Best Crime Movies of 2012

Two young officers are marked for death after confiscating a small cache of money and firearms from the members of a notorious cartel during a routine traffic stop.

In high school, Schmidt was a dork and Jenko was the popular jock. After graduation, both of them joined the police force and ended up as partners riding bicycles in the city park. Since they are young and look like high school students, they are assigned to an undercover unit to infiltrate a drug ring that is supplying high school students synthetic drugs.

In 1931, the Bondurant brothers of Franklin County, Virginia, run a multipurpose backwoods establishment that hides their true business — bootlegging. Middle brother Forrest is the brain of the operation; older Howard is the brawn, and younger Jack, the lookout. Though the local police have taken bribes and left the brothers alone, a violent war erupts when a sadistic lawman from Chicago arrives and tries to shut down the Bondurants operation.

When a gunman takes five lives with six shots, all evidence points to the suspect in custody. On interrogation, the suspect offers up a single note: "Get Jack Reacher!" So begins an extraordinary chase for the truth, pitting Jack Reacher against an unexpected enemy, with a skill for violence and a secret to keep.

A struggling screenwriter inadvertently becomes entangled in the Los Angeles criminal underworld after his oddball friends kidnap a gangster's beloved Shih Tzu.

A career criminal nabbed by Mexican authorities is placed in a tough prison where he learns to survive with the help of a 9-year-old boy.

An ex-cop turned con threatens to jump to his death from a Manhattan hotel rooftop. The NYPD dispatch a female police psychologist to talk him down. However, unbeknownst to the police on the scene, the suicide attempt is a cover for the biggest diamond heist ever pulled.

After a former elite agent rescues a 12-year-old Chinese girl who's been abducted, they find themselves in the middle of a standoff between Triads, the Russian Mafia and high-level corrupt New York City politicians and police.

In Istanbul, retired CIA operative Bryan Mills and his wife are taken hostage by the father of a kidnapper Mills killed while rescuing his daughter.

In Manhattan, a bike messenger picks up an envelope that attracts the interest of a dirty cop, who pursues the cyclist throughout the city.

Pot growers Ben and Chon face off against the Mexican drug cartel who kidnapped their shared girlfriend.

A fictionalized account of the last days of Edgar Allan Poe's life, in which the poet is in pursuit of a serial killer whose murders mirror those in the writer's stories.

When his brother-in-law runs afoul of a drug lord, family man Chris Farraday turns to a skill he abandoned long ago—smuggling—to repay the debt. But the job goes wrong, and Farraday finds himself wanted by cops, crooks and killers alike.

Curmudgeonly old Frank lives by himself. His routine involves daily visits to his local library, where he has a twinkle in his eye for the librarian. His grown children are concerned about their father’s well-being and buy him a caretaker robot. Initially resistant to the idea, Frank soon appreciates the benefits of robotic support – like nutritious meals and a clean house – and eventually begins to treat his robot like a true companion. With his robot’s assistance, Frank’s passion for his old, unlawful profession is reignited, for better or worse.

Jackie Cogan is an enforcer hired to restore order after three dumb guys rob a Mob protected card game, causing the local criminal economy to collapse.

In small-town Texas, affable and popular mortician Bernie Tiede strikes up a friendship with Marjorie Nugent, a wealthy widow well known for her sour attitude. When she becomes controlling and abusive, Bernie goes to great lengths to remove himself from her grasp.

The true story of Richard Kuklinski, the notorious contract killer and family man.

A serial killer kidnaps a young boy after murdering his mother, then raises him to be his accomplice. After years in captivity, the boy must choose between escaping or following in his captor's bloody footprints.

Chris wants to show girlfriend Tina his world, but events soon conspire against the couple and their dream caravan holiday takes a very wrong turn.

On a particularly busy day at a suburban Ohio fast food restaurant, manager Sandra receives a phone call from a police officer saying that an employee has stolen money from a customer.

In a bad neighborhood, on his way to a laundromat to do his laundry, Frank Castle witnesses a ruthless street gang harassing several people.

When three redneck brothers agree to help a woman save her son from an abusive father, they become targets on the run from an odd cast of characters.

A thriller that follows two siblings who decide to fend for themselves in the wake of a botched casino heist, and their unlikely reunion during another family's Thanksgiving celebration.

Jack Regan, a hardened cop who doesn’t play by the rules, is confronted with a criminal from his past. With sidekick George Carter they are put on the case of a jewellery store heist that ends in a killing. But is that killing really an execution in disguise? With pressure from his boss and the fact that Regan is having an affair with that boss’s wife, it’s not going to be easy for him to stay out of trouble.

An ex-mercenary known for finding missing children is hired by a mixed martial arts fighter whose daughter has been kidnapped.

While working undercover as a bodyguard to arms dealer Harry, former-soldier-turned-secret-service-agent Ewan survives a bloody shootout with a member of an Islamic terrorist cell who steals Harry's briefcase full of Semtex explosives and escapes. Ewan's spymasters task Ewan with hunting down the cell members and retrieving the briefcase.

A Secret Service Agent is held captive in the trunk of a car and endures high-speed mental and physical torture as terrorists attempt to extract needed information for their sinister plot.

When the rumored whereabouts of Osama bin Laden are revealed, the CIA readies a team of seasoned U.S. Navy SEALs for the mission of a lifetime. Despite inconclusive evidence that bin Laden is inside the compound, and ignoring the possible ramifications of an unannounced attack on Pakistani soil, the Pentagon orders the attack. The SEAL Team bands together to complete their mission of justice in a riveting final showdown.

A dishonest insurance salesman's life quickly disintegrates during a Wisconsin winter when he teams up with a psychopath to steal a rare violin at the home of a reclusive farmer.

An heiress who's been shut inside her apartment building for nearly two decades is forced to confront her fears after one of her neighbors is killed and a detective arrives to begin the investigation.

A fireman takes an unexpected course of action when a man whom he's been ordered to testify against—after being held up at a local convenience store—threatens him.

An obsessed cop is on the trail of a serial killer prowling the streets of Buffalo, N.Y. but when his teenage daughter disappears, he drops any professional restraint to get the killer.

The true story of Chong Kim—abducted into the sex trade as a young teen—and the complicated moral choices she had to make in order to survive as her situation grew more desperate.

Nate takes his family for a camping trip to reconnect. When they pull off at a rest stop, a gang of thieves hides their stash from an armored car robbery among the family belongings. They soon find themselves on the run and the gang will stop at nothing to get their money back.

Master thief Will Montgomery is just released from the State penitentiary after serving a 10 year sentence, is contacted by Vincent, his ex comrade in crime, who is holding Will’s teenage daughter ransom in a hijacked taxi cab. Vincent will only surrender her when Will reveals the whereabouts of the 20 million dollars he contrived to conceal from their last robbery.

Jim Moriarty hatches a mad scheme to turn the whole city against Sherlock.

An art curator decides to seek revenge on his abusive boss by conning him into buying a fake Monet, but his plan requires the help of an eccentric and unpredictable Texas rodeo queen.

Every year hundreds of people - mostly women - are attacked with acid in Pakistan. Follow several of these survivors, their fight for justice, and a Pakistani plastic surgeon who has returned to his homeland to help them restore their faces and their lives.

For years, mild-mannered Wall Street banker George Needleman has meandered through life oblivious to his family's dysfunction and his company's malfeasance, but he's forced to wake up when he learns that he's been framed in a mob-backed Ponzi scheme. Placed under federal protection, George and his family are shipped down South to Madea's house, where the no-nonsense matriarch whips them all into shape using her special brand of tough love.

An unemployed lingerie buyer convinces her bail bondsman cousin to give her a shot as a bounty hunter. Her first assignment is to track down a former cop on the run for murder – the same man who broke her heart years before. With the help of some friends and the best bounty hunter in the business, she slowly learns what it takes to be a true bounty hunter.

The rivalry between the manipulative boss of an advertising agency and her talented protégée escalates from stealing credit to public humiliation to murder.

Follows disillusioned young family man John as a mysterious stranger, Richie takes him on a murder-fueled ride that transforms the weak-willed John into a desperate hero willing to go to any length to protect his family.

Jimmy McNamara is an ex-writer and WWII vet turned accountant who receives a call from Vivian, his ex-fiance and nightclub singer. Vivian got a Hollywood contract and is taking Jimmy with her. All he has to do is retrieve the negatives of compromising pictures that put her bright future in danger. But Jimmy's mission might not be as simple as it seems.

After Washington DC detective Alex Cross is told that a family member has been murdered, he vows to track down the killer. He soon discovers that she was not his first victim and that things are not what they seem.

When a clumsy deadbeat accidentally kills his landlord, he must do everything in his power to hide the body, only to find that the distractions of lust, the death of his beloved brother, and a crew of misfit characters force him on a journey where a fortune awaits him.

Jesse finds himself struggling to get his job back as the Paradise police chief, and he is forced to rely on his cop intuition to sort through a maze of misleading clues and hidden meanings as he attempts to solve a shocking and horrifying mob-related double homicide.

Thriller charting the moral collapse of a police family. Two cop brothers, smothered by the shadow of their former police chief father, must investigate a crime they themselves have committed.

Liam and Michael are professional safe crackers who meet on a simple job to relieve an office safe from its contents. The catch is a light activated alarm system impelling the men to embark on a pitch black heist.

When Oliver becomes obsessed with a dog at the pound, he finds himself in a desperate rivalry with an unexpected stranger.