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Welcome to StudioBinder’s screenplay library, your ultimate destination for riveting and gritty free crime movie scripts. Prepare to be immersed in a world of illicit activities, high-stakes heists, and gripping cat-and-mouse pursuits. Our handpicked collection showcases the very best in crime storytelling, unraveling complex narratives filled with deception, intrigue, and thrilling plot twists. Brace yourself for a pulse-pounding experience. Enjoy!
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crime, drama
12 Angry Men
Written By: Reginald Rose
Synopsis: A jury holdout attempts to prevent a miscarriage of justice by forcing his colleagues to reconsider the evidence.
drama, crime
American History X
Written By: David McKenna
Synopsis: A former neo-nazi skinhead tries to prevent his younger brother from going down the same wrong path that he did.
action, crime
Baby Driver
Written By: Edgar Wright
Synopsis: After being coerced into working for a crime boss, a young getaway driver finds himself taking part in a heist doomed to fail.
comedy, crime, drama, tv
Barry (Pilot)
Written By: Alec Berg & Bill Hader
Synopsis: A hit man from the Midwest moves to Los Angeles and gets caught up in the city's theatre arts scene.
action, fantasy
Batman Begins
Written By: Christopher Nolan & David S. Goyer (screenplay), based on the comics by Bob Kane
Synopsis: After training with his mentor, Batman begins his fight to free crime-ridden Gotham City from corruption.
comedy, crime
The Big Lebowski
How to Write Like The Coen Brothers • Subscribe in YouTube
Written By: Joel Coen & Ethan Coen
Synopsis: Jeff "The Dude" Lebowski, mistaken for a millionaire of the same name, seeks restitution for his ruined rug and enlists his bowling buddies to help get it.
crime, comedy, drama
The Big Short
Written By: Charles Randolph & Adam McKay (screenplay), based on the book by Michael Lewis
Synopsis: In 2006-2007 a group of investors bet against the US mortgage market. In their research they discover how flawed and corrupt the market is.
drama, crime
BlacKkKlansman
Written By: Charlie Wachtel & David Rabinowitz & Kevin Willmott & Spike Lee (screenplay), based on the book by Ron Stallworth
Synopsis: Ron Stallworth, an African American police officer from Colorado Springs, CO, successfully manages to infiltrate the local Ku Klux Klan branch with the help of a Jewish surrogate who eventually becomes its leader. Based on actual events.
DRAMA, tv, crime
Breaking Bad - Pilot (S1E1)
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Written By: Vince Gilligan and Sam Catlin & Moira Walley-Beckett
Synopsis: Diagnosed with terminal lung cancer, chemistry teacher Walter White teams up with former student Jesse Pinkman to cook and sell crystal meth.
drama, tv, crime
Breaking Bad - The Fly (S3E10)
Written By: Vince Gilligan and Sam Catlin & Moira Walley-Beckett
Synopsis: There is a fly loose in the lab. Walt and Jesse must do whatever they can to kill it before it contaminates the meth.
crime, western
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
Written By: William Goldman
Synopsis: Wyoming, early 1900s. Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid are the leaders of a band of outlaws. After a train robbery goes wrong they find themselves on the run with a posse hard on their heels. Their solution - escape to Bolivia.
drama, crime
Catch Me If You Can
Written By: Jeff Nathanson (screenplay), based on the book by Frank Abagnale Jr & Stan Redding
Synopsis: Barely 21 yet, Frank is a skilled forger who has passed as a doctor, lawyer and pilot. FBI agent Carl, becomes obsessed with tracking down the con man. But Frank not only eludes capture, he revels in the pursuit.
drama, crime
A Clockwork Orange
Written By: Stanley Kubrick (screenplay), based on the novel by Anthony Burgess
Synopsis: In the future, a sadistic gang leader is imprisoned and volunteers for a conduct-aversion experiment, but it doesn't go as planned.
thriller, crime
Collateral
Written By: Stuart Beattie
Synopsis: A cab driver finds himself the hostage of an engaging contract killer as he makes his rounds from hit to hit during one night in Los Angeles.
crime, tv
CSI (S4EP15)
Written By: Anthony E. Zuiker & Carol Mendelsohn(teleplay), based on the story by Elizabeth Devine
Synopsis: Two masked men show up at a house and kill the husband and wife execution-style with two bullets at the back of the head.
crime, drama
The Departed
Written By: William Monahan
Synopsis: An undercover cop and a mole in the police attempt to identify each other while infiltrating an Irish gang in South Boston.
crime, tv
Dexter (Pilot)
Written By: James Manos Jr. (teleplay), based on the novel by Jeff Lindsay
Synopsis: By day, mild-mannered Dexter is a blood-spatter analyst for the Miami police. But at night, he is a serial killer who only targets other murderers.
crime, drama
Dog Day Afternoon
Written By: Frank Pierson
Synopsis: Three amateur bank robbers plan to hold up a bank. A nice simple robbery: Walk in, take the money, and run. Unfortunately, the supposedly uncomplicated heist suddenly becomes a bizarre nightmare as everything that could go wrong does.
action, crime
Drive
How Refn Builds Suspense with Sound Design & Editing • Subscribe in YouTube
Written By: Hossein Amini (screenplay), based on the book by James Sallis
Synopsis: An action drama about a mysterious Hollywood stuntman and mechanic moonlighting as a getaway driver finding himself in trouble when he helps out his neighbor.
crime, thriller
Fargo
Written By: Ethan Coen & Joel Coen
Synopsis: Jerry Lundegaard's inept crime falls apart due to his and his henchmen's bungling and the persistent police work of the quite pregnant Marge Gunderson.
thriller, crime
Following
Written By: Christopher Nolan
Synopsis: A young writer who follows strangers for material meets a thief who takes him under his wing.
crime, drama
The Godfather
The Godfather Tragic Ending Analysis • Subscribe on YouTube
Written By: Mario Puzo & Francis Ford Coppola
Synopsis: The aging patriarch of an organized crime dynasty transfers control of his clandestine empire to his reluctant son.
crime, drama
Goodfellas
Written By: Nicholas Pileggi & Martin Scorsese
Synopsis: The story of Henry Hill and his life in the mob, covering his relationship with his wife Karen Hill and his mob partners Jimmy Conway and Tommy DeVito in the Italian-American crime syndicate.
crime, tv
Hannibal S1E7
Written By: Bryan Fuller (screenplay), based on characters from the book "Red Dragon" by Thomas Harris
Synopsis: Lecter's patient Franklin Froideveaux worries that his friend Tobias may be a psychopath, but Franklin's growing obsession with Lecter is what concerns the latter more.
western, crime
The Hateful Eight
Written By: Quentin Tarantino
Synopsis: In the dead of a Wyoming winter, a bounty hunter and his prisoner find shelter in a cabin currently inhabited by a collection of nefarious characters.
crime, comedy
In Bruges
Written By: Martin McDonagh
Synopsis: Guilt-stricken after a job gone wrong, hitman Ray and his partner await orders from their ruthless boss in Bruges, Belgium, the last place in the world Ray wants to be.
crime
Inherent Vice
Written By: Paul Thomas Anderson (screenplay), based on the novel by Thomas Pynchon
Synopsis: In 1970, drug-fueled Los Angeles private investigator Larry "Doc" Sportello investigates the disappearance of a former girlfriend.
crime, Drama
The Irishman
How Scorsese Opens an Epic • Subscribe on YouTube
Written By: Steven Zaillian (screenplay), based on the book by Charles Brandt
Synopsis: An aging hitman recalls his time with the mob and the intersecting events with his friend, Jimmy Hoffa, through the 1950-70s.
ACTION, crime
Kill Bill Vol. 1
Breaking Down Quentin Tarantino’s Filmmaking Style • Subscribe on YouTube
Written By: Quentin Tarantino
Synopsis: After awakening from a four-year coma, a former assassin wreaks vengeance on the team of assassins who betrayed her.
ACTION, crime
Kill Bill Vol. 2
How Kill Bill Keeps Us Hooked • Subscribe on YouTube
Written By: Quentin Tarantino (screenplay by)
Synopsis: The Bride continues her quest of vengeance against her former boss and lover Bill, the reclusive bouncer Budd, and the treacherous, one-eyed Elle.
crime
L.A. Confidential
Written By: Brian Helgeland & Curtis Hanson
Synopsis: As corruption grows in 1950s Los Angeles, three policemen - one strait-laced, one brutal, and one sleazy - investigate a series of murders with their own brand of justice.
crime, thriller
Nightcrawler
Rules of Shot Composition • Subscribe on YouTube
Written By: Dan Gilroy
Synopsis: When Louis Bloom, a con man desperate for work, muscles into the world of L.A. crime journalism, he blurs the line between observer and participant to become the star of his own story.
crime, drama
No Country for Old Men
Why Anton Chigurh is the Perfect Antagonist • Subscribe on YouTube
Written By: Joel Coen & Ethan Coen (screenplay), based on the novel by Cormac McCarthy
Synopsis: Violence and mayhem ensue after a hunter stumbles upon a drug deal gone wrong and more than two million dollars in cash near the Rio Grande.
crime, comedy
Ocean's Eleven
Written By: Ted Griffin
Synopsis: Danny Ocean and his ten accomplices plan to rob three Las Vegas casinos simultaneously.
crime, tv
Peaky Blinders (S1 E1)
Written By: Steven Knight
Synopsis: A gangster family epic set in 1919 Birmingham, England; centered on a gang who sew razor blades in the peaks of their caps, and their fierce boss Tommy Shelby.
crime, drama
Pulp Fiction
The Pulp Fiction Dance Scene • Subscribe on YouTube
Written By: Quentin Tarantino & Roger Avary
Synopsis: The lives of two mob hitmen, a boxer, a gangster and his wife, and a pair of diner bandits intertwine in four tales of violence and redemption.
crime, drama
Reservoir Dogs
Written By: Quentin Tarantino
Synopsis: When a simple jewelry heist goes horribly wrong, the surviving criminals begin to suspect that one of them is a police informant.
drama, crime
Road To Perdition
How Sam Mendes Tells a Complete Story in ONE Shot • Subscribe on YouTube
Written By: David Self (screenplay), based on the graphic novel by Max Allan Collins & Richard Piers Rayner,
Synopsis: A mob enforcer's son witnesses a murder, forcing him and his father to take to the road, and his father down a path of redemption and revenge.
Crime, drama
Scarface
Written By: Oliver Stone
Synopsis: In 1980 Miami, a determined Cuban immigrant takes over a drug cartel and succumbs to greed.
thriller, crime
Sicario
How to Direct a Tense Standoff like Denis Villeneuve • Subscribe on YouTube
Written By: Taylor Sheridan
Synopsis: An idealistic FBI agent is enlisted by a government task force to aid in the escalating war against drugs at the border area between the U.S. and Mexico.
drama, crime
Shawshank Redemption
Written By: Frank Darabont (screenplay), based on the short story "Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption" by Stephen King
Synopsis: Two imprisoned men bond over a number of years, finding solace and eventual redemption through acts of common decency.
drama, tv, crime
The Sopranos (Pilot)
Written By: David Chase
Synopsis: New Jersey mob boss Tony Soprano deals with personal and professional issues in his home and business life that affect his mental state, leading him to seek professional psychiatric counseling.
drama, crime
Straight Outta Compton
Written By: Jonathan Herman and Andrea Berloff & S. Leigh Savidge &
Alan Wenkus & Andrea Berloff
Synopsis: The rap group NWA emerges from the mean streets of Compton in Los Angeles, California, in the mid-1980s and revolutionizes Hip Hop culture with their music and tales about life in the hood.
drama, crime
Taxi Driver
How Scorsese Directed De Niro in the Iconic Taxi Driver Scene • Subscribe on YouTube
Written By: Paul Schrader
Synopsis: A mentally unstable veteran works as a nighttime taxi driver in New York City, where the perceived decadence and sleaze fuels his urge for violent action by attempting to liberate a presidential campaign worker and an underage prostitute.
crime, thriller
Training Day
Written By: David Ayer
Synopsis: A rookie cop spends his first day as a Los Angeles narcotics officer with a rogue detective who isn't what he appears to be.
drama, crime
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
Written By: Martin McDonagh
Synopsis: A mother personally challenges the local authorities to solve her daughter's murder when they fail to catch the culprit.
romance, crime
True Romance
Written By: Quentin Tarantino
Synopsis: In Detroit, a lonely pop culture geek marries a call girl, steals cocaine from her pimp, and tries to sell it in Hollywood. Meanwhile, the owners of the cocaine, the Mob, track them down in an attempt to reclaim it.
crime
Uncut Gems
Written By: Ronald Bronstein and Josh Safdie & Benny Safdie
Synopsis: With his debts mounting and angry collectors closing in, a fast-talking New York City jeweler risks everything in hope of staying afloat and alive.
crime, thriller
The Usual Suspects
Written By: Christopher McQuarrie
Synopsis: A sole survivor tells of the twisty events leading up to a horrific gun battle on a boat, which began when five criminals met at a seemingly random police lineup.
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