The 2010s were a groundbreaking time for movies, particularly the crime genre, and spawned a number of masterpieces from all across the world. Some became instant classics to huge fanbases because they would often reflect the tough times that they were made in.
From widely recognized hits to hidden gems, these 10 crime movies are for those who need their thrillers and dramas with a harder edge and always take their situations to their absolute limit. None of them are for the squeamish, but they're all hugely rewarding if you have the nerves.
10 Mea Culpa (2014)
French director Fred Cavayé has clearly caught the eye of Hollywood as his first two movies, Anything for Her and Point Blank, were promptly given English language remakes and his last thriller is sure to follow suit at some point.
Acclaimed drama actor Vincent Lindon gives a brilliantly hard-nosed lead performance in this taut thriller as a disgraced ex-cop whose son stumbles across a murder by a group of ruthless gangsters with no moral code and must team up with his former partner to take them out first. It's a conventional plot that fits perfectly with its classically hardboiled characters and demonstrates Cavayé's uncanny talent for holding the razor blade of tension right against the audience's throat.
9 The Major (2013)
A corrupt from a remote part of Russia has a terrible accident when rushing to the hospital for the birth of his child and his split decision to cover up his crime begins an uncontrollable chain of events in which deciding to do the right thing only ever serves to make matters far worse.
Cynical beyond most of anything that you can find in movies anywhere, writer and director Yuri Bykov (who also stars) created an unwaveringly tough crime movie with The Major, delivering a unique perspective on amorality and the price of loyalty for modern times in the process.
8 A Prayer Before Dawn (2017)
Chronicling the time spent by young British boxer Billy Moore in the Thai penal system, A Prayer Before Dawn is a brutal prison drama that pulls no punches about the protagonist himself, his journey through the addiction that got him incarcerated, and the slice of redemption that he tries to fight for.
Joe Cole is captivating as Moore both in and out of the ring and his co-stars paint a grim but captivating picture of life inside a world within a world, one which relatively few have ever experienced yet is made to feel incredibly human and relatable.
7 Metro Manila (2013)
When a family of struggling rice farmers decide to pack up and move to Metro Manila, they have a can-do spirit in their hearts which is quickly crushed to smithereens by the merciless weight of city life and all the forces working to exploit them even worse than impoverished feudal life in the fields.
When the family's patriarch secures a dangerous job as an armored car driver, it seems like a relatively lucky break but quickly reveals itself to be just another trap waiting to devour what little innocence is left within them.
6 The Outlaws (2017)
When a Chinese gang muscles itself into a district of Seoul, their previously unseen scorched-earth tactics of total barbarism look to overpower everything in sight. Good thing the city's toughest cop is tasked with taking them down.
Ma Dong-seok is unforgettable as the brawny lead but its the relentless threat of the villains, mixed with the likability of the heroes, that makes The Outlaws such an irresistibly eye-watering cocktail.
5 Hell or High Water (2016)
Chris Pine and Ben Foster are two brothers on a desperate crime spree in an attempt to save their family's oil-rich land before the banks they're robbing can snatch it out from underneath them while Jeff Bridges and Gil Birmingham are the Texas Rangers hot on their tails in David Mackenzie's unfalteringly stoic Neo-Western.
Taylor Sheridan's screenplay offers a number of brilliantly grizzled quotes within its razor-sharp, perfectly-executed, thriller plot but it's the performances that really sell the 'Hell' part of the title, accentuating the anguish and the unbreakable resolve of its contemporary takes on classic archetypes.
4 A Touch of Sin (2013)
Jia Zhangke's masterpiece of overflowing anger bursting forth into violent frenzies is made up of an anthology of vignettes of real-life crimes from all over the vast and swallowing landscapes of 21st century China.
The expressions of rage against inequality and indignity in the modern world will strike a chord with anybody as A Touch of Sin taps into universal feelings of frustration, marginalization, and helplessness.
3 Starred Up (2013)
Jack O'Connell and Ben Mendelsohn lead this bare-knuckle–and flawlessly-acted–prison drama about a young offender 'starred up' into the general adult population and all its lethal dangers where his sentenced-to-life father is housed.
Starred Up is unflinching in its portrayal of both physical violence and the emotional violence that sows its seed, making it one of the most grueling and rewarding entries into the crime movie genre for quite some time.
2 The Yellow Sea (2010)
Writer and director Na Hong-jin followed up his blistering detective thriller debut, The Chaser, with this wholly idiosyncratic epic about a down and out cab driver from the peripheral Joseonjok culture caught between Korea and China who travels to South Korea to commit a gruesome crime so that he can pay off his serious gambling debts and frantically search for his missing wife in his spare time.
When things inevitably go wrong, he finds himself caught between the cops and two warring armies of gangsters in a bloody gauntlet of overwhelming odds, remorseless crime, quick thinking, and very dark humor.
1 Drug War (2012)
When a meth dealer narrowly escapes death at the hands of his exploded lab, he finds himself in the custody of China's drug enforcement agents, which comes with its own guaranteed death sentence, meaning he must give them everything they want if he's to stand any chance of survival.
Johnnie To's gripping cop/crook team-up movie is exhilarating but as far away from the 'buddy' genre as you can get with both sides constantly battling for the upper hand in this unforgivingly tense game of duplicity and desperation that keeps its vice-like grip on the audience right until the final breath.
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