Highest-Rated Movies about 'Criminal Investigation'

Memories of Murder (2003), In the Heat of the Night (1967), Mystic River (2003), American Gangster (2007), Mississippi Burning (1988), The Boondock Saints (1999), The French Connection (1971), Zodiac (2007) ... Let's take a look at the ranked list of the best Criminal Investigation movies.

#16. Boiler Room (2000)

Storyline: Seth Davis is a college dropout running an illegal casino from his rented apartment. Driven by his domineering father's disapproval at his illegitimate existence and his desire for serious wealth, Seth suddenly finds himself seduced by the opportunity to interview as a trainee stock broker from recent acquaintance Greg (Nicky Katt). Walking into the offices of JT Marlin, a small time brokerage firm on the outskirts of New York - Seth gets an aggressive cameo performance from Jim (Ben Affleck) that sets the tone for a firm clearly placing money above all else. Seth's fractured relationship with his father and flirtatious glances from love interest Abbie (Nia Long) are enough to keep Seth motivated in his newfound career. As he begins to excel and develop a love for the hard sale and high commission, a few chance encounters lead Seth to question the legitimacy of the firm's operations - placing him once again at odds with his father and what remains of his morality. With homages to Wall...

Plot Keywords: millionaire, fbi agent, employer employee relationship, drug abuse, desperation, croupier, criminal investigation ...

Movie Details Click Here!

#17. Basic Instinct (1992)

Storyline: A former rock star, Johnny Boz, is brutally killed during sex, and the case is assigned to detective Nick Curran of the SFPD. During the investigation, Nick meets Catherine Tramell, a crime novelist who was Boz's girlfriend when he died. Catherine proves to be a very clever and manipulative woman, and though Nick is more or less convinced that she murdered Boz, he is unable to find any evidence. Later, when Nilsen, Nick's rival in the police, is killed, Nick suspects of Catherine's involvement in it. He then starts to play a dangerous lust-filled mind game with Catherine to nail her, but as their relationship progresses, the body count rises and contradicting evidences force Nick to start questioning his own suspicions about Catherine's guilt.

Plot Keywords: no panties, manipulation, erotic thriller, nudity, bisexual woman, lesbian kiss, female nudity ...

Movie Details Click Here!

#18. Peur Sur la Ville (1975)

Storyline: A serial killer frightens Paris by phoning young ladies at night, telling them insults about their lives. Minos, as he calls himself, wants to prevent the world from free women and so he targets them. Commissaire Letellier is given the investigation and has a hard time with the maniac.—Frederic Villemin <fredv@infonie.fr>

Plot Keywords: paris france, neo noir, strangulation, bank robbery, car chase, female frontal nudity, greek mythology ...

Movie Details Click Here!

#19. Trust (2010)

Storyline: A suburban family is torn apart when fourteen-year-old Annie (Liana Liberato) meets her first boyfriend online. After months of communicating via online chat and phone, Annie discovers her friend (Chris Henry Coffey) is not who he originally claimed to be. Shocked into disbelief, her parents (Clive Owen and Catherine Keener) are shattered by their daughter's actions and struggle to support her as she comes to terms with what has happened to her once innocent life.

Plot Keywords: internet chat, father daughter relationship, pedophile, scene during end credits, obsession, revenge motive, teenager ...

Movie Details Click Here!

#20. Bugsy (1991)

Storyline: New York gangster Ben Bugsy Siegel takes a brief business trip to Los Angeles. A sharp-dressing womaniser with a foul temper, Siegel doesn't hesitate to kill or maim anyone crossing him. In L.A. the life, the movies, and most of all strong-willed Virginia Hill detain him while his family wait back home. Then a trip to a run-down gambling joint at a spot in the desert known as Las Vegas gives him his big idea.

Plot Keywords: jewish, casino, las vegas nevada, mafia, based on true story, based on book, 1940s ...

Movie Details Click Here!

#21. So Close (2002)

Storyline: The brothers Chow Nunn and Chow Lui's giant computer company is facing a tense crisis - a powerful computer virus is rapidly wiping out their computer network. At the last minute a cyber-friend arrives to join the battle. The mysterious 'Angel.com' battles the virus and saves the company. Invited by Chow Lui for a visit in person, Angel.com arrives in the form of the beautiful Lynn. But it turns out Lynn is a professional assassin with amazing high-tech and kung fu skills. She kills Chow Lui with cyanide hidden in a pair of sunglasses. She's aided by her sister Sue, who operates the pair's World Panorama surveillance system, which allows them to tap into any video security system in the world. Young cop Kong Yat Hong and her partner Mark are put on the case. Hong has a brilliant mind and immediately senses she's dealing with a killer with very special skills. Realizing they are facing a tough adversary, Lynn and Sue become fascinated with Hong as well. Lynn runs into Yan, the cousin of an old friend who died. Lynn and Yan shared an unspoken love in the past which is now rekindled in the open, and Lynn begins to question whether she wants to continue to be an assassin. Chow Nunn was behind his older brother's death. He hired Angel.com to kill Lui because Lui opposed Nunn's business plans, and also because Nunn is carrying on a secret affair with Lui's wife. But when Hong's investigation starts to point to Nunn, Nunn becomes worried and decides to hire Angel.com for another hit ^Ö only so he can double-cross them, wipe them out and prevent them from leading the police back to him. Yan tells Lynn he loves her and wants to marry her. After battling an attack by robbers with her amazing martial arts skills, she tells Yan her family's history. Her father invented the World Panorama for use by the authorities, but was turned down. Suspiciously, word of the device got out to the underworld and both parents were brutally killed in front of the girls' eyes by criminals eager to get their hands on the invention. Bereft at the loss of their parents and disillusioned with the law, the sisters turned professional assassins, killing criminals for other criminals. Lynn tells Sue she wants to stop their criminal life and get married ^Ö she won't accept Chow Nunn's order for the second killing. But Sue, angry and feeling abandoned by Lynn, decides to carry out the killing herself. Lynn realizes what's happening and rushes to save Sue, who doesn't have the skills to carry out the hit. They are attacked by Chow's men but escape. Now the assassin and the cop must join forces - so Sue can avenge her sister's death and Hong can prove her innocence in a spectacular confrontation at Chow Nunn's headquarters...—<christian_wong2002@yahoo.com>

Plot Keywords: death of friend, female bonding, car chase, cake, bullet time, death of mother, death of father ...

Movie Details Click Here!

#22. Wonderland (2003)

Storyline: John Holmes was a legend of the porn industry and revered in circles as a stud. But in 1981, years after his successful career and star fading, Holmes was a desperate man with his own internal demons to live up to. He's estranged from his wife, holding onto a relationship with his teenage mistress, and living as a junkie in search of his next fix. But one fateful night left four people dead and John as a key suspect in one of the most grisly murders in Los Angeles. Was he partly responsible for what happened at Wonderland Avenue?

Plot Keywords: based on true story, tv reporter, summer, male female relationship, sex, multiple homicide, prostitute ...

Movie Details Click Here!

#23. Dark Blue (2002)

Storyline: Set in the Los Angeles Police Department in April 1992, Dark Blue is a dramatic thriller that takes place just days before the acquittal of four white officers in the beating of black motorist Rodney King and the subsequent L.A. riots. In this racially-charged climate,the LAPD's elite Special Investigations Squad (SIS) is assigned a high-profile quadruple homicide. As they work the case, veteran detective Eldon Perry, known for his tough street tactics and fiery temper, tutors SIS rookie Bobby Keough in the grim realities of police intimidation and corruption. Meanwhile, Assistant Chief Holland, the only man in the department willing to stand up to the SIS, threatens to end Perry's brand of singlehanded "justice" on the Los Angeles streets. While navigating through the tumultuous neighborhoods of South Central L.A., Perry and Keough must track down cold-blooded killers and face their own demons, which prove to be more ruthless than the criminals they pursue.

Plot Keywords: year 1992, neo noir, corrupt cop, police officer, police detective, telephone, telephone call ...

Movie Details Click Here!

#24. 8MM (1999)

Storyline: A small, seemingly innocuous plastic reel of film leads surveillance specialist Tom Welles down an increasingly dark and frightening path. With the help of the streetwise Max, Welles relentlessly follows a bizarre trail of evidence to determine the fate of a complete stranger. As his work turns into obsession, he drifts farther and farther away from his wife, family and simple life as a small-town private eye.

Plot Keywords: male full frontal nudity, torture, sexual torture, sexual sadism, pornography, female nudity, fellatio ...

Movie Details Click Here!

#25. Alone in Berlin (2016)

Storyline: In 1940, German soldier Hans Quangel (Louis Hofmann) is killed in action during the French campaign. His parents, Otto (Brendan Gleeson) and Anna (Dame Emma Thompson), are devastated by the loss and their bereavement is unmollified by the joyful hysteria at Germany's victory. Deciding that Führer Adolf Hitler and his Nazi regime are responsible for this tragedy and much more, Otto cannot stand by any longer. As such, Otto begins to create handwritten cards denouncing the regime's abuses and lies, which he secretly deposits throughout Berlin while a disillusioned Anna insists on helping him. As the subversive cards pile up over the years, Police Detective Escherich (Daniel Brühl) is tasked to track down the leafleteer while being pressured by his increasingly impatient S.S. superior for an arrest for this "treason", regardless of actual guilt. As the stakes rise even as Nazi Germany's day of reckoning approaches, Otto and Anna are determined to spread the truth regardless of the odds, even as their opposition awaits the fatal mistake that could doom them.—Kenneth Chisholm (kchishol@rogers.com)

Plot Keywords: berlin germany, man hits a woman, bloody mouth, blood, hit in the face, policeman, kiss ...

Movie Details Click Here!

#26. The Frozen Ground (2013)

Storyline: Alaska Trooper Jack Holcombe believes Robert Hansen is a serial killer who abducts young girls, tortures and sexually assaults them, then kills them. But Holcombe doesn't have enough evidence to get a search warrant for Hansen's premises. Holcombe knows that one victim, Cyndy Paulsen, somehow survived, so he decides to seek her help, but he finds that she's now a junkie with trust issues. Holcombe has to earn her trust; meanwhile, Hansen is still hunting and killing girls.

Plot Keywords: based on true story, serial killer, strip club, homicide detective, alaska, pole dancer, speech impediment ...

Movie Details Click Here!

#27. Cruising (1980)

Storyline: A serial killer brutally slays and dismembers several gay men in New York's S&M and leather districts. The young police officer Steve Burns is sent undercover onto the streets as decoy for the murderer. Working almost completely isolated from his department, he has to learn and practice the complex rules and signals of this little society. While barely seeing his girlfriend Nancy anymore, the work starts changing him.

Plot Keywords: jock strap, despair, cult film, brutality, bare butt, anal sex, amorality ...

Movie Details Click Here!

#28. The General's Daughter (1999)

Storyline: The naked corpse of Captain Elisabeth Campbell, daughter of Lieutenant General "Fighting Joe" Campbell, is found staked out on the urban warfare range of Fort MacCallum. Army CID detectives and ex-lovers Paul Brenner and Sara Sunhill are called in to investigate, and find themselves wrapped up in a maelstrom of sexual impropriety and misguided face-saving.

Plot Keywords: army, cover up, murder, military, rape victim, gang rape, haunted by the past ...

Movie Details Click Here!

#29. Hard Target (1993)

Storyline: Natasha Binder comes to New Orleans looking for her father, who has gone missing. In doing so, she meets a very hard man called Chance. He helps her find out that her father was killed by an organisation who sell the opportunity to hunt human prey. They are taking advantage of a police strike in New Orleans. Will the Muscles from Brussels win through?

Plot Keywords: hand to hand combat, crossbow, deep south, exploding body, loss of father, man punches a woman, playing piano ...

Movie Details Click Here!

#30. Taking Lives (2004)

Storyline: The film starts in the early 1980s. Young Martin Asher took a bus for Canada. He meets another teen on the bus, Matt Soulsby. When the bus broke down they decided to rent a car and drive to Seattle. On the road the car gets a flat tire, and Matt starts changing the tire. Martin comments on how he and Matt are about the same height, and in that moment he quickly pushes Matt in the way of an oncoming truck causing a huge accident where Matt and the driver both die. He took Matt's guitar and left singing like Matt did. Twenty years later, an FBI profiler, Illeana Scott comes to Canada to help hunt down the now serial killer Martin Asher who killed multiple men and lived by their identities. Martin's mother claims that she saw Martin in Quebec city and she tells the police that Martin is evil. The police also has an eyewitness James Costa who saw Asher kill his last victim...

Plot Keywords: serial killer, female agent, fake identity, police inspector, stolen identity, 555 phone number, character repeating someone else's dialogue ...

Movie Details Click Here!