The Big HeatMovies like The Big Heat
- Key Features:
- Police corruption, Crime syndicate, Vigilante justice, Moral compromise, Revenge, Film noir, Femme fatale, Betrayal, Violence-high, Underworld, Cover-up, Family man, 1950s
- Tone:
- serious, gritty, suspense-driven
- Target Audience:
- Film noir enthusiasts, Crime drama fans, Classic movie buffs, Those interested in stories of corruption and justice
- Emotional Arc:
- Investigation → Vengeance → Resolution
The Big Heat

After the suspicious suicide of a fellow cop, tough homicide detective Dave Bannion takes the law into his own hands when he sets out to smash a vicious crime syndicate.
The Big Heat
Police Lt. Leonard Diamond vies to bring a clever, well connected, and sadistic gangster to justice all the while obsessing over the gangster's girlfriend.

Private eye Philip Marlowe investigates a case of blackmail involving the two wild daughters of a rich general, a pornographer and a gangster.

A hit man and his partner try to find out why their latest victim, a former race-car driver, did not try to get away.

Kathy leaves the newspaper business to marry homicide detective Bill, but is frustrated by his lack of ambition and the banality of life in the suburbs. Her drive to advance Bill's career soon takes her down a dangerous path.

During an extreme heatwave, a beautiful Florida woman and a seedy lawyer engage in an affair while plotting the murder of her rich husband.

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.

"Dirty" Harry Callahan is a San Francisco Police Inspector on the trail of a group of rogue cops who have taken justice into their own hands. When shady characters are murdered one after another in grisly fashion, only Dirty Harry can stop them.

Three detectives in the corrupt and brutal L.A. police force of the 1950s use differing methods to uncover a conspiracy behind the shotgun slayings of the patrons at an all-night diner.

Lawyer Joe Morse wants to consolidate all the small-time numbers racket operators into one big powerful operation. But his elder brother Leo is one of these small-time operators who wants to stay that way, preferring not to deal with the gangsters who dominate the big-time.

When a madman dubbed 'Scorpio' terrorizes San Francisco, hard-nosed cop, Harry Callahan – famous for his take-no-prisoners approach to law enforcement – is tasked with hunting down the psychopath.

Remy McSwain is a New Orleans police lieutenant who investigates the murder of a local mobster. His investigation leads him to suspect that fellow members of the police force may be involved.

A bitter young man sets out to get back at the gangsters who murdered his father.

Fed up with her small-town marriage, a woman goes after the big time and gets mixed up with the mob.

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

An obsessive, insubordinate homicide cop is convinced a serial killer is loose in the Hollywood area and disobeys orders in order to catch him.

Movie star Charlie Castle draws the ire of Hollywood producer Stanley Hoff when he refuses to sign a new seven-year contract. Castle is sick of the low quality of the studio's films and wants to start a new life. While his estranged wife supports him in the decision, Castle's talent agent urges him to reconsider. When Castle continues to be uncooperative, Hoff resorts to blackmail in order to get his way.

A tough as nails private investigator (Malone) squares off with gangsters and their thugs to protect a valuable secret. Malone goes through hell to protect the information but he dishes some hell as well...

New York police detective John Shaft arrests Walter Wade Jr. for a racially motivated slaying. But the only eyewitness disappears, and Wade jumps bail for Switzerland. Two years later Wade returns to face trial, confident his money and influence will get him acquitted -- especially since he's paid a drug kingpin to kill the witness.

Vengeance drives a tough Detroit cop to stay on the trail of a power hungry auto magnate who's systematically eliminating his competition.

Obsessive master thief Neil McCauley leads a top-notch crew on various daring heists throughout Los Angeles while determined detective Vincent Hanna pursues him without rest. Each man recognizes and respects the ability and the dedication of the other even though they are aware their cat-and-mouse game may end in violence.

While executing an armored car heist in Los Angeles, icy crook Dave Purvis shoots policeman Lt. Phillips before he and his cronies make off with the loot. Thinking he got away scot-free, Purvis collects his money-crazy mistress, Yvonne, then disposes of his partners and heads out of town. What Purvis doesn't know is that Phillips' partner, tough-as-nails Lt. Cordell, is wise to the criminal's plans and is closing in on his prey.

John Shaft is back as the lady-loved black detective cop on the search for the murderer of a client.

A crime-busting lawyer and his initially reluctant attorney father take on the forces that run gambling and prostitution in their small Southern town.

A dabbler-in-crime and his assistant hire an ex-police reporter to recover some stolen papers.

Police Lieutenant Lon McQ investigates the killing of his best friend and uncovers corrupt elements of the police department dealing in confiscated drugs.

A tough detective who is part of an elite New York City unit is trying to find out who killed his partner, but uncovers a plot to kidnap mobsters for money.

A private detective is hired to find a missing stripper but the job turns complicated when everyone he questions ends up dead. From the mean streets of Los Angeles to the desolate desert of New Mexico, Cruz must contend with a brutal Russian Boxer, three brash LAPD detectives, an aged billionaire looking for the Big Bang, and the billionaire's stunningly gorgeous wife. The solution to the mystery will cost ten lives, net $30 million and just might explain - well - everything.

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.

Defying orders to lay-off the case, two Los Angeles vice-squad cops go after a local mobster and use unorthodox methods to achieve results.

A prizefighter-turned-longshoreman with a conscience goes up against labor leaders to expose corruption, extortion, and murder among the union ranks.

Career criminal Johnny Clay recruits a sharpshooter, a crooked police officer, a bartender and a betting teller named George, among others, for one last job before he goes straight and gets married. But when George tells his restless wife about the scheme to steal millions from the racetrack where he works, she hatches a plot of her own.

A tough Russian policeman is forced to partner up with a cocky Chicago police detective when he is sent to Chicago to apprehend a Georgian drug lord who killed his partner and fled the country.

Private eye Jake Gittes lives off of the murky moral climate of sunbaked, pre-World War II Southern California. Hired by a beautiful socialite to investigate her husband's extra-marital affair, Gittes is swept into a maelstrom of double dealings and deadly deceits, uncovering a web of personal and political scandals that come crashing together.

Two feuding siblings carrying on a heroic family tradition as Chicago firefighters. But when a puzzling series of arson attacks is reported, they are forced to set aside their differences to solve the mystery surrounding these crimes.

The LA police department have a special team of officers with a talent for reducing big-time crime. The team leader has an excellent track record for crime reduction in other big cities, but his methods are unconventional, and so is he - he's a werewolf.

As a rowdy team of detectives clashes with their disciplined new boss, they must catch a vicious band of robbers who are wreaking havoc on their city.

A rookie cop inadvertently captures the murder of a young drug dealer on her body cam. After realizing that the murder was committed by corrupt cops, she teams up with the one person from her community who is willing to help her as she tries to escape both the criminals out for revenge and the police who are desperate to destroy the incriminating footage.

Frank Gannon, a veteran cop, is being hunted by his fellow police officers after they learned he has betrayed the brotherhood and exposed to the feds wide scale corruption of the LAPD. He has one day left to prove his case and survive.

Over-the-hill gumshoe in Los Angeles seeks to avenge the killing of an old pal, another detective who was involved in a case concerning a murdered broad, stolen stamps, a nickel-plated handgun, a cheating dolly, and a kidnapped pussycat.

A detective breaks all rules of ethical conduct while investigating a colleague’s involvement in drug pushing and Yakuza activities.

Tough narcotics detective 'Popeye' Doyle is in hot pursuit of a suave French drug dealer who may be the key to a huge heroin-smuggling operation.

A mild-mannered father is transformed into a killing machine after his family is torn apart by a violent act.

A Korean War vet returns to his job as a railroad engineer and becomes involved in a sordid affair with a co-worker's wife and murder. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive, in partnership with Sony Pictures Entertainment, in 1997.

A self-assured businessman murders his employer, husband of his mistress, which unintentionally provokes an ill-fated chain of events.

Harper is a cynical private eye in the best tradition of Bogart. He even has Bogie's Baby hiring him to find her missing husband, getting involved along the way with an assortment of unsavory characters and an illegal-alien smuggling ring.

Six months before his retirement from the criminal police, inspector Joss finds his colleague Gouvion dead, in a poorly faked suicide attempt. Joss loses his temper, and investigates on his own, which leads him through the bas-fond of Paris...

After trying to cover up a car accident that left a man dead, a crooked homicide detective is stalked by a mysterious man claiming to have witnessed the event.

New York cop Frank Serpico blows the whistle on the rampant corruption in the force only to have his comrades turn against him.

Emile Chenal and his wife, Françoise, leaned on boxing manager Jim Fox Warner to cough up the considerable sum of money that he owes them, with both the police and the mob circling the situation. In the same hotel, Inspector Neveu looks into a murder that took place years before, and his storyline overlaps with the arc of the Chenals.

Tom Ludlow is a disillusioned L.A. Police Officer, rarely playing by the rules and haunted by the death of his wife. When evidence implicates him in the execution of a fellow officer, he is forced to go up against the cop culture he's been a part of his entire career, ultimately leading him to question the loyalties of everyone around him.

After going to extremes to cover up an accident, a corrupt cop's life spirals out of control when he starts receiving threats from a mysterious witness.

Reynolds plays an ex-soldier-of-fortunish character in Vegas, taking "Chaperone" jobs, fighting with the mob, and trying to get enough money together to move to Venice, Italy.

China O'Brien; big city police woman; martial arts trainer, is forced to hand in her badge and head home to her father and the small town where she grew up. The peaceful town she knew is now struggling against the clutches of organized crime. When her father, the town sheriff, is killed China decides to run for his position and clean up the town. The poll results spark a series of confrontations that finally decide who runs the town . . .

After surviving an attempt on his life by his former partner, officer Cliff Garrett (Norris) exacts revenge on those who wronged him by going undercover as a hit man. He works to gain the reputation and trust needed in order to be accepted by the burgeoning Seattle-area criminal underworld, but it is all done in order to take it down from within.

In the late 1970s, Cockney crime boss Harold Shand, a gangster trying to become a legitimate property mogul, has big plans to get the American Mafia to bankroll his transformation of a derelict area of London into the possible venue for a future Olympic Games. However, a series of bombings targets his empire on the very weekend the Americans are in town. Shand is convinced there is a traitor in his organization, and sets out to eliminate the rat in typically ruthless fashion.

A Los Angeles detective is sent to New York where he must solve a case involving an old Sicilian Mafia family feud.

An ethical Baltimore defense lawyer disgusted with rampant legal corruption is forced to defend a judge he despises in a rape trial under the threat of being disbarred.

After watching their respective partners die, a cop and a hitman form an alliance in order to bring down their common enemy.

A voluptuous black woman takes a job as a high-class prostitute in order to get revenge on the mobsters who murdered her boyfriend.

Enforcing the law within the notoriously rough Brownsville section of the city and especially within the Van Dyke housing projects is the NYPD's sixty-fifth precinct. Three police officers struggle with the sometimes fine line between right and wrong.

A cop who loses his partner in a shoot-out with gun smugglers goes on a mission to catch them. In order to get closer to the leaders of the ring he joins forces with an undercover cop who's working as a gangster hitman. They use all means of excessive force to find them.

Tony Rome, a tough Miami PI living on a houseboat, is hired by a local millionaire to find jewelry stolen from his daughter, and in the process has several encounters with local hoods as well as the Miami Beach PD.

Gino Felino is an NYPD detective from Brooklyn who knows everyone and everything in his neighborhood. Killing his partner was someone's big mistake... because he's now out for justice.

When a car bomb explodes on the American side of the U.S./Mexico border, Mexican drug enforcement agent Miguel Vargas begins his investigation, along with American police captain Hank Quinlan. When Vargas begins to suspect that Quinlan and his shady partner, Menzies, are planting evidence to frame an innocent man, his investigations into their possible corruption quickly put himself and his new bride, Susie, in jeopardy.

The son of a slain NYPD officer joins the force, where he falls in with his father's former partner and a team of rogue cops. His new boss, Sarcone, will see if he has what it takes to be rogue through many trials and tribulations of loyalty, trust and respect. When the truth about his father's death is revealed revenge takes him over and he won't stop until justice has been truly served.

Unofficial lawman John Corbett hunts down Cuchillo Sanchez, a Mexican peasant accused of raping and killing a 12-year-old girl.

After his wife is murdered by street punks, a pacifistic New York City architect becomes a one-man vigilante squad, prowling the streets for would-be muggers after dark.

Marseille. Heaps of flowers and funeral wreaths... "A man who no longer defends his colors is no longer a man."

Mysterious Orfamay Quest hires Los Angeles private investigator Philip Marlowe to find her missing brother. Though the job seems simple enough, it leads Marlowe into the underbelly of the city, turning up leads who are murdered with ice picks, exotic dancers, blackmailed television stars and self-preserving gangsters. Soon, Marlowe's life is on the line right along with his case.

After murdering an undercover DEA agent, two corrupt cops scramble to cover up what they've done.

A police officer who while responding to a violent hostage call, kills the African American suspect only to later learn of his innocence. Sensing this was a set-up, and facing repercussions, he must track down the person responsible while examining his own accountability and the ingrained racism which brought him to this point.

Freddy Heflin is the sheriff of a place everyone calls “Cop Land” — a small and seemingly peaceful town populated by the big city police officers he’s long admired. Yet something ugly is taking place behind the town’s peaceful facade. And when Freddy uncovers a massive, deadly conspiracy among these local residents, he is forced to take action and make a dangerous choice between protecting his idols and upholding the law.

An ageing punk-with-a-dog and his brother the conformist decide to get their revenge on a shopping mall. Directing duo Benoit Delepine and Gustave Kervern, longstanding comic crusaders against capitalism, again set out to surprise and shock the bourgeois audience.

A hitman is double-crossed by his girlfriend and barely escapes a murder attempt. He then sets out to take his revenge on the woman and the gang boss who put her up to it.

Based on true events. A disgraced police detective seeking redemption goes undercover to expose a violent crime syndicate. But as he sinks deeper into the mob, the price for absolution may be higher than he can afford.

A frustrated man decides to take justice into his own hands after a plea bargain sets one of his family's killers free. He targets not only the killer but also the district attorney and others involved in the deal.

A Jewish homicide detective investigates a seemingly minor murder and falls in with a Zionist group as a result.

A police detective falls for the bank robber's girlfriend he is supposed to be tailing.

Los Angeles homicide detective Jerry Beck searches for the murderer who killed a police officer on Christmas Eve. The investigation takes Beck inside the violent world of hate groups and white supremacists, who are hatching a deadly plot to attack even more innocent people. Beck must also confront his own personal demons, including his growing problem with alcohol, if he wants to track down and stop the violent neo-Nazis before it is too late.

Ned Ravine is a police officer and lawyer who occasionally defends the delinquents he arrests. He crosses paths with seductive Lola Cain during an assignment and promptly begins an affair with her. Meanwhile, Ned's wife, Lana, is deep in an affair of her own. Lana and her lover are planning to murder Ned in an elaborate fashion so they can collect on his triple indemnity life insurance policy.

Paul Kersey is back at working vigilante justice when his fiancée, Olivia, has her business threatened by mobsters.

In a daring robbery, some $300,000 is taken from the Italian mob. Several mafiosi are killed, as are two policemen. Lt. Pope and Capt. Mattelli are two New York City cops trying to break the case. Three small-time criminals are on the run with the money. Will the mafia catch them first, or will the police?

A gangster escapes jail and quickly makes plans to continue his criminal ways elsewhere, but a determined inspector is closing in.

A noir thriller set in Miami, the film follows an enforcer who discovers his femme fatale boss has branched out into cyber sex trafficking, putting a young runaway he’s befriended at risk. He sacrifices everything to save the young girl from the deadly organization he’s spent his life building.

African-American Philadelphia police detective Virgil Tibbs is arrested on suspicion of murder by Bill Gillespie, the racist police chief of tiny Sparta, Mississippi. After Tibbs proves not only his own innocence but that of another man, he joins forces with Gillespie to track down the real killer. Their investigation takes them through every social level of the town, with Tibbs making enemies as well as unlikely friends as he hunts for the truth.

Set during the Rodney King riots, a robbery homicide investigation triggers a series of events that will cause a corrupt LAPD officer to question his tactics.

Recently paroled from prison, legendary burglar "Doc" Riedenschneider, with funding from Alonzo Emmerich, a crooked lawyer, gathers a small group of veteran criminals together in the Midwest for a big jewel heist.

The body of teenager Gloria Hollinger is found dead on a Los Angeles beach, and Lt. Phil Gaines is in charge of the investigation. Gaines learns that the girl, a stripper and prostitute, committed suicide, but he ignores the connection between her and a powerful mob lawyer, Leo Sellers. Hollinger's father, however, is not satisfied with Gaines's results, and attempts to investigate the case on his own.

Private detective Philip Marlowe becomes embroiled in an investigation involving a wealthy Californian family after a beautiful blonde hires him to track down her former lover.

Tess Thorne, a famous writer, is determined to seek revenge on the man who brutally assaulted and raped her on a desolate New England road.

When his daughter is murdered, William Duncan takes the law into his own hands, setting out on a quest for retribution. After killing the street thug responsible for her death, he finds himself in the middle of a war with the thug's brother, father, and their gang, who are equally hell-bent on getting even. What ensues is a tense back-and-forth game of vengeance. By the end, William comes to find that the quest for revenge never has a winner.

When a young rape victim takes justice into her own hands and becomes a serial killer, it's up to Dirty Harry Callahan, on suspension from the SFPD, to bring her to justice.

Danny Trejo plays 'Bullet' a tough cop who takes the law into his own hands when his grandson is kidnapped.

Cool Black private eye John Shaft is hired by a crime lord to find and retrieve his kidnapped daughter.

New York City factory worker Eddie Marino is a solid citizen and regular guy, until the day a sadistic street gang brutally assaults his wife and murders his child. When a corrupt judge sets the thugs free, he goes berserk and vows revenge.

When political thugs murder an opponent's volunteer and also kill a cop, chief inspector Verjeat believes the politician who hired them is as guilty as the murderous goon. Verjeat's pursuit of the councilman, Lardatte, gets him a warning from his superiors. When he embarrasses Lardatte while disarming a hostage (the dead volunteer's father), Verjeat is told he's being transferred within a week. He speeds up his hunt for the goon and, with Lefévre, one of his young detectives, he engineers a complicated scheme to buy more time before the transfer. How should Verjeat play out his values of honor and duty?

A cop turns vigilante after his family is murdered, exacting vengeance on the killers - and then on all criminals who have slipped through the system.


