Image via Warner Bros. Pictures
By
Jeremy Urquhart
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1 hour ago
Jeremy has more than 2200 published articles on Collider to his name, and has been writing for the site since February 2022. He's an omnivore when it comes to his movie-watching diet, so will gladly watch and write about almost anything, from old Godzilla films to gangster flicks to samurai movies to classic musicals to the French New Wave to the MCU... well, maybe not the Disney+ shows.
His favorite directors include Martin Scorsese, Sergio Leone, Akira Kurosawa, Quentin Tarantino, Werner Herzog, John Woo, Bob Fosse, Fritz Lang, Guillermo del Toro, and Yoji Yamada. He's also very proud of the fact that he's seen every single Nicolas Cage movie released before 2022, even though doing so often felt like a tremendous waste of time. He's plagued by the question of whether or not The Room is genuinely terrible or some kind of accidental masterpiece, and has been for more than 12 years (and a similar number of viewings).
When he's not writing lists - and the occasional feature article - for Collider, he also likes to upload film reviews to his Letterboxd profile (username: Jeremy Urquhart) and Instagram account.
He has achieved his 2025 goal of reading all 13,467 novels written by Stephen King, and plans to spend the next year or two getting through the author's 82,756 short stories and 105,433 novellas.
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There’s nothing wrong with a crime movie taking its time, by any means, because some of the greatest ones of all time also happen to be pretty patient as far as pacing is concerned. The likes of Le Samouraï, Once Upon a Time in America, and Drive aren’t afraid to progress at a slow pace at times, and then even the first two Godfather movies – though very well-paced and never boring – aren’t really “fast” in the traditional sense.
All that’s to emphasize that “fast” doesn’t always mean good, and “slow” in no way means bad. There are good fast-paced movies, bad fast-paced movies, good slow-paced movies, and bad slow-paced movies. But with these movies, they're all very good, they're all wholly (or partly, in some cases) within the crime genre, and they're all notably fast with the way they're paced.
10 'Hard Boiled' (1992)
Two men inside a hospital's basement, holding guns and preparing for battle, in the climax of John Woo's Hard Boiled (1992)Image via Golden Princess Film Production
Hard Boiled moves faster than most John Woo movies, and probably has more action, too. Considering his films are generally rapid fire with their pacing and explosive with their action, that’s saying quite a lot. Hard Boiled is uniquely non-stop, though, technically telling a story about two initially different cops who both want to take down the same gang of criminals, but the story isn't too important here.
It's a premise that allows for a lot of action to happen, especially because the criminal organization that needs to be stopped seems to be the size of a small army. Hard Boiled escalates perfectly, with the action starting out spectacular, and then getting increasingly grand in scale and ambition as things march along. The whole final act is particularly great, and largely responsible for making the movie an all-timer among action/crime flicks.
9 'Fast Five' (2011)
Dominic Toretto, played by Vin Diesel, and Brian O'Conner, played by Paul Walker, look ahead in Fast Five.Image via Universal Pictures
Promise, this isn't just here because “Fast” is in the title. Fast Five isn't really classy, challenging, or boundary-pushing as a heist movie, yet it is nonetheless a great heist movie. Maybe some car fanatics aren’t wild about what it represents for the overall Fast and Furious series, being the point where the racing side of things really took a backseat and everything got particularly bombastic, but if you weren’t crazy about all the racing, this was a welcome change of pace.
Another reason Fast Five felt especially speedy was the fact that most of the characters and their key dynamics had been established in the earlier films, with Fast Five assembling everyone in the same movie for the first time. They're not the most complex of characters, but establishing them all earlier on helped, and so Fast Five – with its simple heist movie structure – doesn’t have to spend much time at all on scenes that might feel comparatively slow, or not action-focused.
8 'Police Story' (1985)
Jackie Chan as Sergeant 'Kevin' Chan Ka-Kui hiding around a corner with a gun in Police Story.Image via Golden Harvest
Perfectly blending the martial arts and crime genres, Police Story is a highlight within Jackie Chan’s body of work, and an ideal movie to watch if you're only more familiar with his Hollywood stuff. As was the case with both Hard Boiled and Fast Five, the plot here doesn’t matter too much. Jackie Chan plays a police officer going up against a gang of criminals associated with drug dealing, and there’s also an important witness who needs protection before she testifies in court.
It's all about the action, even if Police Story is technically a crime movie, what with the conflict at the core of it and all. The things that should be emphasized are, and the rest is all done serviceably. That’s all to say that there isn't much downtime, and that’s for the best. It’s fun, and it’s fast, and it’s pretty great overall.
7 'Hot Fuzz' (2007)
Simon Pegg as Nicholas and Nick Frost as Danny in 'Hot Fuzz'.Image via Rogue Pictures
Just as Shaun of the Dead was a zombie movie and a parody of zombie movies, so too is Hot Fuzz a cop movie and a send-up of cop movies. It’s about a hyper-competent police officer who gets relocated to a seemingly quiet town, and doesn’t have much to do there until he realizes that some potentially unsettling and violent stuff is going on there.
And that mystery element is decently interesting, even if Hot Fuzz, like all of Edgar Wright’s best movies, is particularly focused on being funny and delivering all its jokes incredibly fast. It’s edited in a way that keeps hurtling you forward, and there’s a sense of being almost overwhelmed, but not in a frustrating manner. And, worst-case scenario, it does make Hot Fuzz very easy and rewarding to rewatch.
6 'Gangs of Wasseypur' (2012)
Man holding a gun indoors in the second part of Gangs of Wasseypur (2012)Image via Viacom 18 Motion Pictures
Being fast-paced and clocking in at under two hours runtime-wise is cool and all, but what about a movie that’s a ridiculous-sounding five-and-a-half hours long (well, almost) that’s also exceptionally fast-paced for all five-and-a-half of those hours? Such films exist. Well, maybe just one such film exists, and it’s Gangs of Wasseypur, divided into two parts, but helmed as one giant movie, with both those parts being released the same year.
Essentially, it’s a little like The Godfather, though imagine it mostly being told in chronological order, having quite a bit more action, and also with events happening about twice as quickly. Gangs of Wasseypur spans decades and has a handful of different generations’ worth of conflict playing out in the same film, and the extent to which it’s astoundingly ambitious really can’t be overstated.
5 'Infernal Affairs' (2002)
Man sitting on top of a high-rise building in Infernal Affairs (2002)Image via Media Asia Distribution
An apparently authentic (surprisingly, and in some ways) film, Infernal Affairs is what The Departed was a remake of, but it’s even faster paced and more relentless than that film, since The Departed is longer and gives you a little more breathing room. Infernal Affairs throws you into the thick of it, though, and the early scenes are perhaps even a touch hard to keep up with.
Infernal Affairs juggles a whole bunch of things at once, on a narrative front, but largely makes it work.
It settles into a groove, though, or at least you get more on board with its story about two people on opposing sides of the law both, in effect, going undercover while trying to out the other. Infernal Affairs juggles a whole bunch of things at once, on a narrative front, but largely makes it work, ensuring the whole thing is breathless and consistently exciting to watch.
4 'The Dark Knight' (2008)
Heath Ledger as The Joker sticks his head out the window of a car racing down the streets in The Dark Knight.Image via Warner Bros.
Sure, it’s mostly a comic book movie, or maybe easily definable as such, but The Dark Knight also functions as a crime movie, because criminal organizations, heists, and conflict between opposing sides of the law are all components of the narrative here. The Joker’s the main antagonist here, and he spends the movie upending Gotham’s criminal underworld while waging an ultimately devastating war against Batman and all he stands for.
You get a lot here, with The Dark Knight also being a rather incredible action movie, and the resulting film is one of the fastest-feeling movies that exceeds 2.5 hours in length ever made. Of all the movies made in the 21st century so far, it’s one of the best overall, and succeeds shockingly well as a blend of all the different genres it’s going for.
3 'Kill Bill: Vol. 1' (2003)
Yeah, okay, Gangs of Wasseypur was counted as one movie before, and now Kill Bill: Vol. 1 is being specified when that was one big film as well, but Vol. 1 is the half of the story that moves at a more relentless pace, noticeable (and intentionally) so. Kill Bill: Vol. 2 is still exciting at times, and has a couple of bursts of action throughout, but it’s a slower and longer film that does a great job of fleshing out the various characters who didn’t meet their demise in Vol. 1.
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Crave more curated takes on blistering crime films and why they work? Subscribe to the newsletter for sharp recommendations, scene-by-scene pacing analysis, and curated viewing lists that deepen your appreciation of fast-paced crime cinema. Subscribe By subscribing, you agree to receive newsletter and marketing emails, and accept Valnet’s Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. You can unsubscribe anytime.As for Kill Bill: Vol. 1, it’s a feature-length excuse for Quentin Tarantino to homage all sorts of martial arts, samurai, and yakuza movies, and he does so in a way that’s endlessly fun to watch. Vol. 1 isn't a long movie, sure, but it’s paced in a way that makes about 110 minutes feel not much longer than an hour, and even if it’s most focused on action, as a genre, it, plus the second volume, do still count as crime films.
2 'City of God' (2002)
Image via Miramax Films
It functions a bit like a coming-of-age movie, since the characters are all quite young, but then City of God is also a fairly epic in scale crime film, set in and around the favelas of Rio de Janeiro. The impact that all the crime in such an area has is explored through a number of different individuals, and it’s paced in such a way that it jumps from one to the next at a rather breakneck rate.
It’s all in service of being an overview of the area and the situation on a broad level, and also done to highlight the chaos that defines many of the characters’ lives. City of God does all this without ever being too out-of-control or difficult to follow, and though every aspect of it’s worthy of praise, the writing and editing here both go a particularly long way in making the whole film as successful as it ultimately is.
1 'Goodfellas' (1990)
Image via Warner Bros. Pictures
Goodfellas could well be one of the fastest-paced movies of all time, of any genre. It’s one of the older movies in this ranking, and it’s also not really a thriller or an action movie the way some of the aforementioned crime films were, so that makes its exceptionally quick pacing feel all the more worth noting. It covers a lot of time, and balances a fair few characters, and yet everything feels like it passes by in a flash.
It's a great flash, though. It’s a little like time travel, watching Goodfellas, because you sit down, and then you look up, and you've traveled forward about 2.5 hours in time, even though you’ve only been on your couch for what feels like an hour and a bit. In this instance, either your couch is a time machine, or you’ve just watched Goodfellas. One or the other.
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Goodfellas
R
Drama
Crime
Release Date
September 19, 1990
Runtime
145 minutes
Director
Martin Scorsese
Writers
Martin Scorsese, Nicholas Pileggi
Cast
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Ray Liotta
Henry Hill
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Robert De Niro
James Conway
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Kill Bill: Vol. 1
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