90s Crime Movies You Said Deserve More Love | Part 2

Added: 2026-05-09

[00:00:00]At this point, the comment section has basically become its own '90s crime movie archive.

[00:00:06]After the first video, you gave me enough recommendations for a follow-up, then you did it again. So, today we're going back for round three, and this time I'm doing 15 films instead of 10, because otherwise this series may never end. Not that I'm complaining, so keep them coming. I'll leave links in the description for the ones I could find online, but for now, let's get started.

[00:00:31]Red Rock West is a good first stop.

[00:00:34]Directed by John Dahl, a name we'll be seeing again later, it's a terrific little neo-noir starring Nicolas Cage as Michael, a broke drifter living out of his car.

[00:00:46]Running low on money, Michael walks into a bar owned by Wayne, played by J.T.

[00:00:51]Walsh, who mistakes him for the hitman he hired to kill his wife, Suzanne, played by Lara Flynn Boyle.

[00:00:58]Michael takes the money anyway, which tells you pretty much everything you need to know about how his day is going to end. Before long, the real hitman shows up, and he happens to be Dennis Hopper in full psycho mode.

[00:01:12]For something this sharp and well-cast, Red Rock West did not deserve to slip under the radar. But after being pushed into a direct-to-cable release, that's basically what happened. Over time, it did find some of its audience, but it still deserves a lot more attention than it usually gets.

[00:01:32]Love and a.45 is a pretty solid lovers-on-the-run movie, even if you can feel exactly which '90s crime films it was trying to sit next to.

[00:01:41]After a robbery turns deadly, Watty and Starlene are forced to run for Mexico with the police, criminals, and Watty's former prison buddy Billy all closing in behind them.

[00:01:53]Gil Bellows and Renée Zellweger have good reckless chemistry, but Zellweger is the one who really jumps off the screen.

[00:02:00]This is still an early role for her, but she already feels completely at home in the chaos.

[00:02:07]The film is full of smart-ass dialogue and gets pretty bloody when it wants to.

[00:02:12]At the time, it was easy to lump it in with all the so-called Tarantino copycats, and maybe that's fair.

[00:02:19]Or maybe the whole neo-noir wave was already moving by the time Tarantino became the name everyone attached to it.

[00:02:28]The Grifters is based on Jim Thompson's 1963 noir novel and was brought to the screen in 1990 by Stephen Frears, who earned his first Oscar nomination for Best Director.

[00:02:41]Roy Dillon, played by John Cusack, is a 25-year-old con artist living in Los Angeles.

[00:02:47]One day, he gets an unexpected visit from his mother, another con artist who hasn't seen him in 8 years.

[00:02:54]Soon after, Roy's girlfriend, Myra, enters the picture, too, and the story begins to turn into a tense triangle of cons, suspicion, and emotional games.

[00:03:05]The movie has the spirit of 1940s noir, but also has existential drama at its center.

[00:03:12]Cusack later named The Grifters as one of his own films that he considers good, and the experience stayed with him enough that he later made High Fidelity with Frears.

[00:03:25]Jumpin' at the Boneyard is definitely not a film I would recommend to everyone. I watched it for the first time for this video, and for me, it was pretty slow. But if you are looking for something genuinely overlooked, and especially if you are a Tim Roth fan, this one may be worth your time.

[00:03:42]Roth plays Manny, a solitary man whose younger brother, Danny, played by Alexis Arquette, shows up trying to steal his money to buy drugs.

[00:03:51]After an aggressive argument, the two brothers end up walking through the neighborhood where they grew up. It brings back memories of their childhood before adult life and Danny's addiction pushed them apart.

[00:04:03]Samuel L. Jackson also appears here as the manager of a youth center. And as we know, this would not be the last time he acted alongside Tim Roth.

[00:04:16]And since we have already brought up Tim Roth, let's stay with him for one more film.

[00:04:21]Gridlock'd is set in Detroit and follows one long miserable day in the life of a jazz trio.

[00:04:27]Roth plays Stretch, the piano player, while Tupac Shakur plays Spoon, the bass player. Both men are addicts and after their singer, Cookie, played by Thandie Newton, overdoses and falls into a coma, Stretch and Spoon decide to quit.

[00:04:43]Even with these dire circumstances, the film has a gritty comic side built on ironic, sarcastic dialogue and strong acting.

[00:04:52]Stretch and Spoon spend most of the film trying to get help, but every system they turn to seems to make things worse.

[00:05:00]Sadly, Tupac was shot and killed before the film premiered at Sundance.

[00:05:08]Truth or Consequences, New Mexico is exactly the kind of movie made for people who enjoy the trademark '90s ingredients of heist and crime films.

[00:05:18]If you want something you probably have not seen before, but still full of familiar elements from that decade that we do not really get anymore, this one is worth a look.

[00:05:29]Vincent Gallo plays Raymond, an ex-con who has just been released from prison after taking the rap for a mob boss.

[00:05:37]Now he wants revenge, so he plans a heist with a couple of friends. One of them, by the way, is played by Kiefer Sutherland, who also directed the film.

[00:05:46]Naturally, things do not go as planned.

[00:05:50]And just to give you a couple more reasons to be curious, the film has a pretty wild shootout, and Martin Sheen shows up as a hitman in one of his nastier turns.

[00:06:03]Kiss of Death is a 1995 remake of the 1947 crime film of the same name.

[00:06:11]The story itself is fairly standard, but the cast is the main reason to watch it.

[00:06:16]David Caruso plays Jimmy Kilmartin, a reformed criminal who gets pulled back into the world he was trying to leave behind.

[00:06:25]He is forced to become a police informant and give the police information about Little Junior Brown, a flashy gangster played by Nicholas Cage, whose world is tied to the chain of events that destroys Jimmy's family.

[00:06:39]Cage is so damn good here, and so damn jacked, that he effortlessly wrestles the movie away from David Caruso every time he's on screen, giving the film some much-needed intensity.

[00:06:55]Fresh is the one to watch if you are in the mood for something very grim.

[00:07:00]Sean Nelson plays Fresh, a 12-year-old Brooklyn boy who works as a runner for drug dealers.

[00:07:07]He is still a kid, but he is already moving through a world of poverty, corruption, and violence, and he seems to understand much more than the adults around him realize.

[00:07:18]Fresh does not use drugs himself, and he watches people who do with a kind of cold distance, except for his older sister, who clearly breaks his heart.

[00:07:29]He saves his money, keeps quiet, and unlike his friend Chucky, he knows when not to talk.

[00:07:37]His father is a brilliant street chess player, and he teaches Fresh how to play.

[00:07:42]But Fresh starts applying those lessons to the dangerous world around him. And during one of those chess games, he begins to form the plan that drives the movie.

[00:07:53]That is the clever thing about this movie. For a while, you may think you are just watching scenes from this boy's life and listening to chess advice. But by the end, you realize all of it was quietly pointing to where the story was going.

[00:08:11]Vincent Gallo already appeared earlier in this video, but with Buffalo '66, he is behind the whole thing. He directed it, co-wrote it, and plays the lead role.

[00:08:23]He plays Billy Brown, who has just been released from prison. From the opening minutes, the film is strange and unpredictable.

[00:08:31]Billy struggles to find a bathroom, wonders into town, and ends up in a dance studio where he kidnaps a young woman played by Christina Ricci, and forces her to pretend to be [music] his wife during a visit to his parents.

[00:08:45]Somehow, instead of simply running away, she starts to attach herself to Billy, and the two fall into a strange love-hate relationship.

[00:08:54]It is peculiar, and at times it feels so aggressively indie that it almost borders on parody. But in this case, that is part of the appeal.

[00:09:07]Pusher was the feature debut of Nicolas Winding Refn, who you may know from Drive, Bronson, and The Neon Demon.

[00:09:15]But this first film is much rougher, faster, and more street level.

[00:09:21]The film follows Frank, played by Kim Bodnia, a small-time dealer in Copenhagen. His right-hand man, Tony, is played by Mads Mikkelsen.

[00:09:31]After the police show up during a deal, Frank destroys the evidence, including a large stash that belongs to the drug lord Milo. He is released, but now he has a much bigger problem. He already owes Milo money and he has to find it fast before Milo and his people turn violent.

[00:09:50]The film was shot with a handheld camera, which gives it a documentary-like quality. There is nothing glamorous about the criminal world here. Instead of stylish gangsters and flashy crime scenes, Pusher shows the business as messy, dangerous, and ugly.

[00:10:08]Frank spends the movie trying to survive in that world and the pressure keeps tightening around him.

[00:10:14]And if this one works for you, the two sequels are also worth watching.

[00:10:18]Together they make up one of the most interesting crime trilogies of the '90s and 2000s.

[00:10:28]The Last Seduction is an absolute must-watch. This thriller stars Linda Fiorentino as a femme fatale who spends the whole whole movie trying to outwit everyone else after she steals a hefty sum of money and hits the road.

[00:10:43]The film was released to critical acclaim but failed at the box office and most of the praise went to Fiorentino's performance. She carries the picture completely, managing to be strong, sexy, and dangerous all at once.

[00:11:01]Clay Pigeons is set in the Rockies of Montana, where mechanic Clay Bidwell, played by Joaquin Phoenix, gets pulled into several murders he did not commit.

[00:11:11]The problem is Lester Long, played by Vince Vaughn, a serial killer who decides to become Clay's friend. And as an act of friendship, Lester starts killing the people who are making Clay look guilty. Cute in the worst possible way.

[00:11:27]Phoenix is already very strong here, giving Clay just enough panic, guilt, and helplessness to make the whole mess work. Vaughn, meanwhile, gets one of his most memorable roles, and is a lot of fun as Dale Shelby.

[00:11:47]Thursday is another one for anyone who enjoys that violent black comic side of late '90s crime movies with a very clear Pulp Fiction shadow hanging over it.

[00:11:58]Thomas Jane plays Casey Wells, a former dealer who has managed to build a normal life. He is now an architect. He is happily married, and he is trying to adopt a child.

[00:12:08]Then his old partner Nick, played by Aaron Eckhart, suddenly shows up, leaves a suitcase at Casey's house, and disappears again on business.

[00:12:18]The problem is that the suitcase is full of drugs, and Casey decides to get rid of them down the drain.

[00:12:24]From there, Nick's visit turns into a chain of violent disasters. Casey is suddenly dealing with hitmen and people from his past, all threatening the life he worked so hard to build.

[00:12:39]Out of Sight is probably the most popular film on this list, but let's give it some attention anyway.

[00:12:45]The film is based on an Elmore Leonard novel, and that already gives it a certain kind of rhythm. Sharp dialogue, grounded twists, and characters who are cool without feeling fake. Steven Soderbergh directed it, working from a script by Scott Frank, and the result captures a lot of what makes Leonard's crime stories so easy to enjoy.

[00:13:07]George Clooney plays a talented thief who falls for the US Marshal trying to catch him, played by Jennifer Lopez.

[00:13:14]That cat-and-mouse setup could have been just a clever crime hook, but here the romance is the real charge of the movie.

[00:13:20]Clooney and Lopez are both completely in their element, and their Detroit rendezvous who the film some of its strongest heat and glamour.

[00:13:29]The cast is stacked, too, with Don Cheadle standing out as a malicious and ridiculous criminal.

[00:13:35]The strangest part is that Out of Sight was not a big box office hit, because this is exactly the kind of grown-up crime entertainment that should have been an easy win.

[00:13:47]And we'll end with Laws of Gravity, a film made for around $35,000.

[00:13:54]The film follows a few days in the lives of people who are close to crime, but not exactly professional criminals.

[00:14:00]Denise and Jimmy are married. John and Celia are together, or something close to it. Most of the movie is just them drinking, talking, arguing, hanging around kitchens, bars, and streets, and doing small, stupid things.

[00:14:14]They shoplift from drugstores, then fight about whether the shampoo they stole was any good. Then a friend shows up with guns for sale, and the guys buy them.

[00:14:23]Denise immediately understands how stupid this is, especially since Jimmy is on parole.

[00:14:30]There is a plot here, but that is not really the point. Laws of Gravity is about behavior, how these people talk, scream, provoke each other, and keep making bad choices until the damage becomes unavoidable.

[00:14:43]For a film this small, it feels painfully accurate.