Although it’s had more than its fair share of branding issues over the years, HBO Max features an impressive library of movies across a wide array of genres. Because it owns decades of Warner Bros. classics, crime is a deep genre on the service.
We’ve pulled together three movies in that genre that are well worth your time. These movies range in decades and styles, but they’re also a reminder of just how many kinds of movies can fit into the brand descriptor of a crime movie. Check them out on HBO Max:
Need more recommendations? Then check out the best new movies to stream this week, the best movies on Netflix, the best movies on Hulu, the best movies on Amazon Prime Video, the best movies on HBO Max, and the best movies on Disney+.
End of Watch (2012)
A bracing, harrowing look at policing in one of Los Angeles’s most dangerous neighborhoods, End of Watch stars Jake Gyllenhaal and Michael Peña as a pair of LAPD officers who push the rules but are undeniably faithful to their duties as officers. When they run afoul of the Mexican cartel, every aspect of their personal lives is upended, and they find themselves struggling to keep both their jobs and their lives.
Directed by David Ayer, End of Watch is certainly sympathetic to its central police officers, but the movie is also honest about all the ways the broader system is failing both the cops trying to enforce the law and the people who wind up on the other side of their actions.
You can watch End of Watch on HBO Max.
Blood Simple (1984)
The Coen brothers made a long career out of telling a wide variety of crime stories (as well as by making a variety of other fascinating movies), but Blood Simple is their first directorial effort, and it remains among their most potent. The movie tells the story of a bar owner who discovers that his younger wife is having an affair with one of the bartenders.
When he hires a cheap private investigator to kill them, he blackmails them instead, and all hell breaks loose. As is typical in Coen brothers movies, the farce is part of the point here and also a potent reminder that when everyone acts in their own self-interest, things can spin out of control with remarkable speed.
You can watch Blood Simple on HBO Max.
M (1931)
One of the very first crime dramas of its kind, the influential M is set in an interwar Germany and follows the Berlin-wide hunt for a serial killer who is killing children. The killer’s crimes are so repugnant that even other criminal organizations organize to find him, and he finds himself increasingly isolated as he works to avoid capture.
Tense, surprising, and riveting almost 100 years after its release, M is a reminder that they have been making great crime films as long as they have been making great movies. M might seem like homework, but the second you turn it on, you’ll realize that it has earned every bit of its reputation as one of the best movies ever made.
You can watch M on HBO Max.
