Crime and detective movies focus on crime and the actions around crime both committing them and solving them.
They can be suspenseful, dark, mysterious and focused on the whodunnit.
Movies can look at the search for clues and criminals or walk the viewer through the criminal and legal system.
There will be heroes who are going to solve the crime and those who are villains on both sides of the law be it the police or the guy who commits a crime.
This genre of movies has been around for decades and draws viewers into the process of solving the crime and proving who is innocent and who is guilty.
Crime and Detective Movies
This genre of movie always circles around a crime, solving it or guessing “whodunnit”.
The viewer gets to travel as the movie looks at the details, the clues and the legal system as a whole through the eyes of the detective or those involved in the system.
The movies may look at gangs, individual culprits, criminal corporations along with how they interact with the legal system as well.
There are lots of ways a crime and detective movie lead the viewer into the world of crime and many stages of the system where they can be brought in.
Detective subgenre of these movies is one where there are crime and victims of crime.
The viewer gets to see the process of detection and how the crime is investigated.
Key details are given, and the movie progresses so the audience can see how the investigator is looking for the culprit or perhaps they know who it is but must prove it.
It tends to use a type of filming that is called the point of view, so it draws the audience in even more than just through the story itself.
The person investigating the crime will usually be the protagonist set on capturing the person who committed the crime.
Many of these movies can be seen through films based on literature.
Agatha Christie’s Poirot, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes and many others show the hero out to bring the culprit to justice.
Gangster movies that highlight organized crime.
This means it includes stories around large criminal groups or smaller gangs that are performing illegal acts as a team.
This means mob stories or duos and teams of criminals such as Bonnie and Clyde.
These movies are often historical in context and based on real-world criminals and crime families.
Audiences see the outlaw rebels of Bonnie and Clyde, the villains too who relate like in Key Largo and then those who are the immigrant gangsters that encompass the mafia and other groups who infiltrate the American crime scene.
These moves look at gangsters, the crimes that are committed and their interaction with law enforcement and the legal system.
Courtroom or legal movies move from the actual crime itself into the courtroom.
They look at legal proceedings that occur after a crime is committed.
This often means it is from the perspective of someone in the courtroom.
It could be the defense or prosecutor.
Perhaps those who are on trial or even the jurors.
A film based on any one of these perspectives offers the audience a look at the proceedings and evidence.
The trick to these movies is that many of them don’t allow the audience to have all the information at once so they see a trial unfold that would be as a juror would.
Surprise evidence, new witnesses and backgrounds of those in the trial are all selectively released to the audience allowing them to follow the proceedings as they would in a courtroom.
Movies such as Philadelphia or A Few Good Men highlight that crime isn’t only the well known secular crimes but also corporate and military-driven.
Crime and detective movies have been around for decades and incorporate some of the biggest fictional detectives as well as real-life stories.
Whether you enjoy old school literature detectives such as Sherlock Holmes, want to watch the FBI take down the mafia or if you enjoy watching trial lawyers take on the big corporations, they are all part of this genre.
Following along as the case makes its way to an arrest or through the court system keeps audiences involved and figuring out the clues and twists and turns as those in the movie do.
