics or contemporary elements, or acting as full homages. They began in earnest in the ’60s, with films that could take advantage of the dying production code with more explicit violence or sexuality, like Point Blank. The ’70s had several quintessential neo-noirs that ranged from contemporary subversions of the form, like The Long Goodbye or Taxi Driver, to full period pieces, like Chinatown. The ’80s brought neon aesthetics into the mix through traditional narratives, like Blood Simple, and others, like science fiction.

The biggest boom neo-noir ever had would come in the ’90s, when both new indie and established studio filmmakers would venture into it. Lists of ’90s neo-noirs can fluctuate in length depending on how generous, or stingy, we are with the criteria. It is nothing if not a messy genre, and while there are some films that have been definitively categorized as such, there are many more that inspire debate. If there’s enough in a film to be considered heavily influenced by noir, then it’s good enough to qualify here. It’s hard to limit the greatest of the ’90s neo-noirs to a list of only ten movies, especially when certain filmmakers contributed more than one classic, but these ten are hard to deny.

10

‘Bound’ (1996)

Image via Gramercy Pictures

Of the many directors who debuted in the ’90s with a neo-noir, the one that stood out due to its sexuality and LGBTQ themes was The Wachowskis‘ Bound. With two female protagonists who engage in a sexual relationship, the film not only featured elements of sexuality that classic noirs could only ambiguously suggest, but showcased them in a far more nuanced context than the way queer-coding was often used as shorthand for depravity. The explicitness of the sex scenes almost earned it a ridiculous NC-17 rating before the Wachowskis made a few cuts, showing just how close-minded the ratings board still was.

Violet (Jennifer Tilly) is dating Caesar (Joe Pantoliano), who launders money for the mob, and Corky (Gina Gershon) is an ex-convict who works in the apartment next door. Corky and Violet begin a relationship and soon plot to steal some mob money and let Caesar take the fall. The best-laid plan, of course, takes some nasty twists and turns as is expected in any proper neo-noir, and there’s plenty of style in the film. The cinematography by Bill Pope, who would later shoot The Matrix films, gives it real production value on its tight budget with fluid camera moves and stark lighting. Thanks to the later successes of the directors, in addition to the added context their gender transitions gave to the film’s already growing status in the LGBTQ film community, Bound has earned a proper following as a unique neo-noir.

9

‘Lost Highway’ (1997)

Image via October Films

Long considered one of David Lynch‘s lesser efforts, Lost Highway has undergone a reappraisal by both fans and critics. Its surreal style made it a hard sell even for some die-hard Lynch fans, similar to films of the director’s that were equally divisive, like Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me. After the success of Mulholland Drive, Lost Highway began to attract more attention, with many praising its mix of noir and horror elements. Even if its narrative doesn’t follow a straight line and operates better in terms of tone and vibe, Lost Highway features some of the most incredible imagery in Lynch’s filmography, rewarding repeat viewings.

The film centers on a man named Fred (Bill Pullman) who begins to receive cryptic, vaguely threatening VHS tapes before experiencing bizarre events and later transforming into a different protagonist named Pete (Balthazar Getty). There’s a lot to try and unpack in Lynch’s film, which he has left up to interpretation, the same as most of his work. Everyone is bound to come up with unique answers to the film’s plot and meaning. Even if some people don’t respond to Lost Highway with any real interest, it’s still a distinct neo-noir horror film worth experiencing at least once.

8

‘Hard Eight’ (1996)

Image via The Samuel Goldwyn Company

Paul Thomas Anderson‘s Hard Eight isn’t nearly as complex as some of his later films but is just as engaging. It’s a small-stakes crime film about small-time criminals and gamblers that makes the most of its Nevada locations and a rare leading role for Philip Baker Hall. The film was an expansion of Anderson’s short film Cigarettes & Coffee, which also featured Hall as the character Sydney. Anderson’s film is a tribute to the kinds of characters that often appeared on the fringes of cinematic crime stories, and it gives the spotlight to an actor who often occupied supporting roles.

Sydney (Hall) is a gambler who takes a downtrodden man named John (John C. Reilly) under his wing and forms a fatherly bond with him. After John falls in love with cocktail waitress Clementine (Gwyneth Paltrow), they find themselves in trouble and Sydney’s attempts to help them leave him exposed to the dangerous Jimmy (Samuel L. Jackson). Hard Eight may appear minor compared to Anderson’s most acclaimed films, but it’s an impressive and assured debut and addition to the dusty pantheon of desert noirs.

7

‘Fallen Angels’ (1995)

Image via Jet Tone Productions

As a companion piece to Chungking Express, Wong Kar-wai‘s Fallen Angels trades the bright, energetic pop visuals of that film for a darker, moodier aesthetic befitting a neo-noir. The film, originally intended to be the third story featured in Chungking Express, was expanded into its own loose narrative while still featuring the same themes of loneliness, love and alienation, explored through two intersecting narratives of a lovesick hitman and a mute ex-convict. With a distinct, distorted style thanks to cinematographer Christopher Doyle‘s use of extreme wide-angle lenses, the film is one of the most visually distinct of all ’90s neo-noirs, with an allure all its own.

Wong (Leon Lai) is a hitman looking to leave his life of killing behind. His Partner (Michele Reis) is growing increasingly infatuated with him. Blondie (Karen Mok) is the woman Wong forms a strange attachment with. Ho (Takeshi Kaneshiro) is an ex-con who runs a strange hustle, breaking into businesses at night and intimidating customers. Charlie (Charlie Yeung) is the lovesick woman he falls for. These characters don’t so much collide with one another as they drift in and out of each other’s lives. The dream, or better yet, nightmare-like quality of Fallen Angels and its indulgent visuals have made it a more difficult film for fans to enjoy, but it’s just as emotionally resonant in a very different, gloomier fashion.

6

‘The Last Seduction’ (1994)

Image via October Films

John Dahl was essential to the ’90s neo-noir boom. After his directorial debut Kill Me Again in 1989, he followed it up with the neo-Western neo-noir crime film Red Rock West, and then with his greatest film, The Last Seduction. It features an iconic turn by Linda Fiorentino, who was rudely denied an Oscar nomination due to an inane ineligibility rule regarding the film’s premiere on HBO before its theatrical release. Despite the snub, Fiorentino is still considered among the most quintessential femme fatales of any noir, and the film itself is an erotic neo-thriller worthy of her talents.

Bridget (Fiorentino) is a calculating telemarketing manager living in New York City with an abusive physician husband who’s just made six figures selling pharmaceutical cocaine to some drug dealers. Bridget steals the money and ends up in a small town upstate where she begins a relationship with Mike (Peter Berg) as a means to meet her own conniving end. The character is a villainess that the movie makes no apologies for. The Last Seduction was developed to be a lurid thriller meant for late-night viewing, and while it has all the requisite elements, it’s also elevated by the efforts of its cast and crew.

5

‘Devil in a Blue Dress’ (1995)

Image via TriStar Pictures

Carl Franklin directed two of the best and most underrated neo-noirs of the ’90s. The first was the seedy, small-town thriller One False Move, which examined systemic racism through a modern context and juxtaposition of urban and rural attitudes. His second explored those themes even deeper with the ’40s-set Los Angeles noir Devil in a Blue Dress. Based on the novel of the same name by Walter Mosley, which introduced the hard-boiled detective character Easy Rawlins, it’s a crying shame that there were never any sequels adapted from the later novels. An equal shame is that Franklin has been absent from directing any feature films for over two decades as well.

Looking for work, Rawlins (Denzel Washington) takes a job to track down a missing white woman named Daphne (Jennifer Beals). What he finds is a tangled plot of political corruption, blackmail and racial prejudice. A major theme of both of Franklin’s ’90s neo-noirs is race and reckoning with its history in America and within the subgenre itself. While often left underexplored in the predominantly white classic noirs, race is an undercurrent in many ’90s neo-noirs, and more pronounced in others like Deep Cover. Franklin offers the most nuance to the theme in his two films, and Devil in a Blue Dress is his neo-noir masterpiece.

4

‘The Grifters’ (1990)

Image via Miramax Films

Of all the ’90s neo-noirs, The Grifters may be the one that feels the closest in true spirit to the classic form of the genre. While its color visuals are bathed in the sunlight, its time period is a nebulous mix of classic and contemporary styles, and the script, adapted by crime writer Donald E. Westlake from Jim Thompson‘s pulp novel, is just as acidic as you’d expect it to be. Elmer Bernstein‘s fantastic score also evokes the classics. Produced by Martin Scorsese and directed by Stephen Frears, The Grifters is the best adaptation of a Thompson novel, capturing the author’s American-brand cynicism perfectly.

The film follows a trio of con artists: the seasoned professional Lilly (Anjelica Huston), her hustler son Roy (John Cusack), and his grifting girlfriend Myra (Annette Bening). The conflicts between the three drive the film from capers to killings, ending in a bloody climax befitting a noir. The three actors are all perfect in their roles, with both Bening and Huston receiving well-deserved Oscar nominations. The Grifters was one of the earliest neo-noirs of the ’90s, and it set the proper tone for others to follow.

3

‘L.A. Confidential’ (1997)

Image via Warner Bros.

Based on a more contemporary crime novel by James Ellroy, the third in his famous L.A. Quartet, L.A. Confidential offers a streamlined, cut-down version of its source material’s plot, but is nonetheless a perfect piece of pulpy entertainment. Curtis Hanson, who had previously directed genre thrillers like The River Wild and The Hand That Rocks the Cradle, leveled up to blockbuster status with a script by fellow B-movie stalwart Brian Helgeland, and a tremendous cast of rising stars and veteran performers. A cop thriller where the cops are just as dirty, or often dirtier, than the criminals they arrest, L.A. Confidential was the quintessential studio neo-noir of the ’90s.

In the City of Angels, after a violent scandal and an even more violent massacre in a diner, detectives Ed Exley (Guy Pearce), Bud White (Russell Crowe) and Jack Vincennes (Kevin Spacey) find themselves drawn into an ever-expanding web of drugs, sex, corruption and murder. It’s a classic noir crime story, but infused with the rampant bigotry and misogyny of its 1950s setting. The novel was even more cutting, but even with some sanded edges, Hanson’s film version can still manage to draw blood. The actors are all exemplary, with Kim Basinger making a major comeback with her Oscar-winning performance that gives a modern interpretation of the classic femme fatale.

2

‘Pulp Fiction’ (1994)

Image via Miramax Films

Pulp Fiction was a cultural phenomenon that inspired dozens of imitators that all fell under the label of Quentin Tarantino-esque. The director’s distinct style, bearing the plot hallmarks of classic noir but also inspired by ’70s exploitation and a host of other film movements, is a cinematic universe unto itself, where the characters are all as film-literate as the screenwriter behind their dialogue, and where genre elements collide in often non-linear fashion, moving beyond something of pure pastiche or homage. It’s so distinct that Pulp Fiction isn’t always considered a true neo-noir, but its influences, and its influence, are too pronounced to exclude it.

Following disparate stock characters filtered through the manic cinephile minds of Tarantino and co-writer Roger Avary, the film is a kaleidoscope of crime stories. Hitman Vincent (John Travolta) takes his gangster boss’ wife, Mia (Uma Thurman), out to dinner, while his boss Marsellus (Ving Rhames) gets more than he bargained for trying to take down boxer Butch (Bruce Willis). Also, Vincent and Jules (Samuel L. Jackson) have to deal with a headless dead body. The actors are all perfectly cast, and they recite the Oscar-winning screenplay’s quotable dialogue with plenty of wicked wit. Pulp Fiction is Tarantino’s defining film, and a hell of a neo-noir.

1

‘Fargo’ (1996)

Image via Gramercy Pictures

The Coen Brothers‘ career is littered with neo-noirs, starting with their very first film, Blood Simple. The trend continued through the nineties, with masterpieces like the Dashiell Hammett homage Miller’s Crossing and the Raymond Chandler parody The Big Lebowski. The neo-noir without a clear literary progenitor, and which could be considered the most essential film of the directors’ filmography, is the chilly Midwest comic crime thriller Fargo. Just as Tarantino carved out his distinct slice of noir, the Coens also cut their cold-hearted subcategory where Midwestern nice meets hard-bitten criminals.

Jerry Lundegaard (William H. Macy) has a hair-brained scheme to pay two criminals to kidnap his wife and steal the ransom money from his father-in-law. Of course, things get complicated, and the bodies that pile up get the attention of police chief Marge Gunderson (Frances McDormand). Fargo is a neo-noir that delivers just as many awkward laughs as it does cold chills, vacillating between perfect moments of character-driven humor and shocking bits of bloody violence. From its snowy setting to its regional dialects, Fargo stands out among the best ’90s neo-noirs.