# The 30 Best Crime Drama Films of All Time

> Mob dynasties, crooked cops and detectives who cannot let a case go. The sprawling epics argue with the tight little thrillers.

*By YPB Team · Published October 24, 2026 · https://youpick.best/ranking/the-30-best-crime-drama-films-of-all-time*

---

## Current results (no votes yet)

1. **The Godfather** — score 1000/1000
   Coppola's 1972 saga of the Corleone family and its reluctant heir.
2. **The Godfather Part II** — score 708/1000
   The 1974 sequel that intercuts Michael's rise with young Vito's immigrant ascent.
3. **Fargo** — score 675/1000
   The Coens' 1996 dark comedy of a kidnapping plot in snowy Minnesota.
4. **Scarface** — score 619/1000
   Brian De Palma's 1983 tale of a Cuban refugee's bloody rise in Miami's drug trade.
5. **The Silence of the Lambs** — score 619/1000
   A young FBI trainee seeks a killer's profile from Hannibal Lecter in 1991.
6. **Sicario** — score 582/1000
   Denis Villeneuve's 2015 descent into the cartel war on the US-Mexico border.
7. **Drive** — score 541/1000
   Nicolas Winding Refn's 2011 neon-lit tale of a getaway driver.
8. **Dog Day Afternoon** — score 494/1000
   Al Pacino plays a desperate bank robber in Lumet's 1975 hostage drama.
9. **Goodfellas** — score 494/1000
   Scorsese's 1990 rise and fall of mob associate Henry Hill.
10. **The Departed** — score 494/1000
   Scorsese's 2006 Boston thriller of a cop and a gangster each infiltrating the other's world.
11. **Casino** — score 442/1000
   Scorsese's 1995 portrait of mob-run Las Vegas in the 1970s.
12. **Once Upon a Time in America** — score 383/1000
   Sergio Leone's sprawling 1984 epic of Jewish gangsters in New York.
13. **Serpico** — score 383/1000
   Sidney Lumet's 1973 true story of an honest cop exposing NYPD corruption.
14. **Training Day** — score 383/1000
   Denzel Washington's corrupt LAPD narcotics cop breaks in a rookie in 2001.
15. **A History of Violence** — score 383/1000
   David Cronenberg's 2005 story of a small-town man whose past comes calling.
16. **Carlito's Way** — score 383/1000
   Brian De Palma's 1993 film of an ex-con trying to leave Harlem's underworld.
17. **Reservoir Dogs** — score 383/1000
   Tarantino's 1992 debut about a jewel heist gone wrong and a hunt for the traitor.
18. **Infernal Affairs** — score 383/1000
   The 2002 Hong Kong thriller about a cop and a mole that inspired The Departed.
19. **City of God** — score 316/1000
   Fernando Meirelles' 2002 kinetic portrait of gang life in a Rio favela.
20. **Donnie Brasco** — score 316/1000
   Johnny Depp goes undercover with the Bonanno family in this 1997 true story.
21. **Pulp Fiction** — score 316/1000
   Tarantino's 1994 interwoven stories of hitmen, a boxer and a gangster's wife.
22. **Heat** — score 238/1000
   Michael Mann's 1995 cat-and-mouse thriller between a master thief and an obsessive detective.
23. **Se7en** — score 238/1000
   David Fincher's 1995 hunt for a killer staging crimes after the seven deadly sins.
24. **Mean Streets** — score 238/1000
   Scorsese's 1973 breakthrough about small-time hoods in Little Italy.
25. **Memories of Murder** — score 238/1000
   Bong Joon-ho's 2003 story of detectives chasing a serial killer in 1980s Korea.
26. **Mystic River** — score 238/1000
   Clint Eastwood's 2003 drama of three childhood friends reunited by a murder.
27. **No Country for Old Men** — score 238/1000
   The Coen brothers' 2007 chase across West Texas after a drug deal gone wrong.
28. **Chinatown** — score 147/1000
   Polanski's 1974 neo-noir of a private eye drawn into a corrupt Los Angeles.
29. **L.A. Confidential** — score 147/1000
   Curtis Hanson's 1997 neo-noir of three very different cops in 1950s Los Angeles.
30. **The French Connection** — score 0/1000
   William Friedkin's 1971 gritty chase through New York after a heroin pipeline.

Tags: movies, tv shows, thriller, classics, crime, gangster