The 20 Most Gripping Crime Dramas Streaming on Netflix
Honestly, we love crime until it happens to us. Whether it’s a chilling drama based on a true story, a clever mystery, or a story about a robbery gone wrong, watching criminals fail and cops triumph, or vice versa, can be very satisfying. So grab some popcorn and your favorite handcuffs while you enjoy the best and most twisted crime dramas streaming on Netflix.
Molly’s Game (2017)
Aaron Sorkin writes and directs—sometimes well—this true crime biographical drama based on the memoir of “Poker Princess” Molly Bloom. A former Olympic skier, Bloom competed in one of the world’s highest-stakes poker games for a decade before running afoul of the Italian Mafia, the Russian Mafia and then the FBI. It’s a crazy roller coaster of a story, starring an impressive cast: Jessica Chastain, Idris Elba, Kevin Costner and Michael Cera.
Killer Klovhich (2018)
Small and quiet Kentucky is haunted by memories of a string of murders that occurred ten years ago, committed by an unknown killer known only as the Clowhitch Killer. 16-year-old Tyler Burnside (Charlie Plummer) thinks he has a pretty normal family and a decent father, at least until strange photos appear in his dad’s truck that lead Tyler to believe that the missing killer could be very close to home. The film is all the more chilling because it is based on the story of the real-life BTK killer.
Killer (2023)
Michael Fassbender plays the hitman, a ruthless but meticulous hitman suffering the consequences of the first major mistake of his career – accidentally shooting the wrong man. (Oops!) His carefully organized life quickly begins to unravel, and he finds himself on the other side of things: Now people are trying to kill him. Unlike its previous Netflix original, Mank , this film is as close as director David Fincher gets to a pure action thriller.
The Irishman (2019)
In 2019, Martin Scorsese premiered his latest crime drama on Netflix, receiving 10 Academy Award nominations in the process. The plot here, involving real-life truck driver-turned-hitman Frank Sheeran (Robert De Niro), somewhat follows Scorsese’s early mob dramas, but this one feels more contemplative than other films where the criminals feel very strongly about themselves. as stand-ins for an American society that has become increasingly sociopathic in its willingness to tolerate crime and corruption.
Pale Blue Eye (2022)
If you like brooding and historical mysteries, you’ll enjoy this one, even if it plays fast and loose with history. Christian Bale plays a retired and deeply troubled detective who teams up with a young West Point cadet you may have heard of: his name is Edgar Allen Poe, and he’s played here by Harry Melling, and he’s great. A student on campus has turned up dead, and it’s unclear whether the occult imagery and symbolism surrounding the case is a sign that dark forces are at play, or intended to confuse our uncoordinated investigators. Impressively twisty.
Baby Driver (2017)
Putting aside the problematic leads for a moment (looking at you, Ansel Elgort and Kevin Spacey), Edgar Wright’s 2017 drive-in heist film is undeniably exciting. Elgort plays the titular “Baby”, an experienced driver who can do anything behind the wheel as long as his headphones provide him with the right tunes. In addition to the fun and engaging plot that follows Baby as he tries to break away from driving and settle down with the woman he loves (Lily James), the film features a standout six-minute car chase featuring some frankly unrealistic stunt driving. — except it was all filmed on real cars in real locations.
Luther: Fallen Sun (2023)
Continuing and perhaps concluding the British crime series starring Idris Elba, The Sun Has Fallen benefits from knowing what came before for the character, but doesn’t require it. Now disgraced and imprisoned, former Detective Chief Inspector John Luther faces the taunts of a serial killer (Andy Serkis) whom he is almost certain can only be stopped if Luther breaks out of prison and hunts him down. Really convenient because we don’t have to watch our boyfriend sit in a jail cell for two hours. Elba does a morally gray detective better than anyone, perhaps ever, as The Fallen Sun reminds us.
El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie (2019)
Continuing the story of Jesse Pinkman from Breaking Bad in the style of a new western, this story isn’t really a standalone, so it’s worth the wait if you haven’t watched the series that preceded it. Taking place immediately after the end of the series, Jesse (a rather brilliant Aaron Paul) is on the run from the authorities. The film follows him as he tries to reach safety in Alaska, challenging the police as well as new enemies along the way. A must watch if you’re a Breaking Bad fan.
The Good Nurse (2022)
Not at all related to The Good Doctor (definitely don’t confuse the two), The Good Nurse stars Jessica Chastain as the real-life Amy Loughran, a woman in need of a heart transplant who is desperate to save it. working in a hospital for insurance. No problem: she’s made friends with another nurse on the night shift, Charlie Cullen (Eddie Redmayne), and everything seems to be going well. Until a patient’s death leads to a cover-up and she’s forced to question whether her co-worker is the stoic guy he seems to be (hint: he’s not).
Rust Creek (2018)
College senior Sawyer Scott (Hermione Corfield) doesn’t want to tell anyone that she’s going to Washington for an interview, fearing embarrassment if she doesn’t pass. Still, she probably should have told someone where she would be. Lost in the Appalachian Mountains, she stumbles upon a pair of brothers burying a body, and the brothers aren’t about to let her go far. The survival drama is full of an eerie wilderness atmosphere.
Guilty (2021)
Antoine Fuqua ( Training Day ) is directing from a script by True Detective ‘s Nic Pizzolatto, a remake of the 2018 Danish film (which, to be fair, is a bit better, but that’s to be expected). Jake Gyllenhaal plays Joe Baylor, an LAPD officer who is sent to a 911 dispatcher for initially unspecified errors in judgment. He receives a call from a panicked woman who forces him to make several dramatic decisions, not all of them good. An exercise in pure tension, the film’s content rests largely on Gyllenhaal’s shoulders, although a few big names appear via voiceover.
City Hunter (2024)
A crime drama doesn’t have to be dark and gritty. This manga adaptation is a candy, fast-paced and slightly silly take starring Ryohei Suzuki as lead detective Ryo Saeba and Misato Morita as his murdered partner’s daughter, with whom he teams up to avenge that death and find the missing man . a runaway teenager with deadly superpowers.
Trifles (2021)
The film takes place a long time ago (in the 1990s). The Little Things stars Denzel Washington and Rami Malek as detectives investigating a series of murders in Los Angeles. When they begin to suspect a strange loner (Jared Leto), the couple discovers that the case is connected to Washington’s character’s past. In many ways it’s a familiar entry into the genre, but the dark atmosphere and performances from the three main characters greatly enhance the material.
My Fault (2024)
Tyler Perry’s very intense legal thriller stars Kelly Rowland as Mia (get it?), a lawyer prosecuting the case of an artist (Trevante Rhodes) accused of murdering his girlfriend. Her husband Cal is cheating on her and her brother-in-law is a prosecutor, and there appears to be some larger political scheme at work. It’s all a bit silly and sexy fun in the spirit of an erotic thriller.
A simple favor (2018)
The darkly comedic tone makes this film a little lighter on the surface, but it ends up being even more confusing. It all starts when blogger mom Stephanie (Anna Kendrick) befriends and unwisely confesses to Emily (Blake Lively), a public relations director and the mother of her son’s classmate. Then Emily disappears, Stephanie (with extremely poor judgment) sleeps with Emily’s husband (Henry Golding), and the dark secrets Stephanie has uncovered begin to come to light under shocking circumstances. It’s all a lot of fun and has a lot of really wild twists and turns.
I Don’t Feel at Home in This World Anymore (2017)
When nurse Ruth (Melanie Lynskey) comes home to find she’s been robbed, she sets out with her neighbor Tony (Elijah Wood) to get her belongings back and get revenge. Sounds like the setting for a badass action movie, except they’re both about as competent as you and I at turning the tables on criminals. As a vigilante farce, it almost reaches Coen Brothers levels of absurdity, but it’s not all silliness, alternately challenging and confirming our worst instincts about our fellow human beings.
Missing (2023)
Screenlife, as a subgenre, is somewhat reminiscent of found footage, except that all the action is shown from the perspective of a computer or mobile device. That’s how we perceive the world now anyway, so it doesn’t seem so artificial. In this rather exceptional performance, Storm Reid plays June Allen, the daughter of single mother Grace (Nia Long). June is thrilled that her overprotective mom goes on vacation with her new boyfriend until she returns. June sets out to investigate Grace’s disappearance from afar, receiving help from concert worker Javier (Joaquim de Almeida). The tension builds higher and higher with every click on the dark corners of the Internet.
Extremely Evil, Shockingly Evil and Vile (2019)
The title here pretty much says it all: Zac Efron plays serial killer Ted Bundy, following him from his student years in Seattle in the late 1960s to (spoiler alert?) his execution in 1989. Efron is great, as is Lily Collins as Liz Kendall, the girl who maintained Bundy’s innocence until it was no longer possible. The film is directed by true crime documentarian Joe Berlinger, who directed the documentary series Conversations with a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes , also released in 2019 and also on Netflix. In case you just can’t get enough of Ted Bundy.
Hitman (2024)
Glen Powell (who co-wrote the film with director Richard Linklater) plays Gary Johnson, an introverted New Orleans professor who gets sucked into a part-time job he’s surprisingly good at: impersonating hitmen for the police. People wanting to hire an assassin come to Gary, believing him to be a hitman, only to find that they have walked into a trap. Things get complicated when Madison (Adria Arjona) approaches him to get rid of her abusive husband, and he’s not sure if the guy shouldn’t be killed.
Lost Girls (2020)
Based on the real-life Gilgo Beach serial murders, Lost Girls stars Amy Ryan as Marie Gilbert, who forced Long Island police to dig deeper after what was initially viewed as the accidental death of her daughter. The case remains unsolved, as we are told early in the film, but the focus here is on Gilbert herself and the police’s reluctance to dig deeper, even as the bodies begin to pile up, on behalf of the women who were sex workers. This is the impressive dramatic debut of documentary filmmaker Liz Garbus.