Crime
Kind Hearts and Coronets
(1949)
Roy Horniman (novel), Robert Hamer (screenplay), John Dighton (screenplay)
Nominated for 1 BAFTA Film Award. Another 3 wins & 2 nominations.
A distant poor relative of the Duke of D'Ascoyne plots to inherit the title by murdering the eight other heirs who stand ahead of him in the line of succession.
King of New York
(1990)
Nicholas St. John
1 win & 2 nominations.
After completing a lengthy prison sentence, one-time drug kingpin Frank White returns to New York intent on reestablishing his empire and making things as they were before he left. Others of course have taken over the business during his absence but that clearly isn't going to stop White. While he is gunning down the opposition, he decides he's going to give away the money he'll make to modernize the hospital in his old neighborhood. Drug dealers aren't the only thing he has to worry about however: a group of rogue cops decide they are going to take him down.
Kurt & Courtney
(1998)
N/A
1 win & 2 nominations.
After rocker Kurt Cobain's death, ruled a suicide, a film crew arrives in Seattle to make a documentary. Director Nick Broomfield talks to lots of people: Cobain's aunt who provides home movies and recordings, the estranged father of Cobain's widow Courtney Love, an L.A. private investigator who worked for Love, a nanny for Kurt and Courtney's child, friends and lovers of both, and others. Although Love won't talk to him and his inquiries lose him financial backing, he comes to believe the coroner's verdict. Portraits emerge: a shy, slight Kurt, weary of touring, embarrassed by fame, hooked on heroin; an out-going Courtney, dramatic, controlling, moving from groupie to star.
L.A. Confidential
(1997)
James Ellroy (novel), Brian Helgeland (screenplay), Curtis Hanson (screenplay)
Won 2 Oscars. Another 81 wins & 77 nominations.
As corruption grows in 1950s LA, three policemen - one strait-laced, one brutal, and one sleazy - investigate a series of murders with their own brand of justice.
La Haine
(1995)
Mathieu Kassovitz
8 wins & 13 nominations.
24 hours in the lives of three young men in the French suburbs the day after a violent riot.
Lakeview Terrace
(2008)
David Loughery (screenplay), Howard Korder (screenplay), David Loughery (story)
1 nomination.
A LAPD officer will stop at nothing to force out the interracial couple who just moved in next door.
Last Man Standing
(1996)
Ryûzô Kikushima (story), Akira Kurosawa (story), Walter Hill (screenplay)
N/A
A drifting gunslinger-for-hire finds himself in the middle of an ongoing war between the Irish and Italian mafia in a Prohibition era ghost town.
Law Abiding Citizen
(2009)
Kurt Wimmer
2 wins & 5 nominations.
A frustrated man decides to take justice into his own hands after a plea bargain sets one of his family's killers free. He targets not only the killer but also the district attorney and others involved in the deal.
Lawless
(2012)
Nick Cave (screenplay), Matt Bondurant (novel)
1 win & 8 nominations.
In 1931, in Franklin County, Virginia, Forrest Bondurant is a legend as immortal after surviving the war. Together with his brothers Howard and the coward Jack, the Bondurant family has a distillery and bootlegging business. When the corrupt District Attorney Mason Wardell arrives in Franklin with the unscrupulous Special Deputy Charles Rakes, the Bondurant family refuses to pay the required bribe to the authorities. Rakes pursues the brothers and unsuccessfully tries to find their distillery. Meanwhile Forrest hires the waitress Maggie, a woman with a hidden past in Chicago, and they fall in love with each other. Jack courts the preacher's daughter Bertha Minnix and deals a great load of alcoholic liquor with the powerful gangster Floyd Banner. Jack shows off in Franklin attracting the attention of Rakes that finds the location of their distillery. When he kills the crippled Cricket Pete, the locals join forces to face the corrupt authorities.
Layer Cake
(2004)
J.J. Connolly (screenplay), J.J. Connolly (novel)
2 wins & 9 nominations.
A successful cocaine dealer gets two tough assignments from his boss on the eve of his planned early retirement.
Legend
(2015)
Brian Helgeland, John Pearson (book)
5 wins & 10 nominations.
The true story of London's most notorious gangsters, twins Reggie and Ronnie Kray. As the brothers rise through the criminal underworld, Ronnie advances the family business with violence and intimidation while Reggie struggles to go legitimate for local girl Frances Shea. In and out of prison, Ronnie's unpredictable tendencies and the slow disintegration of Reggie's marriage threaten to bring the brothers' empire tumbling to the ground.
Leon: The Professional
(1994)
Luc Besson
3 wins & 8 nominations.
Mathilda, a 12-year-old girl, is reluctantly taken in by Léon, a professional assassin, after her family is murdered. Léon and Mathilda form an unusual relationship, as she becomes his protégée and learns the assassin's trade.
Lethal Weapon
(1987)
Shane Black
Nominated for 1 Oscar. Another 5 wins & 1 nomination.
Martin Riggs is an L.A. cop with suicidal tendencies and Roger Murtaugh is the unlucky police officer with whom Riggs is assigned. Together they uncover a huge drug-smuggling operation, and as their success rate grows so does their friendship.
Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels
(1998)
Guy Ritchie
Nominated for 1 BAFTA Film Award. Another 13 wins & 7 nominations.
Four Jack-the-lads find themselves heavily - seriously heavily - in debt to an East End hard man and his enforcers after a crooked card game. Overhearing their neighbours in the next flat plotting to hold up a group of out-of-their-depth drug growers, our heros decide to stitch up the robbers in turn. In a way the confusion really starts when a pair of antique double-barrelled shotguns go missing in a completely different scam.
London Boulevard
(2010)
William Monahan (screenplay), Ken Bruen (novel)
1 nomination.
An ex-con with a reputation tries to go straight by working as a handy man for a reclusive actress but this is unfortunately not the wish of London's underground crime lord.
Looper
(2012)
Rian Johnson
15 wins & 43 nominations.
In 2074, when the mob wants to get rid of someone, the target is sent into the past, where a hired gun awaits - someone like Joe - who one day learns the mob wants to 'close the loop' by sending back Joe's future self for assassination.
Lucky Number Slevin
(2006)
Jason Smilovic
5 wins & 4 nominations.
In an airport waiting room, a man in a wheelchair tells a stranger a story about a fixed horse race in 1979 that resulted in a family's deaths. In Manhattan, two bookies and the son of a Mob boss die. A young man just out of the shower answers the door to a neighbor woman and explains that he's visiting, has had a bad week, including being mugged, and doesn't know where his pal, who lives there, is. The neighbor is chatty; she's a coroner. Two thugs arrive and, believing the visitor to be the guy who lives there, take him to see the boss with the dead son, who tells him to kill the son of his Mob rival. Mistaken identity? What connects the threads? Cops are watching.
M
(1931)
Thea von Harbou (script), Fritz Lang (script)
2 wins.
When the police in a German city are unable to catch a child-murderer, other criminals join in the manhunt.
Made in Britain
(1982)
David Leland
1 win.
Trevor is a 16 year old, sometimes-violent skinhead with no regard for authority, and would rather spend his time stealing cars than sitting in the detention centre to which he is sent. His social worker, Harry Parker, tries to do his best, but Trevor is only interested when there's something that he can get out of it. The authorities within the centre try to make Trevor conform to the norms of society, but he takes no notice, and would rather speak in a torrent of four-letter words and racial abuse.
Man Bites Dog
(1992)
Rémy Belvaux (story), Rémy Belvaux (screenplay), André Bonzel (screenplay), Benoît Poelvoorde (screenplay), Vincent Tavier (screenplay)
6 wins & 4 nominations.
A camera crew follows a serial killer/thief around as he exercises his craft. He expounds on art, music, nature, society, and life as he offs mailmen, pensioners, and random people. Slowly he begins involving the camera crew in his activities, and they begin wondering if what they're doing is such a good idea, particularly when the killer kills a rival and the rival's brother sends a threatening letter.