Crime film

A film centered on criminal acts, their perpetrators, investigations, or consequences. Its stories often examine how crime reshapes power, loyalty, justice, and social order.

Film noir: A style of crime film marked by moral ambiguity, urban settings, and shadowed visual design. Its fatalism and visual language shaped many crime-film conventions.
The Public Enemy: A 1931 American gangster film directed by William A. Wellman and starring James Cagney. Its rise-and-fall portrait helped establish the classic gangster film.
The Great Train Robbery: A 1903 American silent short film depicting a train robbery and its pursuit. Its staged robbery and chase anticipate crime cinema's action-driven plots.
The Sting: A 1973 caper film about two con artists seeking revenge on a crime boss. Its playful deception contrasts with the genre's usual violence and fatalism.
Detective fiction: A genre of fiction organized around solving a crime through investigation and deduction. Crime films often adapt its mystery structure and investigative roles.
Double Indemnity: A 1944 film noir directed by Billy Wilder about an insurance salesman drawn into murder. It joins criminal plotting to noir fatalism and a confession frame.
Prohibition in the United States: A nationwide ban on alcohol production and sales in the United States from 1920 to 1933. Prohibition-era bootlegging fed public interest in gangster stories.
The French Connection: A 1971 crime thriller about New York detectives pursuing an international heroin-smuggling ring. Its procedural realism contrasts with glamorous portraits of criminal organizations.
Gangster film: A crime-film subgenre focused on organized criminals, their rise, and their downfall. It makes criminal organizations and ambition the story's center.
Rashomon: A 1950 Akira Kurosawa film presenting conflicting accounts of a killing. Its disputed testimony makes crime a problem of perspective and truth.

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