When it comes to crime movies, the generalization is that they’re high testosterone and action-packed. And to a certain extent, there’s some truth to that, as they’re usually led by stoic and emotionless conmen and any sight of a love interest is nothing more than an afterthought.
However, it can often be completely the opposite too. Most of the time, the reason the protagonists turn to a life of crime is for the love of their lives. Whether it’s two nihilistic souls finding each other, a bounty hunter tracking down his enslaved wife, or an undercover cop falling in love with the sister of the man he’s trying to take down, crime movies aren’t always completely devoided of romance.
Fight Club (1999)
On the face of it, it’s one of the best movies of 1999 is because of the philosophical but nihilistic plot, and the narrator’s imaginary terrorist best friend, Tyler Durden. But behind the curtain, there’s one of the most layered romances in movie history.
At first, the relationship between the Narrator and Marla Singer seems toxic, as they both visit cancer groups to feel better about themselves. But they eventually learn to care about each other, even if it is in the strangest of ways. And the movie literally cuts to black from the final shot of them holding hands. Granted, that might be while they’re overlooking a vista of skyscrapers belonging to credit card companies being blown to smithereens, but it's still romantic in its own way.
Django Unchained (2012)
Some hold the unpopular opinions that the ending of Django Unchained is terrible, as many of the characters make strange decisions that they wouldn’t ordinarily make. But as the whole movie is about Django working his way up the bounty hunter ladder in order to find Broomhilder, the love of his life, there’s no other way the movie could have ended.
Though the movie is two hours and 40 minutes long, there isn’t actually much time spent with Django and Brumhilder together. However, the little time they do have together is electric, from the moment they first see each other in years and Django says, “Hey, little troublemaker,” to him trying to impress her by doing tricks with his horse in the very last shot.
The Place Beyond The Pines (2013)
The Place Beyond the Pines has somewhat of a non-linear narrative, as it’s separated into three different stories where the characters' lives all intertwine with each other. The first part of the movie follows Luke, a common thief who doesn’t know how to provide for his family other than with odd carnival jobs and robbing banks.
Luke knows it’s wrong and he isn’t a criminal who gets any kind of excitement out of the crimes, but he does it for his family. The movie is fairly meandering in the first part, and that’s because it makes a point of setting up just how close Luke and Romina are. And that’s what makes it so impactful when Luke gets shot in his own home.
Baby Driver (2017)
Baby is the best movie getaway driver, and though there are so many incredible action sequences that are all ingeniously cut to the music, it’s the innocent, child-like relationship between Baby and Debora that holds audiences’ attention.
Just as is the case with Django Unchained, everything Baby does in the movie is steered towards his want for a quiet life with Debora. And with a sequel currently in development, their story isn’t over yet.
True Lies (1994)
When people talk about director James Cameron, his movies Titanic, Terminator 2: Judgement Day, and Avatar get all of the attention, but one that often goes overlooked is True Lies. It might be that, compared to his other movies, the stakes are pretty low and it’s rather inconsequential, but one thing it does surprisingly better than the other movies is the romance.
Though Titanic is emotionally exhausting when it comes to Jack and Rose, True Lies’ Harry and Helen have a lot of history, and that’s clear on-screen. When his wife finds out Harry’s a spy, it combines a brilliantly realistic portrayal of a husband and wife trying to figure things out with a high-octane, action-packed movie to stop a terrorist plot. And in that respect, it’s almost like a more adult version of The Incredibles.
The Fast And The Furious (2001)
This relationship might be easy to get gooey over, as it was able to build and build over several movies and resulted in them having a happy family together. But there’s no denying the chemistry that Brian and Mia shared in The Fast and the Furious.
Dom and Brian started out as frenemies, but when that relationship grew, so did the one between Brian and Dom’s sister. Brian was able to confide in her when he couldn’t speak to anybody else, and Mia was with him until the very end, even despite finding out he was an undercover cop. After all, the series is all about family, and Mia and Brian embody that theme more than any of the other characters.
Out Of Sight
Just as is the case with most George Clooney-led movies that came between the mid-90s and the late 2000s, the actor plays a typically charming smooth talker, but in Out of Sight it’s different.
Where most of those 90s and 2000s movies saw Clooney as a leading man where the female lead was nothing more than an afterthought, Out of Sight does the opposite. The movie features a just as capable female US Marshall chasing him down, and it leads to a great, albeit brief romance between the two of them that has quite a bit of depth.
Heat (1995)
the best cat and mouse thrillers, but what surprisingly stacks up its three-hour run scene is all of the romance.
At one point in the movie, there are four scenes between four different couples back-to-back, but the best relationship of them all is Chris and Charlene. The LAPD tried to force Charlene to turn in her husband, but when he tried to reconnect with her, she tipped him off that the LAPD was there. And though it meant they couldn’t ever speak again, it was a testament to how they felt about each other.
True Romance (1994)
Though it wasn’t directed by the celebrated filmmaker, True Romance is another movie written by Tarantino, and it doubles down on the romance. The clue is in the name, as everything that the Bonnie and Clyde-type characters do is in the name of love. Clarence literally murders a pimp and all of his minions for the sake of Alabama’s freedom.
And Alabama endearingly returns the favor at the end of the movie, as she pulls Clarence out of one of the most blood-soaked shoot-outs of the 90s. True Romance originally had a heartbreaking ending, as it was planned for Alabama to end up a widow, but that thankfully didn’t happen.
The Departed (2006)
As The Departed follows the undercover cop Billy Costigan trying to uncover Colin Sulivan, a gangster working for the FBI, it’s one of the most exciting Martin Scorsese movies ever made. But what’s better is that it sees Billy fall in love with Colin’s fiancée at the same time.
With so many characters getting murdered in The Departed, Madolyn is one of the few who got away unscathed, but the same can’t be said about the undercover cop she fell in love with. The Departed isn’t exactly an emotional movie, as it moves at such a frantic pace and all the characters act in such a frenzied way, but when she’s crying at his funeral with Colin standing across from her, all the emotions hit at once.
