Best Crime Movies of 1948

A hurricane swells outside, but it's nothing compared to the storm within the hotel at Key Largo. There, sadistic mobster Johnny Rocco holes up - and holds at gunpoint hotel owner James Temple, his widowed daughter-in-law Nora, and ex-GI Frank McCloud.

The Naked City portrays the police investigation that follows the murder of a young model. A veteran cop is placed in charge of the case and he sets about, with the help of other beat cops and detectives, finding the girl's killer.

Stroud, a crime magazine's crusading editor has to post-pone a vacation with his wife, again, when a glamorous blonde is murdered and he is assigned by his publishing boss Janoth to find the killer. As the investigation proceeds to its conclusion, Stroud must try to disrupt his ordinarily brilliant investigative team as they increasingly build evidence (albeit wrong) that he is the killer.

An escaped convict, injured during a robbery, falls in love with the woman who nurses him back to health, but their relationship seems doomed from the beginning.

In 1932, a cop is killed and Frank Wiecek sentenced to life. Eleven years later, a newspaper ad by Frank's mother leads Chicago reporter P.J. O'Neal to look into the case. For some time, O'Neal continues to believe Frank guilty. But when he starts to change his mind, he meets increased resistance from authorities unwilling to be proved wrong.

In 1867, a gang led by James "Stretch" Dawson robs a bank and flees into the desert. Out of water, the outlaws come upon a ghost town called Yellow Sky and its only residents, a hostile young woman named Mike and her grandpa. The story is a Western adaptation of William Shakespeare's "The Tempest".

Centring on the activities of a gang of assorted criminals and, in particular, their leader – a vicious young hoodlum known as "Pinkie" – the film's main thematic concern is the criminal underbelly evident in inter-war Brighton.

Petty crook and cop-killer Martin Rome, in bad shape from wounds in the hospital prison ward, still refuses to help slimy lawyer Niles clear his client by confessing to another crime. Police Lt. Candella must check Niles' allegation; a friend of the Rome family, he walks a tightrope between sentiment and cynicism. When Martin fears Candella will implicate his girlfriend Teena, he'll do anything to protect her. How many others will he drag down to disaster with him?

A revenge-seeking gangster is sent to prison after being framed for a crime he didn't commit. After seducing a beautiful young woman, he uses her to help him carry out his plot for vengeance, leading him to the crazy pyromaniac who set him up.

An insurance man's affair with a blonde leads to guilt, murder and a confession to his wife.

After two gang-related killings in "Center City," a suspect (who was framed) is arrested, released on bail...and murdered. Inspector Briggs of the FBI recruits a young agent, Gene Cordell, to go undercover in the shadowy Skid Row area (alias George Manly) as a potential victim of the same racket. Soon, Gene meets Alec Stiles, neurotic mastermind who's "building an organization along scientific lines." Stiles recruits Cordell, whose job becomes a lot more dangerous.

During WWII, industrialist Joe Keller commits a crime and frames his business partner Herbert Deever. Years later, his sin comes back to haunt him when Joe's son plans to marry Deever's daughter.

Bill Saunders, a former prisoner of war living in England, whose experiences have left him unstable and violent, gets into a bar fight in which he in kills a man and then flees. He hides out with the assistance of a nurse, Jane Wharton, who believes his story that the killing was an accident.

Pursued by the big-time gambler he robbed, John Muller assumes a new identity—with unfortunate results.

A woman wakes up in the middle of the night on board a train, but she can't remember how she got there. Danger and suspense ensue.

A gang hold a family hostage in their own home. The leader of the escaped cons is bothered by a recurring dream that the doctor of the house may be able to analyze.

The woman here is Sylvia Russell, who is a bit power mad and has some set goals. In order to achieve those goals she is sadistically devoted to her son and daughter, able to possess and direct them; subtly ruins her daughter's marriage by corrupting a servant girl and, then, uses her to compromise her son-in-law; slowly breaks her bumbling, unambitious husband's confidence, finds in her husband's executive friend the man she desires, and then poisons her husband in her own manner in their quiet English manor

A golddigging femme fatale leaves a trail of men behind her, rich and poor, alive and dead.

Detective Charlie Chan springs into action when top officials of a New Orleans chemical company begin dropping like flies.

A couple discovers that their friend has gone missing. Their investigation leads them to believe that anti-semites are behind the disappearance.

Joe McDoakes imagines himself as a private detective on a murder case. Throughout the film, he spars verbally with narrator Art Gilmore.

A man kills his terminally ill wife to prevent her further suffering.

A killer hides out in a small-town boarding house.

Charlie attempts to solve a triple murder in which a dead man's finger prints show up at all three murder sites.

An escaped criminal impersonates a Police Commissioner, causing no end of trouble to a determined Federal Agent.

Three older sisters live on their family estate in Wales. This household once proudly reigned over a mining town, but the mines dried up and the estate and the town have fallen on hard times. When the land crumbles and a number of homes in the town are destroyed the sisters promise to rebuild the homes.

In the late 19th century, on board a ship sailing from Jamaica to England, Olivia Harwood, a recent widow, takes on the task of caring for several malaria patients, including Mark Bellis, a mysterious and tormented painter.

Poor Red Jones gets fired from every job he tries. His fiancée gives him one last chance to make good when he becomes a Fuller Brush man. His awkward attempts at sales are further complicated when one of his customers is murdered and he becomes the prime suspect.

Former "Henry Aldrich" James Lydon acquits himself nicely in a serious role in Republic's Out of the Storm. Lydon plays Donald Lewis, a low-paid clerk in a high-profile shipbuilding firm. When the company is robbed in broad daylight, Lewis gathers up $100,000 on his own and skeedaddles, figuring that the lost funds will be attributed to the holdup. Before his girlfriend Ginny (Lois Collier) can persuade him to go straight, the hapless Lewis finds himself hotly pursued by cops and crooks alike.

Blackie is the natural suspect when an expensive pearl necklace is stolen while he is supposed to be guarding it.

When a woman goes missing on the eve of her wedding, her fiancee hires a detective to track her down

A wealthy man hires a detective to investigate his wife's mysterious past.

Eddie, (Dane Clark) a small-time hoodlum is forced to care for Marie (Geraldine Brooks) he accidentally hits with his car during a crime. He is broke and hits up his very displeased mob boss for cash. To make matters worse, Eddie and Marie begin to fall for each other.

Behind the locked doors of a mental institution resides crooked politico Judge Drake (Herbert Heyes), free from prosecution so long as he pretends to be crazy. To get the goods on Drake, private detective Ross Stewart has himself committed to the asylum as a patient. Meanwhile, reporter Kathy Lawrence (Lucille Bremer), posing as Stewart's wife, acts as his liaison to the outside world.

In order to learn the location of a fabled Aztec treasure, a professor kidnaps his colleague, the only man able to read the ancient Aztec script that is supposed to reveal the location of the treasure. Charlie Chan and his #1 and #2 sons journey to the jungles of Mexico to find the victim and bring the kidnapper and his gang to justice.

Prisoners battle each other -- and the police -- when they escape the Colorado State Penitentiary.

A mysterious barber hides a secret identity that eventually leads to tragedy.

Paul Temple is called in to help Scotland Yard track down a serial killer who has murdered several wealthy women.

Slip and Sach are in the sidewalk star-gazing business when they see a murder committed in a room at the El Royale Hotel.

Hoping to bury her criminal past, Jenny Hadley settles into a comfortable existence as Gina, the wife of the politician Clinton Crane. When her former associate Floyd Durant shows up to blackmail Gina, she has no choice but to murder him. Things take a bizarre turn when Barbara Arnold is charged with Durant's murder and Gina is selected to serve on the jury.

A cop on suspension is framed for murder when he noses in on a murder investigation.

Good Time Girl stars Jean Kent as incipient juvenile delinquent Gwen Rawlings. Sent to a home for "problem" girls, Gwen receives a crash course in petty crime. Back on the outside, she falls in with the usual bad crowd, and suffers spectacularly as a result.

Filmed in England but set in New York, No Orchids For Miss Blandish tells of a sheltered heiress (Linden Travers) who is abducted on her wedding night by a trio of cheap hoods, in what starts out as a jewel robbery and turns into a kidnapping/murder when one of them (Richard Nielson) kills the bridegroom. More mayhem ensues as the three kidnappers soon end up dead.

War hero turned villain George Martin escapes from the police, but he is handcuffed to a naive young crook Willie Stannard. After using a clever plan to obtain railway tickets, and with the police and the press in hot pursuit, George has to find a way of breaking loose from Willie, and to make his escape.

An ex-convict, freed to fight in World War II, gets a factory job and is accused when a bracelet is missing.

Captain Hugh "Bulldog" Drummond is called in to solve the murder of a man from whom two lead soldiers were stolen. Drummond learns that the two soldiers were part of a set of thirteen which formed the key to a hidden vault of treasure. Following some clever sleuthing and set-up on Drummond's part, the guilty man is trapped in the vault,which is hidden behind the fireplace.

Superman comes to Earth as a child and grows up to be his home's first superhero with his first major challenge being to oppose The Spider Lady.

A night-club owner takes on the crooks who killed his best friend.

John Payne is the no-good lowdown rat who tries to capitalize on postwar patriotism and grief. He finagles a war widow (Joan Caulfied) into giving up her savings for a nonexistent memorial. When Payne falls in love with the widow he has pangs of conscience, but he reckons without his con-artist boss (Dan Duryea), who tends to bolster his arguments with muscle and bullets.