"The old media adage, "If it bleeds, it leads," also describes a common narrative approach in cinema.
Because criminality and violence make for inherently compelling cinematic material, both are featured prominently in many of the greatest films of all time.
The Metacritic data we compiled here to track the most critically acclaimed crime movies in history traces a lineage of great films from contemporary thrillers like "No Country for Old Men" and "Hell or High Water," to classics like "The Godfather" (Parts I and II) and "On the Waterfront."
The list includes all of the highest-rated movies that feature a "crime" tag on the site, which turned out to be a wide-ranging categorization, encompassing feature films and documentaries. That said, we did exclude several movies from Metacritic's list that had no clear relation to crime."
