The 25 Best Crime Movies on Netflix Right Now

Check this: There's plenty of edgy, gripping entertainment on Netflix right now. We've rounded up the best crime movies on Netflix. There’s no denying the appeal of well-crafted pictures within this genre: audiences can be immersed in and entertained by the stories of characters living on the fringes—you know, safely, through the illusion of cinema.

These are the best crime movies you can watch on Netflix right now. This list is updated regularly, as titles come and go on the streaming service. 

Best Crime Movies on Netflix Right Now

1. The Good Nurse (2022) 

An intimate and brilliantly acted crime film, The Good Nurse stars Oscar winners Eddie Redmayne and Jessica Chastain in the chilling true story of Charlie Cullen, a serial killer who murdered patients while working as a nurse. The Good Nurse premiered in fall 2022 to positive critical notices. 

2. Baby Driver (2017) 

Director Edgar Wright pieced together a musical masterpiece with this romp starring Ansel Elgort and Lily James. Every scene lines up perfectly with a piece of music, making for a delightful treat for the senses.

3. The Pale Blue Eye (2022)

The formidable talents of Christian Bale, Gillian Anderson, Harry Melling and Toby Jones star in Scott Cooper's atmospheric adaptation of the 2003 novel about a 19th-century private eye investigating murders at a military academy—where Edgar Allan Poe happens to be a cadet. The Pale Blue Eye premiered on Netflix over holiday season 2022 to high viewership and overall critical response. 

4. The Irishman (2019)

Martin Scorsese‘s long-gestating crime epic, centered on Jimmy Hoffa, is an extraordinary achievement in rich, slow-burn character development. It’s on Netflix, but the best way to see it is in one sitting, on the biggest screen possible. Front-and-center are titanic turns by Robert De Niro, Al Pacino and (out of retirement) Joe Pesci. Also front-and-center are the picture’s much-discussed de-aging visual effects. At times they’re pretty seamless. Also, they’re often distracting, even off-putting. Make no mistake: we’re still in the Uncanny Valley.

5. The Unforgivable (2021) 

Sandra Bullock's latest makes the Bird Box star one of only two actors to have two films in Netflix's all-time top-10 movies (matched by Ryan Reynolds of Red Notice and 6 Underground). In mega-hit The Unforgivable, Bullock plays a woman trying to re-enter society after serving time for a violent crime.

6. Missing (2023)

In 2018, the sleeper hit Searching took the world by storm as an inventive thriller about a father looking for his missing daughter that took place entirely on a laptop screen. What could have been gimmicky was used to suspenseful perfection, and in the wake of its success, an anthology-style sequel was greenlit. Missing is a similar screen-life thriller staring Storm Reid as a girl looking for her missing mother. Spending the evening on your phone has never been more heart-racing. 

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7. Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (2022)

Rian Johnson's follow-up to box-office leviathan Knives Out can't quite match the airtight thriller storytelling that was one of that masterpiece's most striking attributes, but it's arguably even more entertaining. An ensemble cast headlined by a returning Daniel Craig are uniformly excellent, though Janelle Monáe is really the star here, and she delivers the best performance of an already remarkable acting career.

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8. Berlin Syndrome (2017)

So abundant we might as well make them their own genre, movies about kidnapped females generally go one of two ways: It’s either all about the suspense, figuring out how and if she will get out—or there’s the nastier route, when some movies focus on a woman’s torture and humiliation, turning it into spectacle.

Though Australian director Cate Shortland‘s adaptation of Melanie Joosten‘s novel about a tourist imprisoned by a handsome teacher after a passionate one-night stand is a thriller (quite heart-pounding at times), and much of the woman’s mistreatment is extremely hard to watch, this highly absorbing psychological drama stands out because it’s all about the characters and what’s going on in their heads. It also differs from other films of its ilk in that this nightmare begins with genuine erotic tension and heat, a mutual attraction.

Aussie-born Teresa Palmer of Hacksaw Ridge fame delivers a ripper of a performance as a victim suffering in stages not unlike the stages of grieving. German Max Riemelt (Sense8) keeps up every step of the way as her chilling and multifaceted captor, but this is Palmer’s film, and it gave the dynamite actress long-relegated to playing love-interests a serious calling card in Hollywood.

Related: The Steamiest Movies on Netflix Right Now 

9. El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie (2019) 

One of the greatest television shows in history recently got a worthy coda, when three-time Emmy winner Aaron Paul returned as interminably suffering drug kingpin Jesse Pinkman in El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie. The highly anticipated follow-up to Vince Gilligan‘s crime saga Breaking Bad is a Netflix original.

There's undeniably fan service at play here, but this is fan service from masters of the medium. It's hard to imagine any Breaking Bad fans not being satisfied with this suspenseful, raw, even darkly hilarious follow-up. Paul is, of course, a million shades of riveting.

10. Boyz n the Hood (1991) 

John Singleton's breakthrough is a bildungsroman in the streets, jumpstarting the careers of Cuba Gooding Jr., Ice Cube, Morris Chestnut and Nia Long. Singleton became the youngest-ever nominee for Best Director at the Oscars.

11. I Care a Lot (2020)

Rosamund Pike is perhaps best known for her work in Gone Girl, for which she earned an Oscar nomination, but she's just as good in this cat-and-mouse thriller about a pair of con artists. Pike plays a heartless scammer who gets able-bodied senior citizens admitted to nursing homes so that she can steal their money. However, when she runs her usual gambit on a woman played by Dianne Wiest, she doesn't realize that she's gone after the mother of Russian crime lord played by Peter Dinklage. The result is an all-out war between Pike and Dinklage that's delicious to watch. Two horrible people enter the arena. Which one will come out? 

12. Army of the Dead (2021)

After Zack Snyder‘s Justice League, the fan-favorite director returned (without studio meddling) with a successor to his first (and arguably best) feature, the 2004 remake Dawn of the Dead. Dave Bautista stars in the action/zombie/heist hybrid.

13. Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile (2019) 

Terrific performances from Zac Efron, Lily Collins and especially Kaya Scodelario bring pathos to Joe Berlinger's hit Netflix original about serial killer Ted Bundy.

14. Army of Thieves (2021) 

In the prequel to Army of the Dead, director and star Matthias Schweighöfer is recruited to crack a series of top-security safes in Europe. 

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