Gritty crime flicks
by maddox-richard | created - 07 Aug 2012 | updated - 7 months ago | Public- Instant Watch Options
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1. Gloria (1980)
PG | 123 min | Crime, Drama, Thriller
When a young boy's family is killed by the mob, their tough neighbor Gloria becomes his reluctant guardian. In possession of a book that the gangsters want, the pair go on the run in New York.
Director: John Cassavetes | Stars: Gena Rowlands, Buck Henry, Julie Carmen, Tony Knesich
Votes: 11,413
2. The Friends of Eddie Coyle (1973)
R | 102 min | Crime, Drama
After his last crime has him looking at a long prison sentence for repeat offenses, a low level Boston gangster decides to snitch on his friends to avoid jail time.
Director: Peter Yates | Stars: Robert Mitchum, Peter Boyle, Richard Jordan, Steven Keats
Votes: 12,189
3. Point Blank (1967)
Not Rated | 92 min | Crime, Drama, Thriller
After being double-crossed and left for dead, a mysterious man named Walker single-mindedly tries to retrieve the money that was stolen from him.
Director: John Boorman | Stars: Lee Marvin, Angie Dickinson, Keenan Wynn, Carroll O'Connor
Votes: 23,188
4. The Outfit (1973)
PG | 103 min | Crime, Drama, Thriller
Earl Macklin robs a bank owned by the mob, serves his prison time and is released, only to start a private war against the crime outfit that owned the bank.
Director: John Flynn | Stars: Robert Duvall, Karen Black, Joe Don Baker, Robert Ryan
Votes: 4,780
5. The Getaway (1972)
PG | 123 min | Action, Crime, Thriller
A recently-released ex-con and his loyal wife go on the run after a heist goes awry.
Director: Sam Peckinpah | Stars: Steve McQueen, Ali MacGraw, Ben Johnson, Sally Struthers
Votes: 35,653 | Gross: $36.73M
6. Get Carter (1971)
R | 112 min | Action, Crime, Thriller
When his brother dies under mysterious circumstances in a car accident, London gangster Jack Carter travels to Newcastle to investigate.
Director: Mike Hodges | Stars: Michael Caine, Ian Hendry, Britt Ekland, John Osborne
Votes: 36,735 | Gross: $0.39M
7. Straight Time (1978)
R | 114 min | Crime, Drama
The difficulties of a career burglar to reinsert himself after being released on parole.
Directors: Ulu Grosbard, Dustin Hoffman | Stars: Dustin Hoffman, Theresa Russell, Gary Busey, Harry Dean Stanton
Votes: 10,133 | Gross: $9.90M
8. The French Connection (1971)
R | 104 min | Action, Crime, Drama
A pair of NYPD detectives in the Narcotics Bureau stumble onto a heroin smuggling ring based in Marseilles, but stopping them and capturing their leaders proves an elusive goal.
Director: William Friedkin | Stars: Gene Hackman, Roy Scheider, Fernando Rey, Tony Lo Bianco
Votes: 135,505 | Gross: $15.63M
9. Fingers (1978)
R | 90 min | Crime, Drama, Music
A dysfunctional young man is pulled between loyalties to his Italian mob-connected loan-shark father and his mentally-disturbed Jewish concert-pianist mother.
Director: James Toback | Stars: Harvey Keitel, Tisa Farrow, Jim Brown, Michael V. Gazzo
Votes: 2,878
10. The American Friend (1977)
Not Rated | 128 min | Crime, Drama, Mystery
Tom Ripley, who deals in forged art, suggests a picture framer he knows would make a good hit man.
Director: Wim Wenders | Stars: Dennis Hopper, Bruno Ganz, Lisa Kreuzer, Gérard Blain
Votes: 18,517
11. The Long Goodbye (1973)
R | 112 min | Comedy, Crime, Drama
Private investigator Philip Marlowe helps a friend out of a jam, but in doing so gets implicated in his wife's murder.
Director: Robert Altman | Stars: Elliott Gould, Nina van Pallandt, Sterling Hayden, Mark Rydell
Votes: 37,133 | Gross: $0.96M
12. Clean Slate (1981)
Not Rated | 128 min | Comedy, Crime, Drama
A pathetic police chief, humiliated by everyone around him, suddenly wants a clean slate in life - and resorts to drastic means to do so.
Director: Bertrand Tavernier | Stars: Philippe Noiret, Isabelle Huppert, Stéphane Audran, Jean-Pierre Marielle
Votes: 6,710
13. Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia (1974)
R | 112 min | Action, Crime, Drama
An American barroom pianist and his prostitute girlfriend go on a trip through the Mexican underworld to collect the bounty on the head of a dead gigolo.
Director: Sam Peckinpah | Stars: Warren Oates, Isela Vega, Robert Webber, Gig Young
Votes: 21,506 | Gross: $0.58M
14. Charley Varrick (1973)
PG | 111 min | Crime, Drama, Thriller
A man, his wife and their friend stage a bloody bank robbery without realizing they are stealing from the Mob.
Director: Don Siegel | Stars: Walter Matthau, Joe Don Baker, Felicia Farr, Andrew Robinson
Votes: 14,091
15. The Long Good Friday (1980)
R | 114 min | Crime, Drama, Mystery
An up-and-coming gangster is tested by the insurgence of an unknown, very powerful threat.
Director: John Mackenzie | Stars: Bob Hoskins, Helen Mirren, Paul Freeman, Leo Dolan
Votes: 25,565
16. The Yakuza (1974)
R | 112 min | Action, Crime, Drama
American private-eye Harry Kilmer returns to Japan to rescue a friend's kidnapped daughter from the clutches of the Yakuza.
Director: Sydney Pollack | Stars: Robert Mitchum, Ken Takakura, Eiji Okada, Herb Edelman
Votes: 10,437
17. The Killing of a Chinese Bookie (1976)
R | 135 min | Crime, Drama, Thriller
A proud strip club owner is forced to come to terms with himself as a man when his gambling addiction gets him in hot water with the mob, who offer him only one alternative.
Director: John Cassavetes | Stars: Ben Gazzara, Timothy Carey, Seymour Cassel, Robert Phillips
Votes: 14,724
18. Hickey & Boggs (1972)
PG | 111 min | Crime, Drama, Thriller
Bill Cosby and Robert Culp ("I Spy") are united again as private eyes in this Walter Hill-scripted "film noir." Searching for a missing girl, they find themselves involved with vicious criminals and precipitating a string of deaths.
Director: Robert Culp | Stars: Bill Cosby, Robert Culp, Ta-Ronce Allen, Rosalind Cash
Votes: 1,378
19. Cutter's Way (1981)
R | 109 min | Crime, Drama, Mystery
Richard spots a man dumping a body, and decides to expose the man he thinks is the culprit with his friend Alex Cutter.
Director: Ivan Passer | Stars: Jeff Bridges, John Heard, Lisa Eichhorn, Ann Dusenberry
Votes: 7,624 | Gross: $1.73M
20. Prime Cut (1972)
R | 88 min | Action, Crime, Drama
A vicious Kansas City slaughterhouse owner and his hick family are having a bloody "beef" with the Chicago crime syndicate over profits from their joint illegal operations. Top enforcer Nick Devlin is sent to straighten things out.
Director: Michael Ritchie | Stars: Lee Marvin, Gene Hackman, Sissy Spacek, Angel Tompkins
Votes: 5,850 | Gross: $0.52M
21. Thief (1981)
R | 123 min | Action, Crime, Drama
An ace safe cracker wants to do one last big heist for the mob before going straight.
Director: Michael Mann | Stars: James Caan, Tuesday Weld, Willie Nelson, Jim Belushi
Votes: 38,854 | Gross: $11.49M
22. Caliber 9 (1972)
Not Rated | 88 min | Action, Crime, Thriller
A former gangster is forced to resume his old lifestyle when his violent, jealous ex-colleagues and the police believe that he knows the location of a stolen cache of $300,000.
Director: Fernando Di Leo | Stars: Gastone Moschin, Barbara Bouchet, Mario Adorf, Frank Wolff
Votes: 4,707
23. High Crime (1973)
R | 103 min | Crime, Drama, Thriller
A righteous police inspector matches wits with a powerful Italian drug ring, all while key suspects and those closest to him begin to die in more-or-less equal measure.
Director: Enzo G. Castellari | Stars: Franco Nero, Fernando Rey, James Whitmore, Delia Boccardo
Votes: 1,111
24. The Boss (1973)
R | 100 min | Action, Crime, Thriller
A hitman finds himself embroiled in the middle of a Mafia war between the Sicilians and the Calabrians.
Director: Fernando Di Leo | Stars: Henry Silva, Richard Conte, Gianni Garko, Antonia Santilli
Votes: 2,333
25. Almost Human (1974)
R | 99 min | Crime, Drama, Thriller
A small-time homicidal maniac kidnaps a young heiress, prompting a cop to pursue him before he can kill the girl once the hefty ransom is paid.
Director: Umberto Lenzi | Stars: Tomas Milian, Henry Silva, Laura Belli, Gino Santercole
Votes: 2,905
26. La piovra (1984–2001)
TV-14 | 360 min | Action, Crime, Drama
An epic crime saga of power, money, violence and corruption. the mafia controls everything through local and international networks like an octopus, anyone who tries to bring them down pays the ultimate price.
Stars: Remo Girone, Patricia Millardet, Michele Placido, François Périer
Votes: 3,952
27. Battles Without Honor and Humanity (1973)
Not Rated | 99 min | Crime, Drama
During the violent chaos of post-War Japanese black market, a young gangster called Shozo Hirono has to keep up with the rapid shifts of power between unscrupulous bosses.
Director: Kinji Fukasaku | Stars: Bunta Sugawara, Hiroki Matsukata, Kunie Tanaka, Eiko Nakamura
Votes: 4,304
28. Hiroshima Death Match (1973)
Not Rated | 99 min | Action, Crime, Drama
A young criminal joins a yakuza family to kill the gangsters who beat him up, but falls in love with his boss' widow's niece, piling up enemies and corpses along his wayward way.
Director: Kinji Fukasaku | Stars: Bunta Sugawara, Shin'ichi Chiba, Meiko Kaji, Shingo Yamashiro
Votes: 1,903
29. Proxy War (1973)
Not Rated | 119 min | Action, Drama
Yakuza boss Shozo Hirono must choose his alliances carefully as the local gangster family affiliations prove themselves to be wildly unstable, causing gang conflicts to slowly escalate.
Director: Kinji Fukasaku | Stars: Bunta Sugawara, Akira Kobayashi, Tsunehiko Watase, Shingo Yamashiro
Votes: 1,533
30. Dangerous Encounters of the First Kind (1980)
95 min | Action, Crime, Thriller
Three lazybones friends manufacture a firebomb and place it in a cinema. Pearl, a sadistic young girl, has observed the scene, follows the bombers and starts to manipulate them. The four criminals plan more and more daring acts.
Director: Hark Tsui | Stars: Lieh Lo, Chen-Chi Lin, Albert Au, Tin Sang Lung
Votes: 1,090
31. Violent Cop (1989)
Not Rated | 103 min | Action, Crime, Drama
A violence prone police officer discovers that his colleague is trafficking drugs.
Director: Takeshi Kitano | Stars: Takeshi Kitano, Maiko Kawakami, Makoto Ashikawa, Shirô Sano
Votes: 12,982 | Gross: $0.00M
32. Drug War (2012)
R | 107 min | Action, Crime, Drama
A drug cartel boss who is arrested in a raid is coerced into betraying his former accomplices as part of an undercover operation.
Director: Johnnie To | Stars: Louis Koo, Honglei Sun, Yi Huang, Michelle Ye
Votes: 10,848 | Gross: $0.13M
33. The Police Serve the Citizens? (1973)
102 min | Action, Crime
Director: Romolo Guerrieri | Stars: Enrico Maria Salerno, Giuseppe Pambieri, John Steiner, Venantino Venantini
Votes: 128
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