Crime Movies 2004 List

Danny Ocean (George Clooney) and his crew, having successfully stolen $150 million Las Vegas casinos in the first film, jet to Europe with three new heists planned, including swiping Rembrandt's Nightwatch from a gallery in Amsterdam. Meanwhile, Terry Benedict (Andy Garcia), the casino mogul whose money Ocean and company made off with, and his hitmen are in hot pursuit.

Max "The King of Alibis" Burdett and his beautiful accomplice Lola have come to Paradise Island in the Bahamas, fresh off their final big score in which they lifted the second of the three famous Napoleon diamonds. With their financial future set, the couple is ready to relax and enjoy their hard-earned riches. But Stan, the FBI agent who has spent years in dogged but failed pursuit of Max, refuses to believe that his nemesis is actually calling it quits. He thinks that Max and Lola are actually plotting to steal the third Napoleon diamond--one of the three largest non-flawed diamonds in the world--which is coincidentally scheduled to arrive on Paradise Island as part of a touring cruise ship exhibition. Since he has no jurisdiction in the Caribbean country, Stan teams with a local cop and sets out to catch the sly Max and Lola in the act, while at the same time a local gangster has his own plans for the diamond. When the longtime adversaries meet up in paradise, Max quickly turns the tables and befriends the frustrated detective, showing him that Paradise Island has no shortage of pleasures to offer. But in order for Stan to figure out exactly what Max and Lola are up to, he will have to navigate all the twists and double-crosses of an action-packed story of friendship, suspicion and thievery.

Oscar is a fast-talking little fish who dreams big. But his big dreams land him in hot water when a great white lie turns him into an unlikely hero. At first, his fellow fish swallow Oscar's story hook, line and sinker and he is showered with fame and fortune. It's all going along swimmingly, until it starts to become clear that Oscar's tale about being the defender of the Reef is all wet. Oscar is finding out that being a hero comes at a Market Price when his lie threatens to make him the Catch of the Day. Now he has to tread water until he can get the scales to tip back in his favor again.

Belle Williams is a speed demon. Flying through the streets of New York in her tricked-out taxi, she's earned a rep as New York's fastest cabbie. But driving a hack is only a pit stop for her real dream: Belle wants to be a race car champion. And she's well on her way—until she's derailed by overeager cop Andy Washburn, whose undercover skills are matched only by his total ineptitude behind the wheel. Washburn, whose lack of vehicular skills has landed him in the precinct doghouse, is hot on the heels of a gang of beautiful Brazilian bank robbers, led by Vanessa, their cold, calculating—and leggy—leader. To nab the evasive crooks, drivers license-less Washburn convinces Belle to team up with him to pursue Vanessa and crew. Belle has carte blanche to drive at any speed and break any law. The car-less cop and speed-demon cabbie—New York's unlikeliest partners— begin a high-speed game of cat and mouse with the robbers. That is, if Belle and Washburn don't end up killing each other first.

A man receives a call on his cellular phone from a woman who says she's been kidnapped, and thinks she and her family are going to be killed soon. The catch? She doesn't know where she is... and his cell phone battery might go dead soon.

Losers Calvin and Leonard try to rob a couple of 70-year-old women, but the plan fails, and they're soon thrown behind bars. After being mysteriously bailed out, Cal and Leo are summoned to a house, where the women they tried to rob have devious, sexual plans for them.

Inspired by the true story of a sting operation in Providence, R.I. "The Last Shot" revolves around a young filmmaker (Matthew Broderick) who is given millions of dollars to make his first movie by a mysterious benefactor (Alec Baldwin) on the condition that he shoot it in Providence. But the filmmaker eventually discovers that his film's producer is an undercover FBI agent.

When Dallas FBI Agent Thomas Mackelway violates serial killer Raymond Starkey's civil rights during an unorthodox arrest, Starkey goes free and Mackelway is demoted to a remote branch of the agency in Albuquerque. His first day on the job, Mackelway investigates the murder of a traveling salesman Harold Speck, which turns out to be the first of three seemingly random killings. Or perhaps they are not random at all; the last to die is Mackelway's nemesis, Raymond Starkey. The assignment consumes him. His past mistakes haunt him. His head throbs constantly as he tries to find the link between the victims that will lead him to their killer. The case becomes increasingly gruesome and patently personal. This does not go unnoticed by his unflappable partner Fran Kulok, who knows of Mackelway's past and the demons that afflict him. Like Mackelway, she becomes drawn into the labyrinth of chilling clues, all of which point to the enigmatic Benjamin O'Ryan. O'Ryan clearly has a connection to the murders, a connection he flaunts; quite possibly, he may also harbor a sinister link to Mackelway.

Wayne (Robert Redford) and Eileen (Helen Mirren) Hayes live the American Dream. Together they've raised two children and struggled to build a successful business from the ground up. But there have been sacrifices along the way. When Wayne is kidnapped by an ordinary man, Arnold Mack (Willem Dafoe), and held for ransom in a remote forest, the couple's world is turned inside out. Eileen finds her home full of FBI Agents, their life under scrutiny. While Wayne is engaged in the negotiation of his lifetime, Eileen works frantically with the FBI to secure his release. The terrifying ordeal causes Wayne and Eileen to reassess their marriage and come to a deeper sense of their commitment to each other. With each passing hour, the need and desire for Wayne to return home safely becomes ever more urgent.

Patience Philips is a woman who can't seem to stop apologizing for her own existence. She works as a graphic designer for Hedare Beauty, a mammoth cosmetics company on the verge of releasing a revolutionary anti-aging product. When Patience inadvertently happens upon a dark secret her employer is hiding, she finds herself in the middle of a corporate conspiracy. What happens next changes Patience forever. In a mystical twist of fate, she is transformed into a woman with the strength, speed, agility and ultra-keen senses of a cat. With her newfound prowess and feline intuition, Patience becomes Catwoman, a sleek and stealthy creature balancing on the thin line between good and bad. Like any wildcat, she's dangerous, elusive and untamed. Her adventures are complicated by a burgeoning relationship with Tom Lone, a cop who has fallen for Patience but cannot shake his fascination with the mysterious Catwoman, who appears to be responsible for a string of crime sprees plaguing the city.

We come to know the rapist Gilson, tried and sentenced by the Law Behind Bars; Zico and Deusdete, inseparable half brothers who, in jail, become each other's assassins; Highness and his shrewd balancing act between women and heists; Old Chico, a Zen master in the ways of the dungeon, at last on the brink of his long-awaited freedom; Warden Pires, who oversees the prison with the perspicacity of a tightrope walker; Ebony, the true leader of the inmate community and the arbiter of all its contentions; the religious conversion of the assasin, Dagger, the rise and fall of the surfer Ezequiel; Antonio Carlos, Claudiomiro and, coming between them like a knife, and depraved Dina; the existentialist philosopher No Way and his love affair with the divine lady Di. The narrative of the film is crafted like a puzzle with one story giving way to another for of surrealist, uniquely Brazilian collage of tragedy.

This is the story of a sensitive teenager, Leland (Ryan Gosling), faced with issues of morality and hope under difficult circumstances, who is arrested and sent to juvenile hall, after he kills an autistic child out of sympathy. Once there, he meets a teacher, Mr. Pearl (Don Cheadle), who helps him figure out the reasons for why he committed the crime, as we also see the ramifications of the murder have on his community, his family, and that of the victim.

Set in the world of high-stakes poker hustlers, this is the story of three conmen/hustlers (Gabriel Byrne, Stuart Townsend, Thandie Newton) looking for that one big take that they can all retire on. After they actually do pull a huge sting off with the help of someone called "The Dean" (Sylvester Stallone), they find themselves chased by a ripped-off gangster looking for revenge...

Retired hitman Jimmy "The Tulip" Tudeski (Bruce Willis) is living the quiet life in a beachfront bungalow in Mexico, miles away from his former life. Thanks to falsified dental records supplied by onetime neighbor and friend Nicholas "Oz" Oseransky, D.D.S. (Matthew Perry), Jimmy faked his own death and has taken up a new line of work befitting his newfound domestic tranquility: cleaning the house and perfecting his culinary skills with his wife Jill (Amanda Peet), a purported novice assassin who has yet to pull off a clean hit. Suddenly, an uninvited and most unwelcome connection to their past shows up on the Tudeskis' doorstep. It's Oz, breathless and desperate, begging them to help rescue his wife, Cynthia (Natasha Henstridge), from the Hungarian mob. Jimmy couldn't be less interested. It's not his problem anymore. But before he can toss Oz out on his ear, more unexpected visitors show up. Newly paroled mob boss Lazlo Gogolak (Kevin Pollak) and his dim-bulb goons have followed the naïve dentist down from L.A. and right into Jimmy's Baja hideaway. All that Lazlo has been thinking about in jail is how he's going to get even with Jimmy for knocking off his favorite son, and how's he's going to fix Oz for helping him get away with it. Now Jimmy, Oz and Jill will have to go the whole nine yards — and then some — to manage the mounting Mafioso mayhem, in this sequel to the 2000 hit comedy "The Whole Nine Yards".

In "Walking Tall", Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson plays Chris Vaughn, a retired soldier who returns to his hometown to make a new life for himself, only to discover his wealthy high school rival, Jay Hamilton (Neal McDonough), has closed the once-prosperous lumber mill and turned the town's resources towards his own criminal gains. The place Chris grew up is now overrun with crime, drugs, and violence. Enlisting the help of his old pal Ray Templeton (Johnny Knoxville), Chris gets elected sheriff and vows to shut down Hamilton's operations. His actions endanger his family and threaten his own life, but Chris refuses to back down until his hometown once again feels like home.

Frank Castle (Thomas Jane) is a man who has seen too much death in his life, first as a Delta Force Op and later as an FBI special agent. He has managed to beat considerable odds, and is finally moving out of the field and into a normal life with his wife and son. On his final assignment, Castle plays his undercover role perfectly, but the operation spins out of control. This places the FBI on the wrong side of Tampa businessman Howard Saint (John Travolta) and his glamorous wife Livia (Laura Harring). Notwithstanding their glossy social profile, the Saints are no genteel Florida couple; behind their copious wealth are violent beginnings, underworld ties – and a chilling capacity for brutality. Castle's worst nightmare is about to come true, as Howard Saint and his lieutenants unleash hell at the Castle family reunion. But Castle, to his everlasting torment, survives. Drawing upon all he has learned in 20 years, Castle sets in motion a brilliant plan to punish the murderers. He takes up residence among in a dilapidated tenement building on Tampa's industrial waterfront, where his fellow tenants include Joan (Rebecca Romijn-Stamos), a waitress at a nearby diner who is trying to put her life back on track. Castle's neighbors become his last link to the idea of human community and warmth. It is this makeshift family – forgotten men and women with no one to protect them - who enable Castle to find the one thing he least expects: redemption.

Denzel Washington stars as a government operative/soldier of fortune who has pretty much given up on life. In Mexico City, he reluctantly agrees to take a job to protect a child (Dakota Fanning) whose parents are threatened by a wave of kidnappings. He eventually becomes close to the child and their relationship reawakens and rekindles his spirit. When she is abducted, his fiery rage is unleashed on those he feels responsible, and he stops at nothing to save her.

Set in London, this is the story of Dr. Adrian Strother (Goran Visnjic), an American insomniac hypnotherapist with telepathic powers, who gets caught up in the pursuit of a ritualistic serial killer, when Scotland Yard enlists his help in talking to a young mute girl who escaped.

In 14th Century England, this powerful tale of redemption follows a fugitive priest (Paul Bettany) who falls in with a troupe of travelling actors (led by Willem Dafoe). As they arrive in a small town, the actors encounter a woman being sentenced to death for witchcraft and murder. Discarding the expected bible stories, the actors stage a performance based on the crime. Through the performance of the play, they discover that the townspeople know the woman did not, in fact, commit the murder. The stage becomes a place where vital human truth is told. The fugitive priest comes to terms with his own crime and makes a powerful sacrifice, thereby redeeming himself.

In "Starsky & Hutch", the origins of the charismatic crime-fighting duo David Starsky and Ken "Hutch" Hutchinson are explored when these undercover Bay City detectives are partnered for their very first assignment. Ben Stiller plays the tightly wound Detective David Starsky who is thrown together with Owen Wilson's easygoing Detective Ken Hutchinson on a high-stakes case. Platinum-selling rapper and actor Snoop Dogg plays their savvy street informant Huggy Bear. Vince Vaughn also joins the cast as Reese Feldman, a smooth-talking entrepreneur with an eye towards the future.

Mort Rainey (Johnny Depp), a successful writer trying to cope with a divorce, is staying in his rural home, when a stranger turns up on his doorstep and accuses him of plagiarism.

This ensemble comedy of 11 interwoven stories set in Dublin shows how the breakup of one relationship has repurcussions on the lives of the people around them. One of those people is Lehiff (Colin Farrell), a thief trying to set his life straight by pulling off one last big heist before retiring, while Detective John Lynch (Colm Meaney) is trying to bring Lehiff down. There's also John (Cillian Murphy), who quits his job at a supermarket to join Lehiff in his plot as an effort to win back the love of Deirdre (Kelly MacDonald), who has recently moved in with a married bank manager, Sam (Michael McElhatton), whose bank Lehiff is targeting, and whose wife, Noeleen (Deirdre O'Kane) ends up being a crucial element in the heist.

A top FBI profiler, Special Agent Illeana Scott (Angelina Jolie) doesn't rely on traditional crime-solving techniques to unravel the mysteries of a murderous mind. Her intuitive, unconventional approach often makes the crucial difference between catching a killer and sending a dead-end case to the cold file. When Montreal detectives handling a local homicide investigation reluctantly ask for an outsider's help to get inside the head of a cunning serial killer, Agent Scott joins the case. With meticulous insight, she theorizes that the chameleon-like killer is "life-jacking" – assuming the lives and identities of his victims. As the pressure mounts to catch the elusive murderer, Agent Scott's unorthodox methods alienate her from a territorial police team that feels threatened by her uncanny abilities. Her seemingly cold demeanor belies an unparalleled passion for her work, and she's at her best when she's working alone. But when an unexpected attraction sparks a complicated romantic entanglement, the consummate specialist begins to doubt her finely-honed instincts. Alone in an unfamiliar city with no one she can trust, Agent Scott suddenly finds herself on a twisted and terrifying journey, surrounded by suspects in a case that has become chillingly personal.

Academy Award winner Tom Hanks teams up for the first time with Academy Award–winning filmmakers Joel and Ethan Coen ("O Brother, Where Art Thou?") for this retelling of the critically acclaimed 1955 comedy, "The Ladykillers". Hanks stars as Goldthwait Higginson Dorr III, Ph.D., a charlatan professor who's assembled a gang of "experts" for the heist of the century. The thieves: experts in explosions, tunneling, and muscle, and the critical "inside man." The base of operations: the root cellar of an unsuspecting, church-going little old lady named Mrs. Munson (Irma P. Hall). The ruse: the five need a place to practice their church music. The problem: it quickly becomes evident that Dorr's thieves lack the mental capacity to do the job. The bigger problem: they all have seriously underestimated their upstairs host.

A 12-year-old Maddy (Kristen Stewart) and her father (Sam Robards) have always shared a love for mountain climbing. Their hobby, however, has a disastrous effect when an accident on Mount Everest injures his spine, paralyzing him forever unless he gets a very expensive operation. Determined to raise the money to pay for it, Maddy decides to recruit two of her friends to help her break into the super-high-tech bank that her mother (Jennifer Beals) works at as the security chief, in an attempt to rob the funds her father needs using the amazing climbing abilities he taught her...

The unspoken code of the underworld: keep your mouth shut, protect your family and don't be a traitor. Dris, having spent the last four years in jail with his mouth shut, wants to get back to his quiet life with his beautiful wife. But the past is never far away, and his partner and best friend Yanis, who now runs the streets, wants nothing more than to bring Dris back into the family.

A dramatic tale of the moral dilemmas of a not-too-honest cop played out against a background of a manhunt. Pascal supplies his wife, Agnes, with morphine provided by Jaquillat, the local crime boss; Agnes was addicted even before the pair met. But the prison break-out of terrorist Bruno Le Roux, and the certainty that he's settling old scores in the Grenoble area, has made Jaquillat a worried man. He attempts to blackmail Pascal into killing Bruno on sight, using the supply of morphine as a lever. Pascal refuses to co-operate, but he can't tell Agnes why his supplies have suddenly dried up. As a result, she trawls the streets in search of a hit, which is where she meets, and is helped by, the fugitive. He takes her back to her place to tend to her injuries after a street dealer beats her up, and Pascal, coming home, sees them together; however, he doesn't make them aware of his presence, and deliberately lets the fugitive slip through his fingers.

In "Twisted", a police detective named Jessica Shepard (Ashley Judd) tracks a serial killer who murders the men she dates. When Jessica begins blacking out before each murder takes place, her partner, Mike Delmarco (Andy Garcia), and the police commissioner (Samuel L. Jackson) target her as the prime suspect.

In 1992, Nick Broomfield made his first documentary about serial killer Aileen Wuornos, and this follow-up comes a year after Wuornos' execution for killing six men during her years as a Florida prostitute. Wuornos gave Broomfield the last interview of her life, and this film includes scenes of Broomfield testifying about his experiences with her.

The story is based on the life of serial killer Aileen Wuornos (Charlize Theron), who was executed Oct. 9, 2002, after murdering at least six Florida men while working as a prostitute. In her 1992 trial, Wuornos pleaded innocent, saying she acted in self-defense to prevent being raped, a statement she later recanted. The film centers on Wuornos' life before the murders and her romantic relationship with Selby (Christina Ricci), a woman she dated while still turning tricks and killing men.

Abandoned by the death of their mother, Junior and Scooter find themselves ill prepared for life on their own. To ease their suffering, they search the desert dregs of West Texas for a woman to take Mom's place. Due to their social disability, they are forced to kidnap a woman from a Piggly Wiggly supermarket. They soon realize that they have gotten more than they bargained for when their "victim," Dede, turns out to be the maltreated wife of an abusive Texas Ranger. She quickly turns her misfortune into theirs, convincing the brothers to steal her baby away from her sadistic husband. Life gets even more complicated for these simple-hearted boys when the vengeful Ranger tracks them down bent on keeping them from living happily ever after.

Six high school students band together and develop a plan to heist the SAT exam in order to prevent the test from unfairly defining who they'll become. Each in the group has his or her own set of circumstances that leads to the conclusion that the only way to truly decide one's own fate is to beat the system.

Jack Ryan (Owen Wilson), a charming drifter, meets a beautiful criminal, Nancy Hayes, in a Michigan resort town. The powerful and rich local Mr. Majestyk wants Jack gone and Nancy all to himself.