A great murder mystery is hard to come by. Often, the best is a confluence of events, plot, and character depth with a talented director behind the lens bringing each frame to life. Ensembles are popular, bringing on an onslaught of suspects, but it can also be the journey of one person to save their soul. Agatha Christie said, "Crime is terribly revealing. Try and vary your methods as you will, your tastes, your habits, your attitude of mind, and your soul are revealed by your actions,” (via Parade).
The best of these films reveal something dark and sinister about ourselves. The biggest question is always the “why?”, what could drive someone to murder? The murder of someone the character knows is a strange question that an audience wants to be knowable. The best murder mysteries devise these situations and unearth a blanket of perversity, revenge, and curiosity. Whether it be the hard-boiled detective, a random Everyman entangled in events beyond his understanding, or friends trying to wrong a right, these are the best of the murder mystery genre from the 21st Century.
13 Mystic River
Adapted from Dennis Lehane’s novel — whose works almost exclusively live in Boston — Mystic River is a tragic, fatalistic look at three lifelong friends intersecting at a deep and brutal crossroads. Directed by Clint Eastwood, whose elemental and patient touch immerses us in the small Boston neighborhoods. Kevin Bacon, Sean Penn, and Tim Robbins play the three friends whose lives are seemingly marred when Penn’s daughter is murdered. As Penn pulls the most punches in a hammy, electric performance, Eastwood offers no catharsis with his formal restraint. Through trial by error, as Penn uses his influence to turn vigilante. Mystic River won Penn and Robbins Oscars for their harrowing, violent performances.
12 Out of Time
The always-in-command Denzel Washington takes the center frame in a wild hypnotic, wrong-man murder mystery Out of Time. Reminiscent of the old steamy thrillers of the 80s, and with a slight Alfred Hitchcock panache where someone is forced to cover up and protect their innocence, Carl Franklin directs the sweaty, humid atmosphere of a small Floridian town with all the nasty tension to ratchet up the ludicrous story. Set up by his mistress to steal money, Washington gets entangled with the wrong woman and seemingly becomes the straw man in a life insurance scam. Going to great lengths to clear his name as police chief, he gets caught up in all the twisted plot corridors that could see him lose his freedom forever.
11 The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Adapting from the novel of the same name and already a film out in its original country, Sweden, David Fincher takes the deep pulp and mystery of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and puts his cold, technical but sleek look on the sprawling epic. Directing Daniel Craig in his first fit of cold case detective work as a journalist dedicated to exposing extreme right-wingers, Craig teams up with an elite hacker — the revelatory Rooney Mara — that leads them down a dangerous path solving a murder that occurred 40 years ago. Fincher keeps the tension airtight as the grim, cold, unforgiving nature of violence that permeates the wealthy family under investigation surmounts to bloody hell. The family led by the always imposing Stellan Skarsgard — Girl with the Dragon Tattoo takes time to get to its conclusion but does so in classic Fincher fashion.
10 Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
Shane Black takes the title of his movie Kiss Kiss Bang Bang from an essay written by famed film critic Pauline Kael when describing the noir genre. Essentially boiling down the old detective films of the 40s to the bare essentials and giving them a fresh face, Black transports us to Los Angeles. Taking the usual band of suspects and shuffling them around to deliver a murder mystery as a meta-commentary on the genre and the studio system itself. Pairing Robert Downey Jr., as a petty thief turned actor, with Val Kilmer was a match made in heaven. Michelle Monaghan plays the femme fatale with all the gusto and toughness she would bring to later roles. Black fills the film with his hilarious, side-talking banter and random acts of violence as slapstick comedy.
9 Shutter Island
When Martin Scorsese approaches a genre film, he does so with the breadth, knowledge, and history of an artist who has dedicated his life to understanding how the machinations of the genre can be applied and manipulated. When making Shutter Island, Scorsese saw the opportunity to open up his toolbox and explode frames with his array of camera tricks and storytelling devices. Diving fully into B-movie territory, Scorsese tells the murder mystery and disappearance of a patient on a rain-covered island with a psychological twist. As a manic and paranoid Leonardo DiCaprio plays Teddy Daniels, a US Marshall in over his head. As the mystery unfolds, Scorsese sounds us with wild stylistic flourishes and flashbacks that haunt Daniel's character. With a twist for the ages, Shutter Island is as fun as it is devastating.
8 Gone Girl
Fincher has always found a way to take his cold, calculated, perverse outlook on the world and make it part of pop culture. With Gone Girl, he did no different. Adapting the best-selling novel by Gillian Flynn of the same name, Fincher teamed with long-time friend Ben Affleck to throw the suburban schmuck in the middle of a murder mystery and also deliver a commentary on the persona of the star. Played with an astonishingly bleak coldness by ice queen Rosamund Pike, Gone Girl puts Affleck’s Nick Dunne through a media circus and puzzle box wringer, a Fincher specialty. Grossing $367 million at the box office, Gone Girl is Fincher's biggest hit to date.
7 The Hateful Eight
The three-hour epic, roadhouse experience was a theatrical gateway for Quentin Tarantino to devise his single location, snowbound murder mystery, The Hateful Eight. The film leads with two great late-career performances from Samuel L. Jackson and Kurt Russell as the two collide in keeping the deadly Daisy Domergue (an Oscar-nominated performance from Jennifer Jason Leigh) in chains as they take refuge in a suspicious trade cabin. Populated with Tarantinoisms, great character names, and incredibly bloody shootouts and bursts of violence surmounted from the tension of the mystery at hand, The Hateful Eight is a surprisingly breezy three hours. Photographed beautifully by the virtuoso Robert Richardson in beautiful 70mm, the film crackles from start to finish.
6 Prisoners
French-Canadian director Denis Villeneuve has made a career of visually sleek, devastating brutalism where everyday people are pushed into a world unfamiliar and seemingly within their limits. Prisoners isn't just the ultimate puzzle film, where an obsessive detective (Jake Gyllenhaal) assists in an investigation of missing kids, but also, he has to keep the obsessive and rage-filled father (Hugh Jackman) at bay. Kidnapping one of the man suspects and uncovering a network of individuals assisting in the sinister plot to sacrifice children, Prisoners takes its victims to the brink. While also delivering a steadfast of gorgeous, rain, and dread-filled imagery thanks to legendary cinematographer Roger Deakins.
5 The Ghost Writer
The controversial Roman Polanski has a slew of films under his belt of conspiracy-driven, hard-boiled thrillers that take us through seedy underworlds where decisions get made in the shadows. The Ghost Writer saw a return to this similar form as Ewan McGregor plays a writer assisting a wildly over-the-top Pierce Brosnan playing the British Prime Minister attempting to finish his memoirs on a remote island. Caught in the middle of a conspiracy, Polanski pushes the Everyman McGregor character into a detective corner as he uncovers the smoke of a mass plot to murder. Riveting from start to finish, Polanski ends the film on a similar note to his classic Chinatown.
4 Knives Out
Rian Johnson has long been an admirer of the murder mystery, who-dun-it, a flair for the genre since he burst onto the scene with the Brick. The writer-director has always had complete control of his projects; in what is probably his most fun, Knives Out reinvigorated the familiar tropes of the all-knowing detective who takes on a slew of suspects when someone is murdered. Johnson created the fashionably southern and articulate Benoit Blanc (a sly southern drawl from Craig — see Logan Lucky for the precursor) to investigate the Thrombley estate after their 85-year-old patriarch dies mysteriously. With a range of characters played by Don Johnson, Jamie Lee Curtis, Chris Evans, and Michael Shannon, all vying for the money left behind, Blanc must determine the motives. Wearing its influences on its sleeve with some sly political commentary through family arguments, Knives Out was a huge hit and likely started a new wave of genre films.
3 Minority Report
During a run of films where Steven Spielberg was operating in the darkest parts of his thematic material, while also making films with one of the biggest superstars on the planet, Minority Report was a happy marriage of ideas. The film is a slick adventure met with the political commentary of sci-fi dystopias through Phillip K. Dick’s writing. Wherein Tom Cruise plays a detective in a futuristic Washington D.C., where the population is under constant surveillance and murder has been eliminated thanks to a trio of precognitive brains that can tell the future. When the system gets manipulated into relaying that Cruise will be the murderer, Spielberg takes us on the run to uncover a murder conspiracy. Highlighting the dangers of total technological control and reliance on things outside of our understanding, Minority Report is an action-packed, stylistic thrill ride.
2 Memories of Murder
The futility of technology, justice, and the baggage people carry when devastated by the tragedy. Bong Joon-ho announced himself to the world and stood out from the breaking Korean New Wave movement that started in the late-1990s. With Memories of Murder, Bong tells the sad, true story of a serial killer wreaking havoc on women in the small provincial town of Gyunggi in 1988. The police department is strapped with resources and has its sense of vigilante justice to necessitate its responsibilities. The tremendous Song Kang-ho leads the film, in a Phillip Seymour Hoffman-like performance. Stripping away the vanity, with a dark comedy to his delivery but a fierce sense of passion, his pursuit of the killer, along with other detectives, is a gut punch.
1 Zodiac
Not properly recognized upon release as one of Fincher's masterpieces and completely ignored at the Oscars, albeit in a stacked year, Zodiac is one of the finest films ever crafted about serial killers and the relentless pursuit to stop them. These are ideas that Fincher would later mine in his Netflix show Mindhunters. Fincher also took actors like Robert Downey Jr., Jake Gyllenhaal, and Mark Ruffalo — before they entered the MCU — to their absolute limits before breaking. The film is terrifyingly cold in the way it depicts the murders of the Zodiac killer, but epic in scope and execution of the bureaucratic, detective processes it takes to bring a monster like the Zodiac killer to justice.