Best crime/suspense movies on dvd. (1 Viewer)

This is basically a thread to get some ideas for one of my favorite genres of film: crime suspense movies.
Here are my top 5.


5-At Close Range. great film, and still the best work I have seen from Sean Penn.

4-Red Rock West. Nic Cage, and Dennis Hopper in a fantastic white knuckle crime caper.

3-The Conversation. Gene Hackman is fantastic in this early 70's Coppola film.

2-No Country for Old Men. Near perfect film, although unconventional sometimes loses an audience, lucky I wasn't one of those people who felt cheated.

1-A Simple Plan. To me this film is perfect, and I can't say enough good things about it. Riveting, and flawless.



So what am I missing? Please list some of your favorites. Thanks

I would have to say The Usual Suspects with Kevin Spacey. This film is so great that one has to watch it a number of times to make sense of it. The ending is a shoker as we learn that verbal[Spacey] is Keyser Soze.

The movies listed so far have almost no suspense! If you want suspense within a crime setting try Rififi and Experiment In Terror. They have real suspense.

Hitchcock was, of course, the master of suspense so I recommend watching the robbery sequence in Marnie. When that bag falls on the floor . . . .

Seven and Ricochet are good. The DVD for Ricochet is terrible, though.

I echo Robins recommendation for Experiment in Terror. One fo my all time favs!

PLAY MISTY FOR ME, STRANGERS ON A TRAIN, EXPERIMENT IN TERROR, ACE IN THE HOLE, WOMAN IN THE WINDOW, PANIC IN THE STREETS, NIAGARA, BUNNY LAKE IS MISSING, MADIGAN, GASLIGHT, THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE (Sinatra), DEAD OF NIGHT.

'Hard Eight', Paul Thomas Anderson's first film. I'm quite certain my DVD cover is labeled 'Hard Eight', yet at IMDB, this film now seems to be called 'Sydney'. It is definitely the same film, though.

Sydney is the original name of the movie. The IMDB has to keep it real.

We tend to be such sticklers (and rightfully so) when it comes to OAR, so do we adopt the same approach for a title? Until today, I always knew this film as 'Hard Eight'; it would seem strange - to me - to call it something else.

I thought Hard Eight was a recut version of Sydney, done by New Line after previews? No?

Very interesting -- so is the extant 'Hard Eight' DVD actually Anderson's cut?

Yes.

ouch you gave away the end of the film.
I do have to agree on usual suspects.

the reveal at the end is one of the best surprises in movies, (well it was).


hey can you guys also say why you like the film instead of just a list of films, without giving away the ending..

A fine list Bryan; especially nice to see RED ROCK WEST and A SIMPLE PLAN on it. Speaking of RED ROCK WEST, you should check out some of the other neo-noir and suspense films by RRW's director, John Dahl, especially KILL ME AGAIN (1989, with Val Kilmer, Joanne Whalley and a very scary Michael Madsen), as well as THE LAST SEDUCTION (1994, featuring femme fatale Linda Fiorentino), and the imperfect but (imho) unfairly maligned UNFORGETTABLE (1996, Ray Liotta and Linda Fiorentino), if you like a bit of pulpy sci-fi mixed-in with you're crime suspense. He also did quite well with the DUEL-like JOY RIDE (2001.)

I'd also highly recommend the already-mentioned EXPERIMENT IN TERROR, RIFIFI, THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE (1962), STRANGERS ON A TRAIN, TOUCH OF EVIL, PLAY MISTY FOR ME... and would add:

THE SPIRAL STAIRCASE (1945)
THE BIG CLOCK (1948)
THE THREAT (1949, regrettably not on DVD yet, check it out on TCM sometime)
NIGHT AND THE CITY (1950)
FOURTEEN HOURS (1951)
THE BIG HEAT (1953)
THE HITCH-HIKER (1953)
NIGHT OF THE HUNTER (1955)
THE KILLING (1956)
PEEPING TOM (1960)
CAPE FEAR (1962, Robert Mitchum's "Max Cady" would eat DeNiro's "Cady" for breakfast)
THE SADIST (1963)
LADY IN A CAGE (1964)
POINT BLANK (1967)
WAIT UNTIL DARK (1967)
TARGETS (1968)
AND SOON THE DARKNESS (1970)
DIRTY HARRY (1971)
GET CARTER (1971)
SEE NO EVIL (1971)
THE TAKING OF PELHAM ONE TWO THREE (1974)
ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13 (1976)
MARATHON MAN (1976)
BLACK SUNDAY (1977)
EYE OF THE NEEDLE (1981)
ROAD GAMES (1981)
BLOOD SIMPLE (1984)
THE HIT (1984)
DEAD CALM (1989)
THE LIMEY (1999)
INTACTO (2001-Spanish, very strange, but well worth a look)
THE ICE HARVEST (2005)
RED EYE (2005)
THE LOOKOUT (2007)
WE OWN THE NIGHT (2007)
THE BANK JOB (2008)

Take a look at John Bailey's China Moon with Ed Harris and Madeline Stowe, an overlooked suspense noir of considerable power, and the current 88 Minutes with Al Pacino. Both have a lot to recommend them.

Also, John Frankenheimer's Ronin (1998) is one of the great, great action suspense films. Listening to his commentary is like taking a workshop with him.

I've got to give a shout out to the original 'caper classic', The Asphalt Jungle. Everything that came afterwards, from Rififi, Topkapi, and The Taking of Pelham One Two Three to both versions of The Italian Job and the more recent stuff Guy Ritchie has done owes a huge debt to this John Huston classic. And besides, it's got Marilyn Monroe, too!

I cannot believe this thread went on this long without that title being mentioned. If you like your crime DVD experience super-sized, I would recommend a Sterling Haden triple feature of "The Asphalt Jungle", "The Killing", and "Crime Wave".

Regards,

I'll add my voice to all the recommendations for The Asphalt Jungle. A monument of a film and a towering achievement in the hardboiled crime genre. It can't be praised highly enough. Sterling Hayden was worth his weight in gold. And this ...
... is an excellent suggestion. Add to that two other independently produced suspense films, Naked Alibi (Universal 1954, not on DVD) and Suddenly (1964, in the Sinatra Collection) and you'd have a Sterling Hayden marathon.