Best Crime Movies of 1981

Frank is an expert professional safecracker, specialized in high-profile diamond heists. He plans to use his ill-gotten income to retire from crime and build a nice life for himself complete with a home, wife and kids. To accelerate the process, he signs on with a top gangster for a big score.

In the midst of a searing Florida heat wave, a woman convinces her lover, a small-town lawyer, to murder her rich husband.

Kermit and Fozzie are newspaper reporters sent to London to interview Lady Holiday, a wealthy fashion designer whose priceless diamond necklace is stolen. Kermit meets and falls in love with her secretary, Miss Piggy. The jewel thieves strike again, and this time frame Miss Piggy. It's up to Kermit and Muppets to bring the real culprits to justice.

The sensuous wife of a lunch wagon proprietor and a rootless drifter begin a sordidly steamy affair and conspire to murder her Greek husband.

A shy and mute seamstress goes insane after being attacked and raped twice in one day. She wanders the New York streets at night in a sexy black dress with her attacker's gun strapped to her garter belt, blowing away any man who tries to pick her up.

An honest marshal in a corrupt mining colony on Io, Jupiter's sunless third moon, is determined to confront a violent drug ring even though it may cost him his life. After his wife angrily deserts him, he waits alone for the arrival of killers hired by the company to eliminate him.

An international terrorist has New York in a grip of panic and it's up to Det. Sgt. Deke DaSilva to take him down.

New York City detective Daniel Ciello agrees to help the United States Department of Justice help eliminate corruption in the police department, as long as he will not have to turn in any close friends. In doing so, Ciello uncovers a conspiracy within the force to smuggle drugs to street informants

A documentary of the decline of America. Featuring footage (most exclusive to this film) from race riots to serial killers and much-much more.

Richard spots a man dumping a body, and decides to expose the man he thinks is the culprit with his friend Alex Cutter.

From the sight of a police officer this movie depicts the life in New York's infamous South Bronx. In the center is "Fort Apache", as the officers call their police station, which really seems like an outpost in enemy's country. The story follows officer Murphy, who seems to be a tuff cynic, but in truth he's a moralist with a sense for justice.

Police officer Tom Sharky gets busted back to working vice, where he happens upon a scandalous conspiracy involving a local politician. Sharky's new 'machine' gathers evidence while Sharky falls in love with a woman he has never met.

A cop clashes with his priest brother while investigating the brutal murder of a young prostitute

Sean Kane is forced to resign from the San Francisco Police Department's Narcotics Division when he goes berserk after his partner is murdered. He decides to fight alone and follows a trail of drug traffickers into unexpected high places.

A speculation on the fate of the famous hijacker who parachuted with his ransom and disappeared in the mountains. Has Cooper succeeded in following a meticulous plan to disappear into anonymity despite the best efforts of a dogged cop?

Dave knows what it is to suffer. Especially when he takes the rap for a gang of motorbike thieves and ends up in jail. All for the love of Corinna, his beautiful girlfriend. Refused parole and nearly insane with frustration he makes a violent escape to be with her and strike back.

After completing his training of ninjutsu within Japan, an American Angolan Bush War veteran by the name of Cole visits his war buddy Frank Landers and his newly wed wife Mary Ann Landers, who are the owners of a large piece of farming land in the Philippines. Cole soon finds that the Landers are being repeatedly harassed by a CEO named Charles Venarius.

A researcher for the CIA who convinces his superiors to send him to the eastern bloc in order to avenge the murder of his wife by enemy agents discovers a web of deception underneath his wife's death.

A reconstruction of the possible events that might have led up to the real-life tragic case of the Luxton family who lived at West Chapple Farm, Winkleigh, Devon. Brothers and sister Robert, Alan and Frances Luxton had lived in the farm for many years. On 23 September 1975 their bodies were found with shotgun wounds outside their farmhouse.

A district attorney prosecutes a young wife and mother for shooting and killing an intruder.

A police sergeant and a parole officer endeavor to stop a rapist-on-parole before he can follow through his threats on five women whom testifed against him years earlier.

Charthurst Green, Kent, 1966. Pauline Cox accompanies Mike Robins to a village cricket match in which he is playing, but becomes bored and wanders away. She fetches up at the local railway station, where she is first entertained to tea by the garrulous, hunchbacked station master, then upset by the intrusion of the latter's assistant Ewen, who proceeds to kill a rabbit in her presence. Making her way back to the match, Pauline is waylaid by the simple-minded Ewen as she crosses an apple orchard; when his advances become violent, she tries to fight him off and he strangles her. The station master helps in covering up the murder, burying the corpse in the orchard.

When architect Stephen Booker loses his partnership, he finds jobs hard to come by, and with money in short supply, he unwittingly becomes involved in a daring scheme to rob one of London's biggest bank vaults.

Three buddies after 'Fast Money' try flying drugs into the U.S. from Mexico. When they meet with unexpected dangers, the trip turns turbulent.

Three brothers smuggle arms and drugs from Mexico into the US.

Robert Blake's second (of three) "Joe Dancer" movies has the hard-boiled private investigator teaming up with a chimp named Gregor, his trainer (who also happens to be an expert thief), and an electronics genius of questionable repute to steal back a priceless vase looted from a family collection during World War II.

When D. C. Dangerous Davies, not held in high regard by his superiors, is assigned to find a notorious criminal kingpin, he uncovers the details of 15-year-old cold case.

Magazine mogul, Hugh Heffer, sends private eye Ginger Trueheart on a sex-sizzling search through San Francisco's infamous "Tenderloin" district. It seems that Mr. Heffer is looking for a missing enchantress who is "the best in the world".

Hoodwink is based on the true story of an Australian con artist who briefly won the hearts of the media (if not the authorities). John Hargreaves stars as a criminal serving time in a New South Wales prison. He's not partial to the physical labor required of the convicts, so he hits upon a labor-saving plan. Hargreaves pretends to be totally blind, thus lightening his work load....and carries off the hoax for years.

Couples and Robbers is a 1981 English language comedy/crime film written and directed by Clare Peploe, starring Frances Low, Rik Mayall and Peter Eyre. Two couples -- one with all the riches that dreams are made of, the other with only dreams and schemes -- are brought together by the plotting of the poorer couple. A pair of newlyweds wander through the city streets, bickering about their poverty, until they are distracted by the opulent home of a lawyer. Impulsively, the couple makes off with the lawyer's vehicle for one night of extravagant indulgence. The film was nominated for an Oscar for Best Live Action Short Film.

The film begins with the Munster family making a visit to the wax museum. They take a picture of themselves standing next to their wax replicas. When the family leaves, the statues in the museum mysteriously come to life and begin wreaking havoc across the city. Herman and Grandpa are then arrested for various crimes they did not commit and try to clear their names in time for the Halloween celebration at the Munster home.

Amanda Heather is a high-class call girl trying to go straight. A last "favor" for a former pimp/lover results in the death of one of Amanda's young prostitute friends and she is inexorably drawn into a spiral of brutality, corruption, violent sensuality, and ever-building tension as the murderer stalks her. Amanda's emotions are brought to the boiling point by the persistent, tormenting questions of detective Ambrose Harte as he struggles to solve the murders and free Amanda from the treacherous web of lust that is her "working" life.

The first of three private-eye movies created by Robert Blake about rugged Joe Dancer as the forerunner to a prospective but unrealized series after the retirement of his "Baretta" character. In the initial outing, Blake, as Dancer, follows a trail of bodies through a maze of corruption involving a politically ambitious Beverly Hills family. Blake's wife, Sondra, was cast as Dancer's wheelchair-bound girl Friday.

Novak is a police inspector to whom any means is fair in getting evidence on criminals - especially drug dealers. He is after a drug ring that includes a city official and desperately needs evidence to bring the corrupt politician to trial, and to close down the ring. To that end, he involves Helene, the politician's secretary, causing her intensive emotional stress as he destroys her home life and unintentionally costs the life of her sister. By the time events have completed their course, the inspector has a chance to help Helene back to normalcy, and to reflect on the ultimate worth of his methods.

Two episodes of the TV series "Spider Man" edited together and released as a feature.

Prisoners of Detention Satellite 3 plan an impossible escape.

When his father - who owned a circus - dies, Oscar inherits 5 million dollars - and 3 orang outangs. However there's a condition connected to the money: if he gives away the apes or just one gets sick or dies during the next 3 years, the zoologic society will get all the money. So he not only has to deal with 3 apes and an annoyed girlfriend, but also with a greedy zoologic society's president.

A 1981 Filipino parody film starring Redford White and Pia Moran.

Beautiful newcomer Cheryl Hanson, and a host of your favorite cover girls and centerspreads from the steaming pages of the world's hottest magazines. Expose their erotic talents in this sizzling adult extravaganza.

A housewife who's into swinging is kidnapped and finds herself being subjected to some heavy-duty B&D and S&M. She also finds that she is starting to like it.

A teenage boy runs away from home. He joins the circus but finds out that it's not all what it's cracked up to be. But then the boy becomes a witness to a murder, and he must try to stay out of the killer's way.

The film tells the story of three teenagers, based on real life gangsters Charles "Lucky" Luciano (Michael Nouri), Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel (Joe Penny) and Michael Lasker (Brian Benben) (a fictional character who was most likely modeled after Meyer Lansky), growing up in New York's ghettos during the early 1900s to their rise though organized crime.

A re-enactment of the trial of the mistress of the Scarsdale Diet doctor for his March 1980 murder, with excerpts from the transcript of the proceedings serving as the script.

Sergei has organized a group sex party during which one woman is hooked up to a thrusting vibrator and another experiences anal sex against her will. Sergei tells the story of his grandfather in the 1930's and what amounts to two Bonnie's and two Clyde's who discover each other in a holdup and merge forces. In the process though, they are temporarily enjoying an idyllic love life in the backwoods. But one of them irritates a Mexican who shoots up the guys and beats the females. A rough rarity!

Crime drama set in Prohibition era Chicago. John Forsythe plays a cold-hearted gangster who succumbs to the innocent charms and curvaceous body of a small-town girl played by Loni Anderson.

Hellinger's Law is a made-for-TV movie starring Sean Penn

With their marriage on the rocks, Jo Ann and Bruce split and become born again sexual thrillseekers. You won't believe what goes on inside the house of forbidden dreams. Where depraved Madame Zolia provides Jo Ann with many an electrifying sexual fantasy that make sparks fly. But don't count Bruce out either. He goes to Vegas where Mai Lin works on his chopsticks till there ain't no more. Banzai! Needless to say, after this wild interlude of Lust the horny couple gets back together and lives hotly ever after.

Sir Thomas Bedford orchestrates the heist of a Spanish casino, with the aid of a singer performing there. The police are aware of their activities, and a hostage situation arises.

Dan and Carole meet and confess to each other, their desire to leave everything, and to die. They decide to perform crimes to live without paying. But one day : they commit a murder.