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Best Crime Movies of the 1920s, Ranked by IMDb, Rotten Tomatoes, Metacritic and TMDB
28 crime films from the 1920s are in our catalog; the 28 best are ranked below. Top of the list is The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920), at 8.0 on IMDb. The average IMDb score across this list is 6.9. Biggest split between audiences and critics: Piccadilly, 7.1 on IMDb against 89 on Metacritic.
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| # | Movie | Genre | IMDb | Tomato | Meta | TMDB | Director |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari '1920 | Drama / Horror / Thriller / Crime | 8.0 | 96% | - | 7.9 | Robert Wiene |
| 2 | Greed '1924 | Drama / Crime | 8.0 | 96% | - | 7.3 | Erich von Stroheim |
| 3 | Pandora's Box '1929 | Drama / Crime / Romance | 7.7 | 93% | - | 7.5 | G.W. Pabst |
| 4 | Dr. Mabuse, the Gambler '1922 | Crime / Thriller | 7.8 | 94% | - | 7.7 | Fritz Lang |
| 5 | The High Sign '1921 | Crime / Comedy | 7.6 | - | - | 7.1 | Edward F. Cline |
| 6 | Underworld '1927 | Drama / Crime / Romance | 7.5 | 90% | - | 7.1 | Josef von Sternberg |
| 7 | The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog '1927 | Crime / Thriller / Mystery | 7.3 | 96% | 82 | 7.2 | Alfred Hitchcock |
| 8 | Beggars of Life '1928 | Drama / Crime | 7.5 | - | - | 7.1 | William A. Wellman |
| 9 | Variety '1925 | Drama / Crime / Romance | 7.4 | 100% | - | 6.7 | E.A. Dupont |
| 10 | A Cottage on Dartmoor '1929 | Thriller / Drama / Crime | 7.5 | - | - | 7.2 | Anthony Asquith |
| 11 | The Penalty '1920 | Crime / Drama / Thriller | 7.3 | 83% | - | 6.9 | Wallace Worsley |
| 12 | The Unholy Three '1925 | Crime / Thriller / Drama | 7.1 | 88% | - | 6.7 | Tod Browning |
| 13 | Chicago '1927 | Comedy / Drama / Crime | 7.3 | - | - | 5.9 | Frank Urson |
| 14 | Piccadilly '1929 | Drama / Crime | 7.1 | 80% | 89 | 6.5 | E.A. Dupont |
| 15 | Blackmail '1929 | Drama / Thriller / Crime | 6.9 | 88% | - | 6.5 | Alfred Hitchcock |
| 16 | The Ace of Hearts '1921 | Crime / Drama / Mystery / Thriller | 6.8 | - | - | 6.5 | Wallace Worsley |
| 17 | The Blackbird '1926 | Crime / Drama / Romance | 6.7 | - | - | 6.4 | Tod Browning |
| 18 | The Racket '1928 | Crime / Drama | 6.6 | 100% | - | 6.5 | Lewis Milestone |
| 19 | From Morning to Midnight '1920 | Crime / Comedy | 6.9 | - | - | 6.1 | Karlheinz Martin |
| 20 | Outside the Law '1921 | Crime / Drama / Romance / Thriller | 6.5 | 100% | - | 6.2 | Tod Browning |
| 21 | Thunderbolt '1929 | Crime / Drama | 6.5 | 70% | - | 5.7 | Josef von Sternberg |
| 22 | Within Our Gates '1920 | Drama / Romance / Crime | 6.4 | 100% | - | 6.1 | Oscar Micheaux |
| 23 | A Straightforward Boy '1929 | Comedy / Crime | 6.2 | - | - | 5.8 | Yasujirō Ozu |
| 24 | The Haunted Castle '1921 | Drama / Mystery / Crime / Horror | 6.1 | 40% | - | 6.3 | F. W. Murnau |
| 25 | The Spiders: Part 2 - The Diamond Ship '1920 | Crime | 6.1 | - | - | 6.0 | Fritz Lang |
| 26 | The Canary Murder Case '1929 | Crime / Mystery | 5.9 | - | - | 5.8 | Malcolm St. Clair |
| 27 | Alibi '1929 | Crime / Drama | 5.6 | 56% | - | 5.9 | Roland West |
| 28 | Nice and Friendly '1922 | Crime / Comedy | 4.6 | - | - | 4.9 | Charlie Chaplin |
Our catalog covers roughly the 8,800 most-rated films on TMDB, so lesser-known titles may be missing. Order uses a confidence-weighted IMDb score so a perfect score from a handful of votes does not beat a well-established classic; the scores shown are the raw ones.
All crime movies
All movies of the 1920s
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Other genres in the 1920s
Animation of the 1920s Comedy of the 1920s Drama of the 1920s Fantasy of the 1920s Horror of the 1920s Romance of the 1920s
Directors on this list
Erich von Stroheim G.W. Pabst Fritz Lang Edward F. Cline Josef von Sternberg Alfred Hitchcock William A. Wellman Anthony Asquith Tod Browning Lewis Milestone Yasujirō Ozu F. W. Murnau
Actors on this list
Werner Krauss Conrad Veidt Buster Keaton Wallace Beery Emil Jannings Lon Chaney Mae Busch Fay Wray William Powell Charlie Chaplin