My Crime Drama/Thriller Movie Collection... In A Nutshell

When I was entering adolescence back in the 70's, I began to develop a taste for unsavory films, ones that delved into the darker part of the human psyche. By this I mean the cinematic examination of the criminal mind. There are the darker, moodier movies that can be downright disturbing, like the Hannibal Lecter pictures. And there are the more exciting, perhaps action-based but definitely more thrilling ones like the French Connection. As I scanned titles in my collection, I noted that spy films could cross into this genre, but for now I'll separate them out. Spy stuff is often set during wartime, so why not save that for another post?

I should point out that mysteries are generally lumped in with crime stories, and vice versa, even though a mystery need not necessarily involve a crime, and not all crimes have a mystery to be solved. But for the sake of simplicity, I'll include both here.

As a youngster, I was enamored with the stories of Sherlock Holmes, master detective. I read all the original tales by author Conan Doyle, and the next logical step was to see the film adaptations from the 1930's and 40's... the ones starring Basil Rathbone as the famed sleuth of 221B Baker Street. There were over a dozen of those movies, and I'm sure I saw almost all, if not all, of them on TV as a lad and teen. I have a smattering of those on my video shelf today.

The films of director Alfred Hitchcock also caught my eye back in my youthful years. Hitch was known for his fascination with the criminal element, and I found his style of movie-making captivating. His pictures were shown often on network television during the 1970's, so I enjoyed classic oldies like Saboteur and The Man Who Knew Too Much (his 1934 version) repeatedly. A bit older in the early 80's, I got a taste of Hitchcock's later gems like Rear Window and Dial M For Murder. There is pretty good representation of his work in my collection.

And as a teenager, it was finally appropriate for me to enjoy the violent Dirty Harry movies. Good old Clint Eastwood immortalized that role, and few have ever come close to his portrayal of an "off the books" cop who takes care of business (the scum of the streets, that is) according to his own code of ethics. I'm still a fan.

From there, I didn't follow the genre so strictly but did enjoy a lot of great movies of the genre over the decades, things such as To Live and Die in L.A. (1985) and then the more modern Zodiac (2007).

Building my home video collection, I didn't consciously seek out crime films; they often just happened to fall in my lap at opportune moments. You know, great deals in a store or online, or a friend passing on some of his unwanted DVDs. So my crime collection isn't vast, but it's decent and fairly representative of the genre. I know there are blind spots... for example, I know I have very few film noir titles, but like I said, I'm not trying to be a completist here. 

So here are the crime dramas/thrillers in my movie collection:

Ace Ventura: Pet Detective (I'm bending the rules a bit with this comedy... well, alrighty then!)
Alfred Hitchcock movies (I have about fifteen, including North By Northwest, Vertigo, & Psycho)
Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans
Chinatown
*The Dead Pool
Dirty Harry (I've assigned an * on the other Harry movies on the list)
Drive
Edge of Darkness

Elite Squad

*The Enforcer
The Eyes of Laura Mars
The French Connection
The Ghost Writer
Hannibal Rising
Hound of the Baskervilles (the Christopher Lee/Peter Cushing horror/mystery version)
Jesse Stone series of TV movies, nine of them in total (look 'em up here, if you're interested)
*Magnum Force
Manhunter
More Than Murder (this, and the following title, are detective Mike Hammer TV flicks)
Murder Me, Murder You
Mud
Mulholland Drive
The Naked Gun (another silly entry here... crime-comedy with Leslie Nielsen)
Only God Forgives
Out of Sight
Rear Window
Red Dragon
Rififi (a 1955 nail-biter from France)
Sherlock Holmes movies starring Basil Rathbone - I have seven, including that Baskerville hound one... fun!
*Sudden Impact
To Live and Die in L.A.
Zodiak