The 2010s were the decade crime movies stopped belonging to one city or one badge. A Rio colonel walked out of the slums and into the legislature, a Pennsylvania father stopped waiting for a warrant, and a Tokyo family treated shoplifting like a household chore. From Elite Squad: The Enemy Within and Prisoners to The Wolf of Wall Street, Shoplifters, and Knives Out, the decade treated a crime story as something you could shoot as a militia war, a suburban abduction, a brokerage floor, or a cozy-mystery weekend that is not cozy at all.
This list gathers eleven essential crime movies from the 2010s — corrupt police, courtroom appeals, exam-cheating rings, and a detective who talks like a Southern gentleman while the family lies. Every pick uses TMDB-backed metadata and a short guide to why it belongs on a 2010s crime watchlist.
1. Elite Squad: The Enemy Within
- Movie Title: Elite Squad: The Enemy Within
- Release Date: October 8, 2010
- Main Cast: Wagner Moura, Irandhir Santos, André Ramiro
- Director: José Padilha
- TMDB Score: 7.9/10
Why We Included Elite Squad: The Enemy Within on This List
José Padilha’s sequel is the 2010s crime movie that opens the decade by taking the BOPE van out of the favela and parking it in front of city hall. Wagner Moura’s Lieutenant-Colonel Roberto Nascimento, Irandhir Santos’s human-rights politician Diogo Fraga, and André Ramiro’s Captain André Matias spend the aftermath of a prison raid discovering that the next enemy is not only a dealer on a hill — it is the militia and the legislature that learned to profit from the same war. It belongs here because the 2000s already gave English-language crime lists Elite Squad and City of God; this is the 2010 follow-up that argues the real racket is political. On a 2010s watchlist it is the cop picture that refuses to stay a raid movie: exonerations, transfers, and a city that keeps promoting the people who should be in cuffs. If the decade’s crime boom had a warning shot, this is the one fired from inside the precinct.
Quick Elite Squad: The Enemy Within Summary
After a bloody BOPE invasion of the high-security penitentiary Bangu 1 to control a rebellion, Lieutenant-Colonel Roberto Nascimento and Captain André Matias are accused by human-rights advocate Diogo Fraga of executing prisoners. Matias is transferred to the corrupted Military Police and Nascimento is exonerated from BOPE by the Governor. The raid is the opening charge. The rest of the movie is about who owns the city after the shooting stops.
Interesting Facts or Trivia About Elite Squad: The Enemy Within
Padilha returned to the BOPE universe three years after Elite Squad made Captain Nascimento a national argument, and the sequel became one of Brazil’s biggest box-office hits of 2010. Moura’s Nascimento — still barking, still narrating, now older and closer to the people who write the orders — is the through-line; the plot simply moves him from the slum skyline to the rooms where budgets and militias get signed. The film kept the first movie’s research-heavy intensity while widening the target from street-level trafficking to institutional crime. On a 2010s crime list it is the rare sequel that is more useful than the original: the first film showed the raid, this one shows the invoice.
2. Prisoners
- Movie Title: Prisoners
- Release Date: September 19, 2013
- Main Cast: Hugh Jackman, Jake Gyllenhaal, Viola Davis
- Director: Denis Villeneuve
- TMDB Score: 8.1/10
Why We Included Prisoners on This List
Denis Villeneuve’s abduction case is the 2010s crime movie that treats a missing child as a moral crime scene, not a cop-show checklist. Hugh Jackman’s Keller Dover, Jake Gyllenhaal’s Detective Loki, and Viola Davis’s Nancy Birch spend a Pennsylvania autumn watching Thanksgiving dinner turn into a search that stops believing in procedure. It belongs here because so many 2010s crime lists lean on stylish city heists, and this one is the decade’s proof that a rainy suburb, a camper, and a father’s workshop can feel more criminal than any vault. On this list it is the collision course: a parent who takes justice into his own hands and a detective who will not let the case become a private war. If you like crime stories where every good intention makes the next hour worse, start here.
Quick Prisoners Summary
After his six-year-old daughter is abducted, a desperate father takes justice into his own hands when he loses faith in the detective leading the investigation. Both men are set on a collision course as the search descends into obsession and moral compromise. The neighborhood looks ordinary. The longer the girls stay missing, the less ordinary anyone in it is allowed to remain.
Interesting Facts or Trivia About Prisoners
This was Villeneuve’s first English-language studio feature after the Quebecois films that put him on the festival map, and it immediately marked him as a director who could hold a wide American canvas without losing dread. Roger Deakins shot the gray Pennsylvania light and earned an Academy Award nomination for cinematography. Jackman played against his usual heroic register as a father who cannot wait, while Gyllenhaal’s Loki — tattoos, twitching, a cop who keeps circling the same block — became one of the decade’s defining detective performances. The movie still sits at the center of 2010s crime conversations because it never decides which crime is worse: the kidnapping, or what a grieving parent is willing to do about it.
3. The Wolf of Wall Street
- Movie Title: The Wolf of Wall Street
- Release Date: December 25, 2013
- Main Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Jonah Hill, Margot Robbie
- Director: Martin Scorsese
- TMDB Score: 8.0/10
Why We Included The Wolf of Wall Street on This List
Martin Scorsese’s Jordan Belfort saga is the 2010s crime movie that treats securities fraud like a party you are not supposed to enjoy and cannot stop watching. Leonardo DiCaprio’s Belfort, Jonah Hill’s Donnie Azoff, and Margot Robbie’s Naomi turn a Long Island brokerage into a crime scene with a ticker symbol: penny stocks, mob money, and a sales floor that treats a sucker as inventory. It belongs here because 2010s crime cinema was not only guns and badges — it was also a man in a suit refusing to cooperate in a fraud case that already has the receipts. On this list it is the financial-crime entry that made white-collar theft look as physical as a bank job: smashed tables, yacht weather, and a narrator who keeps selling you the lifestyle while the FBI closes in. If the decade needed a reminder that a crime movie can be three hours long and still feel like a dare, this is it.
Quick The Wolf of Wall Street Summary
A New York stockbroker refuses to cooperate in a large securities fraud case involving corruption on Wall Street, the corporate banking world, and mob infiltration. The story follows Jordan Belfort’s rise and the investigation that tries to take the firm apart. The autobiography is the alibi. The brokerage is the crime.
Interesting Facts or Trivia About The Wolf of Wall Street
Scorsese adapted Belfort’s memoir with DiCaprio in one of their most commercially muscular collaborations, and the film earned five Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Actor for DiCaprio, and Best Supporting Actor for Hill. Robbie’s Naomi is the movie’s clearest warning light: the lifestyle is the product, and the marriage is one more account being looted. At nearly three hours it became one of the decade’s most rewatchable R-rated crime pictures, quoted as much for the sales-floor chaos as for the federal net tightening around it. On a 2010s crime list it is the reminder that the biggest heists of the decade did not always need a mask — sometimes they needed a phone and a script.
4. Bad Genius
- Movie Title: Bad Genius
- Release Date: May 3, 2017
- Main Cast: Chutimon Chuengcharoensukying, Chanon Santinatornkul, Eisaya Hosuwan
- Director: Nattawut Poonpiriya
- TMDB Score: 7.9/10
Why We Included Bad Genius on This List
Nattawut Poonpiriya’s exam-cheating thriller is the 2010s crime movie that treats a standardized test like a vault with a countdown clock. Chutimon Chuengcharoensukying’s Lynn, Chanon Santinatornkul’s Bank, and Eisaya Hosuwan’s Grace turn classroom pencils, bathroom stalls, and an international exam hall into a heist crew’s toolkit. It belongs here because English-language 2010s crime lists often stop at American courtrooms and New York trading floors, and this one is the decade’s proof that a perfect crime picture can be spoken in Thai over answer sheets. On this list it is the con movie that starts as a favor to friends and scales into a business: grades for cash, loyalty as leverage, and a plan that only works if nobody flinches. If you like crime stories where the last shot rewrites the whole semester, start here.
Quick Bad Genius Summary
Lynn, a brilliant student, after helping her friends get the grades they need, develops the idea of starting a much bigger exam-cheating business. The classroom becomes a workplace. The test becomes a job. The smarter the scheme gets, the more the people inside it have to lose.
Interesting Facts or Trivia About Bad Genius
Poonpiriya and GDH turned a high-school cheating ring into one of Thailand’s most widely traveled crime hits of the 2010s, a movie that plays like Ocean’s Eleven if the casino were an exam hall. Chuengcharoensukying’s Lynn — calm, gifted, already tired of being the smartest person in the room — became an international calling card and a model for later remakes of the same setup. The STIC-exam stretch is the film’s signature set piece: a crime sequence built from erasers, codes, and the sound of a proctor’s shoes. On TMDB it remains one of the decade’s highest-rated academic crime movies, which is a useful reminder that a 2010s crime list does not have to stay in English to feel essential.
5. Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
- Movie Title: Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
- Release Date: December 1, 2017
- Main Cast: Frances McDormand, Woody Harrelson, Sam Rockwell
- Director: Martin McDonagh
- TMDB Score: 8.1/10
Why We Included Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri on This List
Martin McDonagh’s small-town standoff is the 2010s crime movie that treats an unsolved murder as a public bill you can paint on the side of the road. Frances McDormand’s Mildred Hayes, Woody Harrelson’s Chief Bill Willoughby, and Sam Rockwell’s Officer Jason Dixon spend months after a daughter’s killing turning three rented signs into a war with the local police. It belongs here because so many 2010s crime films sell procedure as competence, and this one sells grief as a tactic: if the case will not move, move the town instead. On a 2010s list it is the American crime drama that refuses to flatter anyone — not the grieving mother, not the beloved chief, not the violent deputy who still has to live here. If the decade’s crime boom had a movie that argues in all caps from the highway, this is it.
Quick Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri Summary
After seven months have passed without a culprit in her daughter’s murder case, Mildred Hayes paints three signs leading into town with a controversial message directed at Chief Willoughby. When his second-in-command Officer Dixon, an immature mother’s boy with a penchant for violence, gets involved, the battle between Mildred and Ebbing’s law enforcement only gets worse. The billboards are the opening move. The town is the opponent.
Interesting Facts or Trivia About Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
McDonagh followed the dark comedy of In Bruges with a crime story that became one of the 2017 awards season’s central arguments. McDormand won the Academy Award for Best Actress as Mildred, and Rockwell won Best Supporting Actor as Dixon, a cop whose cruelty and path toward something like usefulness keep trading places. The film was also nominated for Best Picture, which is how a highway-sign protest became a mainstream crime-movie event. On this list it is the reminder that a 2010s crime picture can be about what happens after the murder file goes cold — the months when the crime is still sitting in the town, unpaid.
6. Shoplifters
- Movie Title: Shoplifters
- Release Date: June 2, 2018
- Main Cast: Lily Franky, Sakura Ando, Mayu Matsuoka
- Director: Hirokazu Kore-eda
- TMDB Score: 7.8/10
Why We Included Shoplifters on This List
Hirokazu Kore-eda’s family portrait is the 2010s crime movie that treats petty theft as a household system, not a one-night job. Lily Franky’s Osamu, Sakura Ando’s Nobuyo, and Mayu Matsuoka’s Aki live on the outskirts of Tokyo by shoplifting, odd jobs, and a closeness that looks like love until the secrets start showing. It belongs here because 2010s crime cinema was not only cartels and courtrooms — it was also a poor family teaching a child how to steal dinner and calling that care. On this list it is the quietest essential: no heist montage, no mastermind speech, just a crime that has become a way of keeping people alive. If you like crime stories where the last question is what a family is, not who planned the score, this is the one that stays with you.
Quick Shoplifters Summary
In the outskirts of Tokyo, a poor but close-knit group living on the fringes of society survives through shoplifting and odd jobs. When Osamu and his son take in a neglected young girl, their already fragile existence begins to unravel. As the family grows attached to her, buried secrets surface, forcing them to confront the true meaning of love, belonging, and what makes a family. The thefts are the income. The house is the alibi.
Interesting Facts or Trivia About Shoplifters
Kore-eda’s film won the Palme d’Or at Cannes in 2018 and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, the rare crime story that traveled as both a social drama and a heist picture without ever raising its voice. The Japanese title, Manbiki Kazoku, puts the theft and the family in the same phrase, which is the whole argument. Ando’s Nobuyo is the movie’s moral weather: warmth, fatigue, and the knowledge that affection does not make the shoplifting legal. On a 2010s crime list it is the corrective to every glossy caper — a reminder that most crime is small, daily, and happening in a room that still has to feel like home.
7. The Hate U Give
- Movie Title: The Hate U Give
- Release Date: October 19, 2018
- Main Cast: Amandla Stenberg, Regina Hall, Russell Hornsby
- Director: George Tillman Jr.
- TMDB Score: 8.1/10
Why We Included The Hate U Give on This List
George Tillman Jr.’s adaptation is the 2010s crime movie that treats a police shooting as a case a teenager has to live inside, not a headline she can scroll past. Amandla Stenberg’s Starr, Regina Hall’s Lisa, and Russell Hornsby’s Maverick move between a poverty-stricken neighborhood and a suburban prep school after Starr witnesses an officer shoot her unarmed best friend. It belongs here because a 2010s crime list that only keeps gangsters and detectives is missing the decade’s most public crime story: who gets believed, who gets to speak, and what it costs to tell the truth. On this list it is the witness picture — two worlds, one killing, and a girl who has to decide which version of herself the cameras get. If the decade asked crime movies to look at the street and the courtroom at the same time, this is the one that does both without turning Starr into a mascot.
Quick The Hate U Give Summary
Raised in a poverty-stricken slum, 16-year-old Starr now attends a suburban prep school. After she witnesses a police officer shoot her unarmed best friend, she is torn between her two very different worlds as she tries to speak her truth. The shooting is the crime. The rest of the movie is about what a witness is allowed to say.
Interesting Facts or Trivia About The Hate U Give
Tillman adapted Angie Thomas’s bestselling young-adult novel, a book whose title comes from Tupac Shakur’s THUG LIFE acronym — “The Hate U Give Little Infants Fucks Everybody.” Stenberg’s Starr became one of the late-2010s’ defining lead performances in a studio crime drama: not a detective, not a lawyer, a kid who saw the shot. Hall and Hornsby play the parents as the movie’s other investigation, the household trying to keep a daughter alive in public. On a 2010s crime watchlist it is the film that insists the decade’s crime stories include the ones that start with a traffic stop and do not end when the news cycle moves on.
8. The Gangster, the Cop, the Devil
- Movie Title: The Gangster, the Cop, the Devil
- Release Date: May 15, 2019
- Main Cast: Don Lee, Kim Moo-yul, Kim Sung-kyu
- Director: Lee Won-tae
- TMDB Score: 7.9/10
Why We Included The Gangster, the Cop, the Devil on This List
Lee Won-tae’s manhunt is the 2010s crime movie that puts a crime boss and an honest detective on the same side of a serial-killer case and dares them to stay there. Don Lee’s Jang Dong-su, Kim Moo-yul’s Detective Jung Tae-seok, and Kim Sung-kyu’s killer known as K turn a brutal roadside attack into an alliance that is really an argument: one man wants the attacker dead, the other wants him in court. It belongs here because 2010s Korean crime cinema kept proving you could mix a gangster picture, a cop procedural, and a slasher’s patience without losing the plot. On this list it is the late-decade collision — humiliation, a deal, and a hunt where the first person to find K also gets to decide what justice means. If you want the 2010s crime movie that treats a serial killer as a problem both the underworld and the precinct have to solve, this is the one that does not blink.
Quick The Gangster, the Cop, the Devil Summary
After barely surviving a brutal attack by a sadistic serial killer, crime boss Jang Dong-su is left humiliated. Determined to catch the killer known as K, he forms an uneasy alliance with Jung Tae-seok, a relentless and incorruptible detective who often disrupts his illegal business. They agree that whoever finds K first will decide his fate. The hunt is the plot. The argument is about what counts as a verdict.
Interesting Facts or Trivia About The Gangster, the Cop, the Devil
Lee’s film gave Ma Dong-seok — billed here as Don Lee — one of his most exported 2010s crime roles: a boss whose usual physical certainty is the first thing the movie takes away. The English title lays the triangle on the table, which is honest advertising: this is a three-body problem, not a mystery about who the killer is. Kim Moo-yul’s Tae-seok is the movie’s other engine, a cop stubborn enough to work with the man he would otherwise be arresting. On a 2010s crime list it is the Korean action-crime entry that still plays like a pact you should not have signed — two kinds of law, one devil, and a finish that belongs to whoever gets there first.
9. Just Mercy
- Movie Title: Just Mercy
- Release Date: December 25, 2019
- Main Cast: Michael B. Jordan, Brie Larson, Jamie Foxx
- Director: Destin Daniel Cretton
- TMDB Score: 7.8/10
Why We Included Just Mercy on This List
Destin Daniel Cretton’s true-story legal drama is the 2010s crime movie that treats a death-row case as a crime still being committed by the system that closed it. Michael B. Jordan’s Bryan Stevenson, Brie Larson’s Eva Ansley, and Jamie Foxx’s Walter McMillian go to Alabama to defend the disenfranchised and wrongly condemned, starting with a man sentenced to death despite evidence of his innocence. It belongs here because a crime list that only watches criminals operate is missing the other 2010s story: what happens when the conviction itself is the injustice. On this list it is the courtroom entry that refuses to play like a puzzle — the facts are available, the stack is not. If you want the decade’s clearest picture of a crime movie where the hero’s job is to reopen a file everyone wants left shut, start here.
Quick Just Mercy Summary
Harvard-educated lawyer Bryan Stevenson goes to Alabama to defend the disenfranchised and wrongly condemned, including Walter McMillian, a man sentenced to death despite evidence proving his innocence. Stevenson fights tirelessly for Walter with the system stacked against them. The murder is the original charge. The movie is about the second crime: keeping an innocent man on the row.
Interesting Facts or Trivia About Just Mercy
Cretton adapted Bryan Stevenson’s memoir of the same name, the book that also built the public case for the Equal Justice Initiative’s work. Foxx’s McMillian is the film’s gravity: a real man whose 1980s conviction became one of the most cited wrongful-death-penalty cases in American true-crime reporting. Jordan plays Stevenson as competence under pressure rather than as a speech machine, which is why the movie still works as a 2010s crime drama instead of a civics reel. Released on Christmas Day 2019, it closed the decade with a reminder that some of the era’s essential crime stories were not about getting away with it — they were about getting someone out.
10. Knives Out
- Movie Title: Knives Out
- Release Date: November 27, 2019
- Main Cast: Daniel Craig, Chris Evans, Ana de Armas
- Director: Rian Johnson
- TMDB Score: 7.8/10
Why We Included Knives Out on This List
Rian Johnson’s country-house mystery is the 2010s crime movie that treats a family fortune like a crime scene with better sweaters. Daniel Craig’s Detective Benoit Blanc, Chris Evans’s Ransom, and Ana de Armas’s Marta Cabrera spend the days after crime novelist Harlan Thrombey’s death sifting through red herrings, staff loyalties, and relatives who all have a reason to smile. It belongs here because the decade’s crime boom was not only grim procedurals — this one proved a murder mystery could be a crowd-pleaser again without going soft on the cruelty of money. On a 2010s list it is the drawing-room closer that still has a knife in it: a gentleman detective, a house full of liars, and a caretaker who knows more than the people who employ her. If you want the 2010s crime movie people actually rewatch for fun, this is the one that still feels like a party you should not have attended.
Quick Knives Out Summary
When renowned crime novelist Harlan Thrombey is found dead at his estate just after his 85th birthday, the inquisitive and debonair Detective Benoit Blanc is mysteriously enlisted to investigate. From Harlan’s dysfunctional family to his devoted staff, Blanc sifts through a web of red herrings and self-serving lies to uncover the truth behind the death. The estate is the board. The family is the set of suspects who cannot stop talking.
Interesting Facts or Trivia About Knives Out
Johnson followed Star Wars: The Last Jedi with a complete left turn into a classical whodunit, and the gamble became one of 2019’s biggest original hits. Craig’s Blanc — Southern drawl, rumpled certainty, a man who looks like he wandered out of a different decade — instantly became a franchise detective, returning in later sequels. De Armas’s Marta is the movie’s actual center of gravity, the employee the family underestimates while Blanc circles the furniture. On a 2010s crime list it is the proof that a murder mystery with a sense of humor can still be a crime picture: someone is dead, someone is lying, and the house is not big enough for all of those stories.
11. Better Days
- Movie Title: Better Days
- Release Date: October 25, 2019
- Main Cast: Zhou Dongyu, Jackson Yee, Yin Fang
- Director: Derek Tsang Kwok-Cheung
- TMDB Score: 8.1/10
Why We Included Better Days on This List
Derek Tsang’s coming-of-age crime drama is the 2010s crime movie that treats schoolyard violence as a justice system a teenager cannot appeal. Zhou Dongyu’s Chen Nian, Jackson Yee’s Xiao Bei, and Yin Fang’s Zheng Yi watch final-exam pressure, bullying, and a mysterious protector collide until a classroom starts to look like a crime scene with homework still on the desk. It belongs here because a 2010s crime list that stays only in American courtrooms and Korean manhunts is missing the decade’s most piercing student-crime story: assault, protection, and the cost of being seen. On this list it is the closer that hurts — not a mastermind, not a heist, just a girl trying to survive the people who have already decided she is prey. If the decade’s crime films asked what justice looks like when institutions fail, this is the one that asks it in a school hallway.
Quick Better Days Summary
A bullied teenage girl forms an unlikely friendship with a mysterious young man who protects her from her assailants, while she copes with the pressures of her final examinations. The exams are the official deadline. The violence is the unofficial one. The more he steps in, the more the school’s crime becomes a shared secret instead of a problem someone else will fix.
Interesting Facts or Trivia About Better Days
Tsang’s film — released in Chinese as 少年的你 — became a major 2019 hit and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film, a rare student-crime drama to reach that stage. Zhou Dongyu and Jackson Yee carry the movie as two kids who should still be worrying about tests and instead have to worry about who is waiting after class. The exam-season setting is not decoration: the plot keeps using the calendar the way a thriller uses a clock. On a 2010s crime list it is the last word the decade needed — a reminder that some of the era’s most essential crime stories happened at school, in daylight, while everyone else was told to look at the scoreboard.
The 2010s crime canon is wider than one country’s police blotter: start with Elite Squad: The Enemy Within if you want the political raid, Prisoners or The Wolf of Wall Street if you want the American search that turns inward, Shoplifters or Bad Genius if you want the crime that looks like ordinary life, and Knives Out or Better Days if you want the decade’s last arguments about who gets believed. When you are done, wander the related lists for crime movies of the 2000s, thriller movies of the 2010s, and the rest of the genre-by-decade shelves — the next case is usually one heading over.
