Highest-Rated Movies about 'Crime Wave'

Scarface (1983), North by Northwest (1959), The Lady Vanishes (1938), The Mask of Dimitrios (1944), Deception (1946), All Through the Night (1942), Public Enemies (2009), Beyond a Reasonable Doubt (1956) ... Let's take a look at the ranked list of the best Crime Wave movies.

#1. Scarface (1983)

Storyline: Tony Montana manages to leave Cuba during the Mariel exodus of 1980. He finds himself in a Florida refugee camp but his friend Manny has a way out for them: undertake a contract killing and arrangements will be made to get a green card. He's soon working for drug dealer Frank Lopez and shows his mettle when a deal with Colombian drug dealers goes bad. He also brings a new level of violence to Miami. Tony is protective of his younger sister but his mother knows what he does for a living and disowns him. Tony is impatient and wants it all however, including Frank's empire and his mistress Elvira Hancock. Once at the top however, Tony's outrageous actions make him a target and everything comes crumbling down.

Plot Keywords: cocaine, gangster, remake, organized crime, power, scar, husband wife relationship ...

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#2. North by Northwest (1959)

Storyline: Madison Avenue advertising man Roger Thornhill finds himself thrust into the world of spies when he is mistaken for a man by the name of George Kaplan. Foreign spy Philip Vandamm and his henchman Leonard try to eliminate him but when Thornhill tries to make sense of the case, he is framed for murder. Now on the run from the police, he manages to board the 20th Century Limited bound for Chicago where he meets a beautiful blond, Eve Kendall, who helps him to evade the authorities. His world is turned upside down yet again when he learns that Eve isn't the innocent bystander he thought she was. Not all is as it seems however, leading to a dramatic rescue and escape at the top of Mt. Rushmore.

Plot Keywords: spy, mistaken identity, blockbuster, director cameo, macguffin, assassin, unlikely hero ...

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#3. The Lady Vanishes (1938)

Storyline: Passengers on a scheduled train out of the mountainous European country of Mandrika are delayed by a day due to an avalanche, and thus get up close and personal with each other out of necessity in the only and what becomes an overcrowded inn in the area. Once the train departs, the one person who it is uncertain is on the train is a middle aged English governess named Miss Froy (Dame May Whitty). Iris Henderson (Margaret Lockwood), who was vacationing in Mandrika with girlfriends before heading back to England to get married, is certain that Miss Froy was on the train as they were in the same compartment and they had tea together in the dining car, but all those people who can corroborate her story don't seem to want to do so. Iris' thoughts are easily dismissed as a possible concussion as Iris was hit over the head just before boarding the train. Iris will take anyone's help in finding Miss Froy, even that of an Englishman named Gilbert (Sir Michael Redgrave), a musicologist with ...

Plot Keywords: train movie, spy, manipulative behavior, psychological manipulation, disappearance, train, receptionist ...

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#4. The Mask of Dimitrios (1944)

Storyline: A mystery writer named Leyden is intrigued by the tale of notorious criminal Dimitrios Makropolous, whose body was found washed up on the shore in Istanbul. He decides to follow the career of Dimitrios around Europe, to learn more about the man. Along the way, he is joined by mysterious Mr. Peters, who has his own motivation.—Ken Yousten <kyousten@bev.net>

Plot Keywords: character name in title, robbery, roulette, spy, subway, suicide, train ...

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#5. Deception (1946)

Storyline: Music teacher Christine Radcliffe thought her love Karel Novak died in the war. When he miraculously returns, she realizes she loves him more than ever and insists they marry. However, a wealthy composer, Hollenius with whom she had become involved after learning her real love had supposedly died, refuses to let her go and at her wedding reception offers Karel the chance to solo his new cello concerto and a chance at success... but is he planning to ruin Karel's music career and their marriage?—Ed Stephan <stephan@cc.wwu.edu>

Plot Keywords: based on play, jealousy, deception, guilt, crime wave, crime of passion, party ...

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#6. All Through the Night (1942)

Storyline: Broadway gambler "Gloves" Donahue (Humphrey Bogart) wants to find who killed the baker of his favorite cheesecake. He sees nightclub singer Leda Hamilton (Kaaren Verne) leaving the bakery. When her boss Marty Callahan's (Barton MacLane's) partner Joe Denning (Edward Brophy) is murdered, Leda and her accompanist Pepi (Peter Lorre) disappear. It turns out that beneath all of the mystery is a gang of Nazi operatives planning to blow up a battleship in New York harbor.—Ed Stephan <stephan@cc.wwu.edu>

Plot Keywords: german spy, central park manhattan new york city, orchestral music score, gangster, gambling, warehouse, wager ...

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#7. Public Enemies (2009)

Storyline: The difficult 1930s is a time of robbers who knock over banks and other rich targets with alarming frequency. Of them, none is more notorious than John Dillinger, whose gang plies its trade with cunning efficiency against big businesses while leaving ordinary citizens alone. As Dillinger becomes a folk hero, FBI head J. Edger Hoover is determined to stop his ilk by assigning ace agent Melvin Purvis to hunt down Dillinger. As Purvis struggles with the manhunt's realities, Dillinger himself faces an ominous future with the loss of friends, dwindling options and a changing world of organized crime with no room for him.

Plot Keywords: manhunt, great depression, impersonating a police officer, indiana, thrown from a car, tucson arizona, interrogation ...

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#8. Beyond a Reasonable Doubt (1956)

Storyline: Tom Garrett's a reporter on leave from his job. As Tom's having difficulty writing the book, his boss, publisher Austin Spencer, suggests he write a non-fiction book on capital punishment, The pair set out to frame Tom for a murder he didn't commit in order to eradicate capital punishment.—Huggo

Plot Keywords: surprise ending, phonograph, fiance, ex boyfriend, broken engagement, jealousy, camera ...

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#9. The Two Mrs. Carrolls (1947)

Storyline: Sally Morton and Geoffrey Carroll, the latter a struggling artist, get married following the passing of Geoffrey's invalid first wife. Despite quickly falling in love with him, Sally never thought she would marry him when she discovered that he was already married - regardless of his vow to get a divorce - the first Mrs. Carroll's passing which changed the situation. The period of the first Mrs. Carroll's illness arguably resulted in Geoffrey's greatest works, including a portrait of her as the Angel of Death. While Sally brings a house in small town Ashton and a rough-around-the-edges housekeeper named Christine, Geoffrey brings a preteen daughter Bea into the marriage, Bea who openly welcomes Sally into the Carroll family. Their happiness begins to change when Cecily Latham commissions Geoffrey to paint her portrait, Cecily and her mother introduced to the Carrolls by London lawyer, Charles Pennington, Sally's former fiancé, who, while still in love with her, is happy that she is happy in her married life. Their meeting was not solely for the purpose of the commission as Cecily had fallen in love with Geoffrey in previously having seen him in town, he who eventually falls in love with her. In his insanity, Geoffrey starts to plot for Sally to befall the same "true" fate of the first Mrs. Carroll in both wanting to be with another woman and setting up a situation for his artistic genius to come to light.—Huggo

Plot Keywords: damsel in distress, extramarital affair, london england, crime wave, serial killer, investigation, portrait painting ...

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#10. Point Blank (2010)

Storyline: Samuel Pierret (Gilles Lellouche) is a nurse who saves the wrong guy -- a thief (Roschdy Zem) whose henchmen take Samuel's pregnant wife (Elena Anaya) hostage to force him to spring their boss from the hospital. A race through the subways and streets of Paris ensues, and the body count rises. Can Samuel evade the cops and the criminal underground and deliver his beloved to safety?

Plot Keywords: pregnant wife, flash drive, foot chase, murder of brother, defibrillator, stitching a wound, filmed killing ...

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#11. Shadow on the Wall (1950)

Storyline: Angered that her sister Celia has stolen her fiance, Dell Faring kills her and allows Celia's husband David, knocked out in an argument with Celia, to take the blame and end up on death row. Later Dell, finding out that David's young daughter Susan was witness to the crime and is undergoing psychiatric treatment, plans to eliminate her before her memory returns.—Doug Sederberg <vornoff@sonic.net>

Plot Keywords: child in peril, dead woman on floor, dead sister, attempted murder, sororicide, repressed memory, murder witness ...

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#13. The Carey Treatment (1972)

Storyline: Dr. Peter Carey is a pathologist at a Boston hospital. The daughter of the hospital's Chief of Staff dies after an illegal abortion goes wrong, and Carey's friend and colleague Dr. David Tao is accused of performing the abortion. Carey doesn't buy it, and so he digs deeper, angering the girl's father in the process. Questions abound: Who performed the abortion? Was the girl really pregnant? And what does it have to do with stolen morphine, blackmail attempts, and a mysterious and dangerous masseur?—reservoirdog909

Plot Keywords: hospital, police detective, emergency, operating room, laboratory, nurse, switchblade ...

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#14. Tôkyô zankoku keisatsu (2008)

Storyline: Set in a future-world vision of Tokyo where the police have been privatized and bitter self-mutilation is so casual that advertising is often specially geared to the "cutter" demographic, this is the story of samurai-sword-wielding Ruka and her mission to avenge her father's assassination. Ruka is a cop from a squad whose mission is to destroy homicidal mutant humans known as "engineers" possessing the ability to transform any injury to a weapon in and of itself.

Plot Keywords: oral sex, mini skirt, tokyo japan, laboratory, remote control, umbrella, power drill ...

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#15. Calling Philo Vance (1940)

Storyline: Philo is in Vienna working for the US Government to see if Archer Coe is selling aircraft designs to foreign powers. He grabs the plans with Archer's signature, but is captured by police before he can escape. Deported he comes back to America and plans to confront Archer, but Archer is found dead in his locked bedroom with a gun in his hand. While it looks like a suicide, Vance knows better and the coroner finds that Archer has been shot, hit with a blunt instrument and stabbed - making suicide unlikely. But Vance is on the case and is looking to see if government secrets have been sold and who has murdered Coe.—Tony Fontana <tony.fontana@spacebbs.com>

Plot Keywords: private detective, character name in title, reference to frankenstein, vienna austria, stabbing, ship, reporter ...

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