Mystery movies are the films where characters effort for solving a mystery or track criminals. With expectation of what will happen next, these types of movies will have you on the edge of your seat. The dynamic and believable characters are also making by them that draw you in to the complicated plot. These types of movies are just a small fragment of the thriller genre. In short, mystery movies have a suspense which would be expected – who killed whom, who is planning to kill whom and who are the usual suspects. See the best mystery movies of all times.
North by Northwest – 1959
- Principal Cast: Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint, James Mason
- Director: Alfred Hitchcock
- Screenwriter: Ernest Lehman
This film was one of Hitchcock’s most entertaining films. In this film, Cary Grant acts as an advertising executive mistaken for a spy. An advertising exec is followed cross country while he tries to clear his name in a government mistake. After that, the story gets complicated, and dangerous, and wild and more complicated. In the end, he can’t tell who is on his side.
Vertigo – 1958
- Principal Cast: James Stewart, Kim Novak, Barbara Bel Geddes
- Director: Alfred Hitchcock
- Screenwriters: Alec Coppel, Samuel A. Taylor
This film has all the elements of a powerful mystery; suspense, love, lust, tragedy, obsession, a healthy does of psychological games and betrayal. The main story of the film is a man with Vertigo investigates his old friend’s wife to discover that she may be the cause of his vertigo.
Memento – 2001
- Principal Cast: Guy Pearce, Carrie-Anne Moss, Joe Pantoliano
- Director: Christopher Nolan
It is an extremely complex and intelligent film with a unique way of telling the story. The film has a brilliant plot and also the way it is told is even better. The plot of the film is a man who has no long term memory tries to piece together his life and finds things are not as they seem.
Rear Window – 1954
- Principal Cast: James Stewart, Grace Kelly, Thelma Ritter, Wendell Corey
- Director: Alfred Hitchcock
- Screenwriter: John Michael Hayes
More than a murder mystery, Rear Window takes the viewer into the private lives of many of the apartment building’s tenants; proving what is seen isn’t always what it seems. In this film a man confined to a wheel chair (James Stewart), has nothing to do except spy on his neighbors. As time goes on, he is convinced they have committed murder.
Laura – 1944
- Principal Cast: Gene Tierney,Dana Andrews, Clifton Webb, Vincent Price, Judith Anderson, Laura Dern, Dean Stockwell
- Director: Otto Preminger
- Screenwriters: Jay Dratler, Samuel Hoffenstein, Elizabeth Reinhardt
All the characters of the film are clearly in love with Laura and all are against each other, giving reasons for the other admirers to have tried to murder her. A slick murder mystery, it is one of the best. This is a wonderful and unusual example of a whodunit. It has twists and turns and suspense, galore!
L.A. Confidential – 1997
- Principal Cast: Kevin Spacey, Russell Crowe, Guy Pearce,James Cromwell, Kim Basinger, Danny DeVito
- Director: Curtis Hanson
- Screenwriters: Brian Helgeland, Curtis Hanson
The man: Detective Edmund Exley (Guy Pierce), a straight-laced and brilliant detective who plays exactly by the book. The characters are terrific, each of them have a certain characteristic that gives them a significant difference from each other. They all have their own stories and the film focuses on each perfectly. Also a great murder mystery. . It starts with a mass murder at a coffee shop and devolves into an organized crime story involving pornography, heroin and politics.
The Third Man – 1949
- Principal Cast: Orson Welles, Joseph Cotten, Trevor Howard
- Director: Carol Reed
British film stars Orson Welles in one of his finest roles, as the seductive villain in this film. Harry Lime has died in a car accident. Previously he had invited one of his closest friends to join him. His friend now must find out if the story is true and the mystery behind it.
The Usual Suspects – 1995
- Principal Cast: Stephen Baldwin, Kevin Spacey, Benicio Del Toro
- Director: Bryan Singer
It is a complicated crime drama that keeps you hooked from the first scene of Gabriel Bryne’s shooting and the flashback leading up to this event. Five men are hauled into a New York jail for separate crimes but end up working together. The police are trying to get to the bottom of who blew up a boat and killed almost all of the passengers, but will they find out in time to arrest the right man?
Seven – 1995
- Principal Cast: Morgan Freeman, Brad Pitt, Gwyneth Paltrow
- Director: David Fincher
- Screenwriter: Andrew Kevin Walker
Fincher’s precise direction is finally realized with this creepy serial killer mystery movie. The film is unsettling and gloomy thanks to his directing. The killer is using the seven deadly sins as his MO making the murders hard to solve, and extremely grotesque. The two cops have different approaches to the handling of the case and two different views on the killer.
Chinatown – 1974
- Principal Cast: Jack Nicholson, Faye Dunaway, John Huston
- Director: Roman Polanski
The film’s hero, Jake Gittes, is played perfectly by Jack Nicholson. He doesn’t simply repeat the typical private eye roles of the past (Bogart), but brings his own mannerisms in the performance. It is a great psychological thriller, beautifully shot by Polanski and written by Towne. Also, it has a brilliant ending. ‘Chinatown’ has a fantastic multi-layered script that involves love, investigation, corruption, and incest.
I think Danny De Vito is most famous for his role as the Penquin.“’