Crime film, in the broadest sense, is afilm genre inspired by and analogous to thecrime fiction literary genre. Films of this genre generally involve various aspects ofcrime and its detection. Stylistically, the genre may overlap and combine with many other genres, such asdrama organgster film,^[1] but also includecomedy, and, in turn, is divided into many sub-genres, such asmystery,suspense ornoir.

Screenwriter and scholarEric R. Williams identified crime film as one of eleven super-genres in hisScreenwriters Taxonomy, claiming that all feature-lengthnarrative films can be classified by these super-genres.  The other ten super-genres are action, fantasy, horror, romance, science fiction, slice of life, sports, thriller, war and western.^[2] Williams identifies drama in a broader category called "film type", mystery and suspense as "macro-genres", and film noir as a "screenwriter's pathway" explaining that these categories are additive rather than exclusionary.^[3]Chinatown would be an example of a film that is a drama (film type) crime film (super-genre) that is also a noir (pathway) mystery (macro-genre).

The definition of what constitutes a crime film is not straightforward.^[4] CriminologistNicole Hahn Rafter in her bookShots in the Mirror: Crime Films and Society (2006) found that film scholars had a traditional reluctance to examine the topic of crime films in their entirety due to complex nature of the topic.^[5]Carlos Clarens in his bookCrime Movies (1980), described the crime film as a symbolic representation of criminals, law, and society. Clarens continued that they describe what is culturally and morally abnormal and differ fromthriller films which he wrote as being more concerned with psychological and private situations.^[6] Thomas Schatz inHollywood Genres: Formulas, Filmmaking, and the Studio System (1981) does not refer to the concept of crime film as a genre, and says that "such seemingly similar "urban crime" formulas" such as thegangster film anddetective film were their own unique forms.^[7] Thomas Leitch, author ofCrime Films (2004) stated that the crime film presents their defining subject as a crime culture that normalizes a place where crime is both shockingly disruptive and completely normal.^[8] Rafter suggested the best way to skirt complexities of various films that may be defined as crime films as works that focus primarily on crime and its consequences, and that they should be viewed as a category that encompasses a number genres, ranging fromcaper films, detective films, gangster films, cop andprison films and courtroom dramas. She said that like drama and romance film, they are umbrella terms that cover several smaller more coherent groups.^[9]

The criminal acts in every film in the genre represents a larger critique of either social or institutional order from the perspective of a character or from the film's narrative at large.^[10] The films also depend on the audience ambivalence towards crime. Master criminals are portrayed as immoral but glamorous while maverick police officers break the law to capture criminals. Leitch defined this as a critical to the film as the films are about the continual breakdown and re-establishment of borders among criminals, crime solvers and victims, concluding that "this paradox is at the heart of all crime films."^[11] Rafter echoed these statements, saying crime films should be defined on the basis of their relationship with society.^[4]

Leitch writes that crime films reinforce popular social beliefs of their audience, such asthe road to hell is paved with good intentions, the law is above individuals, and that crime does not pay.^[10] The genre also generally has endings that confirm the moral absolutes that an innocent victim, a menacing criminal, and detective and their own morals that inspire them by questioning their heroic or pathetic status, their moral authority of the justice system, or by presenting innocent characters who seem guilty and vice versa.^[12]

Crime films includes all films that focus on any of the three parties to a crime: criminal, victims, and avengers and explores what one party's relation to the other two.^[13] This allows the crime film to encompass films as wide asWall Street (1987); caper films likeThe Asphalt Jungle (1950); and prison films ranging fromBrute Force (1947) toThe Shawshank Redemption (1994).^[13] Crime films are not definable by theirmise-en-scene such as theWestern film as they lack both the instantly recognizable or the unique intent of other genres such asparody films.^[14]

Leitch and Rafter both write that it would be impractical to call every film in which a crime produces the central dramatic situation a crime film.^[15][16] Leitch gave an example that most Westerns fromThe Great Train Robbery (1903) toUnforgiven (1992) often have narratives about crime and punishment, but are not generally described as crime films.^[17] Films with crime-and-punishment themes likeWinchester 73 (1950) andRancho Notorious (1952) are classified as Westerns rather than crime films because their setting takes precedence over their story.^[18] Alain Silver and James Ursini argued inA Companion to Crime Fiction (2020) that "unquestionably most Western films are crime films" but that their overriding generic identification is different just as crime are different than horror, science fiction and period drama films.^[19] Rafter also suggested that Westerns could be considered crime films, but that this perception would only be "muddying conceptual waters."^[20]

The history of the crime film before 1940 follows reflected the changing social attitudes toward crime and criminals.^[21] In the first twenty years of the 20th Century, American society was under intense social reform with cities rapidly expanding and leading to social unrest and street crime rising and some people forming criminal gangs.^[22] In this earlysilent film period, criminals were more prominent on film screens than enforcers of the law.^[21] Among these early films from the period isD. W. Griffith'sThe Musketeers of Pig Alley (1912) involving a young woman hounded by a mobster known as The Snapper Kid.^[23]Raoul Walsh'sRegeneration (1915) was an early feature-length film about a gangster who saved from a life of crime by a social worker.^[24] These two early films and films likeTod Browning'sOutside the Law (1920) that deal with the world of criminal activity were described by Silver and Ursini as being gangsters "constrained by a strong moral code".^[25] Stuart Kaminsky inAmerican Film Genres (1974) stated that prior toLittle Caesar (1931), gangster characters were in films were essentiallyromances.^[26]

European films of the silent era differed radically from the Hollywood productions, reflecting the post-World War I continental culture. Drew Todd wrote that with this, Europeans tended to create darker stories and the audiences of these films were readier to accept these narratives.^[27]Several European silent films go much further in exploring the mystique of the criminal figures. These followed the success in France ofLouis Feuillade's film serialFantômas (1913).^[28]

The average budget for a Hollywood feature went from $20,000 in 1914 to $300,000 in 1924.^[29][30] Silver and Ursini stated that the earliest crime features were by Austrianémigré directorJosef von Sternberg whose films likeUnderworld (1927) eliminated most of the causes for criminal behavior and focused on the criminal perpetrators themselves which would anticipate the populargangster films of the 1930s.^[25]

The groundwork for the gangster films of the early 1930s were influenced by the early 1920s when cheap wood-pulp paper stocks led to an explosion in mass-market publishing. Newspapers would make folk heroes of bootleggers likeAl Capone, whilepulp magazines likeBlack Mask (1920) helped support more highbrow magazines such asThe Smart Set which published stories of hard-edged detetives likeCarroll John Daly's Race Williams.^[31] The early wave of gangster films borrowed liberally from stories for early Hollywood productions that defined the genre with films likeLittle Caesar (1931),The Public Enemy (1931), andScarface (1932).^[25] In comparison to much earlier films of the silent era, Leitch described the 1930s cycle as turning "the bighearted crook silent films had considered ripe for redemption into a remorseless killer."^[32]

Hollywood Studio heads were under such constant pressure from public-interest groups to tone down their portrayal of professional criminals that as early as 1931.Jack L. Warner announced that Warner Bros. would stop producing such films.^[33]Scarface itself was delayed for over a year as its directorHoward Hughes talked with theMotion Picture Producers and Distributors of America'sProduction Code Office over the films violence and overtones of incest.^[34] A new wave of crime films that began in 1934 were made that had law enforcers as glamorous and as charismatic as the criminals.^[35]J. Edgar Hoover, director the Bureau of Investigation (renamed theFederal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in 1935), promoted bigger budgets and wider press for his organization and himself through a well-publicized crusade against such real world gangsters asMachine Gun Kelly,Pretty Boy Floyd andJohn Dillinger.^[35] Hoover's fictionalized exploits were glorified in future films such asG Men (1935).^[36] Through the 1930s, American films view of criminals were predominantly glamorized, but as the decade ended, the attitudes Hollywood productions had towards fictional criminals grew less straightforward and more conflicted.^[37] In 1935,Humphrey Bogart played Duke Mantee inThe Petrified Forest (1936), a role Leitch described as the "first of Hollywood's overtly metaphorical gangsters."^[38] Bogart would appear in films in the later thirties:Angels with Dirty Faces (1938) andThe Roaring Twenties (1939). Unlike actorJames Cagney, whose appeal as described by Leitch "direct, physical, and extroverted", Bogart characters and acting suggested "depths of worldly disillusionment beneath a crooked shell" and portrayed gangsters who showcased the "romantic mystique of the doomed criminal."^[38]

The 1940s formed an ambivalence toward the criminal heroes.^[21] Leitch suggested that this shift was from the decline in high-profile organized crime, partly because of the repeal of Prohibition in 1933 and partly because of the well-publicized success of the FBI.^[38] Unlike the crime films of the 1930s, the 1940s films were based more on fictional tales with gangsters played byPaul Muni inAngel on My Shoulder (1946) and Cagney inWhite Heat (1949) were self-consciously anachronistic.^[39]

Filmmakers from this period were fleeing Europe due to the rise of Nazism. These directors such asFritz Lang,Robert Siodmak, andBilly Wilder would make crime films in the late 1930s and 1940s that were later described asfilm noir by French critics. Several films from 1944 likeThe Woman in the Window,Laura,Murder, My Sweet andDouble Indemnity ushered in this film cycle. These works continued into the mid-1950s.^[40] A reaction tofilm noir came with films with a more semi-documentary approach pioneered by the thrillerThe House on 92nd Street (1945). This led to crime films taking a more realistic approach likeKiss of Death (1947) andThe Naked City (1948).^[41]

By the end of the decade, American critics such asParker Tyler andRobert Warshow regarded Hollywood itself as a stage for repressed American cultural anxieties following World War II.^[42] This can be seen in films such asBrute Force, a prison film where the prison is an existential social metaphor for a what Leitch described as a "meaningless, tragically unjust round of activities."^[43]

By 1950, the crime film was following changing attitudes towards the law and the social order that criminals metaphorically reflect while most film were also no more explicitly violent or explicitly sexual than those of 1934.^[21][41]White Heat (1949) inaugurated a cycle of crime films that would deal with the omnipresent danger of thenuclear bomb with its theme of when being threatened with technological nightmares, the main gangster Jody Jarrett fights fire with fire.^[43] These themes extended into two other major crime films by bring the issues down from global to the subcultural level:The Big Heat (1953) andKiss Me Deadly (1955) which use apocalyptical imagery to indicate danger with the first film which the film persistently links to images of catastrophically uncontrolled power and the "traumatic consequences" of nuclear holocaust andKiss Me Deadly literally features an atom bomb waiting in a locker of the Hollywood Athletic Club.^[44]

The Asphalt Jungle (1950) consolidated a tendency to define criminal subculture as a mirror of American culture. The cycle ofcaper films were foreshadowed by films likeThe Killers (1946) andCriss Cross (1949) to later examples likeThe Killing (1956) andOdds Against Tomorrow (1959). Leitch wrote that these films used the planning and action of a robbery todramatize the "irreducible unreasonableness of life."^[41] The themes of existential despair made the these film popular with European filmmakers, who would make their own heist films likeRififi (1955) andIl bidone (1955). Filmmakers of the comingFrench New Wave movement would expand on these crime films into complex mixtures of nostalgia and critique with later pictures likeElevator to the Gallows (1958),Breathless (1960) andShoot the Piano Player (1960).^[41]

Following the classicalnoir period of 1940 to 1958, a return to the violence of the two previous decades.^[45]By 1960, film was losing popularity to television as the mass form of media entertainment. Despite To The crime film countered this by providing material no acceptable for television, first with a higher level of onscreen violence.^[46]Films likePsycho (1960) andBlack Sunday (1960) marked an increase in onscreen violence in film.^[46][47] Prior to these films, violence and gorier scenes were cut inHammer film productions by theBritish Board of Film Censors or conveyed mostly through narration.^[48] Box-office receipts began to grow stronger towards the late 1960s.^[46] Hollywood's demise of the Hays Code standards would allow for further violent, risqué and gory films.^[49]

As college students at the University of Berkeley and University of Columbia demonstrated against racial injustice and the Vietnam, Hollywood generally ignored the war in narratives, with exceptions of film likeThe Green Berets (1968).^[50] The crime filmBonnie and Clyde (1967) revived the gangster film genre and captured the antiestablishment tone and set new standards for onscreen violence in film with its themes of demonizing American institution to attack the moral injustice of draft.^[51][52] This increase of violence was reflected in other crime films such asPoint Blank (1967).^[45]

Leitch found the growing rage against the establishment spilled into portrayal police themselves with films likeBullitt (1968) about a police officer caught between mob killers and ruthless politicians whileIn the Heat of the Night (1967) which called for racial equality and became the first crime film to win anAcademy Award for Best Picture.^[53]

The French Connection (1971) dispensedBullitt's noble hero for the character ofJimmy "Popeye" Doyle who Leitch described as a "tireless, brutal, vicious and indifferent" in terms of constraints of the law and his commanding officers.^[54] The film won several Academy Awards and was successful in the box office. This was followed in critical and commercial success ofThe Godfather (1972) which also won a Best Picture Academy Award and performed even better thanThe French Connection in the box office.^[54] The success of the film and its sequelThe Godfather Part II (1974) reinforced the stature of the gangster film genre, which continued into the 1990s with filmsScarface (1983),Once Upon a Time in America (1984),The Untouchables (1987),Goodfellas (1990) andDonnie Brasco (1997).^[55]

Dirty Harry (1971) create a new form of police film, whereClint Eastwood's performance asInspector Callahan which criticPauline Kael described as an "emotionless hero, who lives and kills as affectlessly as a psychopathic personality."^[56] Drew Todd inShots in the Mirror: Crime Films and Society described the character as different than films featuring rebellious characters from the 1940s and 1950s, with a character whose anger is directed against the state, mixed with fantasies of vigilante justice.^[56] Films likeDirty Harry,The French Connection andStraw Dogs (1971) that presented a violent vigilante as a savior.^[57] By the mid-1970s, a traditional lead with good looks, brawn and bravery was replaced with characters who Todd described as a "pathological outcast, embittered and impulsively violent."^[55]

Hollywood productions began courting films produced and marketed by white Americans for the purpose of trying to attract a new audience withblaxploitation film. These films were almost exclusively crime films following the success ofShaft (1971) which led to studios rushing to follow its popularity with films likeSuper Fly (1972),Black Caesar (1973),Coffy (1973) andThe Black Godfather (1974)^[58] The films were often derivations of earlier films such asCool Breeze (1972), a remake ofThe Asphalt Jungle,Hit Man (1972) a remake ofGet Carter (1971), andBlack Mama, White Mama (1973) a remake ofThe Defiant Ones (1958). The cycle generally slowed down by the mid 1970s.^[59]

Prison films closely followed the formulas of films of the past while having an increased level of profanity, violence and sex.^[56]Cool Hand Luke (1967) inaugurated the revival and was followed into the 1970s with films likePapillon (1973),Midnight Express (1978) andEscape from Alcatraz (1979).^[56]

WhenRonald Reagan became president in 1980, he ushered in a conservative era.^[60] For crime films, this led to various reactions, including political films that critiqued official policies and citizen's political apathy. These included films likeMissing (1982),Silkwood (1983), andNo Way Out (1987).^[61] Prison films and courtroom dramas would also be politically charged with films likeKiss of the Spider Woman (1985) andCry Freedom (1987).^[62]

While films aboutserial killers existed in earlier films such asM (1931) andPeeping Tom (1960), the 1980s had an emphasis on the serial nature of their crimes with a larger number of films focusing on the repetitive nature of some murders.^[63] While many of these films were teen-oriented pictures, they also included films likeDressed to Kill (1980) andHenry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (1986) and continued into the 2000s with films likeSeven (1995),Kiss the Girls (1997), andAmerican Psycho (2000).^[63]

In an article byJohn G. Cawelti titled "Chinatown and Generic Transformations in Recent American Films" (1979), Cawleti noticed a change signaled by films likeChinatown (1974) andThe Wild Bunch (1969) noting that older genres were being transformed through cultivation of nostalgia and a critique of the myths cultivated by their respective genres.^[64] Todd found that this found its way into crime films of the 1980s with films that could be labeled aspost-modern, in which he felt that "genres blur, pastiche prevails, and once-fixed ideals, such as time and meaning, are subverted and destabilized".^[65] This would apply to the American crime film which began rejecting linear storytelling and distinctions between right and wrong with works from directors likeBrian de Palma withDressed to Kill andScarface and works fromThe Coen Brothers andDavid Lynch whose had Todd described as having "stylized yet gritty and dryly humorous pictures evoking dream states" with films likeBlood Simple (1984) andBlue Velvet (1986) and would continue into the 1990s with films likeWild at Heart (1990).Quentin Tarantino would continue this trend in the 1990s with films where violence and crime is treated lightly such asReservoir Dogs (1992),Pulp Fiction (1994) andNatural Born Killers (1994) while Lynch and the Coens would continue withFargo (1996) andLost Highway (1997).^[66] Other directors such asMartin Scorsese andSidney Lumet would continue to more traditional crime filmsGoodfellas,Prince of the City (1980),Q & A (1990), andCasino (1995).^[67]

Other trends of the 1990s extended boundaries of crime films, ranging from main characters who were female orminorities with films likeThelma and Louise (1991),Swoon (1991),Devil in a Blue Dress (1995),Bound (1996) andDolores Claiborne (1996).^[68]

Every genre is a subgenre of a wider genre from whose contexts its own conventions take their meaning, it makes sense to think of thegangster film as both a genre on its own terms and a subgenre of the crime film.^[69]

In these films, the gangster and their values have been imbedded through decades of reiteration and revision, generally with a masculine style where an elaboration on a codes of behavior by acts of decisive violence are central concerns.^[70]

The archetypal gangster film was the Hollywood productionLittle Caesar (1931).^[26] A moral panic followed the release of the early gangster films followingLittle Caesar, which led to the 1935 Production Code Administration in 1935 ending its first major cycle.^[71] As early as 1939, the traditional gangster was already a nostalgic figure as seen in films likeThe Roaring Twenties (1939).^[71] American productions about career criminals became possible through the relaxation of the code in the 1950s and its abolition in 1966.^[72] While not the only or first gangster film following the fall of the production code,The Godfather (1972) was the most popular and launched a major revival of the style.^[71] The film followed the themes of the genres past while adding new emphasis on the intricate world of the mafia and its scale and seriousness that established new parameters for the genre.^[72]

The heist film, also known as the "big caper" film is a style of crime film that originated from two cinematic precursors: the gangster film and the gentleman thief film.^[73][74] The essential element in these films is the plot concentration on the commission of a single crime of great monetary significance, at least on the surface level.^[75] The narratives in these films focus on the heist being wrapped up in the execution of the crime more or at as much as the criminal psychology and are characterized by and emphasis on the crime unfolding often though montage and extended sequences.^[76]

The genre is sometimes used interchangeable with the term "caper".^[77] The term was used for the more dramatic films of the 1950s, while in the 1960s, it had stronger elements of romantic comedy with more playful elements as seen in films likeThe Thomas Crown Affair (1968) andTopkapi (1964).^[78]

Leitch described combining genres as problematic.^[79] Screenwriter and academicJule Selbo expanded on this, describing a film described as "crime/action" or an "action/crime" or other hybrids was "only a semantic exercise" as both genres are important in the construction phase of the narrative.^[80] Mark Bould inA Companion to Film Noir stated that categorization of multiple generic genre labels was common in film reviews and rarely concerned with succinct descriptions that evoke elements of the film's form, content and make no claims beyond on how these elements combine.^[81][82]

Leitch, stated that the genre has been popular since the dawn of thesound era of film.^[83] Ursini and Silver said that unlike the Western, the horror film, or the war film, the popularity of crime cinema has never waned.^[84]

• Pre-Code crime films
  • Yakuza film
  • Dacoit films
  • Mumbai underworld films

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