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The Element of Crime

Lars von Trier
1984 • 104 minutes • 1.85:1 • Denmark
Spine: #80 Editions: DVD, Hulu Plus

Lars von Trier’s stunning debut film, influenced equally by Hitchcock and science fiction, is the story of Fisher, an exiled ex-cop who returns to his old beat to catch a serial killer with a taste for young girls.

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Europa

Lars von Trier
1991 • 107 minutes • 2.35:1 • Denmark
Spine: #454 Editions: DVD, Hulu Plus

Lars von Trier’s hypnotic Europa is a fever dream in which American pacifist Leopold Kessler stumbles into a job as a sleeping-car conductor for the Zentropa railways in a Kafkaesque 1945 postwar Frankfurt. Europa is one of the great Danish filmmaker’s weirdest and most wonderful works.

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Diabolique

Henri-Georges Clouzot
1955 • 117 minutes • 1.33:1 • France
Spine: #35 Editions: DVD, Blu-Ray, Hulu Plus

Before Psycho, Peeping Tom, and Repulsion, there was Diabolique, a heart-grabbing benchmark in horror filmmaking, featuring outstanding performances by Simone Signoret, Véra Clouzot, and Paul Meurisse.

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Breathless

Jean-Luc Godard
1960 • 90 minutes • 1.33:1 • France
Spine: #408 Editions: Dual Format Blu-ray/DVD, Hulu Plus, iTunes

With its lack of polish, surplus of attitude, anything-goes crime narrative, and effervescent young stars Jean-Paul Belmondo and Jean Seberg, Breathless helped launch the French New Wave and ensured that cinema would never be the same.

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Alphaville

Jean-Luc Godard
1965 • 99 minutes • 1.33:1 • France
Spine: #25 Edition: DVD

Eddie Constantine stars as intergalactic hero Lemmy Caution, on a mission to kill the inventor of fascist computer Alpha 60, in Jean-Luc Godard’s irreverent, cockeyed fusion of science fiction, pulp characters, and surrealist poetry.

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Classe tous risques

Claude Sautet
1960 • 108 minutes • 1.66:1 • France
Spine: #434 Edition: DVD

A character study of a career criminal at the end of his rope, this rugged noir from Claude Sautet is a thrilling highlight of sixties French cinema, starring Lino Ventura and Jean-Paul Belmondo.

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Le cercle rouge

Jean-Pierre Melville
1970 • 140 minutes • 1.85:1 • France
Spine: #218 Editions: DVD, Blu-Ray

Alain Delon plays a master thief, fresh out of prison, who crosses paths with a notorious escapee and an alcoholic ex-cop (Yves Montand). The unlikely trio plot a heist, against impossible odds, until a relentless inspector and their own pasts seal their fates.

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Coup de torchon

Bertrand Tavernier
1981 • 128 minutes • 1.66:1 • France
Spine: #106 Edition: DVD

An inspired rendering of Jim Thompson’s pulp novel Pop. 1280, Bertrand Tavernier’s Coup de torchon (Clean Slate) deftly transplants the story of an inept police chief turned heartless killer and his scrappy mistress from the American South to French West Africa.

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Rififi

Jules Dassin
1955 • 118 minutes • 1.33:1 • France
Spine: #115 Editions: Dual Format Blu-ray/DVD, Collector’s Sets

After making such American noir classics as Brute Force and The Naked City, the blacklisted director Jules Dassin went to Paris and embarked on his masterpiece: a twisting, turning tale of four ex-cons who hatch one last glorious robbery in the City of Light.

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Le trou

Jacques Becker
1960 • 131 minutes • 1.66:1 • France
Spine: #129 Edition: DVD

In a Paris prison cell, five inmates use every ounce of their tenacity and ingenuity in an elaborate attempt to tunnel to freedom. Based on the novel by José Giovanni, Jacques Becker’s Le trou (The Hole) balances lyrical humanism with a tense, unshakable air of imminent danger.

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Army of Shadows

Jean-Pierre Melville
1969 • 145 minutes • 1.85:1 • France
Spine: #385 Editions: DVD, Blu-Ray, Collector’s Sets

Atmospheric and gripping, Army of Shadows is Melville’s most personal film, featuring Lino Ventura, Paul Meurisse, Jean-Pierre Cassel, and the incomparable Simone Signoret as intrepid underground fighters who must grapple with their conception of honor in their battle against Hitler’s regime.

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Le Samouraï

Jean-Pierre Melville
1967 • 105 minutes • 1.85:1 • France
Spine: #306 Editions: DVD, iTunes

In a career-defining performance, Alain Delon plays a contract killer with samurai instincts. A razor-sharp cocktail of 1940s American gangster cinema and 1960s French pop culture, maverick director Jean-Pierre Melville’s masterpiece Le Samouraï defines cool.

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Le doulos

Jean-Pierre Melville
1962 • 109 minutes • 1.66:1 • France
Spine: #447 Edition: DVD

A stone-faced Jean-Paul Belmondo stars as enigmatic gangster Silien, who may or may not be responsible for squealing on Faugel, just released from the slammer and already involved in what should have been a simple heist. Le doulos is one of the filmmaker’s most gripping crime dramas.

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Le deuxième souffle

Jean-Pierre Melville
1966 • 144 minutes • 1.66:1 • France
Spine: #448 Editions: DVD, iTunes

With his customary restraint and ruthless attention to detail, director Jean-Pierre Melville follows the parallel tracks of French underworld criminal Gu (Lino Ventura), escaped from prison and roped into one last robbery, and the suave inspector, Blot (Paul Meurisse), relentlessly seeking him.

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Shoot the Piano Player

François Truffaut
1960 • 81 minutes • 2.35:1 • France
Spine: #315 Editions: DVD, Hulu Plus, iTunes

Part thriller, part comedy, part tragedy, Shoot the Piano Player relates the adventures of mild-mannered piano player Charlie (Charles Aznavour) as he stumbles into the criminal underworld and a whirlwind love affair.

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Elevator to the Gallows

Louis Malle
1958 • 92 minutes • 1.66:1 • France
Spine: #335 Editions: DVD, Hulu Plus, iTunes

A touchstone of the careers of both its star and director, Louis Malle’s debut feature, Elevator to the Gallows, starring Jeanne Moreau, is a richly atmospheric thriller of murder and mistaken identity unfolding over one restless Parisian night.

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Touchez pas au grisbi

Jacques Becker
1954 • 96 minutes • 1.33:1 • France
Spine: #271 Editions: DVD, Collector’s Sets

Having pulled off the heist of a lifetime, Max looks forward to spending his remaining days relaxing with his beautiful young girlfriend. But when Max’s hapless partner lets word of the loot slip to loose-lipped, two-timing Josy (Jeanne Moreau), Max is reluctantly drawn back into the underworld.

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High and Low

Akira Kurosawa
1963 • 143 minutes • 2.35:1 • Japan
Spine: #24 Editions: DVD, Blu-Ray, Collector’s Sets, Hulu Plus, iTunes

Adapting Ed McBain’s detective novel King’s Ransom, Kurosawa moves effortlessly from compelling race-against-time thriller to exacting social commentary, creating a diabolical treatise on contemporary Japanese society.

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Branded to Kill

Seijun Suzuki
1967 • 91 minutes • 2.35:1 • Japan
Spine: #38 Editions: DVD, Blu-Ray, Hulu Plus, iTunes

When Japanese New Wave bad boy Seijun Suzuki delivered this brutal, hilarious, and visually inspired masterpiece to the executives at his studio, he was promptly fired.

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Tokyo Drifter

Seijun Suzuki
1966 • 82 minutes • 2.35:1 • Japan
Spine: #39 Editions: DVD, Blu-Ray, Hulu Plus, iTunes

In this jazzy gangster film, reformed killer Tetsu’s attempt to go straight is thwarted when his former cohorts call him back to Tokyo to help battle a rival gang.

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The Bad Sleep Well

Akira Kurosawa
1960 • 150 minutes • 2.35:1 • Japan
Spine: #319 Editions: DVD, Collector’s Sets, Hulu Plus

A young executive hunts down his father’s killer in director Akira Kurosawa’s scathing The Bad Sleep Well. Continuing his legendary collaboration with actor Toshiro Mifune, Kurosawa combines elements of Hamlet and American film noir to chilling effect.

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Stray Dog

Akira Kurosawa
1949 • 122 minutes • 1.33:1 • Japan
Spine: #233 Editions: DVD, Collector’s Sets, Hulu Plus

When a pickpocket steals a rookie detective’s gun on a hot, crowded bus, the cop goes undercover in a desperate attempt to right the wrong. Kurosawa’s thrilling noir probes the squalid world of postwar Japan and the nature of the criminal mind.

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Vengeance Is Mine

Shohei Imamura
1979 • 140 minutes • 1.66:1 • Japan
Spine: #384 Editions: DVD, Blu-Ray, Hulu Plus, iTunes

Director Shohei Imamura turns this fact-based story—about the seventy-eight-day killing spree of a remorseless man from a devoutly Catholic family—into a cold, perverse, and at times diabolically funny examination of the primitive coexisting with the modern.

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Drunken Angel

Akira Kurosawa
1948 • 98 minutes • 1.33:1 • Japan
Spine: #413 Editions: DVD, Collector’s Sets, Hulu Plus

In this powerful early noir from the great Akira Kurosawa, Toshiro Mifune bursts onto the screen as a volatile, tubercular criminal who strikes up an unlikely relationship with Takashi Shimura’s jaded physician.

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Youth of the Beast

Seijun Suzuki
1963 • 92 minutes • 2.35:1 • Japan
Spine: #268 Editions: DVD, Hulu Plus

When a mysterious stranger muscles into two rival yakuza gangs, Tokyo’s underworld explodes with violence. Youth of the Beast was a breakthrough for director Seijun Suzuki, introducing the flamboyant colors, hallucinatory images, and striking compositions that would become his trademark.

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