5 Best Crime Movies Of The 21st Century, Ranked

Despite the inherent darkness of the genre, true crime and crime films are some of the most enduringly popular movies around, and that's been true for decades; nay, centuries. Throughout cinematic history, movies like "Bonnie & Clyde," "The Godather," "The Silence of the Lambs," "Chinatown," "Double Indemnity," and "Fargo," just to name a few, have helped define the crime genre. Why is it so popular even though it can be depressing, brutal, and unsettling? Well, people are fascinated by the darkest parts of the human experience; some also like solving the mysteries in these movies for themselves if they can. Directors have been crafting crime stories — some true, some completely fictional — throughout the vast history of filmmaking. But what about crime films in the 21st century?

To be fair, the 21st century has seen a lot of great crime movies. "No Country for Old Men," "Memories of Murder," "Memento," "25th Hour," "Brick, "Nightcrawler," and "Traffic" very nearly made this list, and truthfully, action thrillers involving crime like "Kill Bill" and "John Wick" are also absolutely great for fans of this genre. Still, we had to narrow it down to just five of the best crime movies of the 21st century, crafted by some of the most brilliant and precise auteurs working today. In order from "pretty great" to "unimpeachably perfect," here are the five best crime films of the 21st century, ranked.

Adapted by author Gillian Flynn from her own best-selling 2012 novel, David Fincher's masterful 2014 crime drama "Gone Girl" is oft imitated and never duplicated. In both Flynn's novel and Fincher's film, we begin the story alongside Nick Dunne (a spectacularly well-deployed Ben Affleck), who lives in his home town in Missouri and owns a bar with his twin sister Margo, or "Go" (Carrie Coon, making her film debut). While he's hanging out at said bar with Go one morning, he returns home after an alarming call from his neighbor and discovers his house in disarray and his wife of five years, Amy Elliott Dunne (Rosamund Pike in the role that she was born to play) missing, on the day of their wedding anniversary.

After detectives arrive and begin to suspect foul play, Nick finds himself at the middle of a media firestorm, baffled as to Amy's whereabouts, and eventually, concerned that she's setting him up to take the fall for her murder. (Nick, for his part, has plenty of damning secrets of his own.) From its razor-sharp editing to genuinely unbelievable casting and performances (Tyler Perry and Neil Patrick Harris both play radically against type, and it's awesome) to Flynn's gorgeous script to Fincher's relentlessly tight and precise direction, "Gone Girl" is a modern masterpiece that, frankly, deserved more hype (the film only earned one Oscar nomination for Pike's performance, which is iconic but the movie not getting anything beyond that is insane and wrong). Also, let's be honest: any movie that includes the now-infamous "cool girl" speech would be perfect.

It's wild, in retrospect, that Martin Scorsese didn't win an Oscar for best picture or best director until the 2007 ceremony, when his 2006 masterpiece "The Departed" finally took home the top prize. Still, on some level, it makes sense — because "The Departed" is also one of the best crime movies ever made. A loose remake of the 2002 Hong Kong film "Infernal Affairs" that also brings real Boston crime stories into the mix, "The Departed" stars Jack Nicholson as powerful mob boss Frank Costello, who controlls Boston's seedy underbelly with an iron fist. Not only does he wield massive power in the city, but Frank also has a mole in the Boston police department: Colin Sullivan (an exceptional Matt Damon showing off his Boston accent) after Frank helped Colin make his way as a young, struggling kid. To try and uncover their mole, the police department plants their own guy in Frank's organization and enlists Billy Costigan (Leonardo DiCaprio), who fakes a prison sentence and commits a few crimes until he's fully accepted into the fold.

"The Departed" is full of misdirects, beautifully tense sequences, and top-tier performances from the entire cast — which also includes Alec Baldwin, Martin Sheen, Vera Farmiga, and Mark Wahlberg (and truly, despite it being a low bar to clear, Wahlberg has never been better in any other movie). Soundtracked to perfection and executed brilliantly (pun intended, if you're at all familiar with the ending of "The Departed"), this film is, without question, one of the best crime movies of the 21st century. If it remains Scorsese's only best picture winner throughout his entire career, it'll at least be well-earned.

"In Bruges" is frequently overshadowed by director and writer Martin McDonagh's later works "Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri" and "The Banshees of Inisherin" — largely because those got nominated for a ton of Academy Awards — but if you're sleeping on this film, wake up. Released in 2008, this movie marks McDonagh's feature film debut (he won an Oscar for his 2004 live-action short "Six Shooter") and casts Brendan Gleeson and Colin Farrell as Ken and Ray, two hitmen hiding out in the fair city of Bruges, Belgium on the orders of their strict and dangerous boss Harry Waters (Ralph Fiennes) after a mishap in their home city of London. 

If you've seen "Before Sunrise" — the Richard Linklater trilogy-starter where Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy wander Vienna all night, talking and laughing — it's actually pretty easy to say that "In Bruges" is just "Before Sunrise" with a lot more profanity, crime, and blood involved. As Ray and Ken make their way through the beautiful, medieval city, they meet shadowy figures like Clémence Poésy's drug dealer Chloë, a dwarf named Jimmy (Jordan Prentice), and pregnant hotel proprietor Marie (Thekla Reuten). To be quite fair, "In Bruges" has far more narrative twists and turns than "Before Sunrise," but thanks to McDonagh's background as a playwright, "In Bruges," like "Before Sunrise," feels like a stage play in the best way. It's also, of course, one of the very best crime thrillers of this century.

Bong Joon Ho has been making unbelievable movies for decades, including great crime dramas — that honorable mention, "Memories of Murder," is one of his finest works — but his 2019 crime drama "Parasite" wasn't just a mere sensation. After its release, "Parasite" launched Bong to Hollywood's A-list, earned rave reviews from critics, and was even a massive box office success (when you make the currency conversion, Bong's film made over $258 billion off a modest budget of $11.4 million). So what made "Parasite" such a cultural juggernaut? 

This violent, nasty, and genius exploration of South Korean class dynamics begins with the Kim family, made up of patriarch Kim Ki-taek (frequent Bong collaborator Song Kang-ho), mother Chung-sook (Jang Hye-jin), son Ki-woo (Choi Woo-shik), and daughter Ki-jung (Park So-dam) — all of whom live in a run-down apartment in Seoul. After hanging out with a friend who's leaving to study abroad, Ki-woo takes that friend's advice (and his scholar's rock, meant to confer wealth and luck) and gets a job with the wealthy Park family as a tutor to their young, troubled son. Before long, all the Kims worm their way into the Park household through various means; Chung-sook ousts the housekeeper and takes her job, Ki-taek gets the driver fired and steals his position, and Ki-jung poses as an art therapist for the boy.

The brilliance of "Parasite" is its huge mid-point twist, which we will not spoil here ... but if you re-watch "Parasite," you'll see how Bong cleverly plants every clue in plain sight. "Parasite" ultimately made history as the first Asian language film to win best picture, a feat it achieved at the 2020 Oscars — and it was richly deserved.

Yes, David Fincher has two movies on this short list — he's just that good — but nothing else besides his 2007 film "Zodiac" could possibly top a list of the best crime dramas of the 21st century. Based on two books by Robert Graysmith — "Zodiac" and "Zodiac Unmasked," which released in 1986 and 2002 — "Zodiac" casts Jake Gyllenhaal as then-political cartoonist Robert Graysmith, who's able to interpret bizarre, confusing, and coded letters coming from a Bay Area serial killer who calls himself (you guessed it) Zodiac, beginning in 1969 and continuing into the early 1970s. Even though crime reporter Paul Avery (Robert Downey Jr.) doesn't take Robert seriously at first, but once he realizes that Robert seems to understand the letters, the two start working together to try and uncover the killer's identity.

Before long, Paul and Robert are joined by San Francisco police officers Dave Toschi (Mark Ruffalo) and his partner, Inspector Bill Armstrong ("ER" veteran Anthony Edwards), who are tasked by their boss Captain Marty Lee (Dermot Mulroney) to work with the journalists to attempt to find the killer. "Zodiac" is a dark, unrelenting, and unbelievable crime movie about a crime that, as of this writing, still hasn't been solved, which certainly gives it a much more unsettling feeling throughout. Sorry to all other 21st crime movies ever made, but "Zodiac" tops any ranking.