10 Crime Movies That Defined the 21st Century

However, in the 21st century, filmmakers took what worked so well in the classic crime movies and added twists that updated the stories for a new generation. These movies traded out the classical mob mythology for fractured timelines, morally gray characters, brutal neo-Western genre blending, and a sense of auteur-driven style that helped solidify its place in movie history. These films not only defined the 21st century, but they also redefined what people should expect from a crime movie.

These crime movies run the gamut of subgenres. These include cartel thrillers, noir satires, grief-driven mysteries, and even identity puzzles that leave viewers confused until the final reveal. Names like Denis Villeneuve, David Fincher, Martin Scorsese, Clint Eastwood, David Cronenberg, Christopher Nolan, and more all showed how much more there was to mine out of crime movies, almost a century after the genre's origins.

10 Eastern Promises (2007)

Eastern Promises takes the crime movies to the depths of the Russian mafia. In this movie, directed by David Cronenberg, Viggo Mortensen stars as Russian mob driver Nikolai Luzhin, while Naomi Watts stars as London midwife Anna Khitrova, a woman he swears to protect. After a trafficked 14-year-old dies in childbirth, Anna investigates, which puts her in the sights of the Vory v Zakone underworld.

While Nikolai is loyal at first, when he realizes what is really happening around him, he ends up as a target of the mob that he has faithfully served for years. The bathhouse knife fight might be one of the most brutal and best choreographed crime movie fight scenes of the 21st century. Eastern Promises has an 89% Rotten Tomatoes score.

9 Drive (2011)

Drive is a neo-noir directed by Nicolas Winding Refn based on the novel by James Sallis. This movie shares so much in common with classic noir movies from the 1940s, as it is about an unnamed driver played by Ryan Gosling. He is a Hollywood stunt driver who moonlights as a getaway driver for criminals. However, when he meets a young woman named Irene (Carey Mulligan), his focus changes.

Irene's ex-husband gets out of prison and puts her life in danger, so the Driver offers to be the getaway driver for the ex-husband's heist. When things go sideways, he will do anything he can to protect Irene and her son. The Driver almost never speaks in the movie, making him one of the coolest crime action stars of the 21st century, and the driving and fight scenes are some of the best of the century as well.

8 Nightcrawler (2014)

Nightcrawler is a satire that shows the effects of the 24-hour news cycle on the public's perception of real-life crime. Jake Gyllenhaal stars as stringer Louis Bloom, a man who realizes that the more crime scenes he films, the more money he can make and the more success he can find. However, when he starts to break the law himself to stage crimes, and even alter crime scenes for better footage, it shows the depths a man will go to find success.

Gyllenhaal is joined by Rene Russo and Riz Ahmed in the cast, and as Bloom continues to commit crimes to find success, his eventual fall to Earth becomes more certain. With a 95% Rotten Tomatoes score and an Oscar nomination, Nightcrawler is a neo-noir satire that shows how ambition can turn an evil man into an American antihero.

7 Sicario (2015)

While Denis Villeneuve is now best known for his sci-fi movies and Taylor Sheridan is best known for his television neo-Westerns, both men delivered a fantastic crime drama with the 2015 movie Sicario. Directed by Villeneuve and written by Sheridan, the movie follows Emily Blunt as idealistic FBI agent Kate Macer, Benicio del Toro as the enigmatic operative Alejandro, and Josh Brolin as the morally slippery task-force lead Matt Graver.

This is a movie about a black-ops unit on an off-the-books mission to dismantle a Mexican drug cartel by any means necessary. With a 92% on Rotten Tomatoes and three Oscar nominations, including Best Cinematography, this might be one of the best-looking crime movies when it comes to cinematography. The moral grayness of the American political forces helps this become a lot more topical than most crime movies of the 21st century.

6 Mystic River (2003)

Mystic River allowed Clint Eastwood to direct his own crime drama, and it ended up as an intense look at grief and vengeance in a small community. Based on the novel by Dennis Lehane, Sean Penn, Kevin Bacon, and Tim Robbins star as childhood friends. Penn grows up to be ex-con Jimmy, Bacon, a cop named Sean, and Robbins, a man named Dave, traumatized thanks to sexual abuse he endured as a child.

When Jimmy's daughter is murdered, all signs lead to Dave. The investigation isn't what carries the movie, as it is done in the background, as the main focus remains on the three former friends and their complicated relationship. The ending is tragic: vengeance is delivered, but to the wrong man, leaving nothing settled in any of their lives.

5 City of God (2002)

One of the best crime movies of the 21st century that no one ever talks about is City of God. Directed by Fernando Meirelles, the film follows two decades of organized crime in Rio de Janeiro, from late-1960s pre-teen Tender Trio robberies to a 1980s drug war between Li'l Ze and Knockout Ned, narrated by aspiring photographer Rocket from inside the chaos.

The non-linear handheld aesthetic was groundbreaking at the time, and this movie perfects it to the point that movies have copied it ever since. City of God earned four Oscar nominations, including Best Director, and it has a 91% Rotten Tomatoes score. Cast mostly with local residents, this proved that a non-English movie could become a massive crime touchstone.

4 Zodiac (2007)

David Fincher aimed his attention on the unsolved murder mystery surrounding the Zodiac Killer. This was a series of murders from the 1960s that the police never solved, and the killer remains unknown. However, Fincher based his movie on the Robert Graysmith book, where he gave his opinion on who the killer really was.

Jake Gyllenhaal plays Graysmith in the movie, as he works tirelessly to uncover the killer's identity, even as the police give up. Fincher focuses most of Zodiac on the procedural detail, which includes the newspaper clippings, call-tracing, basement evidence reviews, and the obsessive nature of the investigation. The movie, which only hints at who the killer is, is one of Fincher's finest moments.

3 No Country For Old Men (2007)

No Country for Old Men is a neo-Western crime movie that was voted as one of the top 10 movies of the 21st century by industry professionals for the New York Times. Directed by the Coen Brothers, the movie stars Josh Brolin as Llewelyn Moss, a man who finds a drug deal massacre and steals the $2 million in cash he finds there. Javier Bardem stars as Anton Chigurh, the killer sent to get the money back.

This movie is a brutal look at an unstoppable killer in Anton Chigurh, a man who represents death itself and kills based on a coin flip at every opportunity. The movie went on to win four Oscars, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Supporting Actor for Bardem.

2 The Departed (2006)

Impressively, Martin Scorsese's best crime movie of the 21st century was a remake of a Hong Kong thriller. Scorsese, who has mastered the genre with movies like Goodfellas and Casino, took the movie Infernal Affairs and moved it to America, while keeping several of the scenes in the movie shot-for-shot. This includes the intense elevator scene toward the end of the movie.

The Departed is about an undercover officer in the Boston mafia and a mole planted within the police department, neither of whom knows who the other is. Leonardo DiCaprio and Matt Damon are fantastic in their roles, but the movie also delivers show-stealing turns by Mark Wahlberg and Jack Nicholson. Scorsese won his first Best Director Oscar for this movie, while it also won Best Picture.

1 Memento (2000)

Christopher Nolan turned himself into Hollywood's most interesting new director with his second movie, the crime drama Memento. Nolan's first movie was also a crime movie called Following, which told its story out of order as a puzzle. In Memento, he takes this to another level when he tells the story by reversing the scenes and playing them backward, so the opening scene is really the climax, and the final scene is the opening that explains how it happened.

Guy Pearce is Leonard Shelby, a man with anterograde amnesia, who is unable to create any new memories. This complicates things as he searches for his wife's killer and has to use Polaroids and tattoos to leave evidence for himself after each day ends. The non-linear structure makes the movie stand out, but the storytelling and masterful direction by Nolan make this a masterpiece in the crime genre.