Subgenre Sampler

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Anatomy of a Fall (2023): Dir. Justine Triet
Feat. Sandra Huller, Swann Arlaud, Jehnny Beth…; An extraordinary, multi–layered dramatic thriller from France that deservingly won the Palm D'or at Cannes. For the past year, Sandra, a…
Decision To Leave (2022): Dir. Park Chan-Wook
Feat. Hae-il Park, Wei Tang; An exquisite and mysterious melodrama from Korean maestro Park Chan–Wook (Old Boy, Thirst, The Handmaiden), ostensibly about a detective who…
Holy Spider (2022): Dir. Ali Abbasi
Feat. Zar Amir Ebrahimi, Mehdi Bajestani, Arash Ashtiani; An astonishing new film from Ali Abbasi, who makes good on the promise of his head–turning Danish troll drama “Border” (2018). This one…
Kompromat (2022): Dir. Jérôme Salle
Feat. Gilles Lellouche, Joanna Kulig; Mathieu is a gregarious and dedicated diplomat who accepts a posting to Irkutsk as the head of Siberia’s Alliance Française. He hopes the change…
Maigret (2022): Dir. Patrice Leconte
Feat. Gerard Depardieu, Jade Labeste, Aurore Clement…; Gérard Depardieu brings to remarkable life one of the most beloved characters from 20th–century crime fiction in this crime drama from…
Night of the 12th, The (La Nuit du 12) (2022): Dir. Dominik Moll
Feat. Bastien Bouillon, Bouli Lanners, Anouk Grinberg; Another intelligent and thought–provoking French crime drama from the director of Aro Favourite, “Only the Animals” (2019). It’s more…
The Origin of Evil (2022): Dir. Sebastien Marnier
Feat. Laure Calamy; A black comedy thriller from France about riches, bitches and patriarchal pricks, because when it comes to money all bets are off and all knives come…
Escape from Mogadishu (2021): Dir. Ryoo Seung-Wan
Feat. Yoon-seok Kim, In-sung Zo, Joon-ho Huh; A gritty action–thriller based on true events following a diplomatic skirmish between North and South Korea that breaks out on the African…
Full Time (A Plien Temps) (2021): Dir. Eric Gravel
Feat. Laure Calamy, Genevieve Mnich, Anne Suarez; A cracker of a French drama that teeters on the edge of a thriller throughout because it’s all about the pressure cooker that is modern life.…
To Chiara (A Chiara) (2021): Dir. Jonas Carpignano
Feat. Swamy Rotolo, Claudio Rotolo, Giorgia Rotolo…; A rites–of–passage drama in the Italian neo–realist tradition that examines the impact of Mafia activity on those in the close…
Appearances (Les apparences) (2020): Dir. Marc Fitoussi
Feat. Karin Viard, Benjamin Biolay, Lucas Englander; French–Belgian psychological thriller about a happily married couple living in Vienna whose lives are disrupted when one suspects the other of…
Painter and the Thief, The (2020): Dir. Benjamin Ree; A astonishing art documentary about the Czech painter Barbora Kysilkova, who tracked down and met the criminal who stole her paintings. What…
Translators, The (Les Traducteurs) (2020): Dir. Régis Roinsard
Feat. Riccardo Scamarcio, Lambert Wilson, Olga Kurylenko…; A multi–lingual literary thriller centering around nine international translators, one of whom may be leaking pages of a highly anticipated…
Wildland (2020): Dir. Jeanette Nordahl
Feat. Sandra Guldberg Kampp, Sidse Babett Knudsen, Joachim Fjelstrup; Powerful coming–of–age Scandi–noir about a Danish teenager who becomes embroiled in the ruthless criminal life of her aunt and…
A White, White Day (2019): Dir. Hlynur Pálmason
Feat. Ingvar Eggert Sigurðsson, Ida Mekkin Hlynsdottir, Hilmir Snaer Gudnason…; Aesthetically striking Icelandic drama which plunges the viewer deep into the psyche of a tortured former police officer who suspects a neighbour…
All the Sins (TV Series) (2019): Dir. Mika Ronkainen
Feat. Johannes Holopainen, Maria Sid, Matti Ristinen; Compulsive Nordic noir miniseries following a detective who returns to his home town in Northern Finland to investigate two murders, while…
Bacurau (2019): Dir. Kleber Mendonca Filho, Juliano Dornelles
Feat. Sonia Braga, Udo Kier, Bárbara Colen…; Fiercely political and utterly distinctive film blending elements of neo–western, ethnography, gonzo and horror, set in a fictional Brazilian…
Heroic Losers (2019): Dir. Sebastian Borensztein
Feat. Ricardo Darín, Luis Brandoni, Chino Darin…; Winning underdog comedy from Argentinian director Sebastian Borensztein (CHINESE TAKEAWAY) based on the novel by Eduardo Sacheri (THE SECRET IN THEIR…
Les Miserables (2019): Dir. Ladj Ly
Feat. Damien Bonnard, Alexis Manenti, Djebril Zonga…; This impressive feature debut from French director Ladj Ly is set in the French criminal underworld in aftermath of the 2018 FIFA World Cup, when…
Monos (2019): Dir. Alejandro Landes
Feat. Julianne Nicholson, Moises Arias, Sofía Buenaventura…; A dark contemporary fable inspired by Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, set in a remote and mountainous region of Columbia, where a group of teenage…
Only the Animals (Seules les bêtes) (2019): Dir. Dominik Moll
Feat. Denis Ménochet, Laure Calamy, Damien Bonnard…; A superb psychological thriller set in rural France that uncovers a twisted web of deceit concerning five people who are all linked to the…
Parasite (2019): Dir. Joon-ho Bong
Feat. Kang-ho Song, Sun-kyun Lee, Yeo-jeong Cho…; An unemployed family with a bleak future systematically ingratiate themselves into the lives of a wealthy family in this brilliant,…
Twin (TV Series) (2019): Feat. Kristofer Hivju, Rebekka Nystabakk; Intriguing eight–part Norwegian crime drama series starring "Game of Thrones" actor Kristofer Hivju as identical twin brothers living…
Who You Think I Am (Celle que vous croyez) (2019): Dir. Safy Nebbou
Feat. Juliette Binoche, François Civil, Nicole Garcia…; Juliet Binoche is outstanding at the helm of this elegant psychological thriller, playing a French literature professor and middle–aged…
Wild Goose Lake, The (Nan fang che zhan de ju hui) (2019): Dir. Diao Yinan
Feat. Ge Hu, Fan Liao, Lun-Mei Kwei; Chinese noir thriller with impeccable visual flair, following the fates of a rogue gangster and the prostitute he meets whilst on the run from the…
Birds of Passage (2018): Dir. Ciro Guerra, Cristina Gallego
Feat. Natalia Reyes, Carmina Martinez, Jose Acosta; Intelligent and engrossing narco–thriller set in Columbia in the 1960's, following an indigenous Wayuu man and his family as they turn to drug…
By the Grace of God (Grâce à Dieu) (2018): Dir. Francois Ozon
Feat. Melvil Poupaud, Denis Ménochet, Swann Arlaud; Hard–hitting French–Belgian drama about three sexual abuse victims who attempt to the to justice the Catholic priest who was…
Dogman (2018): Dir. Matteo Garrone
Feat. Edoardo Pesce, Marcello Fonte; The director of GOMORRAH and TALE OF TALES expertly helms this gripping urban Italian crime noir about a mild mannered and diminutive dog groomer who…
Everybody Knows (Todos Lo Saben) (2018): Dir. Asghar Farhadi
Feat. Penelope Cruz, Javier Bardem, Ricardo Darín; Iranian maestro Asghar Farhadi assembles a powerhouse cast for this Spanish–language about a mother–of–two who returns from Buenos…
Guilty, The (Den skyldige) (2018): Feat. Jakob Cedergren, Jessica Dinnage; A nail–biting Danish thriller that maximises tension from minimal means in which a desk–bound police officer answers an emergency call…
Mother is Wrong (TV Mini-series) (Maman a tort) (2018): Feat. Anne Charrier, Pascal Elbé; French thriller following a detective who, despite being already consumed by a major robbery, takes on the chilling case of a child who tells her his…
Purity of Vengeance, The (Journal 64) (2018): Dir. Christoffer Boe
Feat. Nikolaj Lie Kaas, Fares Fares; The fourth and final installment in the Danish 'Department Q' detective series initiated by The KEEPER OF LOST CAUSES is a conspiracy thriller…
World Is Yours, The (Le monde est à toi) (2018): Dir. Romain Gavras
Feat. Karim Leklou, Isabelle Adjani, Vincent Cassel…; French comedy thriller about a small time drug dealer who attempts to go straight by becoming the official distributor of Mr. Freeze ice pops in…
Bridge, The - Series 4 (TV Series) (Bron/Broen) (2017): Feat. Sofia Helin, Thure Lindhardt; Fourth series of the enormously popular Danish–Swedish murder mystery is set two years after the conclusion of Series 3 with the central…
Double Lover (L'amant double) (2017): Dir. Francois Ozon
Feat. Jacqueline Bisset, Jeremie Renier, Marine Vacth…; Sexually–charged, stylized thriller from director Francois Ozon about a fragile young model who moves in with her psychoanalyst, only to…
In the Fade (2017): Dir. Fatih Akin
Feat. Diane Kruger, Johannes Krisch; Diane Kruger's momentous performance is central to this drama about a woman called Katja from Hamburg, whose husband and son are killed in a…
A Conspiracy of Faith (2016): Dir. Hans Petter Moland
Feat. Pål Sverre Hagen, Fares Fares, Nikolaj Lie Kaas; Following THE KEEPER OF LOST CAUSES and THE ABSENT ONE, this third entry in the coal–black "Department Q" series of feature films has cold case…
Dheepan (2016): Dir. Jacques Audiard
Feat. Antonythasan Jesuthasan; A Sri Lankan refugee in France finds himself posing as the father and husband of two other refugees in order to gain asylum status. An unflinchingly…
Elle (2016): Dir. Paul Verhoeven
Feat. Isabelle Huppert, Laurent Lafitte, Anne Consigny…; Controversial, unflinching drama closely following the perspective of a woman who is repeatedly raped by the same masked intruder, but whose…
Frozen Dead, The (TV Series) (Glacé) (2016): Feat. Charles Berling, Julia Piaton, Pascal Greggory; Chilly crime thriller set in the French Pyrenees that unravels after the discovery of a headless body of a horse hanging suspended from the edge of a…
Handmaiden, The (2016): Dir. Park Chan-Wook
Feat. Min-hee Kim, Tae-ri Kim, Jung-woo Ha…; Delicious erotic thriller from the brilliant Park Chan–Wook, who lends his impeccable style to a provocative potboiler of lesbian love and…
Personal Shopper (2016): Dir. Olivier Assayas
Feat. Kristen Stewart, Lars Eidinger, Anders Danielsen Lie…; Utterly beguiling psychological horror closely following a troubled personal shopper to a fashion–world celebrity, who attempts to make contact…
13 Minutes (2015): Dir. Oliver Hirschbiegel
Feat. Christian Friedel, Katharina Schüttler, Burghart Klaussner; The director of DOWNFALL returns to World War Two with this tense depiction of Georg Elser's efforts to assassinate Hitler, and the aftermath of his…
Angelby (TV Series) (Ängelby) (2015): Feat. Mia Skaringer, Goran Ragnerstam, Amanda Ooms; Unsettling Swedish mystery series about a wife–and–mother who is forced to take a job in a small remote city of Ängelby where she…
Boomerang (2015): Dir. François Favrat
Feat. Laurent Lafitte, Mélanie Laurent, Audrey Dana…; Proficient French thriller from the author of SARAH'S KEY concerns a pair of siblings and their pursuit for the truth behind their mother's death.
Clan, The (2015): Dir. Pablo Trapero
Feat. Guillermo Francella, Peter Lanzani, Lili Popovich; Swaggering portrait of the Argentina's notorious Puccio Clan who's ruthless kidnap and ransom operation that both terrorized and fascinated the…
Desierto (2015): Dir. Jonás Cuarón
Feat. Gael Garcia Bernal, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Diego Cataño…; Tense B–movie style thriller set in the borderlands between Mexico and the U.S.A, with Bernal as an illegal immigrant who must find a way to…
Heat Wave (Coup de chaud) (2015): Dir. Raphaël Jacoulot
Feat. Jean-Pierre Darroussin, Gregory Gadebois; A peaceful French hamlet is turned upside down when a deranged local starts harassing the the villagers and causing hostilities to rise dangerously.…
Idealist, The (2015): Dir. Christina Rosendahl
Feat. Peter Plaugborg, Søren Malling; An intriguing and methodical Cold War thriller based on a book by Poul Brink, a Danish radio journalist who exposed an international 20–year…
Made in France (2015): Dir. Nicolas Boukhrief
Feat. Malik Zidi, Dimitri Storoge, François Civil; Eerily predicting the November 2015 Paris attacks, this crime–thriller follows a journalist infiltrating a jihadist cell that plans to…
Modus (TV Series) (2015-2017): Feat. Melinda Kinnaman, Greg Wise, Kim Cattrall…; Swedish psychological thriller series following the work of a criminal psychologist and profiler who has previously assisted both the Swedish police…
Norskov (TV Series) (2015): Feat. Thomas Levin, Claus Riis Ostergaard, Jacob Lohmann; CONTRABAND TITLE. Season 1 is not legally available for sale, rent or trade in New Zealand unless submitted for approval to the NZ Office of Film &…
Professor T. (TV Series) (2015): Feat. Koen De Bouw; CONTRABAND TITLE. Not legally available for sale, rent or trade in New Zealand unless submitted for approval to the NZ Office of Film & Literature…
Suburra (2015): Dir. Stefano Sollima
Feat. Pierfrancesco Favino, Elio Germano, Claudio Amendola…; Enthralling crime saga follows a gangster named Samurai as he attempts to turn the waterfront of Rome into an Italian Las Vegas.
Trapped (TV Series) (2015): Dir. Baltasar Kormakur
Feat. Ólafur Darri Ólafsson, Ilmur Kristjánsdóttir; Icelandic television mystery series created by Baltasar Kormákur (JAR CITY, EVEREST) that follows a chief of police in a remote town who tries to…
Victoria (2015): Dir. Sebastian Schipper
Feat. Laia Costa, Frederick Lau, Max Mauff; Dazzling, propulsive thriller shot entirely in one continuous 134 minute take through multiple locations in the city of Berlin has a Spanish woman's…
Absent One, The (2014): Dir. Mikkel Nørgaard
Feat. Nikolaj Lie Kaas, Fares Fares, Pilou Asbæk; Diverting second entry in the Department Q series, following on from THE KEEPER OF LOST CAUSES. This time Mørck and Assad are investigating the…
Connection, The (2014): Dir. Cédric Jimenez
Feat. Jean Dujardin, Gilles Lellouche, Celine Sallette…; Stylish French thriller that doubles a knowing throwback to the Belmondo crime flicks of the seventies as well as many American antecedents. Jean…
Fool, The (Durak) (2014): Dir. Yuri Bykov
Feat. Artyom Bystrov, Boris Nevzorov, Natalia Surkova; An idealistic Russian plumber discovers a building is about to collapse, and when he alerts the authorities of the need to evacuate the residents…
Gomorrah (TV Series) (2014): Feat. Marco DAmore, Salvatore Esposito, Maria Pia Calzone…; Euro–crime TV series set in the Scampia neighbourhood of Naples, where a brutal war breaks out between rival gangs in the criminal underworld.…
Goodnight Mommy (Ich seh ich seh) (2014): Dir. Severin Fiala, Veronika Franz
Feat. Lukas Schwarz, Elias Schwarz, Susanne Wuest; A sleek, uncompromising psycho–thriller from the Michael Haneke school of Austrian austerity centred around twin boys whose perception of their…
Hour of the Lynx, The (I lossens time) (2014): Dir. Søren Kragh-Jacobsen
Feat. Sofie Grabol, Frederik Christian Johansen, Signe Egholm Olsen…; Nordic thriller following a priest (Sofie Gråbøl of THE KILLING) and a psychology student who team up to solve the mystery behind a deranged…
In Order of Disappearance (2014): Dir. Hans Petter Moland
Feat. Stellan Skarsgard, Bruno Ganz, Pål Sverre Hagen…; Stellan Skarsgård reunites with the director of ZERO KELVIN and A SOMEWHAT GENTLE MAN for this blackly comic Nordic noir. He plays a somewhat…
Marshland (2014): Dir. Alberto Rodriguez
Feat. Javier Gutiérrez, Raúl Arévalo, Maria Varod; A brooding, exceptionally controlled thriller set in an unsettled post–Franco Spain of 1980 in which two homicide detectives who appear to be…
Phoenix (2014): Dir. Christian Petzold
Feat. Nina Hoss, Ronald Zehrfeld, Nina Kunzendorf; The director of YELLA and BARBARA reunites with his ingenue Nina Hoss for this romantic tale of deception about a concentration camp survivor who…
Second Chance, A (2014): Dir. Susanne Bier
Feat. Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Nikolaj Lie Kaas, Thomas Bo Larsen…; Susanne Bier directs a haunting melodrama about the contrasting lives of two police officers, whose lives take a dark turn after finding a neglected…
11.6 (2013): Dir. Philippe Godeau
Feat. Francois Cluzet, Bouli Lanners; A bitter security guard makes off with an armoured van carrying 11.6 million euros in this everyman heist movie. Based on a true story.
A Touch of Sin (2013): Dir. Jia Zhang-ke
Feat. Wu Jiang, Baoqiang Wang, Zhao Tao; Another striking modern tale of urban discontent from leading Chinese auteur Jia Zhang–ke, one which remains as perceptive and…
Back in Crime (2013): Dir. Germinal Alvarez
Feat. Jean-Hugues Anglade, Mélanie Thierry, Philippe Berodot; Offbeat police thriller with Anglade as an obsessive cop who finds himself inexplicably transported back in time.
Borgman (2013): Dir. Alex Van Warmerdam
Feat. Jan Bijvoet, Jeroen Perceval , Hadewych Minis; Unforgettably creepy home–invasion thriller from Dutch director Alex van Warmerdam, where a rural vagrant preys on an arrogant upper class…
Crimes of Passion (TV Series) (2013): Feat. Linus Wahlgren, Ola Rapace, Tuva Novotny; Scandi–crime goes period! Post–war Sweden is the backdrop for this immaculately dressed series of mysteries and whodunnits, based on the…
Eastern Boys (2013): Dir. Robin Campillo
Feat. Olivier Rabourdin, Kirill Emelyanov, Danil Vorobyev; Unconventional thriller explores the shifting dynamics in a relationship between an older man and a young immigrant male hustler.
Father Brown (TV Series) (2013): Feat. Mark Williams, Hugo Speer, Sorcha Cusack; A reboot of the 1970's British television detective period drama about the eponymous Roman Catholic priest who solves crimes in a fictional Cotswold…
Friends From France (Les interdits) (2013): Dir. Philippe Kotlarski, Anne Weil; Two cousins pose as an engaged couple on a tour to Odessa in order to help liberate persecuted Jews in this suspenseful Iron Curtain thriller.
German Doctor, The (2013): Dir. Lucía Puenzo
Feat. Àlex Brendemühl, Natalia Oreiro; Chilling domestic thriller centred on the Argentine family who lived unknowingly with Josef Mengele, the notorious Auschwitz physician, after he fled…
Keeper of Lost Causes, The (Kvinden i buret) (2013): Dir. Mikkel Nørgaard
Feat. Nikolaj Lie Kaas, Troels Lyby, Per Scheel Kruger…; Danish thriller that finds a cynical detective, put in charge of the "Department Q"– devoted to "filing" cold cases, investigating the…
New World (2013): Dir. Hoon-jung Park
Feat. Jung-Jae Lee, Min-sik Choi; Essentially INFERNAL AFFAIRS transposed to the Korean underworld, this brutal gangster flick revolves around an undercover cop whose loyalty to the…
Shooter, The (2013): Dir. Annette K. Olesen
Feat. Trine Dyrholm, Kim Bodnia, Nikolaj Lie Kaas; The Scandinavian crime wave continues with this high tension thriller about an eco–terrorist whose grand designs are incited by a journalist…
Stranger by the Lake (2013): Dir. Alain Guiraudie
Feat. Pierre Deladonchamps, Christophe Paou, Patrick d'Assumçao; An unnerving, sexually frank thriller set around an idyllic gay cruising spot, where two lovers strike up a heated romance that threatens to turn…
7 Boxes (2012): Dir. Juan Carlos Maneglia, Tana Schembori
Feat. Celso Franco, Victor Sosa, Lali Gonzalez; Well–plotted chase movie follows a young delivery boy who receives an unusual proposal to carry seven boxes of unknown content through Market…
A Hijacking (2012): Dir. Tobias Lindholm
Feat. Mikkel Hartmann, Pilou Asbæk, Søren Malling; A Danish cargo ship is hijacked off the coast of Somalia in this gripping, intense maritime adventure that cuts out all the action heroics usually…
Ace Attorney (2012): Dir. Takashi Miike
Feat. Hiroki Narimiya, Takumi Saito; Takashi Miike churns out this preposterous video game adaptation, about a cocksure lawyer who agrees to defend his courtroom rival in a murder trial,…
Beyond Outrage (2012): Dir. Takeshi Kitano
Feat. Takeshi Kitano, Ryo Kase; A straightforward sequel to Takeshi Kitano's late return to the yakuza genre, continuing the bloody battle between police and rival gangs. As with…
Black's Game (2012): Dir. Óskar Thór Axelsson
Feat. Thor Kristjansson, Jóhannes Haukur Jóhannesson; A young opportunist is drawn into Reykjavik's underworld of gangsters and drug pushers in this hardcore Scandi–crime, an eye–catching if…
Bullet Vanishes, The (2012): Dir. Chi-Leung Law
Feat. Nicholas Tse, Lau Ching-wan; In 1930s China, two eccentric detectives are summoned to solve a series of murders caused by a phantom killer in a bullet factory. A superb Holmesian…
Drug War (2012): Dir. Johnnie To
Feat. Louis Koo, Honglei Sun, Yi Huang…; Another great Johnnie To suspenser, with the master director at the top of his game helming this exciting police procedural set around an elaborate…
Everybody Has a Plan (2012): Dir. Ana Piterbarg
Feat. Viggo Mortensen, Soledad Villamil; A man dissatisfied with his life assumes the identity of his twin brother in this brooding Argentinian thriller.
Fourth State, The (2012): Dir. Dennis Gansel
Feat. Moritz Bleibtreu, Kasia Smutniak, Max Riemelt…; Another stylish outing from the dir. of THE WAVE and WE OWN THE NIGHT, this time involving a journalist who gets caught up in a terrorist plot in…
Killing, The - Series 3 (TV Series) (Forbrydelsen) (2012): Feat. Sofie Grabol, Søren Malling; Final episodes in the ripping, immensely popular Danish homicide serial weaves a third plot exploring a death linked to the global financial crisis…
Last Dragon Master, The (The Last Tycoon) (2012): Dir. Wong Jing
Feat. Chow Yun-Fat, Sammo Hung, Francis Ng; Chow Yun–Fat lends his charismatic presence to this sumptuous gangster picture detailing the rise of a legendary Shanghai mobster at the turn…
Last Will (Nobel's Last Will) (2012): Dir. Peter Flinth
Feat. Malin Crepin, Bjorn Kellman, Leif Andree…; Based on the novel by Liza Marklund, this brisk addition to the "Scandi–crime" canon has unfortunate journalist Annika Bengtzon witnessing a…
Morden: The Fjallbacka Murders (TV Series) (Fjällbackamorden) (2012): Feat. Claudia Galli, Richard Ulfsäter; In the wake of a brutal murder, secrets and lies are unearthed by a mystery writer with a nose for the suspicious in this moody Scandi–crime…
Nightfall (2012): Dir. Roy Chow
Feat. Simon Yam, Nick Cheung, Janice Man; Grisly thriller with a celebrity found brutally murdered, a recently paroled rapist becomes the leading suspect.
Shadow Men, The (Spin; Les Hommes De L'Ombre) (2012): Feat. Nathalie Baye, Philippe Magnan, Bruno Wolkowitch…; Political drama series follows the actions of a group of spin doctors who each advance their own cause after the assassination of the French…
Silent War, The (2012): Dir. Felix Chong, Alan Mak
Feat. Tony Leung (Chiu-wai), Xun Zhou, Mavis Fan…; Engaging espionage thriller with Tony Leung as a blind piano tuner for a spy mission because of his exceptional hearing.
Taped (2012): Dir. Diederik Van Rooijen
Feat. Barry Atsma, Susan Visser; Exciting Dutch thriller set in Argentina, where a travelling couple witness an execution by a corrupt cop, capture the incident on camera, and are…
Taste of Money, The (2012): Dir. Sang-soo Im
Feat. Kang-woo Kim, Yoon-sik Baek, Yuh-jung Youn; The dir. of THE HOUSEMAID buffs this heady class critique of Korea's impudent elite to a high sheen, with the lust and corruption of a wealthy family…
Two Lives (2012): Dir. Georg Maas, Judith Kaufmann
Feat. Juliane Kohler, Liv Ullmann, Rainer Bock; A "war child" of the Nazi regime – the name given to children conceived by German officers and Norwegian women, who were subsequently taken…
White Elephant (2012): Dir. Pablo Trapero
Feat. Ricardo Darín, Jeremie Renier, Martina Gusman; Two priests determined to build a hospital in a Buenos Aires shantytown encounter violent resistance from local drug lords in this superb social…
A Gang Story (2011): Dir. Olivier Marchal
Feat. Gerard Lanvin, Tcheky Karyo, Daniel Duval; French cop–turned–filmmaker Olivier Marchal (36 QUAI DES ORFEVRES, MR73) steps over to the other side of the law with this…
American Translation (2011): Dir. Jean-Marc Barr
Feat. Pierre Perrier, Lizzie Brochere, Jean-Marc Barr; Drama exploring the dark and violent obsessions of a sexually ambiguous Frenchman. Plenty of casual sex and casual murder, and a truly memorable lap…
Bridge, The - Series 1 (TV Series) (Bron/Broen) (2011): Feat. Sofia Helin, Kim Bodnia, Dag Malmberg; The Scandi–crime wave continues with this steely Danish–Swedish murder mystery, centred on the discovery of a body straddling the…
Dum Maaro Dum (2011): Dir. Rohan Sippy
Feat. Abhishek Bachchan, Deepika Padukone, Bipasha Basu…; "Gritty" Bollywood policier with a corrupt cop given permission to clean up drug–infested Goa however he sees fit. Sluggish plot and insipid…
Greetings to the Devil (2011): Dir. Juan Felipe Orozco
Feat. Édgar Ramírez, Ricardo Vélez, Carolina Gómez; Fast and aggressive Colombian thriller stars the charismatic Édgar Ramírez, fresh off CARLOS, as a former guerrilla forced to hunt down and kill…
Headhunters (2011): Dir. Morten Tyldum
Feat. Aksel Hennie, Synnove Macody Lund, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau…; Jo Nesbo's blockbusting crime novel about a corporate headhunter moonlighting as an art thief gets an appropriately energetic treatment, and with its…
Headshot (2011): Dir. Pen-Ek Ratanaruang
Feat. Nopachai Chaiyanam; Thai new waver Pen–ek Ratanaruang directs this zen–like "Buddist noir" about a hitman who seeks enlightenment after a bullet to the head…
Jackpot (Jo Nesbo's Jackpot) (2011): Dir. Magnus Martens
Feat. Kyrre Hellum, Mads Ousdal, Henrik Mestad…; This second helping of Jo Nesbo's blackly comic tales has the hapless sole survivor of a strip club massacre taken in for questioning where his…
Life Without Principle (2011): Dir. Johnnie To
Feat. Lau Ching-wan, Terence Yin, Richie Ren; Hong Kong's master of suspense crafts this swirling triumvirate of stories centred on unraveling lives amidst the global financial crisis. Combing…
Man from Beijing, The (2011): Dir. Peter Keglevic
Feat. Michael Nyqvist, Suzanne von Borsody; A straightforward Scandi–thriller with a German accent, about the mystery behind the massacre of 18 people in a small Swedish town –…
Manipulation (2011): Dir. Pascal Verdosci
Feat. Klaus Maria Brandauer, Sebastian Koch; Sweaty Cold War thriller centred on the cat–and–mouse game between a special agent investigating possible spy moves by a top PR advisor.
Miss Bala (2011): Dir. Gerardo Naranjo
Feat. Stephanie Sigman, Irene Azuela, Jose Yenque; A beauty pageant contestant becomes entangled in a Tijuana drug cartel killing spree in this electric Mexican thriller.
Once Upon a Time in Anatolia (2011): Dir. Nuri Bilge Ceylan
Feat. Muhammet Uzuner, Firat Tanis, Yilmaz Erdogan; Turkish auteur Nuri Bilge Ceylan directs this masterful long–haul road movie about a convoy of policemen searching for a body on the…
Polisse (2011): Dir. Maïwenn
Feat. Karin Viard, Marina Fois, Nicolas Duvauchelle …; A tough, unglamorous insight into the police work of a Parisian Juvenile Protection Unit, whose officers grapple with the moral and personal dilemmas…
Rebellion (2011): Dir. Mathieu Kassovitz
Feat. Mathieu Kassovitz, Iabe Lapacas, Malik Zidi…; A proficient, airtight geopolitical thriller from dir. Kassovitz, who also stars as the captain of a counterterrorist division sent to New Caledonia…
Silence, The (Das letzte Schweigen) (2011): Dir. Baran bo Odar
Feat. Ulrich Thomsen, Katrin Sass, Wotan Wilke Möhring; German thriller set in 2009, 23 years after the unsolved rape and murder of an 11–year old girl, when a remarkably similar crime attracts the…
Skin I Live In, The (2011): Dir. Pedro Almodovar
Feat. Antonio Banderas, Elena Anaya, Marisa Paredes…; Over twenty years after their last collaboration, a gracefully middle–aged Antonio Banderas returns for Spanish maestro Pedro Almodovar to play…
Sleepless Night (2011): Dir. Frederic Jardin
Feat. Tomer Sisley, Serge Riaboukine, Julien Boisselier…; A stonking, white–knuckle French action picture, smartly and tightly wound around a cop's frantic search for a stolen drug stash in order to…
Woman in the Fifth, The (2011): Dir. Pawel Pawlikowski
Feat. Ethan Hawke, Kristin Scott Thomas; Intriguing, if ultimately baffling Parisian thriller about a struggling American writer (Ethan Hawke) who embarks on a passionate affair with an…
A Quiet Life (2010): Dir. Claudio Cupellini
Feat. Toni Servillo, Marco D'Amore, Francesco Di Leva…; Moody thriller with Servillo –outstanding once again– as a restauranteur who's past resurfaces after a chance encounter with two…
Angels of Evil (2010): Dir. Michele Placido
Feat. Kim Rossi Stuart, Filippo Timi, Valeria Solarino…; Taking a leaf from MESRINE's rap sheet, Italy simultaneously glorifies and moralises the story of its own criminal rock star, Renato…
Big Picture, The (2010): Dir. Eric Lartigau
Feat. Romain Duris, Marina Fois, Niels Arestrup…; Romain Duris plays a well–off, happily married lawyer whose life is turned upside down with the discovery that his wife is having an affair…
Black Heaven (L'autre monde) (2010): Dir. Gilles Marchand
Feat. Grégoire Leprince-Ringuet, Louise Bourgoin, Melvil Poupaud; An innocent young man becomes entangled with a suicidal beauty and is lured into a "Black Hole" – an eerie cyberworld of avatars with deadly…
Carlos (Carlos the Jackal) (2010): Dir. Olivier Assayas
Feat. Édgar Ramírez, Nora von Waldstätten, Alexander Scheer; An explosive, globe–trotting biopic of Venezuelan terrorist and fugitive Ilich Ramírez Sánchez – aka Carlos the Jackal – whose exploits…
City Under Siege (2010): Dir. Benny Chan
Feat. Aaron Kwok, Colin Chou, Wu Jing…; One–of–a–kind Hong Kong mash–up has a group of criminals gaining super powers after being infected with a biological weapon,…
Cold Fish (2010): Dir. Sion Sono
Feat. Mitsuru Fukikoshi, Denden , Asuka Kurosawa; Japanese 'enfant terrible' Sion Sono's violent (and typically lengthy) tale of a quiet owner of a tropical fish shop whose life and family are taken…
Door, The (2010): Dir. Anno Saul
Feat. Mads Mikkelsen, Jessica Schwarz, Heike Makatsch…; Ethereal time–travel drama with Mikkelsen as a grieving father who discovers a tunnel that leads him back to the day his daughter died and a…
Easy Money (Snabba Cash) (2010): Dir. Daniel Espinosa
Feat. Joel Kinnaman, Matias Varela, Dragomir Mrsic…; High–flying Swedish thriller centres on a Stockholm business student who moonlights as a drug runner in order to maintain the illusion of…
Housemaid, The (2010): Dir. Sang-soo Im
Feat. Do-yeon Jeon, Jung-Jae Lee, Seo Woo; A sleek, sexual thriller of manipulation and revenge, centred on the consequences of a torrid affair between a wealthy industrialist and his newly…
How I Ended This Summer (2010): Dir. Aleksey Popogrebskiy
Feat. Grigoriy Dobrygin, Sergey Puskepalis; Two Russian meteorologists isolated at polar station on the Arctic fringes put each other in jeopardy in this tense, slow–burn adventure. An…
Hunter, The (Shekarchi) (2010): Dir. Rafi Pitts
Feat. Rafi Pitts; Spare, lyrical drama with a low–paid security guard on the run from authorities after gunning down two police officers. Unfolding against the…
Kidnapped (Secuestrados) (2010): Dir. Miguel Ángel Vivas; Brutally authentic Spanish horror in which three hooded criminals break into a family home in a gated community, holding the others hostage whilst…
Love Crime (2010): Dir. Alain Corneau
Feat. Kristin Scott Thomas, Ludivine Sagnier, Olivier Rabourdin; Kristin Scott–Thomas sinks her teeth into the bitchiest role of her career as a ruthless, high–flying executive whose attempts at…
Man From Nowhere, The (Ajeossi) (2010): Dir. Jeong-beom Lee
Feat. Won Bin, Sae-ron Kim; Korean action movie following a former special agent who is living a quiet life as a pawnshop owner after his wife dies in a tragic accident, when a…
Outrage (2010): Dir. Takeshi Kitano
Feat. Takeshi Kitano, Renji Ishibashi, Ryo Kase; Aging Japanese hard–man Takeshi Kitano returns to the turf of his international film celebrity – the minimalist Yakuza movie – in…
Outside the Law (2010): Dir. Rachid Bouchareb
Feat. Sami Bouajila, Jamel Debbouze, Roschdy Zem; Dir. Bouchareb (DAYS OF GLORY) re–frames the revolutionary tactics of Algerian nationalists against the French post–WWII as a…
Point Blank (2010): Dir. Fred Cavaye
Feat. Gilles Lellouche, Roschdy Zem, Gerard Lanvin…; Literally breathless French thriller centred on the exploits of a nurse who becomes entangled with a wounded gunman on the run from the law. Higher…
Revenge (Shadow Boxing 2) (2010): Dir. Anton Megerdichev
Feat. Denis Nikiforov, Andrey Panin, Victor Lopez…; Punchy crime thriller with a Russian boxer taking on a Mexican mafia boss after mortally injuring his son in the ring. Leave your brain parked in…
Revenge: A Love Story (2010): Dir. Ching-po Wong; 'Hammer and tong' serial killer potboiler centres on a lowly store clerk who begins murdering policemen (and their pregnant wives) after his…
Viva Riva (2010): Dir. Djo Munga
Feat. Patsha Bay, Manie Malone, Diplome Amekindra; Torrid, violent thriller with a small–time hustler discovering a stockpile of gasoline during a fuel crisis, and struggling to stay alive long…
Yellow Sea, The (2010): Dir. Hong-jin Na
Feat. Jung-woo Ha, Yoon-seok Kim; High–tension Korean noir–style thriller from the director of THE WAILING about a down–on–his–luck Korean taxi driver…
A Million (2009): Dir. Min-Ho Cho
Feat. Hae-il Park, Min-Ah Shin, Min-Ki Lee; Slavishly entertaining Reality TV spin–off pits eight Korean contestants against each other and the Australian Outback in a race for the…
A Prophet (Un Prophet) (2009): Dir. Jacques Audiard
Feat. Tahar Rahim, Niels Arestrup, Adel Bencherif…; Dir. Jacques Audiard betters the accomplished storytelling of THE BEAT MY HEART SKIPPED, situating an immersive world of cloistered gangsters and…
About Elly (2009): Dir. Asghar Farhadi
Feat. Golshifteh Farahani, Shahab Hosseini, Taraneh Alidoosti…; Though something of a dress rehearsal for Farhadi's Oscar–winning A SEPARATION, this tense and absorbing account of a beach holiday tainted by…
Above the Street Below the Water (Over gaden under vandet) (2009): Dir. Charlotte Sieling
Feat. Sidse Babett Knudsen, Anders W. Berthelsen, Mohammed Al-Bakier; Light ensemble drama set in Copenhagen with Sidse Babett Knudsen (BORGEN) leading a cast of Danes in their 40's whose relationship complications are…
Accident (Yi ngoi) (2009): Dir. Pou-Soi Cheang
Feat. Louis Koo, Richie Ren, Shui-Fan Fung; A number of skillfully choreographed set–pieces are at the centre of this top–notch Hong Kong thriller, about a league of assassins who…
Double Hour, The (La Doppia Ora) (2009): Dir. Giuseppe Capotondi
Feat. Kseniya Rappoport, Filippo Timi, Antonia Truppo…; A high–concept, twisty Euro–thriller plays out after a chambermaid and an ex–cop meet at a speed dating event. As is par for the…
Farewell (2009): Dir. Christian Carion
Feat. Guillaume Canet, Emir Kusturica, Gary Lewis…; This riveting Cold War yarn from the dir. of JOYEUX NOEL brings to light the little–known true story of a disillusioned KGB colonel (played by…
Fortapasc (Fort Apache) (2009): Dir. Marco Risi
Feat. Libero de Rienzo, Valentina Lodovini, Michele Riondino…; Poignant account of the last days in the life of a young Italian journalist who's investigations into the Neapolitan Mafia resulted in his murder.
Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest, The (2009): Dir. Daniel Alfredson
Feat. Noomi Rapace, Michael Nyqvist, Lena Endre; Satisfying conclusion to the trilogy features some lengthy courtroom scenes as Salander and Nyqvist fight to clear her name and unravel the…
Girl Who Played with Fire, The (2009): Dir. Daniel Alfredson
Feat. Noomi Rapace, Michael Nyqvist, Lena Endre; Part two of Stieg Larsson's 'Millennium Trilogy' sees the return of touch–as–nails Lisbeth Salander, who must clear her name of murder…
Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The (2009): Dir. Niels Arden Oplev
Feat. Michael Nyqvist, Noomi Rapace, Lena Endre; One of the highest–grossing foreign language hits at the NZ box office, this riveting, full–bodied Swedish thriller follows an escalating…
Killing, The - Series 2 (TV Series) (Forbrydelsen) (2009): Feat. Sofie Grabol, Søren Malling; Further episodes from the ripping, immensely popular Danish homicide serial weaves a secondary plot of intrigue, corruption, and bureaucracy…
Lebanon (2009): Dir. Samuel Maoz
Feat. Yoav Donat, Itay Tiran, Oshri Cohen…; Intense, multi–faceted battle thriller set during the height of the Israeli–Lebanon conflict in 1982 in which four young soldiers sent by…
Lulu and the Bank Robber (TV Mini-Series) (2009): Feat. Lene Maria Christensen, Lars Brygmann, Nicole Johansen; An independent mother and small business owner is drawn into the dodging dealings of her habitual criminal husband in this pulpy Danish crime…
Message, The (2009): Dir. Kuo-fu Chen, Qunshu Gao
Feat. Bingbing Li, Xun Zhou, Zhiwen Wang…; Sino–Japanese tensions are foregrounded in this enthralling cat and mouse thriller, set in a clifftop mansion during the height of World War…
Mother (2009): Dir. Joon-ho Bong
Feat. Hye-ja Kim, Won Bin, Ku Jin; Cavalier Korean dir. Bong Joon–ho (THE HOST) contorts a regulation murder mystery, centred on a mother's campaign to clear her deadbeat son's…
Murderer (2009): Dir. Roy Chow
Feat. Aaron Kwok, Ning Chang, Tam Chun Yat; Serial killer convention receives an enjoyable, shameless workout with this Hong Kong policier, centred on a police investigator framed for a series…
Overheard (Qie ting feng yun) (2009): Dir. Felix Chong, Alan Mak
Feat. Lau Ching-wan, Louis Koo, Daniel Wu; The directors of INFERNAL AFFAIRS reel in their sleek, sprawling urbane sensibility, changing tack with this compact character study about three…
Secret in Their Eyes, The (El Secreto de sus Ojos) (2009): Dir. Juan José Campanella
Feat. Ricardo Darín, Soledad Villamil, Carla Quevedo; Arresting, well–rounded Argentine crime drama sees a retired court employee become obsessed with a 25–year–old murder case that he…
Shinjuku Incident (San suk si gin) (2009): Dir. Derek Yee
Feat. Jackie Chan, Naoto Takenaka, Daniel Wu; Jackie Chan turns serious for this gritty, nocturnal gangland drama centered around a Chinese immigrant who is unintentionally drawn into Tokyo’s…
Storm (2009): Dir. Hans-Christian Schmid
Feat. Kerry Fox, Anamaria Marinca, Stephen Dillane; Accomplished international courtroom drama sees a determined prosecutor (Fox) risk life and limb in order to prove that the former commander of the…
Woman, A Gun and a Noodle Shop, A (2009): Dir. Zhang Yimou
Feat. Honglei Sun, Shen-Yang Xiao, Ni Yan; Dir. Zhang Yimou weaves a tale of adultery and revenge in 19th century China, based on the Coen brothers' classic neo–noir, BLOOD SIMPLE.
25 Carat (25 Kilates) (2008): Dir. Patxi Amezcua
Feat. Francesc Garrido, Aida Folch, Manuel Moron…; Relentless thriller set in the Barcelona underworld where a loan enforcer and a car thief pair up for a particularly dangerous heist.…
Anything for Her (Pour Elle) (2008): Dir. Fred Cavaye
Feat. Vincent Lindon, Diane Kruger, Lancelot Roch…; Cracking French thriller sees a happy couple's marriage torn apart when the wife is sent to prison for murder. Convinced of her innocence, her…
Baader Meinhof Complex, The (2008): Dir. Uli Edel
Feat. Martina Gedeck, Moritz Bleibtreu, Johanna Wokalek…; A big–budget, pulse–pounding account of terrorism and political protest in 1960s and 70s Germany, centred on the notorious Red Army…
Chaser, The (Chugyeogja) (2008): Dir. Hong-jin Na
Feat. Yun-seok Kim, Jung-woo Ha, Yeong-hie Seo; As much concerned with criticizing the police force as it is deftly juggling plot twists, murders, and other serial killer conventions, this Korean…
Flame and Citron (2008): Dir. Ole Christian Madsen
Feat. Thure Lindhardt, Mads Mikkelsen, Stine Stengade…; Lavishly–appointed wartime thriller based on the true story of contrasting Danish resistance fighters as they take vengeance on the occupying…
Fred Vargas Collection (TV Series) (2008-2010): Dir. Josee Dayan
Feat. Jean-Hugues Anglade, Helene Fillieres, Charlotte Rampling; Four excellent French TV adaptations of crime fiction novelist Fred Vargas' popular policiers, with her famous protagonist, Detective Adamsberg, a…
Go Fast (2008): Dir. Olivier Van Hoofstadt
Feat. Roschdy Zem, Olivier Gourmet; An exciting, if standard issue Gallic policier set around the high–stakes world of narcotics, where an Arab police officer goes undercover to…
Jerusalema (2008): Dir. Ralph Ziman
Feat. Daniel Buckland, Robert Hobbs; A punchy, gun–toting gangland epic following the rise to two Soweto teenagers seduced by crime and violence in South Africa. Although…
Mesrine (Killer Instinct, Public Enemy Number 1) (2008): Dir. Jean-François Richet
Feat. Vincent Cassel, Cecile De France, Gerard Depardieu…; Effective, if at times highly sensationalised biopic of career criminal Jacques Mesrine – France’s ‘Public Enemy #1’ throughout the 1960s and…
MR 73 (The Last Deadly Mission) (2008): Dir. Olivier Marchal
Feat. Daniel Auteuil, Olivia Bonamy, Philippe Nahon; Rock solid policier stars Daniel Auteuil as a drunken, burnt–out cop whose shot at redemption comes in the form of a woman requiring protection…
North Face (Nordwand) (2008): Dir. Philipp Stölzl
Feat. Benno Fürmann, Florian Lukas; Exceptionally vivid, nerve–wracking mountaineering thriller in which two novice climbers attempt to be the first to scale the treacherous north…
Protectors, The (TV Series) (2008): Feat. Cecilie Stenspil, Søren Vejby, André Babikian; Stellar Danish production centred on a group of professional bodyguards assigned to protect VIPs, politicians, and heads of state out of Copenhagen.…
Revanche (2008): Dir. Gotz Spielmann
Feat. Johannes Krisch, Irina Potapenko, Andreas Lust; A botched bank robbery resulting in the death of a prostitute compels an embittered ex–con to contemplate revenge in this steely, impressive…
Sin Nombre (Without Name) (2008): Dir. Cary Joji Fukunaga
Feat. Paulina Gaitan, Edgar Flores; Honduran teenagers brave Mexican gangs and border patrols as they attempt to illegally emigrate to the US in this superbly mounted,…
Three Monkeys (2008): Dir. Nuri Bilge Ceylan
Feat. Yavuz Bingol, Hatice Aslan, Ahmet Rifat Sungar…; A brooding detective story from Turkish auteur Nuri Bilge Ceylan, about a wealthy businessman who bribes one of his underlings to take the wrap for a…
Tony Manero (2008): Dir. Pablo Larrain
Feat. Alfredo Castro, Paola Lattus, Héctor Morales; Unsettling drama set against the Pinochet regime in Chile in 1978, where a psychopathic disco fan steals and kills in an effort to become the…
Wave, The (Die Welle) (2008): Dir. Dennis Gansel
Feat. Jürgen Vogel, Frederick Lau, Max Riemelt…; Based on a true incident in the US in the early 1970's to practically illustrate the machinations of Nazi propaganda, a school teacher's unorthodox…
What No One Knows (Det som ingen ved) (2008): Dir. Søren Kragh-Jacobsen
Feat. Anders W. Berthelsen, Maria Bonnevie, Ghita Norby; Knife–edged political thriller sees a middle–aged family man uncover his father’s shady involvement in military intelligence after his…
City of Men (Cidade dos Homens) (2007): Dir. Paulo Morelli
Feat. Douglas Silva, Darlan Cunha; Salty Rio back–blocks melodrama from the producers of CITY OF GOD revolving around two orphaned street kids on the brink of adulthood faced…
Concrete Romance (Cemento armato) (2007): Dir. Marco Martani
Feat. Nicolas Vaporidis, Giorgio Faletti, Carolina Crescentini; Brutal Italian thriller focused on a young petty crim unwittingly caught up in a deadly revenge plot by a Mafia kingpin after damaging his…
Counterfeiters, The (Die Fälscher) (2007): Dir. Stefan Ruzowitzky
Feat. Karl Markovics, Devid Striesow; An Oscar–winner for Best Foreign Language film, this taut German thriller reconstructs the story of a Jewish fraudster forced to assist the…
Debt, The (Ha Hov) (2007): Dir. Assaf Bernstein
Feat. Gila Almagor, Yuriy Chepurnov, Oleg Drach; Unsettling thriller with a retired Mossad agent, whose Nazi–hunting past comes back to haunt her and her fellow agents.
Exodus (Cheut ai kup gei) (2007): Dir. Pang Ho-Cheung
Feat. Simon Yam, Nick Cheung, Annie Liu; An indifferent Hong Kong detective slowly becomes convinced that women are conspiring to kill off the entire male species in this curious melange of…
Fermat's Room (La Habitación de Fermat) (2007): Feat. Frederico Luppi; Four top mathematicians must solve a complex riddle in order to avoid being crushed to death by a shrinking room in this claustrophobic Spanish…
Girl by the Lake, The (La ragazza del lago) (2007): Dir. Andrea Molaioli
Feat. Toni Servillo, Denis Fasolo, Nello Mascia…; A murder–mystery that swept Italy's Academy Awards set in an idyllic North Italian village where a beautiful young girl is found murdered.…
Invisible Target (Naam yi boon sik) (2007): Dir. Benny Chan
Feat. Nicholas Tse, Jaycee Chan, Shawn Yue…; Unyielding martial arts thriller rumbles with a group of detectives commissioned to take out a local Hong Kong mercenary gang. The expected ass…
Just Another Love Story (2007): Dir. Ole Bornedal
Feat. Anders W. Berthelsen, Rebecka Hemse, Nikolaj Lie Kaas; An enjoyably overwrought Danish thriller with noir–ish aspirations, whose story revolves around a bored married man who assumes the identity of…
Killing, The - Series 1 (TV Series) (Forbrydelsen) (2007): Dir. Birger Larsen
Feat. Sofie Grabol, Søren Malling; A ripping Danish homicide serial in the long–form tradition of THE WIRE, which weaves a plot of intrigue, corruption, and bureaucracy around a…
King of the Hill (El Rey de la montaña) (2007): Dir. Gonzalo López-Gallego
Feat. Leonardo Sbaraglia, Maria Valverde; A well–crafted, believable take on the lost–in–the–woods genre, about a man who follows an attractive stranger into the…
La Zona (2007): Dir. Rodrigo Plá
Feat. Daniel Giménez Cacho, Carlos Bardem, Daniel Tovar…; Award winning, intensely scripted and thought provoking drama set in a wealthy Mexican compound where the residents have formed a vigilante group to…
Lust, Caution (Se, Jie) (2007): Dir. Ang Lee
Feat. Tony Leung (Chiu-wai), Joan Chen, Wei Tang…; Dir. Ang Lee (BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN) returns to the mainland to present a slow–burn, psychologically dense and provocative spy thriller, based on…
Man from London, The (2007): Dir. Bela Tarr
Feat. Miroslav Krobot, Tilda Swinton; Bela Tarr's dense, mesmeric imagery is married to the traditions of film noir in this strikingly opaque detective story, set on the weathered…
Night Bus (Notturno Bus) (2007): Dir. Davide Marengo
Feat. Giovanna Mezzogiorno, Valerio Mastandrea; Fast paced comedy/thriller follows the misadventures of a petty thief, who gets more than she bargained for when she comes into possession of a…
Roman De Gare (Crossed Tracks) (2007): Dir. Claude Lelouch
Feat. Audrey Dana, Dominique Pinon, Fanny Ardant; Playfully pulpy French thriller from veteran director Claude Lelouch (A MAN AND A WOMAN) depicts the intersecting lives of two strangers oddly…
Rush Hour (The Trial Begins) (2007): Dir. Vincenzo Marra
Feat. Michelle Lastella, Fanny Ardant, Giulia Bevilacqua…; Tightly directed drama about the temptation of amoral manipulation. Italian tax official Filippo makes himself guilty of fraud and bribery to join…
Yella (2007): Dir. Christian Petzold
Feat. Nina Hoss; Engrossing metaphysical thriller set in a predatory corporate world in which a divorcee accountant (Hoss) decides to leave behind her redundant life…
Anna Pihl (TV Series) (2006-2008): Feat. Charlotte Munck, Iben Hjejle; Praised for its realism, this Danish police drama centres around a Copenhagen policewoman also having to deal with solo parenthood.
Black Book (Zwartboek) (2006): Dir. Paul Verhoeven
Feat. Carice Van Houten, Sebastian Koch, Thom Hoffman; A Jewish singer goes deep undercover for the Dutch resistance in this splashy, larger–than–life WWII yarn set in Nazi–occupied…
Chronicle of an Escape (Buenos Aires 1977) (2006): Dir. Adrián Caetano
Feat. Rodrigo De la Serna; An Argentinian goalkeeper is kidnapped and falsely imprisoned as a revolutionary in this gripping account of the “Buenos Aires, 1977”…
Confession of Pain (Seung sing) (2006): Dir. Siu Fai Mak, Wai Keung Lau
Feat. Tony Leung (Chiu-wai), Takeshi Kaneshiro, Shu Qi; The directorial duo behind INFERNAL AFFAIRS eek out this morose and melancholic policier about two troubled detectives tracking down a killer in…
Dark Sea (Mare Nero) (2006): Dir. Roberta Torre
Feat. Luigi Lo Cascio, Anna Mouglalis; Ice cold policier charts a lone cops descent into the sex underworld after the murder of a sexually adventurous teenager. Full of Lynchian…
Death Note / Death Note - The Last Name (2006): Dir. Shusuke Kaneko
Feat. Tatsuya Fujiwara, Ken'ichi Matsuyama, Erika Toda…; High–concept and precocious in attitude, this absurdly drawn battle–of–wits, based on a cult Manga, concerns the discovery of an…
Don (2006): Dir. Farhan Akhtar
Feat. Shahrukh Khan, Om Puri; Far–fetched story of a Mumbai man recruited by police to masquerade as the ruthless head of the Malaysian drug mafia, known as "the Don". When…
Election 2 (Triad Election) (2006): Dir. Johnny To
Feat. Simon Yam, Nick Cheung, Louis Koo; Genre exponent Johnny To logically extends the gangland politics of his original film in this punchy, no–nonsense sequel concerning a fresh…
Exit (2006): Dir. Peter Lindmark
Feat. Mads Mikkelsen, Alexander Skarsgard; Gripping Swedish corporate thriller stars the angular Mads Mikkelsen (CASINO ROYALE) as a family man on the run after he becomes the main suspect in…
Few Days in September, A (Quelques jours en septembre) (2006): Dir. Santiago Amigorena
Feat. Juliette Binoche, John Turturro, Nick Nolte…; Pre–September 11 spy–thriller dramatising events leading up to the fatal terrorist attack, with former spy (Binoche) being stalked…
Four Minutes (Vier Minuten) (2006): Dir. Chris Kraus
Feat. Monika Bliebtreu, Hannah Herzsprung; Unrelentingly gritty German drama of redemption details the hostile relationship between an incarcerated piano player and her emotionally chilly…
Invisible Waves (2006): Dir. Pen-Ek Ratanaruang
Feat. Tadanobu Asano; Moody and sophisticated dream–noir from the dir. of LAST LIFE IN THE UNIVERSE again casts Japanese star Tadanobu Asano, here in the role of a…
Jar City (Mýrin) (2006): Dir. Baltasar Kormakur
Feat. Ingvar Eggert Sigurðsson, Agusta Eva Erlendsdóttir, Björn Hlynur Haraldsson; With dirt under its fingernails and ice on its breath, this forensic thriller harnesses the harsh, otherworldly elements of its Icelandic setting to…
Lives of Others, The (2006): Dir. Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck
Feat. Ulrich Mühe, Sebastian Koch, Martina Gedeck…; Compelling dramatisation of the political tensions between artists and authorities in 80's East Germany, this widely celebrated arthouse hit won the…
Tell No One (Ne le dis à Personne) (2006): Dir. Guillaume Canet
Feat. Francois Cluzet, Marie-Josee Croze, Andre Dussollier…; Convoluted yet propulsive French thriller about a man whose deceased wife contacts him eight years after her supposed murder, triggering a quest to…
Unknown Woman, The (La Sconosciuta) (2006): Dir. Giuseppe Tornatore
Feat. Kseniya Rappoport, Michele Placido, Claudia Gerini; Skillful Hitchcockian suspense hailed as a return to form for the director of CINEMA PARADISO, following a troubled Ukrainian immigrant in Italy who…
Vengeance (Phairii phinaat paa mawrana) (2006): Dir. Preaw Sirisuwan; Fast–paced jungle fantasy horror has a young man and his friends in pursuit of an escaped prisoner inside a fantastical forest populated by…
13 Tzameti (2005): Dir. Géla Babluani
Feat. Aurelien Recoing, Georges Babluani; Coolly disturbing noir thriller tracks the fate of a struggling immigrant labourer who intercepts a package with instructions that lead him into a…
Aura, The (2005): Dir. Fabian Bielinsky
Feat. Ricardo Darín; A taxidermist indulges his criminal fantasies in this brooding, atmospheric wilderness thriller from the late dir. of NINE QUEENS. Unfolding as a…
Ax, The (Le Couperet) (2005): Dir. Costa-Gavras
Feat. Jose Garcia, Karin Viard, Olivier Gourmet; Dastardly satire from the always–edgy Costa Gavras plumbs the depths of a corporate downsizing victim (Garcia) who resorts to murderous ways in…
Beat My Heart Skipped, The (De battre mon coeur s'est arrete) (2005): Dir. Jacques Audiard
Feat. Romain Duris, Niels Arestrup, Jonathan Zaccai…; A star–turn by Romain Duris invigorates this deft remake of James Toback's 1978 thriller FINGERS, playing a reluctant young thug with a…
Bystanders (Diary of June) (2005): Dir. Kyung-Soo Im
Feat. Yunjin Kim; Proficient Korean thriller grapples with a murder mystery of cryptic diary notes left inside the bodies of murder victims; the handwriting matched to…
Crime Novel (Romanzo criminale) (2005): Feat. Kim Rossi Stuart, Pierfrancesco Favino, Claudio Santamaria…; Novel–based Italian crime drama concerning a group of small–town crims who went on to become Rome's most merciless crime family and a…
Election (2005): Dir. Johnnie To
Feat. Simon Yam, Tony Leung (Kar-fai); A terrific gangland power tussle from genre exponent Johnnie To, this combative suspenser embarks on the shady underworld of triad politics in…
Have No Fear (Non aver paura) (2005): Dir. Angelo Longoni
Feat. Laura Morante, Alessio Boni; Isolating Italian thriller focused on a recent divorcee trying to make ends meet while fighting a custody battle and dealing with a persistent…
Hidden (Cache) (2005): Dir. Michael Haneke
Feat. Daniel Auteuil, Juliette Binoche, Maurice Benichou…; A disquieting modern thriller that pulls no punches, depositing a climate of terrorism and fear onto the lives of two French professionals and their…
Murder Take One (The Big Scene) (2005): Dir. Jin Jang
Feat. Ha-kyun Shin, Seung-Won Cha; Thwarted by a television agreement consigning an ongoing homicide investigation to the prying eyes of a Reality TV show, prosecutor Choi (Cha) must…
Paradise Now (2005): Dir. Hany Abu-Assad
Feat. Kais Nashef, Ali Suliman, Lubna Azabal; This extraordinarily brave film shadows the martyrdom of two Palestinian friends recruited by an extremist group to perpetrate a suicide bombing in…
Princess Aurora (Orora gongju) (2005): Dir. Eun-jin Bang
Feat. Jeong-hwa Eom; Korean revenge film concerns a scorned woman who commits a series of murders as part of an elaborate revenge scheme. Far–fetched in that…
Pusher III (I'm The Angel Of Death: Pusher III) (2005): Dir. Nicolas Winding Refn
Feat. Marinela Dekic, Zlatko Buric; Third instalment of the thoroughly gripping Pusher trilogy closes in on the Sisyphean struggle of drug kingpin Milo (Buric) as he desperately battles…
Quo Vadis, Baby? (2005): Dir. Gabriele Salvatores
Feat. Angela Baraldi; Oscar–winning–director Gabriele Salvatore's haughty thriller depicting a desperate private investigator who decides to re–examine…
Secuestro Express (2005): Dir. Jonathan Jakubowicz
Feat. Mia Maestro, Ruben Blades; Venezuela comes off second best in this exploitative thriller peddling the country's professional kidnapping trade, where a couple of wealthy young…
Spiral (TV Series) (Engrenages) (2005): Feat. Audrey Fleurot, Philippe Duclos, Caroline Proust; Euro–crime TV series set in Paris and following the police officers, lawyers and judges surrounding various criminal investigations.
Sympathy for Lady Vengeance (Chinjeolhan geumjassi) (2005): Dir. Park Chan-Wook
Feat. Young-ae Lee, Min-sik Choi; A visually dynamic endpoint to Park Chan–wook's feted vengeance trilogy, this final chapter in the saga emerges from a female perspective, and…
Tsotsi (2005): Dir. Gavin Hood
Feat. Presley Chweneyagae; Deserved winner of the 2006 Foreign Language Oscar, this gripping tale of a young homicidal street–thug ('tsotsi') in post–apartheid…
Wallander (TV Series) (2005): Feat. Krister Henriksson, Johanna Sällström; Suspenseful Scandinavian procedural finds drama within the inner–workings of a police force in southern Sweden, chiefly between the series’…
36 Quai Des Orfevres (2004): Dir. Olivier Marchal
Feat. Gerard Depardieu, Daniel Auteuil; Gerard Depardieu and Daniel Auteuil partner again for this straight–faced policier as two veteran cops who compete for the top job while trying…
Eagle, The (TV Series) (A Crime Odyssey) (2004): Feat. Jens Albinus; An expert Danish thriller dealing in international terrorism and cross–border crime, this involves the usual task force machinations of special…
Fida (2004): Dir. Ken Ghosh
Feat. Kareena Kapoor, Shahid Kapoor, Fardeen Khan; Typically likeable Bollywood item that intercrosses two love stories with the tale of an online bank heist. Treading lightly through the genre…
Khakee (2004): Dir. Rajkumar Santoshi
Feat. Amitabh Bachchan, Akshay Kumar, Ajay Devgan; A Bollywood offering in which the song count is low but the body count is high, this twist–filled, often violent drama centres on the police…
Koma (2004): Dir. Chi-Leung Law
Feat. Angelica Lee; The attractive Lee plays a feckless young woman with kidney problems who gets caught up in a scandal involving a gang of organ thieves. This…
Matando Cabos (2004): Dir. Alejandro Lozano
Feat. Tony Dalton, Ana Claudia Talancon, Pedro Jr. Armendariz; Energetic Mexican 'farce of errors' in which two teenagers kidnap a coldly ruthless businessman, not realising he is also a coveted prize for a…
Old Boy (Oldboy) (2004): Dir. Park Chan-Wook
Feat. Min-sik Choi, Ji-tae Yoo; Wowing audiences wherever it's played (including being nominated for the Palm D'Or at Cannes), this achingly intense thriller from Korea raises the…
One Night in Mongkok (Wong gok hak yau) (2004): Dir. Derek Yee
Feat. Daniel Wu, Cecilia Cheung; A bespectacled 'Mainland' Chinese man is recruited for the assassination of a triad boss in the lusciously seedy Hong Kong district of Mongkok, but…
Operation Valkyrie (Stauffenberg) (2004): Dir. Jo Baier
Feat. Sebastian Koch, Ulrich Tukur, Hardy Kruger…; Highly credible Germanic take on the failed 'Valkyrie' plot to assassinate Hitler favors sobering realism over Hollywood heroism. Made for German…
Ordeal, The (Calvaire) (2004): Dir. Fabrice du Welz
Feat. Laurent Lucas; Less gruelling than its title suggests, this is a macabre, blackly humorous slice of "redneck gothic" from Belgium, in which a cabaret singer's…
Pusher II (With Blood on my Hands) (2004): Dir. Nicolas Winding Refn
Feat. Mads Mikkelsen; Number two in the Danish thriller PUSHER series tracks a muddled Copenhagen thug fresh from prison who faces the scorn of his gangster father, past…
Red Lights (Feux Rouges) (2004): Dir. Cedric Kahn
Feat. Jean-Pierre Darroussin, Carole Bouquet; A married couple bicker in a holiday traffic–jam, fueled by the husband's drunken irritability and his wife's haughty disregard, leading them…
Walk on Water (2004): Dir. Eytan Fox; An arresting drama based on the obsessive efforts of an Israeli Mossad hitman –in grieving over his wife's suicide – to search for and…
World Without Thieves, A (Tian xia wu zei) (2004): Dir. Feng Xiaoning
Feat. Andy Lau, Rene Liu; Two thieves resolve to go straight, only to become entangled in high–stakes plot aboard a long haul train. Starring the ever–watchable…
As Far as My Feet Will Carry Me (2003): Dir. Hardy Martins; Based on the novel by Josef Martin Bauer, this film recounts the harrowing true story of Clemens Forell, the German POW who escaped a Siberian labour…
Blind Shaft (2003): Dir. Yang Li
Feat. Li Yixiang, Wang Shuangbao, Baoqiang Wang; Chinese crime drama set in the brutal world of illegal coal mining. Follows two struggling coal miners who are running a side hustle in which they…
Carandiru (2003): Dir. Hector Babenco; An expressionist series of tales set within the notorious titular prison in Sao Paolo, Brazil, as seen through the eyes of a benevolent doctor and…
Dot The I (El Punto sobre la I) (2003): Dir. Matthew Parkhill
Feat. Gael Garcia Bernal, James D'Arcy, Natalia Verbeke; A skillfully moody London romance, in which the relationship of an engaged couple is disturbed by a pre–wedding ritual in which Verbeke must…
Ginji The Slasher (2003): Dir. Takeshi Miyasaka
Feat. Riki Takeuchi; Low profile suspenser, set around a recalcitrant swordsman who goes on the rampage in post–WW2 Japan and 50 years later is released to start…
I'm Not Scared (Io Non Ho Paura) (2003): Dir. Gabriele Salvatores
Feat. Aitana Sánchez-Gijón, Dino Abbrescia, Giorgio Careccia…; Atmospheric thriller from dir. Gabriele Salvatores that deftly conveys a foreboding childhood experience during a long, hot summer in the country,…
Infernal Affairs 3 (Mou gaan dou III) (2003): Dir. Wai Keung Lau, Siu Fai Mak
Feat. Andy Lau, Tony Leung (Chiu-wai), Leon Lai…; Actual sequel to the hit Hong Kong gangland–cop thriller attempts valiantly to tie up loose ends, both picking up where corrupt cop Ming (Lau)…
Memories of Murder (Salinui chueok) (2003): Dir. Joon-ho Bong
Feat. Kang-ho Song, Sang-kyung Kim, Roe-ha Kim; A darkly lyrical thriller, set around the true–life hunt for South Korea's first documented serial killer in 1986, during the years of Chun…
Return, The (Vozvrashcheniye) (2003): Dir. Andrei Zvyagintsev
Feat. Ivan Dobronravov, Vladimir Garin, Konstantin Lavronenko…; A surprise arthouse hit about a couple of teenage brothers who are taken on a mysterious trip by their estranged and rather surly father, with his…
Swimming Pool (2003): Dir. Francois Ozon
Feat. Charlotte Rampling, Ludivine Sagnier, Charles Dance; A beguiling psychological thriller, in which a British mystery–novelist (Rampling) travels to her publisher's holiday house in rural France for…
Tais Toi! (Ruby and Quentin) (2003): Dir. Francis Veber
Feat. Gerard Depardieu, Jean Reno, Andre Dussollier…; Another reliable entertainment from the writer–director of THE CLOSET and THE DINNER GAME, this screwball crime comedy boasts a central comic…
Who Killed Bambi? (Qui a tué Bambi?) (2003): Dir. Gilles Marchand
Feat. Laurent Lucas, Catherine Jacob, Sophie Quinton; French thriller set in an eerie hospital where people are mysteriously disappearing, following a nursing student and a doctor as they try to catch…
A Snake of June (2002): Dir. Shinya Tsukamoto
Feat. Asuka Kurosawa, Yuji Kohtari, Shinya Tsukamoto…; Intriguing neo–noir psychodrama from uncompromising Japanese director Shinya Tsukamoto (yes, he of the notorious TETSUO films), about a suicide…
And Now Ladies and Gentlemen (2002): Dir. Claude Lelouch
Feat. Jeremy Irons, Patricia Kaas, Thierry Lhermitte…; A smooth exercise in self–satire from dir. Lelouch, with Jeremy Irons playing a shifty jewel–thief who hooks up with lounge–singer…
Angela (2002): Dir. Roberta Torre
Feat. Donatella Finocchiaro; A solid, if oblique drama depicting the doings of the 1980s Sicilian Mafia as seen through the eyes of mob–wife Finocchiaro. Although…
Chaos (2002): Dir. Coline Serreau
Feat. Vincent Lindon, Catherine Frot; A witty French thriller where, through a chance meeting, a middle–class woman comes to the rescue of an Algerian–born prostitute who is…
City of God (Cidade de Deus) (2002): Dir. Fernando Mierelles
Feat. Alexandre Rodrigues, Leandro Firmano da Hora, Phellipe Haagensen; An incendiary Brazilian drama depicting two decades of blood–drenched rivalry between two youth gangs who control a slum area of Rio De…
Code, The (La Mentale) (2002): Dir. Manuel Boursinhac
Feat. Samuel Le Bihan; Convincingly gritty crime drama set in the drab outer zone of Paris' apartment estates and trailer parks, with a recently paroled hood (Le Bihan)…
Demonlover (2002): Dir. Olivier Assayas
Feat. Connie Nielsen, Charles Berling, Chloe Sevigny…; An insinuating future–shock Euro–thriller, with Connie Neilsen as an attractive corporate executive caught in the…
Double Vision (Shuang tong) (2002): Dir. Chen Kuo Fu
Feat. David Morse, Tony Leung (Kar-fai), Rene Liu; A slickly effective horror film, in which cross–cultural cop buddies Leung and Morse hunt a demonic serial killer in Taiwan. Imbued with a…
El Bonaerense (2002): Dir. Pablo Trapero; An authentically macho tale about the notoriously clannish and corrupt police force of Buenos Aires (members are known as 'el Bonaerense') which…
He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not (A la Folie pas du Tout) (2002): Dir. Laetitia Colombani
Feat. Audrey Tautou, Samuel Le Bihan; A slyly–structured tale of adultery which uses the ambiguous qualities of actress Audrey Tautou (AMELIE) to deliver some thrilling…
Infernal Affairs (2002): Dir. Wai Keung Lau, Siu Fai Mak
Feat. Andy Lau, Tony Leung (Chiu-wai), Anthony Wong…; This dynamic cops ‘n’ robbers spectacle is populist Hong Kong film–making at its most slick and sophisticated. Infused with more than a…
Inner Senses (Yee do hung gaan) (2002): Dir. Chi-Leung Law
Feat. Leslie Cheung, Karena Lam, Maggie Poon; A loner psychologist (Cheung) falls for a suicidal woman he is treating for her constant, gloomy visions of the dead, in this stylish Asian riff on…
Kaante (Thorns) (2002): Dir. Sanjay Gupta
Feat. Amitabh Bachchan, Sanjay Dutt, Sunil Shetty; From a new generation of Bollywood film–making comes a kinetic heist picture, shot and located in LA in which six Indian suspects plot a…
L'Homme du Train (Man on the Train) (2002): Dir. Patrice Leconte
Feat. Jean Rochefort, Johnny Hallyday; An elegantly amusing role–switching tale that's equal parts social comedy, existential drama and subtle thriller, tinged with melancholy…
Missing Gun, The (Xun qiang) (2002): Dir. Chuan Lu
Feat. Wen Jiang; Wound–up thriller set in a small and eccentric Chinese village, where a policeman wakes one morning with a hangover to find his…
Pact of Silence, The (Le Pacte du Silence) (2002): Dir. Graham Guit
Feat. Gerard Depardieu, Elodie Bouchez; Glossy Euro–thriller in which a priest of doubtful faith (Depardieu) investigates twin sisters – one in prison, the other in a convent…
Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance (2002): Dir. Park Chan-Wook
Feat. Kang-ho Song, Ha-kyun Shin, Doona Bae; Incredibly bleak suspenser witnesses the disastrous efforts of a deaf–mute man and his girlfriend (who is on the fringes of a terrorist cell)…
8 Women (8 Femmes) (2001): Dir. Francois Ozon
Feat. Catherine Deneuve, Isabelle Huppert, Emmanuelle Beart…; In the classic whodunnit mould, this whimsical French "thriller" starts with a man’s dead body in a snowbound Alpine manse in the 1950s, and eight…
Experiment, The (Das Experiment) (2001): Dir. Oliver Hirschbiegel
Feat. Moritz Bleibtreu, Maren Eggert, Christian Berkel; Twenty men volunteer for a paid two–week simulated study that divides them into the roles of prisoners and guards in a ‘controlled’…
Intacto (2001): Dir. Juan Carlos Fresnadillo
Feat. Max von Sydow, Leonardo Sbaraglia, Guillermo Toledo; A finely devised Spanish thriller, in which particularly obsessed gamblers contest their 'Luck' in various absurd, dangerous and creepy…
Merci Pour Le Chocolat (Nightcap) (2001): Dir. Claude Chabrol
Feat. Isabelle Huppert; Slyly subversive psychodrama, with Isabelle Huppert excelling as the owner of a Swiss chocolate–business, who also happens to be a…
Read My Lips (Sur Mes Levres) (2001): Dir. Jacques Audiard
Feat. Vincent Cassel, Emmanuelle Devos; Sturdy, unconventional French thriller about an insecure, partially–deaf office clerk who tries to help an irascible ex–con integrate…
Sleepless (Non ho Sonno) (2001): Dir. Dario Argento
Feat. Max von Sydow, Stefano Dionisi, Chiara Caselli; A welcome return to his 'giallo' roots by dir. Argento, turning a tangled tango between a serial–killer and recently–retired detective…
Tunnel, The (2001): Dir. Roland Suso Richter
Feat. Heino Ferch, Nicolette Krebitz; An extended though by no means deep excavation of German Cold War history, in which an East German swimmer (Ferch) defects to West Berlin in 1961 and…
Crimson Rivers, The (2000): Dir. Mathieu Kassovitz
Feat. Jean Reno, Vincent Cassel; A bizarre murder in the French Alps draws detectives Jean Reno and Vincent Cassel into the killing–cycle of a particularly grisly…
Dead or Alive 2 (Tobosha) (2000): Dir. Takashi Miike
Feat. Sho Aikawa, Riki Takeuchi, Shinya Tsukamoto; Understated yet rewarding sequel to the mind–blowing gangster actioner follows on from the 'end of the world' with an unrelated story, with…
Harry, He's Here to Help (With a Friend Like Harry,Who Needs Enemies?) (2000): Dir. Dominik Moll
Feat. Sergi Lopez, Laurent Lucas; French festival–hit that invokes the delicious menace of Alfred Hitchcock with its insidious central character, Harry (Sergi Lopez) who invites…
Nine Queens (Nueve Reinas) (2000): Dir. Fabian Bielinsky
Feat. Gaston Pauls, Ricardo Darín; An Argentian congame thriller which uses a fresh, edgy setting to bolster its David Mamet–by–way–of–Quentin Tarantino…
One Hundred Steps, The (I Cento Passi) (2000): Dir. Marco Tullio Giordana; Expansive, fact–based drama set around a young man's fight against local mafiosos in the small Sicilian village of Cinisi in the…
Our Lady of the Assassins (la Virgen de los Sicarios) (2000): Dir. Barbet Schroeder
Feat. Anderson Ballesteros, Juan David Restrepo; A middle aged author returns to his native Colombian village to find that it has been overrun by violence and corruption. After his young male lover…
Princess and the Warrior, The (2000): Dir. Tom Tykwer
Feat. Franke Potente; Follow–up and companion piece to dir. Tykwer’s RUN LOLA RUN, is a 'Snow White'–inspired tale of a psychiatric nurse who is hit by a…
Seance (2000): Dir. Kiyoshi Kurosawa
Feat. Koji Yakusho; A hybrid of crime thriller and ghost story, this remake of the British classic "Seance on a Wet Afternoon" reinstates the supernatural emphasis of…
Tell Me Something (2000): Dir. Chang Yoon-Hyung
Feat. Han Suk-gyu, Shim Eun-ha; A fine slice of Korean “giallo”, this is detective pulp of the lacquered–black, rain–drenched variety, with perverse/macabre…
Turbo (TV Series) (2000-2001): Feat. Roberto Farnesi; Addictive mystery series with the canine detective Turbo tracking villains against the sun–drenched vistas of Tuscany.
6ixtynin9 (Sixtynine; Ruang talok 69) (1999): Dir. Pen-Ek Ratanaruang
Feat. Lalita Panyopas; Second feature film by the Thai writer–director Pen–Ek Ratanaruang (LAST LIFE IN THE UNIVERSE), following a woman who is laid off during…
Dead or Alive (Hanzaisha) (1999): Dir. Takashi Miike
Feat. Sho Aikawa, Riki Takeuchi, Ren Osugi; A jaw–dropping, wickedly amoral revenge thriller from the dir. of AUDITION, who blows the dust (and the roof) off gangster movie cliches and…
East / West (Est / Ouest) (1999): Dir. Regis Wargnier
Feat. Sandrine Bonnaire, Oleg Menshikov, Sergei Bodrov Jr…; A 'woman's picture' in the proudest sense of the term, this lush historical melodrama from the dir. of INDOCHINE again finds a French woman in a…
Inugami (1999): Dir. Masato Harada
Feat. Yuki Amami, Atsuro Watabe, Eugene Harada; Quietly impressive suspenser set in a remote mountain village in Japan, where a young local woman and a visiting school teacher become aware of the…
Nameless, The (Los Sin Nombre) (1999): Dir. Jaume Balaguero
Feat. Emma Vilarasau, Karra Elejalde; A family, devastated by the murder of their daughter, are sent into a fresh spin by her seeming re–appearance five years later in this visually…
Shiri (Swiri) (1999): Dir. Kang Je-Gyu
Feat. Min-sik Choi, Yunjin Kim, Kang-ho Song…; South Korean actioner from director Kang Je–gyu (BROTHERHOOD OF WAR) in which a pair of agents are tracking down female assassin from North…
Quiet Family, The (Choyonghan kajok) (1998): Dir. Ji-woon Kim
Feat. Kang-ho Song, Min-sik Choi; A deliciously deadpan black comedy in which a respectable family decide to leave the rat race behind, buy a hotel in remote mountains and lead more…
Run Lola Run (1998): Dir. Tom Tykwer
Feat. Franke Potente, Moritz Bleibtreu; Runaway foreign–language hit clocks up mileage from a simple conceit – flame–haired punkette Lola has twenty minutes to go like the…
Secret Defense (1998): Dir. Jacques Rivette
Feat. Sandrine Bonnaire; A Hitchcockian thriller in which dir. Rivette, better known for his surreal excursions, knowingly toys with the conventions of the suspense genre,…
So Close To Paradise (Biandan, guniang) (1998): Dir. Wang Xiaoshuai
Feat. Wang Tong, Shi Yu, Guo Tao; Chinese film set in the city of Wuhan before it was a household name, where two young migrant workers become embroiled in the city's criminal…
Assassin(s) (1997): Dir. Mathieu Kassovitz
Feat. Mathieu Kassovitz, Michel Serrault; Disappointing followup to LA HAINE for dir./star Kassovitz, plumping for a story of an apprentice hitman (Kassovitz) to aging pro Michel Serrault,…
Character (1997): Dir. Mike van Diem
Feat. Fedja Van Huet; A murderous confrontation bookends an elegantly told story of class, oppression and perseverance in 1920s Rotterdam, in which a young…
Dobermann (1997): Dir. Jan Kounen
Feat. Tcheky Karyo, Vincent Cassel, Monica Bellucci…; Frenetic French crime thriller filled with over the top gun play and colourful yet grimy characters. Vincent Cassel plays a bank robber known as…
Full Alert (1997): Dir. Ringo Lam
Feat. Lau Ching-wan, Francis Ng; Quality police thriller with realistic drama, bracing action and strong sense of locale – regarded as one of the last 'classics' from the…
Funny Games (1997): Dir. Michael Haneke
Feat. Ulrich Muhe, Arno Frisch, Frank Giering…; Michael Haneke’s disturbing, self–reflexive examination of violence, and violence as entertainment, in which two young men dressed in tennis…
Insomnia (1997): Dir. Erik Skjoldbjaerg
Feat. Stellan Skarsgard; An edgy, ingeniously plotted psychological thriller about an amoral Swedish detective whose murder investigation in Northern Norway (where the sun…
La Vie de Jesus (Life of Jesus) (1997): Dir. Bruno Dumont; Virtuoso bleakness from the dir. of TWENTYNINE PALMS, in his debut study of alienated existence for a group of unruly skinheads in rural Flanders who…
Live Flesh (1997): Dir. Pedro Almodovar
Feat. Javier Bardem, Francesca Neri, Liberto Rabal; Five aggrieved characters get wrapped in a sticky web of consequence after a fateful incident leaves one paralysed and another in jail. Dir.…
Open Your Eyes (Abre Los Ojos) (1997): Dir. Alejandro Amenabar
Feat. Eduardo Noriega, Penelope Cruz, Chete Lera; A surrealistic nightmare unfurled with Hitchcockian precision and irony, Eduardo Noriega plays a young–man–who–has–everything…
Port Djema (1997): Dir. Eric Heumann
Feat. Jean-Yves Dubois, Nathalie Boutefeu, Christophe Odent…; A Paris surgeon gets into the thick of dangerous politics at an East African colonial port as he traces the footsteps of a murdered friend. Won Best…
Wintersleepers (1997): Dir. Tom Tykwer
Feat. Ulrich Matthes, Marie-lou Sellem, Floriane Daniel; The paths of five people on the German skifield of Berchtesgaden intersect following a car accident, resulting in a precise, chilly thriller from RUN…
Beyond Hypothermia (Sip si 32 doe) (1996): Dir. Patrick Leung
Feat. Lau Ching Wan; A master Hong Kong hitwoman is contracted to bump off top–level crime lords in this brooding suspenser, directed by a longtime assistant to…
Nobody Will Speak of Us When We're Dead (1996): Dir. Agustin Diaz Yanes
Feat. Victoria Abril, Pilar Bardem; Alcoholic and reluctant whore Victoria Abril turns a few clever tricks on a Mexican mob's laundering operation. A Spanish pulpy fiction grafted with…
Pure Formality, A (Una pura formalità) (1996): Dir. Giuseppe Tornatore
Feat. Gerard Depardieu, Roman Polanski; A chilling interrogation of an elusive murder suspect transpires under weather most foul. Roman Polanski and Gerard Depardieu face–off…
Pusher (1996): Dir. Nicolas Winding Refn
Feat. Kim Bodnia, Mads Mikkelsen, Thomas Bo Larsen; Intense Danish thriller follows a fast–living drug dealer's (Bodnia) downward arc after he inadvertantly loses a load of product and tries to…
Too Late (Prea Târziu) (1996): Dir. Lucian Pintilie
Feat. Razvan Vasilescu; Bleak, unflinching examination of Romanian society from dir. Pintilie focuses on an inexperienced investigator who discovers a myriad of corruption…
Bait, The (L'Appat) (1995): Dir. Bertrand Tavernier
Feat. Marie Gillain; A claustrophobic psychological thriller dealing with a trio of young friends who naively conspire to commit a home invasion, that becomes a study of…
Confessional, The (1995): Dir. Robert Lepage
Feat. Lothaire Bluteau, Kristin Scott Thomas; A man searches for lost relatives and missing pieces of family history, somehow linked to the making of Hitchcock's 'I Confess' in Quebec, 1953; past…
Kamikaze Taxi (1995): Dir. Masato Harada
Feat. Koji Yakusho, Kazuya Takahashi, Reiko Kataoka; An apprentice gangster fouls up his first major assignment and flees Tokyo in a taxi, the driver of which turns out to be a unlikely confident with a…
L'Amour Molesto (Wounded Love) (1995): Dir. Mario Martone
Feat. Anna Bonaiuto, Angela Luce, Gianni Cajafa…; Filial difficulties between mother and daughter act as the centre of gravity for this Italian mystery that matches its edgy storyline with a…
L'Appartement (The Apartment) (1995): Dir. Gilles Mimouni
Feat. Vincent Cassel, Romane Bohringer, Monica Bellucci; Chic Parisian thriller lifts a few motifs from VERTIGO, but adds more than a few original flourishes. Vincent Cassel is about to settle down with…
La Ceremonie (Judgement in Stone, A) (1995): Dir. Claude Chabrol
Feat. Isabelle Huppert, Sandrine Bonnaire, Jacqueline Bisset; Veteran new–wave director Chabrol takes this HEAVENLY CREATURES–ish tale of the unholy synergy between two women, adds some class theory,…
La Haine (Hate) (1995): Dir. Mathieu Kassovitz
Feat. Vincent Cassel, Hubert Kounde, Said Taghmaoui…; A distinctive French urban crime drama in which the idle hands of male youth form fisticuffs on mean urban streets. A whole lot punchier, intelligent…
Patriotes, Les (1995): Dir. Eric Rochant
Feat. Yvan Attal, Richard Masur, Allen Garfield…; Disillusionment erodes the ideals of a young Frenchman who emigrates to Israel to train for a career in their intelligence division. Its astute focus…
Inspector Rex (TV Series) (1994-2004): Feat. Tobias Moretti; Austrian TV series, with a sizable cult following around the world (especially in Australia), in which a lone policeman and his German Shepherd…
Machine, La (1994): Dir. Francois Dupeyron
Feat. Gerard Depardieu, Nathalie Baye; Gerard Depardieu goes into mad–doctor mode for this high–tech mind–transplant thriller, as a shrink/inventor whose fleeting…
Nightwatch (1994): Dir. Ole Bornedal
Feat. Nikolaj Coster-Waldau; A student (Nikolaj Waldau) takes a job as nightwatchman in a morgue so he can swat for his exams, but is dragged into trouble by an unruly companion…
Six Days, Six Nights (1994): Dir. Diane Kurys
Feat. Anne Parillaud, Beatrice Dalle; Favourite French fatales Anne Parillaud and Beatrice Dalle brood into Polanski territory, finding sibling and sexual rivialry, and possibly madness…
Torment (L'Enfer) (1994): Dir. Claude Chabrol
Feat. Emmanuelle Beart, Francois Cluzet; Based on an unproduced H.R. Clouzot screenplay from the 1950s, and not quite up to the standard of its follow–up, A JUDGEMENT IN STONE, but a…
A Crime (Un Crime) (1993): Dir. Jacques Deray
Feat. Alain Delon; Vintage courtroom vehicle for the ice cool Delon, sturdy in its workmanlike screenplay and no–nonsense attitude.
Darkness in Tallinn (1993): Dir. Ilka Jarvilaturi
Feat. Elina Aasa, Milena Gulbe, Juri Jarvet; In liberated Estonia, gangsters plan the elaborate ambush of gold bullion being restored from a Paris vault. A humble electrician has the pivotal job…
La Scorta (1993): Dir. Rick Tognazzi
Feat. Ennio Morricone; Bold dramatic thriller draws from real events surrounding the indictment of Mafia collaborators with the focus on the four bodyguards of a maverick…
Red Squirrel (La Ardilla Roja) (1993): Dir. Julio Medem
Feat. Emma Suarez, Nancho Novo; On the cusp of suicide, a young man befriends the amnesiac victim of a motorcycle accident. Under a shroud of deceit, the couple 'renew' their…
Shadow of Doubt, A (1993): Dir. Aline Issermann
Feat. Mireille Perrier, Alain Bashung, Sandrine Blancke; A painfully credible exploration of how a father's alleged crime against his young daughter affects a middle class family. Well researched and…
Accompanist, The (1992): Dir. Claude Miller
Feat. Richard Bohringer, Romane Bohringer; A humble pianist is hired to accompany a wealthy soprano in occupied France, but their partnership becomes fraught with rivalry and…
Benny's Video (1992): Dir. Michael Haneke
Feat. Arno Frisch, Ulrich Muhe; This middle installment in Michael Haneke’s ‘Glaciation Trilogy’ considers under a familiar milieu of urban dread the effects of mediated…
Flight of the Innocent (1992): Dir. Carlo Carlei
Feat. Manuel Colao, Federico Pacifici, Sal Borgese; A swirling steady–cam follows the chase of a young boy across Northern Italy after his family are slaughtered by a kidnapping ring. Thriller is…
Ip5 (1992): Dir. Jean-Jacques Beineix
Feat. Yves Montand, Olivier Martinez, Sotigui Kouyate…; Beineix's visual flair props up this slight story of a graffiti artist and his young pal who journey in search of escape and/or love. They meet an…
L627 (1992): Dir. Bertrand Tavernier
Feat. Didier Bezace, Jean-Paul Comart; A sharp, unsentimental depiction of the daily grind that a Paris drugs–squad detective must endure, contending with dealers, addicts and…
La Sentinelle (The Sentinel) (1992): Dir. Arnaud Desplechin
Feat. Emmanuel Salinger, Thibault de Montalembert, Jean-Louis Richard…; French chiller from director Arnaud Desplechin (A CHRISTMAS TALE) about a forensic medicine student who finds himself mysteriously in possession of a…
Autobus (1991): Dir. Eric Rochant
Feat. Yvan Attal, Kristin Scott Thomas; A desperate, attention–seeking young man (Yvan Attal – superb) hijacks a school bus, taking its two adults and little passengers hostage.…
Highway Patrolman (1991): Dir. Alex Cox
Feat. Roberto Sosa, Bruno Bichir, Vanessa Bauche; A wayward film–maker returns to form in using road–movie conventions to enrich this tale of poverty, drugs, prostitution and rampant…
Hors La Vie (Life on Hold) (1991): Dir. Maroun Bagdadi
Feat. Hippolyte Girardot, Rafic Ali Ahmad, Nidal Ashkov…; A fictionalised depiction of a freelance photographer's ten months in Shi'ite custody. Charged with political anger but unsensationalist and…
Indecent Woman, The (1991): Dir. Ben Verbong
Feat. Jose Way, Coen Van Vrijberghe de Coningh, Huub Stapel; A married violinist is drawn into a no–holds–barred relationship with a mystery man. A decent erotic parable that perceptively explores…
Lovers (1991): Dir. Vincente Aranda
Feat. Victoria Abril; Almodovar–regular Victoria Abril brings her sultry star presence to this smouldering tale of illicit lovers who conspire to a horrendous crime…
Zentropa (Europa) (1991): Dir. Lars Von Trier
Feat. Jean-Marc Barr, Barbara Sukowa, Udo Kier…; A multi–lingual visual essay from upstart director Von Trier, who unfolds his story of post–war European unease through metaphor and a…
Cup Final (1990): Dir. Eran Riklis
Feat. Moshe Ivgy, Mohamed Bakri, Salim Dau; An engaging Israeli film about a soccer player whose dreams of representing his country at the World Cup in Spain are shattered by war. He is…
Doctor Petiot (1990): Dir. Christian De Chalonge
Feat. Michel Serrault, Pierre Romans, Berangere Bonvoisin; A dark, expressionistic account of a depraved physician who, in occupied Paris, used his practise to facilitate emigration for hopeful Jews, only to…
Elegant Criminel, L' (1990): Dir. Francis Girod
Feat. Daniel Auteuil, Jean Poiret, Jaques Weber; Daniel Auteuil stars in this irreverent and witty biography of suave petty thief and condemned killer Pierre Lacenaire, whose brief flame burned…
Nikita (La Femme Nikita) (1990): Dir. Luc Besson
Feat. Anne Parillaud, Jean-Hugues Anglade, Tcheky Karyo…; A stylish thriller if ever there was one. The director combines the visual ostentation from his THE BIG BLUE with the plot mechanics of a classic…
Dark Woods, The (1989): Dir. Jacques Deray
Feat. Beatrice Dalle; Beatrice Dalle (BETTY BLUE) marries a stranger on a whim, and lives to regret it when her affections for his brother leads to a brutal crime of…
Nocturne Indien (1989): Dir. Alain Corneau
Feat. Jean-Hugues Anglade, Clémentine Célarié, Otto Tausig; Moody drama from dir. Corneau (TOUS LES MATINS DU MONDE) sees a young Frenchman travel to India to search for a missing friend, and get lost in…
As Tears Go By (Wong gok ka moon) (1988): Dir. Wong Kar-Wai
Feat. Andy Lau, Maggie Cheung, Jacky Cheung; Dir. Wong Kar–Wai debuted with this ambitious remake of MEAN STREETS, where best buddies Andy Lau and Jacky Cheung struggle through the…
Monsieur Hire (1988): Dir. Patrice Leconte
Feat. Michel Blanc, Sandrine Bonnaire; A lonely, middle–aged tailor becomes obsessed with a glamourous but suspicious woman, whom he observes from his opposing apartment. Melancholy…
Vanishing, The (1988): Dir. George Sluzier
Feat. Bernard-Pierre Donnadieu, Gene Berroets, Johanna Ter Steege; A genuinely creepy psychological thriller – a woman vanishes while on holiday in France, later her boyfriend is taunted in a battle of wits…
Angel Dust (1987): Dir. Edouard Niermans
Feat. Bernard Giraudeau, Fanny Bastien, Fanny Cottencon; Accomplished thriller in the film noir tradition about an out–of–luck cop who falls for a woman he later begins to suspect of murder.
Epidemic (1987): Dir. Lars Von Trier
Feat. Lars Von Trier; Typically divisive earlier Lars von Trier effort concerns the making of a low–budget horror movie about a highly contagious disease, thrown…
Loner, The (Le Solitaire) (1987): Dir. Jacques Deray
Feat. Jean-Paul Belmondo, Jean-Pierre Malo, Pierre Vernier; Sub–par Belmondo outing has him play the routine jaded cop out to avenge his partner's death. Low on stunts but high on cruelty this is one for…
Masques (1987): Dir. Claude Chabrol
Feat. Philippe Noiret, Bernadette Lafont; Showbiz thriller with an offbeat setting and treatment typical of the director. Phillip Noiret excels as a vain and complacent TV celebrity, with…
Camorra (1986): Dir. Lina Wertmuller
Feat. Angela Molina, Harvey Keitel; Complicated but well–judged thriller about the Naples underworld and specifically the use of children in the drug trade. More conventional than…
Death in a French Garden (1985): Dir. Michel Deville
Feat. Anemone , Richard Bohringer, Nicole Garcia…; A guitar tutor arrives at the house of a beautiful nymphette and her suspicious mother, where games of sex, power and manipulation unfold ultimately…
Police (1985): Dir. Maurice Pialat
Feat. Gerard Depardieu, Sophie Marceau, Richard Anconina; Brilliantly idiosyncratic crime thriller co–written by French auteurs Maurice Pialat (who also directs) and Catherine Breillat (A MA SOEUR!),…
Subway (1985): Dir. Luc Besson
Feat. Christopher Lambert, Isabelle Adjani; Fast paced action thriller set in the Paris underground. A cool rebel–hero (Christopher Lambert) teams up with Isabelle Adjani in stylish…
Element of Crime, The (1984): Dir. Lars Von Trier
Feat. Michael Elphick; A detective’s unconventional methods qualify him for the investigation of child murders in a dark, decaying, post–apocalyptic Germany.…
Finally Sunday (Vivement Dimanche!) (1983): Dir. Francois Truffaut
Feat. Fanny Ardant, Jean-Louis Trintignant; A businessman in trouble with the police over the murder of his wife's lover finds solace in his secretary who decides to investigate the case…
Fourth Man, The (1983): Dir. Paul Verhoeven
Feat. Jeroen Krabbe; Jeroen Krabbe is a gay alchoholic writer prone to hallucinations who suspects his hairdresser of triple murder. Weird and stylish…
Moon in the Gutter (1983): Dir. Jean-Jacques Beineix
Feat. Gerard Depardieu, Nastassja Kinski, Victoria Abril…; Dockworker Gerard Depardieu befriends Nastassja Kinski as he hunts for the killer of his sister. Pompous or excellent? Watch and decide for yourself.…
Balance, La (1982): Dir. Bob Swaim
Feat. Nathalie Baye, Philippe Leotard, Richard Berry; Money, loyalty and death hang in the balance in this gritty, Cesar–winning thriller. A crime king–pin is exposed by an…
Diva (1982): Dir. Jean-Jacques Beineix
Feat. Frederic Andrei, Wilhelmenia Wiggins Fernandez, Richard Bohringer…; Stylish romantic thriller in which an opera–intoxicated youth bootlegs a concert of an unrecorded opera star which leads to trouble with shady…
Coup de Torchon (Clean Slate) (1981): Dir. Bertrand Tavernier
Feat. Philippe Noiret, Isabelle Huppert, Jean-Pierre Marielle…; Mordantly humourous suspense set in dusty French Senegal, with Noiret playing a much–abused police chief who begins to have dreams of…
Professional, The (1981): Dir. Georges Lautner
Feat. Jean-Paul Belmondo; Action and humour alternate in this carefree Belmondo vehicle, in which the French larrikin plays a secret service agent out for revenge.
From the Life of the Marionettes (1980): Dir. Ingmar Bergman
Feat. Robert Atzom, Heinz Bennent, Martin Benrath; A dark themed and intricately plotted drama from dir. Bergman's later period, concerning a businessman who commits the sex–murder of a…
Egouts Du Paradis, Les (The Sewers of Paradise) (1979): Dir. Jose Giovanni
Feat. Francis Huster, Jean-François Balmer, Lila Kedrova; Romantic dramatization of "The Great Drain Robbery" of 1976, in which the Societe Generale Bank of France was robbed of over $10 million dollars by a…
American Friend, The (1976): Dir. Wim Wenders
Feat. Bruno Ganz, Samuel Fuller, Nicholas Ray; Twisting thriller stars Bruno Ganz as an apparently terminally–ill man duped into murder. Dennis Hopper plays the American 'friend', while…
Body Of My Enemy, The (Le Corps De Mon Ennemi) (1976): Dir. Henri Verneuil
Feat. Jean-Paul Belmondo, Bernard Blier, Marie-France Pisier; Slow burning thriller with Belmondo as a man wrongly imprisoned for drug trafficking looking to exact revenge on those who framed him. Trading…
Boomerang (Comme un boomerang) (1976): Dir. Jose Giovanni
Feat. Alain Delon, Carla Gravina, Dora Doll; French crime film with Alain Delon playing an ex–gangster and father of a delinquent teen, who is determined to clear his son's name after he…
Chinese Roulette (Chinesisches Roulette) (1976): Dir. Rainer Werner Fassbinder
Feat. Anna Karina, Margit Carstensen, Brigitte Mira…; Daunting Fassbinder drama concerning a cheating mother and father unwittingly convinced by their disabled daughter to each take their lovers on a…
Hunter Will Get You (L'Alpagueur) (1976): Dir. Philippe Labro
Feat. Jean-Paul Belmondo, Bruno Cremer; Ice–cool Belmondo thriller about government mercenary who poses undercover as a prisoner to smoke out an insidious criminal mastermind.
Bullet Train, The (1975): Dir. Jun'ya Sato
Feat. Ken Takakura, Sonny Chiba; Unstoppable, no–holds–barred action vehicle finds Sonny Chiba steering a passenger train rigged with a bomb to explode if its speed drops…
Gypsy, The (Le Gitan) (1975): Dir. Jose Giovanni
Feat. Alain Delon, Annie Girardot, Paul Meurisse; Alain Delon humours the plight of the gypsy as a gangster with a nomadic past. An obscure, moody crime vehicle.
Lost Honor of Katherina Blum, The (1975): Dir. Volker Schlondorff
Feat. Angela Winkler, Jurgen Prochnow; Taken from the novel by Heinrich Boll, this reproach to the powers–that–be in mid–70s West Germany portrays the hardheaded…
Icy Flesh (Icy Breasts; Les seins de glace) (1974): Dir. Georges Lautner
Feat. Alain Delon, Mireille Darc, Claude Brasseur; Alain Delon potboiler, with the French leading man succumbing to the wiles of an alluring, if deadly femme fatale. Better known as 'Icy Breasts'.
Nuits Rouges (1974): Dir. Georges Franju
Feat. Jacques Champreux, Gayle Hunnicutt; Another Franju masked adventure launched from Louis Feuillade serials and his own excellent JUDEX, only this time in filmed in a garish, exagerrated…
Burned Barns, The (Les granges brulées) (1973): Dir. Jean Chapot
Feat. Alain Delon, Simone Signoret; Moody provincial drama of death and betrayal reunites Delon and Signoret, this time on opposite sides of the law. More a character study than a…
Shock Treatment (Traitement de Choc) (1973): Dir. Alain Jessua
Feat. Alain Delon, Annie Girardot; Pointed medical chiller set in an anti–aging clinic overseen by Delon. This minor genre film is memorable for Girardot and Delon's risque beach…
Dirty Money (Un Flic) (1972): Dir. Jean-Pierre Melville
Feat. Alain Delon, Richard Crenna, Catherine Deneuve; Final film by the suspense–specialist Melville (LE SAMOURAI), spins a familiar tale of cops and bank–robbers involving Alain Delon,…
Don't Torture a Duckling (1972): Dir. Lucio Fulci
Feat. Barbara Bouchet, Florinda Bolkan, Tomas Milian…; A compelling Giallo mystery from Italian master Lucio Fulci (THE BEYOND) following a detective investigating a series of child murders in a southern…
Inheritor, The (L'Heritier) (1972): Dir. Philippe Labro
Feat. Jean-Paul Belmondo, Carla Gravina, Jean Rochefort; Shadowy thriller in which a wealthy industrialist dies in an air crash but his son suspects foul play. Soon he finds his own life in peril. Set…
Max and the Junkmen (Max Et Les Ferrailleurs) (1971): Dir. Claude Sautet
Feat. Romy Schneider; French crime drama set in the noir shaded streets of Paris follows a frustrated detective getting tangled up in a love triangle after commissioning a…
Widow Couderc, The (La veuve Couderc) (1971): Dir. Pierre Granier-Deferre
Feat. Alain Delon, Simone Signoret; Rustic thriller with Delon as a brooding stranger embroiled in a torrid affair with hard–bitten widow Signoret. Witty adaptation of a George…
American Soldier, The (Der Amerikanische Soldat) (1970): Dir. Rainer Werner Fassbinder
Feat. Karl Scheydt, Elga Sorbas, Jan George…; The third in a loose trilogy of gangster films directed by prolific German iconoclast Rainer Werner Fassbinder early in his career. A…
Borsalino (1970): Dir. Jacques Deray
Feat. Jean-Paul Belmondo, Alain Delon, Michel Bouquet; Delightful seriocomic film of two likeable hoods who become gangland chieftains in 1930s Marseilles. Music by Claude Bolling.
Cercle Rouge, Le (The Red Circle) (1970): Dir. Jean-Pierre Melville
Feat. Alain Delon, Gian Maria Volonte, Yves Montand…; A precisely–crafted colour 'noir' from the French master, dir. Melville, which rejigs the usual ingredients into an exemplary heist…
Conformist, The (Conformista, Il) (1970): Dir. Bernardo Bertolucci
Feat. Jean-Louis Trintignant, Stefania Sandrelli, Gastone Moschin…; Dazzling images and a potent brew of sex and politics merge seamlessly in this milestone of cinema about a submissive Italian Fascist recruited to…
Gods of the Plague (Götter der Pest) (1970): Dir. Rainer Werner Fassbinder
Feat. Hanna Schygulla, Margarethe von Trotta, Harry Baer…; The second in a loose trilogy of gangster films directed by prolific German iconoclast Rainer Werner Fassbinder early in his career. In this…
La Rupture (The Breach) (1970): Dir. Claude Chabrol
Feat. Stephane Audran, Jean-Pierre Cassel, Jean-Claude Drouot…; Stéphane Audran plays a good mother with a chequered past who divorces her deadbeat husband and is targeted by her aggrieved in–laws. In a bit…
Boucher, Le (The Butcher) (1969): Dir. Claude Chabrol
Feat. Stephane Audran, Jean Yanne; Psychological thriller probes the perhaps dangerous liaison between a celibate school–teacher and a murder suspect, the local butcher. Rich in…
Femme Infidele, La (The Unfaithful Wife) (1969): Dir. Claude Chabrol
Feat. Michel Bouquet, Stephane Audran, Maurice Ronet; French bourgeoisie couple Michel Bouquet and Stephane Audran form a murderous love–triangle with seducer Maurice Ronet, revealing the hidden…
Love is Colder Than Death (Liebe ist kälter als der Tod) (1969): Dir. Rainer Werner Fassbinder
Feat. Ulli Lommel, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Hanna Schygulla…; The first in a loose trilogy of gangster films directed by prolific German iconoclast Rainer Werner Fassbinder early in his career. Fassbinder…
Que La Bete Meure (This Man Must Die) (1969): Dir. Claude Chabrol
Feat. Michel Duchaussoy, Jean Yanne, Caroline Cellier; Thriller based on the book called The Beast Must Die by Cecil Day–Lewis (under the pseudonym Nicholas Blake), about a man who becomes involved…
Bride Wore Black, The (La Mariée était en noir) (1968): Dir. Francois Truffaut
Feat. Jeanne Moreau, Michel Bouquet, Jean-Claude Brialy…; Traumatised by her fiance's death, moments before due to be wed, Jeanne Moreau dedicates herself to a long–term plan of revenge, hunting and…
Farewell, Friend (Honor Among Thieves) (1968): Dir. Jean Herman
Feat. Alain Delon, Charles Bronson; Dependable French caper, centered on an elaborate heist, with warhorses Branson and Delon thick as thieves in vying to crack the same high security…
Les Biches (Bad Girls) (1968): Dir. Claude Chabrol
Feat. Jean-Louis Trintignant, Jacqueline Sassard, Stephane Audran; A love–triangle between an heiress, an architect and a young woman, is tested to unsettling effect in this psychological drama. Chabrol…
Z (1968): Dir. Costa-Gavras
Feat. Yves Montand, Jean-Louis Trintignant, Irene Papas; Pioneering conspiracy thriller based on the true story of the murder of a doctor and the raw sore of Greek political corruption it exposes. Oscars…
Champagne Murders, The (Le scandale) (1967): Dir. Claude Chabrol
Feat. Anthony Perkins, Maurice Ronet, Yvonne Furneaux…; Claude Chabrol transitions into his revered period of thrillers with this potboiler about a champagne tycoon's partner who suspects his partner's…
Diabolically Yours (Diaboliquement vôtre) (1967): Dir. Julien Duvivier
Feat. Alain Delon, Senta Berger, Sergio Fantoni; Creepy thriller has amnesiac Delon recovering in his opulent mansion with beautiful wife Berger, living the good life. Trouble comes when he begins…
Le Samourai (The Samurai) (1967): Dir. Jean-Pierre Melville
Feat. Alain Delon; Alain Delon plays an ultra–cool assassin whose flawless disposition is impenetrable to the Gendarmerie but not to a sexy key witness. Steely…
Le Deuxieme Souffle (Second Breath) (1966): Dir. Jean-Pierre Melville
Feat. Lino Ventura, Paul Meurisse, Raymond Pellegrin; A gangster escapes from prison and returns to his criminal ways, but a determined inspector is on his tail. Has all the style and restraint we can…
Made in U.S.A (1966): Dir. Jean-Luc Godard
Feat. Anna Karina, Jean-Pierre Leaud, Marianne Faithful; Further political horseplay from Godard in the skin of a Nouvelle Vague alternate reality: this time, Anna Karina plays a war journalist on the hunt…
Oshima's Outlaw Sixties (Pleasures of the Flesh, Violence at Noon a.k.a. Violence at High Noon, Sing a Song of Sex, Japanese Summer: Double Suicide, Three Resurrected Drunkards) (1965-1968): Dir. Nagisa Oshima; Five films from provocative Japanese director Nagisa Oshima, all from the 60's, when he formed his own film production company and enjoyed the most…
Pierrot Le Fou (Crazy Pete) (1965): Dir. Jean-Luc Godard
Feat. Jean-Paul Belmondo, Anna Karina; A striking example of the French New Wave. It's kiss, kiss, bang, bang all the way with Jean Paul Belmondo and Anna Karina as maverick intellectual…
Diamonds of the Night (1964): Dir. Jan Nemec
Feat. Ladislav Jansky, Antonin Kumbera, Irma Bischofova; Extraordinarily intense account, told with almost no dialogue, of two Jewish teenagers running for their lives after escaping from a train bound for…
Hamlet (1964): Dir. Grigori Kozintsev
Feat. Innokenti Smoktunovsky; The legendary Russian version of Shakespeare's play, which visually at least, stands as the greatest yet. Staged amidst the massive battlements of…
Doulos, Le (The Finger Man) (1963): Dir. Jean-Pierre Melville
Feat. Jean-Paul Belmondo, Serge Reggiani; Eschewing the French New Wave movement in favour of homage to the then ‘passe’ genre of film noir, dir. Jean–Pierre Melville adds shades of…
High and Low (1963): Dir. Akira Kurosawa
Feat. Toshiro Mifune; Adapted from a crime–novel by Ed McBain, this kidnapping–thriller is a central work in dir. Kurosawa’s series of film noirs, combining…
Judex (1963): Dir. Georges Franju
Feat. Edith Scob, Channing Pollock, Francine Bergé; Georges Franju's magical remake of Louis Feuillade’s 1916 serial, in which a masked crime fighter seeks revenge on a corrupt banker. A lyrical…
Knife in the Water (1962): Dir. Roman Polanski
Feat. Leon Niemczyk, Jolanta Umecka, Zygmunt Malanowicz; The old adage 'three is a crowd' is chillingly played out in Polanski's directing debut about a couple's troubled yachting weekend with a…
Le Combat Dans L'île (1962): Dir. Alain Cavalier
Feat. Romy Schneider, Jean-Louis Trintignant, Henri Serre…; French drama exploring the tension between right and left wing politics in the early 60's, through the romantic conflict faced by a woman (Romy…
A Man Called La Rocca (Un nommé La Rocca) (1961): Dir. Jean Becker
Feat. Jean-Paul Belmondo, Christine Kaufmann, Nico; French thriller with Jean Paul Belmondo playing an ex–gangster tracking down the man responsible for putting his friend in prison. Based on the…
Classe Tous Risques (Consider All Risks) (1960): Dir. Claude Sautet
Feat. Lino Ventura, Jean-Paul Belmondo, Sandra Milo; French–Italian gangster film following the exploits of a French mobster (Lino Ventura, based on a real life henchman for the French Gestapo)…
Die 1000 Augen des Dr. Mabuse (The 1000 Eyes of Dr. Mabuse) (1960): Dir. Fritz Lang
Feat. Dawn Addams, Peter Van Eyck, Gert Frobe; The final film in Fritz Lang's DR. MABUSE series, which includes DR. MABUSE, THE GAMBLER and THE TESTAMENT OF DR. MABUSE, is also the director's…
Le Trou (The Hole; The Night Watch) (1960): Dir. Jacques Becker
Feat. Marc Michel; Classic, noir–ish prison suspense in the mould of A MAN ESCAPED and RIFIFI chronicles an ambitious tunnel escape. Sparse and tense.
Plein Soleil (Purple Noon) (1960): Dir. Rene Clement
Feat. Alain Delon, Marie Laforet, Maurice Ronet; The original adaptation of Patricia Highsmith's gripping novel 'The Talented Mr Ripley', who is here embodied by a sleek Delon in only his third…
A Bout de Souffle (Breathless) (1959): Dir. Jean-Luc Godard
Feat. Jean-Paul Belmondo, Jean Seberg, Daniel Boulanger…; Godard's landmark first film pulls out all the stops in the style department – with Jean–Paul Belmondo as the romantic fugitive,…
Come Dance with Me (Voulez-Vous Danser Avec Moi?) (1959): Dir. Michel Boisrond
Feat. Brigitte Bardot, Dawn Addams; Surprisingly entertaining French mystery thriller tracking a wife attempting to clear her husband's name from involvement in a dance studio murder.…
Man Escaped, A (1956): Dir. Robert Bresson
Feat. Francois Leterrier; Bresson's films are all extremely controlled in style: no suspense, no histrionics, flat acting, spare and simple camerawork, yet this is an…
Bob Le Flambeur (Bob the Gambler) (1955): Dir. Jean-Pierre Melville
Feat. Roger Duchesne, Isabelle Corney; Superb French noir from the dir. of LE SAMOURAI, here debuting with a taut plan to rob the Deauville casino, that grows ever more perilous for…
Rififi (1955): Dir. Jules Dassin
Feat. Jean Servais, Jules Dassin, Magali Noel…; The French reclaim film noir with this methodical and stylish heist movie, famous for its 35 minute real–time bank robbery, executed in virtual…
Les Diaboliques (1954): Dir. Henri-Georges Clouzot
Feat. Simone Signoret, Vera Clouzot, Paul Meurisse…; Simone Signoret stars as one of two women who conspire to murder the man they share – a sadistic schoolmaster. Iconic French thriller with a…
Wages of Fear (Salaire de la Peur, Le) (1953): Dir. Henri-Georges Clouzot
Feat. Yves Montand, Charles Vanel; A young Yves Montand leads a group of impoverished men over rocky Latin American terrain with a dangerous load of nitro–glycerine. Considered…
Drunken Angel (Yoidore tenshi) (1948): Dir. Akira Kurosawa
Feat. Toshiro Mifune, Takashi Shimura; The film that made Toshiro Mifune a star – playing a petty gangster with TB, who turns to an alcoholic doctor for help after a shoot–out.…
Quai Des Orfevres (1947): Dir. Henri-Georges Clouzot
Feat. Louis Jouvet, Bernard Blier, Suzy Delair…; Romantically bleak French noir about an ambitious starlet and her protective husband who find themselves implicated in the murder of a lecherous…
Panique (1946): Dir. Julien Duvivier
Feat. Michel Simon, Viviane Romance; Exemplary French noir based on the novel Les Fiançailles de M. Hire by Georges Simenon, the source of the Patrice Leconte film, MONSIEUR HIRE…
Le Corbeau (1943): Dir. Henri-Georges Clouzot
Feat. Pierre Fresnay; Fascinating as a wartime allegory made under the German Occupation of France, a small town becomes a hot–bed of paranoia following a rash of…
Bete Humaine, La (1938): Dir. Jean Renoir
Feat. Jean Gabin, Simone Simon, Fernand Ledoux…; Adaptation of Zola's romantic tragedy brims with tension and exults the presense of French icon Jean Gabin as a hot–headed train driver coaxed…
Le Quai Des Brumes (Port of Shadows) (1938): Dir. Marcel Carne
Feat. Jean Gabin, Michel Simon, Michele Morgan; The forever anti–heroic Jean Gabin takes on an underworld of pimps and perverts in this gloomy French classic, a major influence on the film…
Pepe Le Moko (1937): Dir. Julien Duvivier
Feat. Jean Gabin, Mireille Balin; Jean Gabin plays a super–cool gangster who finds immunity in the Algierian Casbah. Marvellously romantic, this classic of the French golden age…
M... Worst Crime of All (1931): Dir. Fritz Lang
Feat. Peter Lorre; A chilling expressionist classic starring Peter Lorre as psychotic child molester. Dir. Lang masterfully fills the screen with understated but…

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