Crime
Straw Dogs
(1971)
David Zelag Goodman (screenplay), Sam Peckinpah (screenplay), Gordon Williams (novel)
Nominated for 1 Oscar. Another 1 win.
Upon moving to Britain to get away from American violence, astrophysicist David Sumner and his wife Amy are bullied and taken advantage of by the locals hired to do construction. When David finally takes a stand it escalates quickly into a bloody battle as the locals assault his house.
Summer of Sam
(1999)
Spike Lee, Victor Colicchio (screenplay), Michael Imperioli (screenplay), Spike Lee (screenplay)
4 nominations.
Spike Lee's take on the "Son of Sam" murders in New York City during the summer of 1977 centering on the residents of an Italian-American Northeast Bronx neighborhood who live in fear and distrust of one another.
Switch
(2011)
Jean-Christophe Grangé (scenario), Jean-Christophe Grangé (adaptation), Frédéric Schoendoerffer (adaptation)
N/A
In Montreal, the unemployed fashion designer Sophie Malaterre is summoned by Claire Maras to show her work to her boss. When Sophie arrives in the company, Clare apologizes and tells that her boss is on vacation and will return only two months later. Clare invites Sophie to have lunch with her and tells Sophie about the website switch.com, where it is possible to switch houses with a stranger for vacation. Sophie seeks an apartment in Paris nearby the Eiffel Tower that belongs to Bénédicte Serteaux and they change apartments. Sophie arrives in Paris on Saturday morning and has a dream day riding a bicycle through the touristic area. However, on the next morning, policemen break in the apartment and arrest Sophie while she is having a bath. Detective Damien Forgeat interrogates Sophie believing that she is Bénédicte and she learns that a beheaded body was found in her room. Further, all the evidences of her life has been deleted and she can not prove that she is Sophie.
Sympathy for Lady Vengeance
(2005)
Seo-Gyeong Jeong, Chan-wook Park
11 wins & 10 nominations.
After a thirteen-year imprisonment for the kidnap and murder of a six-year-old boy, Guem-Ja Lee seeks vengeance on the man truly responsible for the boy's death. With the help of fellow ...
Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance
(2002)
Jae-sun Lee, Jong-yong Lee, Mu-yeong Lee, Chan-wook Park
2 wins.
A recently laid off factory worker kidnaps his former boss' daughter, hoping to use the ransom money to pay for his sister's kidney transplant.
Taking Lives
(2004)
Michael Pye (novel), Jon Bokenkamp (screen story), Jon Bokenkamp (screenplay)
4 nominations.
The film starts in the early 1980s. Young Martin Asher took a bus for Canada. He meets another teen on the bus Matt Soulsby. When the bus broke they decided to rent a car and drive to Seattle. On the road the car gets a flat tire, and Matt starts changing the tire Martin comments on how he and Matt are about the same height and he quickly pushes Matt in the way of an oncoming truck causing a huge accident where Matt and the driver both die. He took Matt's guitar and left singing like Matt did. Twenty years later, an FBI profiler, Illeana Scott comes to Canada to help hunting down a serial killer Martin Asher who killed multiple men and lived by their identities. Martin's mother claims that she saw Martin in Quebec city and she tells the police that Martin is evil. The police also has an eyewitness James Costa who saw Asher kill his last victim...
Taxi Driver
(1976)
Paul Schrader
Nominated for 4 Oscars. Another 21 wins & 15 nominations.
Travis Bickle is an ex-Marine and Vietnam War veteran living in New York City. As he suffers from insomnia, he spends his time working as a taxi driver at night, watching porn movies at seedy cinemas during the day, or thinking about how the world, New York in particular, has deteriorated into a cesspool. He's a loner who has strong opinions about what is right and wrong with mankind. For him, the one bright spot in New York humanity is Betsy, a worker on the presidential nomination campaign of Senator Charles Palantine. He becomes obsessed with her. After an incident with her, he believes he has to do whatever he needs to make the world a better place in his opinion. One of his priorities is to be the savior for Iris, a twelve-year-old runaway and prostitute who he believes wants out of the profession and under the thumb of her pimp and lover Matthew.
Taxi to the Dark Side
(2007)
Alex Gibney
Won 1 Oscar. 11 wins & 5 nominations total
Using the torture and death in 2002 of an innocent Afghan taxi driver as the touchstone, this film examines changes after 9/11 in U.S. policy toward suspects in the war on terror. Soldiers, their attorneys, one released detainee, U.S. Attorney John Yoo, news footage and photos tell a story of abuse at Bagram Air Base, Abu Ghraib, and Guantanamo Bay. From Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Gonzalez came unwritten orders to use any means necessary. The CIA and soldiers with little training used sleep deprivation, sexual assault, stress positions, waterboarding, dogs and other terror tactics to seek information from detainees. Many speakers lament the loss of American ideals in pursuit of security.
Tell No One
(2006)
Guillaume Canet, Harlan Coben (novel), Philippe Lefebvre
12 wins & 15 nominations.
Police find two bodies at an old murder scene and evidence to suggest the scene's first victim's husband is a murderer. Coincidentally, the husband receives clues suggesting his deceased wife is actually alive and begins to investigate.
The Accountant
(2016)
Bill Dubuque
3 wins & 5 nominations.
Christian Wolff is a math savant with more affinity for numbers than people. Behind the cover of a small-town CPA office, he works as a freelance accountant for some of the world's most dangerous criminal organizations. With the Treasury Department's Crime Enforcement Division, run by Ray King, starting to close in, Christian takes on a legitimate client: a state-of-the-art robotics company where an accounting clerk has discovered a discrepancy involving millions of dollars. But as Christian uncooks the books and gets closer to the truth, it is the body count that starts to rise.
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
(2007)
Andrew Dominik (screenplay), Ron Hansen (novel)
Nominated for 2 Oscars. Another 25 wins & 64 nominations.
The last months of Jesse James's life, from meeting Robert Ford, a 19-year-old who idolizes Jesse, to the day Ford shoots him. Jesse's a wanted man, living under a pseudonym, carrying out a train robbery, disappearing to Kentucky, and reappearing to plan a bank holdup with Robert and Robert's brother as his team. The rest of the gang is dead, arrested, or gone from Missouri. Whenever Jesse's around, there's tension: he's murderous, quixotic, depressed, and cautious. Ford wants to be somebody and wants the reward. On April 3, 1882, things come to a head: Jesse is 34, Robert 20. Ford becomes famous, reenacting the shooting on stage, facing down the label "coward," shot dead in 1892.
The Big Lebowski
(1998)
Ethan Coen, Joel Coen
4 wins & 15 nominations.
When "The Dude" Lebowski is mistaken for a millionaire Lebowski, two thugs urinate on his rug to coerce him into paying a debt he knows nothing about. While attempting to gain recompense for the ruined rug from his wealthy counterpart, he accepts a one-time job with high pay-off. He enlists the help of his bowling buddy, Walter, a gun-toting Jewish-convert with anger issues. Deception leads to more trouble, and it soon seems that everyone from porn empire tycoons to nihilists want something from The Dude.
The Black Cat
(1934)
Edgar Allan Poe (suggested by a story by), Peter Ruric (screenplay), Edgar G. Ulmer (story), Peter Ruric (story)
1 win.
American honeymooners in Hungary are trapped in the home of a Satan- worshiping priest when the bride is taken there for medical help following a road accident.
The Black Dahlia
(2006)
Josh Friedman (screenplay), James Ellroy (novel)
Nominated for 1 Oscar. Another 4 wins & 12 nominations.
In 1946, the former boxers Dwight "Bucky" Bleichert and Lee Blanchard are policemen in Los Angeles. Lee has a good relationship with his chief and uses a box fight between them to promote the department and get a raise to the police force. They succeed and are promoted to homicide detectives, working together. Bucky becomes a close friend of Lee and his girlfriend Kay Lake, forming a triangle of love. When the corpse of the aspirant actress 'Elizabeth Short (I)' is found mutilated, Lee becomes obsessed to solve the case called by the press Black Dahlia. Meanwhile, Bucky's investigation leads him to a Madeleine Linscott, the daughter of a powerful and wealthy constructor that resembles the Black Dahlia. In an environment of corruption and lies, Bucky discloses hidden truths.
The Blind Swordsman: Zatoichi
(2003)
Takeshi Kitano (screenplay), Kan Shimozawa (novels)
21 wins & 10 nominations.
Blind Zatoichi makes his living by gambling and giving massages. But behind his humble facade, Zatoichi is a master swordsman, gifted with lightning-fast draw and strokes of breathtaking precision. Zatoichi wanders into a town run by sinister gangs and a powerful samurai. He's destined for violent showdowns when he stumbles on two beautiful geishas avenging their parents' murder... Duels, wit and a touch of zen! Cult anti-hero Zatoichi is back in a sword-fighting adventure written, directed and starring Takeshi Kitano.
The Bone Collector
(1999)
Jeffery Deaver (book), Jeremy Iacone (screenplay)
3 nominations.
A quadriplegic ex-homicide detective and his female partner try to track down a serial killer who is terrorizing New York City.
The Business
(2005)
Nick Love
1 nomination.
Frankie decides enoughs enough with his life as a street thug living on a South London estate, and jets off to spain where he meets big time businessman Charlie who's currently running the hottest bars in the land and also a South London bank robber and drug kingpin, from here on in Frankie signs up to a lifetime of crime women and drugs and works his way from the bottom to the top of the Spanish cocaine empire with Charlie and Fellow bank robber and drug kingpin Sammy who does'not give Frankie the best reception.
The City of Lost Souls
(2000)
Seishu Hase (novel), Ichiro Ryu
N/A
Japanese-Brazilian Mario and Chinese hairdresser Kei are lovers. Kei is about to be deported. He manages to escape. His plan is to get passports and stow away on a ship headed for a foreign country. With his girlfriend he tries to steal money from the mafia. Instead he gets cocaine which he sells. But Kei is captured by Yakuza and he must save her...
The Day of the Jackal
(1973)
Frederick Forsyth (book), Kenneth Ross (screenplay)
Nominated for 1 Oscar. Another 1 win & 10 nominations.
It is the early 60s in France. The remaining survivors of the aborted French Foreign Legion have made repeated attempts to kill DeGaulle. The result is that he is the most closely guarded man in the world. As a desperate act, they hire The Jackal, the code name for a hired killer who agrees to kill French President De Gaulle for half a million dollars. We watch his preparations which are so thorough we wonder how he could possibly fail even as we watch the French police attempt to pick up his trail. The situation is historically accurate. There were many such attempts and the film closely follows the plot of the book.
The Departed
(2006)
William Monahan (screenplay), Alan Mak, Felix Chong
Won 4 Oscars. Another 83 wins & 111 nominations.
In South Boston, the state police force is waging war on Irish American organized crime. Young undercover cop Billy Costigan is assigned to infiltrate the mob syndicate run by gangland chief Frank Costello. While Billy quickly gains Costello's confidence, Colin Sullivan, a hardened young criminal who has infiltrated the state police as an informer for the syndicate is rising to a position of power in the Special Investigation Unit. Each man becomes deeply consumed by their double lives, gathering information about the plans and counter-plans of the operations they have penetrated. But when it becomes clear to both the mob and the police both discover a mole in their midst, Billy and Colin are suddenly in danger of being caught and exposed to the enemy-and each must race to uncover the identity of the other man in time to save themselves. But is either willing to turn on their friends and comrades they've made during their long stints undercover?