After Dark, My Sweet (1990)

After Dark, My Sweet (1990)

[7] Jason Patric stars as an alcoholic drifter with a troubled past who wanders into a kidnapping/ransom plot with a widow and her uncle, played by Rachel Ward and Bruce Dern. While Dern's character does much of the planning, Patric…
Running Scared (2006)

Running Scared (2006)

[5] I watched this movie several weeks ago and I still don't quite know how to review it. An assault on the senses? Psychotic in tone? Punishingly serendipitous? Insane?... Yes, it's all those things. But it's also a riveting in…
Ministry of Fear (1944)

Ministry of Fear (1944)

[7] Fritz Lang (Metropolis, M) directs this adaptation of Graham Greene's novel about a British man (Ray Milland) recently released from an insane asylum who gets caught up in a Nazi attempt to smuggle sensitive information out of England during…
Eyes Without a Face (1960)

Eyes Without a Face (1960)

[8] A surgeon kidnaps young women and removes their faces in hopes of successfully transplanting one on his horribly disfigured daughter in Eyes Without a Face. Released the same season as Hitchcock's Psycho and years before Romero's Night of the…
The Enforcer (1951)

The Enforcer (1951)

[7] Humphrey Bogart stars in this taut mystery-thriller as a district attorney trying to keep a terrified witness alive until he can testify against the ringleader of a hit-squad. The Enforcer is largely told through a series of flashbacks told…
Peeping Tom (1960)

Peeping Tom (1960)

[7] Michael Powell (The Red Shoes) directs this British giallo flick about a photographer whose ghastly hobby is stalking young women and filming their expressions as he murders them. You could say that Peeping Tom is an early slasher film,…
Boomerang! (1947)

Boomerang! (1947)

[6] In this courtroom drama ripped from the headlines, Arthur Kennedy plays a nervous out-of-towner who is identified by witnesses as the killer of a beloved local priest. When the whole town unties in his condemnation, it's up to Dana…
Falling Down (1993)

Falling Down (1993)

[7] Michael Douglas stars as a white-collar divorcee who experiences a series of compounding frustrations on the way to his daughter's birthday party. Eventually, his character snaps and begins reacting violently to every transgression, big or small. Whether it's being…
Angels with Dirty Faces (1938)

Angels with Dirty Faces (1938)

[8] James Cagney and Pat O'Brien star as a criminal and a priest who grew up on the streets of New York, rekindling their friendship and mentoring a new gang of street rats through O'Brien's youth ministry. At first, the…
The French Connection (1971)

The French Connection (1971)

[7] A pair of New York city narcotics cops try to bust a big heroin deal being brokered between suspected mobsters and a French connection. But one of the cops, 'Popeye' Doyle (Gene Hackman), has a history of recklessness and…