Crime Films

Wealthy, universally disliked Silas Wayne gathers his greedy relatives and mistreated servants to read them his will, and is stabbed to death in front of a room full of witnesses who all claim to have seen nothing. Detective Sergeant Mitchell (Regis Toomey) and wisecracking reporter "Nosey" Toodles (June Clyde) sort through a house full of suspects — a shrouded figure stalking the halls, a phony diamond in the safe, and a second body before the night is out. Lucille La Verne steals scenes as the dead man's housekeeper. Released by Monogram in November 1932 and reissued under the title The Wayne Murder Case, it is a brisk pre-Code old-dark-house mystery. The film is in the public domain after its copyright was not renewed.

Mystery · Crime · Drama

A suave jewel thief hides out in the labyrinthine Casbah of Algiers, safe from the French police, until a beautiful French tourist tempts him toward the outside world. Charles Boyer's performance inspired Pepe le Pew, and Hedy Lamarr made her American debut. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Crime · Drama · Romance

Ten strangers lured to a remote island mansion by the unseen "Mr. Owen" are accused by a gramophone recording of crimes the law couldn't touch — then begin dying one by one, following the nursery rhyme tacked above the mantel. René Clair's adaptation of Agatha Christie's novel keeps the jagged suspense while letting an impeccable ensemble — Barry Fitzgerald, Walter Huston, Louis Hayward, Roland Young, June Duprez — play it with dry wit. Still the benchmark screen version of the most-read mystery novel ever written. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Crime · Mystery · Drama

Federal agent Alan O'Connor (Conrad Nagel) goes undercover to crack a gang pulling a string of small-town bank robberies, only to discover his sister (Eleanor Hunt) has unknowingly become engaged to the gang's smooth-talking ringleader. Directed by Louis J. Gasnier — the man behind Reefer Madness — for Grand National Pictures, it's a brisk G-man B-picture from the era when J. Edgar Hoover's bureau was Hollywood's favorite source of heroes. The film is in the public domain.

Crime · Drama

A group of stranded swindlers in an Italian port wait for a ship to East Africa, where they plan to corner the uranium market. Humphrey Bogart leads an international cast through John Huston's sly parody of the caper films he helped invent, with a script shaped by Truman Capote. The film lapsed into the public domain through non-renewal.

Comedy · Crime · Adventure

William Wellman's part-talking drama about a young woman who kills her abusive stepfather and goes on the run dressed as a boy, joining a band of hoboes riding the rails. Louise Brooks, in her best American role, plays the girl; Wallace Beery is Oklahoma Red, the hobo king who takes her in; Richard Arlen is the farm boy who throws in with her. The film was made in the transitional sound period and uses synchronized music, sound effects, and a few spoken passages rather than full dialogue. Wellman shot much of it on location with real trains and real transients, giving it a grit that most studio films of the year did not have. Brooks would leave for Germany and make Pandora's Box shortly after, and her American career never recovered. The 1928 film entered the United States public domain on January 1, 2024.

Drama · Crime

The earliest surviving film to feature the character Charlie Chan, directed by Irving Cummings and produced by Fox Film Corporation. Warner Baxter stars as Col. John Beetham, a man under suspicion in a complex murder mystery. Lois Moran plays Eve Mannering Durand, whose husband's death sets the investigation in motion. Boris Karloff appears as Beetham's sinister manservant in an early role before his horror fame. Charlie Chan, played by the Chinese American actor E. L. Park, gets one mention early in the film and then makes only a few momentary appearances after 75 minutes. Park was the first Chinese American to play Charlie Chan on screen. Producer William Fox chose this film to open the palatial Fox Theatre in San Francisco on June 28, 1929. The film is in the public domain.

Mystery · Crime · Thriller

Illustrated Press managing editor Steve Wilson and reporter Lorelei Kilbourne go after a gambling ring preying on college students after the publisher's niece is caught up in a crooked dice game and framed for murder. Phillip Reed and Hillary Brooke reprise their Big Town newspaper roles, with Richard Travis and Ann Gillis. The third of four Pine-Thomas features spun off from the popular radio series, directed by co-producer William C. Thomas. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Crime · Noir · Drama

A young woman stabs a man in self-defense when he tries to assault her, and a blackmailer who saw her flees the scene begins to prey on her and her detective boyfriend. Alfred Hitchcock began shooting Blackmail as a silent and then, partway through production, was asked to make it Britain's first talkie. The result is a film that straddles both eras, with famous set pieces built around sound: a breakfast table conversation dominated by the word "knife," a chase through the British Museum, and location shooting on the London streets that gives the thriller a documentary texture. Anny Ondra, a Polish actress whose accent was dubbed by Joan Barry, plays the heroine. The film entered the public domain in the United States on January 1, 2025.

Thriller · Crime · Drama

Leslie Brooks plays Claire Cummings, a society columnist who marries rich and keeps moving up, leaving a trail of dead husbands and a psychologist, played by Robert Paige, who realizes too late what she is. A cold-blooded B noir from poverty-row distributor Film Classics, the film runs its femme fatale premise harder than most A-pictures dared: Claire kills without remorse and without a mitigating backstory. Brooks, usually a musical-comedy blonde, is the whole show here, and director Jack Bernhard keeps the melodrama lean and mean. Neglected for decades, it has since been reclaimed as a minor noir classic. It entered the public domain after its copyright was never renewed.

Noir · Crime · Drama

In 19th-century Paris, puppeteer and portrait painter Gaston Morrell strangles the models who pose for him, while police hunt the killer the newspapers call Bluebeard. John Carradine gives one of his finest performances as the tormented Morrell, with Jean Parker as the dressmaker who loves him and Nils Asther as the inspector on his trail. Made on a five-day PRC schedule, it's poverty-row stylist Edgar G. Ulmer's most admired film — moody, literate, and shot with genuine atmosphere. It is in the public domain after its copyright was not renewed.

Crime · Horror · Noir

The Los Angeles police know that Pete Ritchie is smuggling narcotics across the Mexican border, but they cannot make a single charge stick. They send an undercover officer, Madeleine Haley, to get close to his operation. Before she can get anywhere, she is grabbed by Johnny McEvoy, a government agent posing as a hoodlum who is also after Ritchie. Neither knows the other is on the same side of the law, and the two of them end up running the border together while Ritchie closes in. Fred MacMurray and Claire Trevor play the two agents who keep each other in the dark, and Raymond Burr is the heavy. The film was the first production of Borderline Pictures, formed by MacMurray, director William Seiter, and producer Milton Bren, who deferred their own salaries to make it. It entered the public domain due to non-renewal of its copyright.

Crime · Noir · Thriller

A pre-Code crime film directed by John Ford and staged by Andrew Bennison, based on the novel Louis Beretti by Donald Henderson Clarke. Edmund Lowe stars as a notorious gangster who is sentenced to fight in World War I rather than go to prison, a scheme cooked up by a district attorney looking to use the publicity to get re-elected. After returning from the war, Beretti tries to go straight by opening a nightclub, but his old criminal connections pull him back in. Lee Tracy plays a fast-talking reporter, and Marguerite Churchill plays Beretti's sister. The film features early uncredited appearances by John Wayne and Randolph Bond as soldiers. The film is in the public domain.

Crime · Drama · War

A 1971 American crime comedy-drama directed by Ivan Passer, his first American film after fleeing Czechoslovakia. George Segal stars as J, a former hairdresser turned heroin addict who scrounges for his next fix on the mean streets of New York City while committing petty crimes and running errands for a drug dealer. When he tries to steal a car, he meets Parm (Karen Black), and begins a tenuous romance. The film also features Paula Prentiss and an early supporting role by Robert De Niro. Shot on location in Manhattan, particularly Times Square, the film was not registered for copyright at the time of its release, placing it in the public domain.

Comedy · Crime · Drama

A respected university professor by day secretly runs a criminal ring out of a Bowery soup kitchen by night, disposing of disloyal henchmen by burying them in the cellar, where a junkie doctor keeps them in a zombie-like trance. Bela Lugosi stars in this Monogram quickie. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Horror · Crime

Bowery Blitzkrieg is a 1941 East Side Kids comedy-drama directed by Wallace Fox for Monogram Pictures. Policeman Tom Brady (Warren Hull) spots promising young boxer Danny Breslin (Bobby Jordan) and steers him toward an amateur boxing tournament, hoping to keep him off the streets. But Danny is torn between the ring and easy money, and when a gangster pressures him to throw the fight, Muggs (Leo Gorcey), Glimpy (Huntz Hall), and the rest of the Kids rally around him. The first East Side Kids entry to feature Keye Luke as Clancy, the film's title trades on the wartime headlines of its day. It entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Comedy · Crime

A 1929 American musical crime film directed by Paul Fejos from the 1926 play of the same name by George Abbott and Philip Dunning. Universal's first talking picture with Technicolor sequences, Broadway follows the backstage drama of a Paradise Nightclub choreographer Roy (Glenn Tryon) and his dancer girlfriend Billie Moore (Merna Kennedy), who try to avoid the criminal element running the club. Evelyn Brent plays Pearl, a woman tied to the nightclub's gangster owner. Director Fejos developed a special crane capable of moving the extremely cumbersome camera at 600 feet per minute, giving the film inventive camera work that contrasts sharply with the mostly static musicals of the 1928-30 period. The film was produced by Carl Laemmle Jr. and distributed by Universal Studios. The film is in the public domain.

Musical · Crime · Drama

A 1929 American pre-Code crime film in which Hugh "Bulldog" Drummond helps a young woman in distress. Ronald Colman stars as the title character in his first talking picture, a role that earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor. Claud Allister plays his loyal friend Algy Longworth, while Montagu Love plays the villain Carl Peterson and Lawrence Grant plays his accomplice Dr. Lakington. Joan Bennett appears as Phyllis Benton, the young woman whose plea for help sets the plot in motion. Produced by Samuel Goldwyn and directed by F. Richard Jones, the film was adapted by Sidney Howard from the 1921 play by H. C. McNeile. The film is in the public domain.

Crime · Mystery · Thriller

One of Paramount's 1930s B-series about the British adventurer Captain Hugh "Bulldog" Drummond, adapted from the novels by H.C. "Sapper" McNeile. Days before his long-delayed wedding, Drummond learns that his friend Colonel Nielson of Scotland Yard has been kidnapped and flown to a remote African compound. Drummond, his fiancée Phyllis, and his sidekick Algy follow, uncovering a plot to extract defense secrets from the colonel. John Howard plays Drummond as a breezy, unflappable gentleman hero, and Heather Angel is the fiancée who refuses to be left behind. The picture is a brisk, hour-long programmer of the old dark-house-in-the-bush variety. Released in 1938, it is in the public domain in the United States.

Mystery · Adventure · Crime

The eighth and final film in Paramount's Bulldog Drummond series, and the wedding finally almost happens. Hugh Drummond (John Howard) and Phyllis Clavering (Heather Angel) are at the altar when a robbery interrupts the ceremony — a gang has hidden its take inside the radio in Drummond's own flat, and the chase to recover it takes the wedding party to a French village under siege. H.B. Warner, Reginald Denny, and E.E. Clive return as Nielsen, Algy, and Tenny for the last time, and Elizabeth Patterson joins as Phyllis's perpetually scandalized aunt. Directed by James P. Hogan, it plays the series' blend of drawing-room comedy and knockabout thrills at full speed. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal of copyright.

Mystery · Comedy · Crime

Another entry in Paramount's Bulldog Drummond series, based on the McNeile novel "Temple Tower." Drummond is finally preparing to marry Phyllis at his ancestral country house when an absent-minded professor arrives with a story about a hidden treasure, and a murderer named Henry Seaton turns up to complicate the wedding plans. The plot winds through secret passages and a string of killings around the estate, with Colonel Nielson and Algy along for the chase. John Howard and Heather Angel continue their easy chemistry, and Leo G. Carroll plays the villain. Released in 1939, the film is in the public domain in the United States.

Mystery · Adventure · Crime

When his best friend is murdered while pursuing jewel smugglers, U.S. customs agent Cliff Holden (Dean Jagger) takes over the case, flying to Europe to board the same return flight as the chief suspect and following the trail back to a New York gang. John Carradine co-stars as the suave Doc Spencer. Shot almost entirely on New York City locations, C-Man has the gritty, documentary-style look of the independent noirs director Joseph Lerner made with his wife and producing partner Geraldine. The film was produced by Laurel Films and distributed by Film Classics, and is in the public domain.

Noir · Crime · Drama

Bedridden and convinced he's dying, George Jones (Barry Sullivan) becomes certain his wife Ellen (Loretta Young) and his doctor are planning to murder him — so he writes the district attorney a letter accusing them. Then he drops dead, and the letter is already in the mail. Ellen's desperate afternoon chasing a single envelope through a sunlit suburb makes for one of the tightest domestic noirs of the early 50s. Tay Garnett directed for MGM. The film is in the public domain.

Thriller · Drama · Crime

Warner Oland's tenth outing as Charlie Chan sends the detective to a San Francisco mansion where Allen Colby, the heir to the Lowell fortune, has returned after being presumed drowned for seven years — and is murdered at a séance before he can reclaim a cent. Chan sifts through a household of psychics, suspicious relatives, and a butler who knows more than he says, while the killer keeps striking. Henrietta Crosman and Rosina Lawrence co-star, with Jonathan Hale as the police chief. Directed by Gordon Wiles, it is one of the more atmospheric of the Fox Chan pictures, leaning hard into spiritualism and old-dark-house menace. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal of copyright.

Mystery · Crime · Thriller

The first film adaptation of Maurine Dallas Watkins' 1926 play Chicago, produced by Cecil B. DeMille and directed by Frank Urson. Phyllis Haver stars as Roxie Hart, a fame-obsessed housewife who kills her lover in cold blood and, after trying to coerce her husband into taking the blame, is put on trial for murder. Victor Varconi plays her long-suffering husband Amos, who has a much more sympathetic and active role than in later adaptations. The film was a box office disappointment upon release but modern viewers praise its sharp satire and acting. The story would be adapted twice more, most famously in the 2002 Oscar-winning musical version. The film is in the public domain.

Crime · Comedy · Drama · Silent

Linda Darnell plays a young woman who gets herself sent to a women's prison to be near her husband, a Coast Guard officer convicted of a crime he didn't commit. Inside she finds a population of wives and mothers serving time alongside — and sometimes instead of — the men who dragged them into trouble. Edgar Buchanan and Glenda Farrell lead the ensemble. Sidney Salkow directed this Columbia prison-reform drama at the height of the wartime cycle of women's-prison pictures. The film is in the public domain.

Drama · Crime

A 1930 mystery melodrama from RKO, directed by Christy Cabanne and based on the 1912 play by Robert B. Baker and John Emerson. Margaret Holt and her brother Victor investigate the narcotics ring responsible for their father's death, with the help of a crotchety crime author played by Ned Sparks, whose over-the-top performance steals the show. The film is a fascinating artifact of the early sound era, when actors and directors were still learning to adapt to the medium of talkies. Bessie Love and Hugh Trevor round out the cast. The film entered the public domain in the United States in 1958 because the copyright was never renewed.

Mystery · Crime · Drama

An all-Black gangster film produced by and co-directed with its star Ralph Cooper, Dark Manhattan reimagines the Hollywood gangster picture through a Black gaze. Cooper plays Curly Thorpe, a ruthless numbers racketeer who rises to power in Harlem by pushing aside mob boss Larry Lee (Clarence Brooks), only to face betrayal and violence as he pursues nightclub singer Flo Gray (Cleo Herndon). Produced by Randol-Cooper Productions for Black audiences, the film emphasizes interpersonal conflict and betrayal over the spectacle of violence that characterized mainstream gangster films of the era. The film is in the public domain.

Crime · Drama

Forest ranger Don Bradley watches the woman he loves marry his friend Steve Downey — not knowing Downey is secretly running a hijacking ring. When a murder forces the gang into the mountains, Bradley has to choose between duty and the lives of the people he cares about. Robert Lowery, Ellen Drew, and Regis Toomey star in this compact Pine-Thomas programmer for Paramount, with Elisha Cook Jr. among the gang. Directed by William Berke. It is in the public domain after its copyright was not renewed.

Crime · Drama · Noir

A small town is shaken when a high school girl's death is ruled suicide — until a reporter and a detective dig into the dance halls and shady hangouts preying on local teens. June Carlson, Fifi D'Orsay, and Margia Dean star in this PRC "juvenile delinquency" exposé, wartime exploitation fare that mixed moral panic with low-budget crime thrills. Directed by Albert Herman. It is in the public domain after its copyright was not renewed.

Crime · Drama

Ralph Byrd, then riding high as the screen's Dick Tracy, stars as Tony Bronson, a pilot whose plane is hijacked mid-flight over the Caribbean by a gang after the payroll he's carrying. When the plane goes down on a remote island, Bronson has to outwit the hijackers with help from a stranded showgirl troupe. Directed by William Beaudine — the famously tireless "One Shot" of Poverty Row — Desperate Cargo is a brisk PRC programmer that packs a hijacking, a crash, and a jungle standoff into barely an hour. The film's copyright was never renewed, placing it in the public domain.

Adventure · Crime · Thriller

Chapter one, "The Spider Strikes," of the 15-chapter Republic serial. Plainclothes detective Dick Tracy hunts the masked criminal mastermind known as the Spider, who has kidnapped his brother and threatened the city. Ralph Byrd stars as Chester Gould's square-jawed hero in the first Dick Tracy screen serial. The serial entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Action · Crime · Adventure

The fourth and final RKO Dick Tracy feature, and the only one to star Boris Karloff. A convicted killer called Gruesome gets his hands on a canister of experimental nerve gas that freezes anyone who breathes it mid-action, and uses it to stage a bank robbery in which the customers and staff stand paralyzed while the vault is cleaned out. Tess Trueheart witnesses the robbery and barely escapes, bringing Dick Tracy onto the case. Ralph Byrd, who had played Tracy in the Republic serials, returns to the role here. Karloff's presence gives the picture a jolt of real menace that the series had lacked, and the gas gimmick is a neat piece of B-noir plotting. Released in 1947, the film is in the public domain in the United States.

Crime · Mystery · Thriller

The second of RKO's four Dick Tracy features, based on Chester Gould's comic strip. A bald, thick-necked ex-convict called Cueball strangles a diamond courier with a shoelace and goes hunting for the rest of the stolen stones, leaving a trail of bodies across the city. Dick Tracy and his girlfriend Tess Trueheart work the case from opposite ends, she going undercover as a diamond broker to draw the killer out. Morgan Conway plays Tracy as a placid, square-jawed straight arrow, and Dick Wessel's Cueball is an effectively brutal heavy. The film is a tight, cheap, well-paced B-mystery that clocks in at just over an hour. Released in 1946, it is in the public domain in the United States.

Crime · Mystery · Action

A film noir directed by Robert Stevenson and starring Hedy Lamarr, who also co-produced. Lamarr plays Madeleine Damien, a Manhattan magazine editor living a fast, scandalous social life who retreats from it all after a murder charge and attempts to rebuild with a kind psychiatrist (Dennis O'Keefe), only to be drawn back into danger by the wealthy Felix Courtland (John Loder, Lamarr's real-life husband at the time). Based on the 1930 play by Edward Sheldon and Margaret Ayer Barnes, the film is in the public domain.

Crime · Drama

A New York magazine editor offers a job to hotshot Iowa photographer "Pat Marvin" — then discovers Pat is Patricia, and promptly falls for her. She's still carrying a torch for her boyfriend Ben, who follows her to the city, and the romantic tangle gets complicated by a staged murder photo that turns out to be real. Chester Morris and Nancy Kelly star in this snappy Pine-Thomas comedy-mystery for Paramount, directed by William Berke. It is in the public domain after its copyright was not renewed.

Comedy · Crime

Fritz Lang's two-part criminal epic introduced cinema's first great supervillain. Dr. Mabuse (Rudolf Klein-Rogge) is a hypnotist, master of disguise, and criminal psychologist who manipulates Berlin's decadent gambling clubs, ruins the industrialist Hull, and destroys the young Count Told — all while state prosecutor von Wenk (Bernhard Goetzke) doggedly hunts the phantom pulling the strings. Adapted from Norbert Jacques's novel and subtitled *A Picture of the Time*, the film is both a cracking crime saga and a portrait of Weimar Germany's postwar instability. Mabuse's chilling final descent into madness made him an archetype Lang would revisit twice more. Published in 1922, it is in the public domain in the United States.

Crime · Thriller · Silent

The last of the fourteen Sherlock Holmes films starring Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce. Three apparently ordinary music boxes, made by prisoners in Dartmoor and sold at auction, turn out to hide a coded message pointing to a fortune in stolen Bank of England plates. A collector who buys one of the boxes is murdered, and Holmes and Watson race a coolly ruthless woman, Hilda Courtney, to recover the other two before she cracks the code. Patricia Morison plays the villain, one of the series' most memorable, against Rathbone's weary, finally retiring Holmes. Roy William Neill produced and directed his final film before his death later that year. Released in 1946, the film is in the public domain in the United States.

Mystery · Crime

A 1923 silent melodrama directed by Tod Browning and set in the opium underworld of Shanghai. Priscilla Dean plays Cassie Cook, an American woman smuggling opium who falls under the surveillance of a government agent disguised as a mining engineer. When she falls in love with him, she tries to leave the drug trade, but the head of the ring will not let her go. Wallace Beery plays her menacing confederate, and Anna May Wong appears in a supporting role. The film is based on the 1910 Broadway play by John Colton and Daisy H. Andrews and was produced by Carl Laemmle at Universal. It is a precursor to the stranger, darker films Browning would make later in the decade. The film's copyright expired at the end of its first term, and it entered the public domain in the United States on January 1, 2019.

Drama · Crime · Silent

Edward Arnold stars as Duncan "Mac" Maclain, a blind detective who refuses to let his disability slow him down, relying on his guide dog Friday and his heightened remaining senses. When old friend Norma Lawry (Ann Harding) asks him to scare off a scheming actor courting her teenage stepdaughter (Donna Reed, in one of her earliest roles), Mac walks into a case that quickly turns to espionage and murder. Directed by Fred Zinnemann near the start of his Hollywood career, this lean MGM programmer spins Baynard Kendrick's novels into a tight, atmospheric thriller — the first of only two Maclain films. Its copyright was never renewed, placing it in the public domain.

Noir · Mystery · Crime

A bank teller wakes from a vivid nightmare in which he murders a man in a strange mirrored room, and finds physical evidence in his apartment that suggests it may not have been a dream at all. His brother-in-law, a police detective, does not believe him, until a family picnic strands them near an abandoned mansion that turns out to contain the very room from the dream. The film is based on a Cornell Woolrich story, and it works the Woolrich territory of ordinary people trapped in impossible situations. DeForest Kelley, years before he was Dr. McCoy on Star Trek, makes his film debut as the tormented teller, and Paul Kelly is the skeptical cop. Director Maxwell Shane later remade the film as Nightmare (1956) with Edward G. Robinson. The film entered the public domain due to non-renewal of its copyright.

Crime · Noir · Mystery

Evelyn Venable plays the wife of a small-time crook who takes the fall for a payroll robbery and goes on the run, hiding out as a cook on a truck farm where Craig Reynolds's earnest farmer slowly falls for her — while her husband's gang closes in. A Crescent Pictures production released through Monogram, it is a compact poverty-row crime melodrama built on the era's favorite engine: a decent woman on the wrong side of the law through no fault of her own. Director William Nigh keeps it moving at the pace Monogram audiences expected. It entered the public domain after its copyright was never renewed.

Crime · Drama

Country music legend Johnny Cash made his theatrical film debut in this low- budget neo-noir crime thriller directed by Bill Karn. Cash plays Johnny Cabot, a deranged bank robber who holds a housewife (Cay Forrester) hostage while his accomplice attempts to extort her bank manager husband (Donald Woods). Cash performs the title song, with a guitar solo by Merle Travis, who also appears in the film. A young Ron Howard co-stars as the couple's son. The film was rereleased in 1966 by American International Pictures as Door-to-Door Maniac. It is in the public domain.

Crime · Thriller

A 1963 American exploitation drama directed by John Hayes, starring Rue McClanahan (later of The Golden Girls) as Poochie, a woman living in a junkyard. A young couple, Ben and Edna, are traveling to California with their baby when their car breaks down. Ben walks to a nearby junkyard for a spare part, where the seedy owner Harry frames him for selling stolen auto parts. When Ben fails to return, Edna goes looking for him and is chased around the junkyard by Harry's strange, dim-witted friend Blowhard. The film was critically lambasted and later picked up by exploitation filmmaker Kroger Babb. Also known as The Rotten Apple, Junk Yard Love, and It Only Takes Five Minutes.

Drama · Crime · Thriller

Alan Curtis plays a former FBI agent flying passengers to Honolulu who gets pulled into a hunt for a stolen map of uranium deposits in Death Valley — a map that agents of a foreign power will kill for. Evelyn Ankers co-stars as a fellow passenger with her own reasons for the trip. A Screen Guild B-thriller trading on post-war atomic anxiety, with most of the action confined to the hotel and the doomed flight. The film is in the public domain.

Crime · Mystery · Thriller

A pre-Code crime drama from Paramount, directed by John Cromwell. William Powell plays William Foster, a slick criminal defense lawyer who specializes in getting crooks acquitted. He is in love with Irene Manners, played by Kay Francis, a dancer who is also seeing Jack Defoe on the side. When Irene kills a pedestrian while driving Jack's car, Jack takes the blame, and Foster ends up defending him, only to discover that a ring he gave Irene is at the crime scene. The film is a showcase for Powell's effortless sophistication and Francis's cool glamour, a pairing Paramount would reuse the same year in *Ladies of Leisure*. Published in 1930, the film entered the public domain in the United States on January 1, 2026.

Crime · Drama · Romance

A film noir directed by John Reinhardt and starring Cathy Downs and Paul Langton. With only a year left on his sentence, convict Johnny Coulter (Langton) is forced into a jailbreak by the violent Matt Gruber, who kills a guard during the escape. Once free, Johnny makes his way to a remote diner where he meets Hope Novak (Downs), a waitress with her own ties to Gruber. Together they plan to turn Gruber in, but the arrival of the ruthless convict threatens both their freedom and their growing affection. The film is in the public domain.

Crime · Drama

Professional gambler Ross Hadley runs a plush gaming house in New York while his childhood friend Mike McGlennon, now a police lieutenant, is sworn to shut it down. Their rivalry turns personal when both men fall for nightclub singer Mary Hayes, and a murder forces each to choose between duty, friendship, and the law. Chester Morris, Nancy Kelly, and Russell Hayden star in this Pine-Thomas crime drama for Paramount, directed by Frank McDonald. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Crime · Drama

A protection racket run by mobster "Big Bill" Morgan moves in on a small city's shopkeepers, and the only people standing up to it are a crusading district attorney and a gutsy girl reporter (Anne Nagel). Robert Kent plays the detective who infiltrates the gang. A Monogram B-crime picture directed by Lambert Hillyer, who made hundreds of programmers and westerns for the Poverty Row studios. The film is in the public domain.

Crime · Drama

A crime film starring James Cagney and directed by John G. Blystone, produced for Grand National Pictures after Cagney's departure from Warner Bros. Cagney plays Johnny Cave, a pugnacious new inspector for the New York Department of Weights and Measures who takes on corrupt merchants and the political machine behind them. Mae Clarke, his co-star from The Public Enemy, plays his love interest. The film is in the public domain.

Crime · Drama

A burglar who listens in on police radio to stay a step ahead of the law shoots a Los Angeles officer and becomes the target of a citywide manhunt. The film follows the police investigation step by step, the forensics, the informants, the dead ends, and the final chase through the storm drains under the city. It is loosely based on the real crime spree of Erwin "Machine-Gun" Walker, a former police department employee who terrorized Los Angeles in 1946. Richard Basehart is cold and precise as the killer, and John Alton's cinematography turns the night streets and the underground tunnels into something close to a nightmare. The film is also the unlikely origin of Dragnet: Jack Webb met the production's police technical advisor on set, and that conversation led him to create the radio show. The film entered the public domain due to non-renewal of its copyright.

Crime · Noir

A low-budget juvenile delinquency film written and directed by Joel Rapp and released by Roger Corman's Filmgroup. Tom Pittman, in his final film role before his death in a car crash at age 26, plays Marv Grant, a bright high school student manipulated by a popular girl (Virginia Aldridge) into writing her term paper, then driven to plan a million-dollar robbery to win her back. The film was not copyrighted at the time of its release and is in the public domain.

Crime · Drama

Fresh out of prison, con man John Muller botches a casino heist and needs to disappear — until he meets Dr. Bartok, a psychiatrist who is his near-exact double, save for a scar on the opposite cheek. Muller kills Bartok, scars himself, and steps into the dead man's life, only to learn the doctor had dangerous secrets of his own. Paul Henreid plays both roles opposite Joan Bennett in this fatalistic Eagle-Lion noir from director Steve Sekely, reissued as The Scar. It is in the public domain after its copyright was not renewed.

Crime · Noir · Thriller

A 15-chapter Columbia cliffhanger serial directed by James W. Horne, with Chapter 1 titled "Chaotic Greek." Jack Holt plays a Secret Service agent infiltrating a gang of counterfeiters who have kidnapped the government's best engraver to produce undetectable phony money. Evelyn Brent co-stars as his undercover partner Kay Drew. Holt, Columbia's longest-tenured star, was effectively demoted to serials by studio head Harry Cohn, but the production retained a feature-film crew under producer Larry Darmour. The serial is in the public domain.

Action · Crime

A wealthy businessman survives a murder attempt arranged by his wife and her lover, then disappears so that the two of them can be charged with killing him. He hides out in a small town under an assumed name while the police, led by a sharp lieutenant played by Charles Coburn, work to build the case. Brian Donlevy is the wronged husband who has to decide whether to come back at all, and Ella Raines is the woman who helps him. The film was shot entirely in Northern California, around San Francisco and Marin County, which gives it a different look from the usual Los Angeles noir. It entered the public domain due to non-renewal of its copyright.

Crime · Noir · Mystery

On a dark train platform, a stranger tells a waiting woman the story of Harold Dunlap — a man who accidentally kills his jilting lover on that very platform and flees to a small town, only to find that a young boy named Mike saw the whole thing. Trapped by flooded roads, Dunlap has to decide what to do about his witness. Directed by prolific B-movie hand Lew Landers and tying into the Inner Sanctum radio and pulp-mystery brand, this hour-long M.R.S. Pictures cheapie stars Charles Russell and Mary Beth Hughes. It is in the public domain after its copyright was not renewed.

Crime · Mystery · Noir

Bela Lugosi plays Dr. Charles Kessler, a grief-stricken widower whose wife is believed dead — but is actually alive, hidden away in the cellar by the gardener, driven mad by a car accident. When she wanders the grounds at night, the sight of her through the window sends Kessler into a trance that turns him into an unwitting killer, and his daughter Virginia's fiance takes the fall for the murders. The first of Lugosi's nine Monogram pictures, directed with unusual atmosphere by Joseph H. Lewis, who stages the trances with slow, eerie poise. Clarence Muse gives a dignified turn as the Kesslers' butler Evans. The film entered the public domain because its copyright was not renewed.

Horror · Crime · Thriller

A young man gets involved with a criminal who forces him to participate in a robbery. Things go wrong, and the criminal uses a plastic surgeon to change his face. Ed Wood's first feature film, made before the movies that made him infamous. Steve Reeves, who would later become a Hercules star, appears in a supporting role. The film was registered for copyright in 1954 and never renewed, which is why it entered the public domain on January 1, 1983. It is a competent low-budget crime picture, more straightforward than the science fiction and horror films Wood would become known for.

Crime · Drama

Alfred Hitchcock's last British film before leaving for Hollywood. Orphaned Mary Yelland (Maureen O'Hara, in her first major role) arrives at a lonely Cornish coaching inn run by her brutal uncle Joss (Leslie Banks) — headquarters of a gang that wrecks ships on the rocks and murders the survivors. Charles Laughton, who also produced, plays the local squire Sir Humphrey Pengallan with deliberate, scenery-chewing menace. Adapted from Daphne du Maurier's novel, the production was famously contentious — Laughton reshaped scenes around himself — but the wreckers' coast, the inn, and O'Hara's debut charisma carry it. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal of copyright.

Crime · Adventure · Drama

When a newspaper columnist is murdered while investigating the Crusaders, a flag-waving hate group building itself into a political power, assistant district attorney Howard Malloy (Franchot Tone) is named special prosecutor and digs into the shadowy organization. The film is famous for its uncredited cameos — Marlene Dietrich, Henry Fonda, John Garfield, Burgess Meredith, and Everett Sloane all turn up in small roles as a favor to director Fletcher Markle. Produced by the Danziger brothers and released by United Artists, Jigsaw is in the public domain.

Noir · Crime · Mystery

A former convict is framed for a bank robbery he had nothing to do with and, to clear his name, infiltrates the gang of masked thieves on their way to a heist in Mexico. Phil Karlson's taut, hard-edged noir was a touchstone for later heist films. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Noir · Crime

A 1928 American silent crime comedy directed by Elmer Clifton for DeMille Pictures Corporation. Young Gallagher (Frank Coghlan Jr.) wants to be a newspaper reporter. One day he witnesses a murder committed by a mysterious man with only four fingers on one hand. He gives his account of the murder and a description of the killer to his hero, newsman Henry Callahan (Harrison Ford), resulting in his getting a job on the paper as an office boy. When circumstances arise that result in Callahan losing his job, he and Gallagher team up to discover the identity of the killer and help Callahan get his job back. The film is in the public domain.

Crime · Comedy · Silent

The first full-length all-talking feature film, released by Warner Bros. in the middle of the sound transition. The plot is a routine gangster story: two barbershop owners get pulled into a Broadway bootlegging operation and a murder they did not commit. What matters about the film is not the story but the fact that every line of dialogue was recorded and played back in sync, which audiences in 1928 had never seen in a feature. The technology was primitive, the actors were often stiff from playing to fixed microphones, and the film was widely mocked even at the time for its awkwardness. But it was a hit, and it proved that audiences would sit through a feature-length talkie. It is a historical artifact more than a great film, but the history it marks is a real one. The 1928 film entered the United States public domain on January 1, 2024.

Crime · Drama

The landmark gangster film directed by Mervyn LeRoy and starring Edward G. Robinson in the role that made him a star. Robinson plays Caesar Enrico Bandello, a small-time hood who rises to become a crime boss in the city's underworld, only to be destroyed by his own ambition and the inevitable betrayal of those around him. Douglas Fairbanks Jr. co-stars as his friend Joe Massara, a dancer torn between loyalty and going straight. Alongside The Public Enemy and Scarface, Little Caesar defined the gangster genre in early sound cinema. The film is in the public domain.

Crime · Drama

One of Oscar Micheaux's final films and his last fully realized melodrama. Nightclub singer Elsie Bellwood (Edna Mae Harris) refuses to entertain her boss's wealthy patrons and is framed for the murder of her own aunt; her loyal boyfriend Benjamin (Carman Newsome), a law student, gives up his career plans to clear her name. Robert Earl Jones — father of James Earl Jones — plays the detective whose "lying lips" testimony is central to the frame-up. Shot quickly in Harlem, it is Micheaux's familiar mix of courtroom drama, nightclub numbers, and moral instruction for Black audiences. Its copyright was not renewed; it is in the public domain in the United States.

Drama · Crime

Cecil B. DeMille's social drama about Lydia Thorne (Leatrice Joy), a wealthy, reckless socialite whose careless driving kills a policeman and lands her in prison. There she encounters the district attorney who prosecuted her, Daniel O'Bannon (Thomas Meighan), a man who once loved her, and Evangelin (Lois Wilson), a selfless fellow inmate whose example forces Lydia to confront the moral emptiness of her privileged life. The film's parallels between Jazz Age excess and Roman decadence, conveyed through one of DeMille's trademark flashback sequences, gave it a moral weight that resonated with 1920s audiences. As a work published before 1930, it is in the public domain in the United States.

Drama · Crime · Silent

Dwain Esper's answer to Reefer Madness, billed on release as "Marihuana: The Weed with Roots in Hell." High schooler Burma Roberts (Harley Wood) falls in with a slick dealer whose beach-house parties lead to skinny-dipping, a drowning, a pregnancy, and eventually a kidnapping plot — all blamed on the demon weed. Like Esper's Maniac and Reefer Madness, it was an "adults only" roadshow picture sold on sensation rather than accuracy, and today it plays as a prime artifact of 1930s exploitation cinema. The film is in the public domain.

Drama · Crime

A 1940 American mystery film directed by Howard Bretherton and released by Monogram Pictures. The film stars John 'Dusty' King as Val Lennon and Marjorie Reynolds as Joan Marshall, who find themselves aboard the Midnight Limited, a train where a mysterious crime unfolds. George Cleveland plays Professor Van Dillon. The film is a classic Poverty Row mystery, typical of Monogram's low-budget output of the era. The film is in the public domain.

Mystery · Crime · Action

Reporter Sue Gallagher (Detour's Ann Savage) discovers the corpse of a notorious gangster propped up in a wax museum and fights to keep the scoop — while a rival reporter (William Gargan), the museum's bumbling maintenance man (Leo Gorcey), and the killer himself (George Zucco) all converge on the evidence. A fast, funny 64-minute programmer from Pine-Thomas Productions, Paramount's prolific "Dollar Bills" B-movie unit. The film is in the public domain.

Comedy · Crime · Mystery

The East Side Kids — Muggs (Leo Gorcey), Glimpy (Huntz Hall), and the gang — rescue millionaire John Cortland from a mugging, and his gratitude lands them in a world of swank they were never built for. The good turn sours when the boys discover a friend has been recruited by the crooks behind a string of robberies, and Muggs has to choose between loyalty and doing right. One of the tighter entries in Monogram's long-running East Side Kids series, with the usual mix of slapstick, Bowery slang, and last-reel fisticuffs under series regular Wallace Fox. Sam Katzman produced, as he did for most of the gang's pictures. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal of copyright.

Comedy · Crime

Bank robber Steve Clark stashes nearly $200,000 in a safety deposit box and lays low in a small town driving a cab, where he woos and marries Julie Saunders — niece of a wealthy invalid — to give himself the perfect cover. When Julie discovers who her husband really is, she is pulled into a tightening web of greed, blackmail, and murder as the law closes in. Hugh Beaumont, later famous as Ward Cleaver on Leave It to Beaver, plays against type as the cold-blooded killer, with Frances Rafferty as Julie. Directed by B-movie workhorse Sam Newfield. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Crime · Noir · Thriller

The third entry in Monogram's Mr. Wong series, with Boris Karloff in the unlikely role of the gentlemanly Chinese detective James Lee Wong. A Chinese princess visiting San Francisco to buy warplanes for her country is murdered in Wong's own home, and the trail winds through Chinatown tongs, shady ship brokers, and a counterfeiting ring. Marjorie Reynolds co-stars as wisecracking reporter Bobbie Logan, with Grant Withers as the eternally exasperated Captain Street. Karloff's quiet, courtly Wong remains one of the odder delights of the Poverty Row detective series. The film's copyright was not renewed; it is in the public domain in the United States.

Mystery · Crime

An early Alfred Hitchcock thriller from his British period. An actress is found standing over the body of a murdered colleague with the weapon in her hand, and a jury convicts her. One juror, the distinguished actor Sir John Menier, is troubled by the verdict and sets out to investigate on his own, uncovering the real killer. The film, based on the novel Enter Sir John, shows Hitchcock working out ideas he would refine for decades: the wrongfully accused, the audience's complicity, and suspense generated by the gap between what the viewer and the characters know. Hitchcock makes his customary cameo, walking past the murder victim's house. Published in 1930, the film entered the public domain in the United States on January 1, 2026.

Mystery · Thriller · Crime

The fifth of Columbia's Whistler films. A shady private detective named Don Gale is hired by an old shopkeeper to find a young woman from his past so he can leave her a fortune, but the case is a setup, and Gale is soon framed for murder. As the Whistler's narration reminds us, the detective's own greed set the trap, and the film watches him scramble to stay ahead of the police and the real killer. Richard Dix plays his seventh Whistler lead, with Barton MacLane as the cop on his trail and Mike Mazurki as a menacing thug. William Castle directed. Released in 1946, the film is in the public domain in the United States.

Mystery · Noir · Crime

A 1934 American Pre-Code mystery film directed by William Nigh and based on an Edgar Wallace story. Captain Holling (Noah Beery) is relieved of command of his ship after suffering a nervous breakdown. His replacement takes over the liner just as it is about to be used for an experiment in remote control. Professor Grimson has devised a system for controlling the ship from a land-based laboratory, but as Grimson demonstrates the system, a rival group is listening in, hoping to use the device for its own purposes. The film was entered as a feature attraction at the 1934 International Exhibition of Cinematographic Art in Venice, the forerunner of the Venice Film Festival. The film is in the public domain.

Mystery · Crime · Thriller

The East Side Kids rescue Sylvia, a young girl fleeing her abusive stepfather Morley, and hide her in their clubhouse dressed as a boy. When Morley turns up dead — killed by racketeer McGaffey for a stolen stash of money — Danny is arrested for the murder after returning to the girl's apartment for her clothes. Muggs is then blackmailed into joining a warehouse robbery, leaving the kids to clear their friend's name and catch the real killer, with help from Rusty, a former East Side Kid home on leave from the Navy. The eleventh East Side Kids picture, directed by Wallace Fox for Monogram, and one of the series' more dramatic entries. The film entered the public domain because its copyright was not renewed.

Comedy · Crime · Drama

Private detective Humphrey Campbell tracks down a missing girl for a bank vault company, only to find her murdered — and his search pulls in a psychic act, a collection of eccentric suspects, and his own sharp-tongued wife Louise. Chester Morris plays the brash Campbell, a lighter riff on his Boston Blackie persona, with Jean Parker as Louise. A fast, cheap, and lively Pine-Thomas production for Paramount, directed by Frank McDonald and adapted from a novel by Daniel Mainwaring writing as Geoffrey Homes. The film entered the public domain because its copyright was not renewed.

Crime · Mystery · Comedy

A 1922 American Gothic silent mystery film directed by D. W. Griffith. The plot revolves around a series of murders on a wealthy estate and the attempts of the cast to uncover the murderer's identity. A young orphan girl (Carol Dempster), courted by an unpleasant older wealthy man who has a hold over her adoptive mother, falls in love with a young stranger (Henry Hull) at a party. Odd noises begin to be heard as a group of bootleggers clandestinely try to get away with their hidden loot. One of them is killed and the young man is suspected of being the killer. Griffith reassembled the cast and shot a new ending involving a terrifying hurricane, using a combination of real hurricane footage and studio special effects. The film is in the public domain.

Mystery · Crime · Silent

A newspaper man frames a man's final year in flashback: convicted of a murder he insists was a frame-up, he is paroled into the custody of a crusading reporter who intends to prove his innocence, with the dead man's own wife falling for the prisoner along the way. Russell Hopton and Mary Brian star in this Allied Pictures drama, produced by M.H. Hoffman and directed by silent-era veteran E. Mason Hopper. It is a depression-era crime story in which the real antagonist is the machinery of justice itself. It entered the public domain after its copyright was never renewed.

Crime · Drama · Romance

A 1930 American pre-Code crime film directed by Tod Browning and starring Edward G. Robinson. The picture is a remake of the 1920 film of the same name starring Lon Chaney, which was also directed by Browning. Robinson plays Cobra Collins, the ruthless boss of a criminal gang who is willing to do anything to prevent a rival gangster from pulling off a bank robbery on his territory. The film was one of Robinson's early sound films, made before his breakout role in Little Caesar (1931). Produced by Carl Laemmle Jr. and distributed by Universal Studios. The film is in the public domain.

Crime · Drama

A pre-Code drama that marked Joan Crawford's transition from flappers to serious roles. She plays Mary Turner, a shopgirl wrongly convicted of theft who, on release, turns the law against those who jailed her through a series of breach-of-promise "heart balm" scams, until she targets the department store owner who ruined her by marrying his son. Sam Wood directed from Bayard Veiller's play Within the Law, with Robert Armstrong and Kent Douglass (in his film debut) supporting. The film is in the public domain.

Crime · Drama

When a string of notorious criminals walks free on suspiciously easy parole, the federal government sends undercover agent Richard Hendricks to find out who is selling the state's leniency. Posing as wanted convict Rick Carson, Hendricks works his way into the gang run by the cunning Barney Rodescu — until his cover is blown and the racket turns on him. Directed by Alfred Zeisler and starring Michael O'Shea, Turhan Bey, and Evelyn Ankers, this lean Eagle-Lion release is a brisk Poverty Row noir built on an early version of the undercover-cop story. The film is in the public domain after its copyright was not renewed.

Crime · Noir · Thriller

A 1956 film noir directed by Peter Godfrey, starring Raymond Burr and Angela Lansbury. Attorney Craig Carlson (Burr) falls in love with Myra Leeds (Lansbury), the wife of his best friend Joe (Dick Foran). When Myra asks Craig to defend her after she shoots Joe dead, claiming self-defense, he wins her acquittal — only to learn she manipulated him and planned the murder all along. Trapped by attorney-client privilege and his own guilt, Carlson devises a desperate plan to force Myra to murder again: him. Told largely in flashback with Burr's characteristic gravitas and a memorably cold Lansbury performance, it is a compact, twisty courtroom noir. The film is in the public domain.

Crime · Thriller

Dan Brady is a garage mechanic who wants to impress a waitress, so he borrows twenty dollars from the till at work, intending to pay it back before anyone notices. He does not. One small bad choice leads to another, and within a day Dan has stolen a car, robbed a nightclub, and talked himself deeper with every lie. Mickey Rooney plays him as a normal guy who keeps making the wrong decision under pressure, and the film watches a petty theft snowball into serious crime with a kind of grim inevitability. Peter Lorre is the amusement-pier owner who pulls Dan further in. The film was shot on a low budget with Rooney and Lorre helping to finance it themselves. It entered the public domain due to non-renewal of its copyright.

Crime · Noir

A 1930 American pre-Code comedy-mystery film produced by Samuel Goldwyn and directed by George Fitzmaurice. Ronald Colman stars as A.J. Raffles, a distinguished English gentleman who leads a secret life as the notorious jewel thief the press has dubbed "The Amateur Cracksman." When Raffles falls in love with Gwen (Kay Francis), he decides to retire from crime, but an old friend, Bunny (Bramwell Fletcher), comes to him with a predicament that entails committing one last job. The film is based on the 1906 play by E. W. Hornung and Eugene Wiley Presbrey, adapted from Hornung's 1899 short story collection. Oscar Lagerstrom was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Sound Recording. The film is in the public domain.

Crime · Comedy · Mystery · Romance

A propaganda film depicting the supposed horrors of marijuana, in which a few puffs lead straight to hit-and-run, manslaughter, suicide, attempted rape, and madness. Originally financed as an exploitation picture under the title Tell Your Children, it was rediscovered in the 1970s and became a counterculture favorite. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Drama · Crime

Directed by Raoul Walsh, Regeneration is a 1915 American silent crime drama and one of the first full-length gangster films. Based on the 1903 memoir My Mamie Rose by Owen Frawley Kildare, the film stars Rockliffe Fellowes as Owen Conway, a poor orphan who rises to become a gang leader on the Lower East Side before a chance encounter with social worker Marie Deering (Anna Q. Nilsson) inspires him to seek redemption. Long feared lost, the film was rediscovered by preservationist David Shepard and selected for the United States National Film Registry in 2000. It was the first full-length feature directed by Walsh, who would go on to become one of Hollywood's most prolific directors.

Crime · Drama · Silent

A 1916 American silent film and the only surviving filmed record of William Gillette's legendary stage performance as Sherlock Holmes. Directed by Arthur Berthelet for Essanay Studios, the film adapts Gillette's 1899 play, which drew on Arthur Conan Doyle's "A Scandal in Bohemia," "The Final Problem," and A Study in Scarlet. Gillette had played Holmes over 1,300 times on stage and shaped many of the character's iconic elements, including the deerstalker hat and calabash pipe. Long believed lost, a nitrate print was discovered in the Cinémathèque Française archive in 2014 and restored by the San Francisco Silent Film Festival. The film is in the public domain.

Mystery · Crime · Silent

The fourth of Universal's Sherlock Holmes films updates Arthur Conan Doyle's "The Adventure of the Dancing Men" to wartime. Holmes smuggles a Swiss scientist out of Zurich ahead of the Gestapo and brings him to London, where the man has developed a revolutionary bombsight he intends to give the Allies. When the scientist is kidnapped, Holmes and Watson discover that Professor Moriarty is behind it, working to deliver the weapon to Nazi Germany. Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce are in their familiar roles, with Lionel Atwill as a silkily malevolent Moriarty. The film grafts a spy thriller onto a Conan Doyle puzzle and was made on a small budget at a moment when the series leaned hard into the war effort. It was released in 1943 and is in the public domain in the United States.

Mystery · Crime · Thriller

A 1930 pre-Code crime drama and the film debut of James Cagney, who reprises his Broadway role from the play Penny Arcade by Marie Baumer. Directed by John G. Adolfi for Warner Bros., the film is set at a Coney Island penny arcade run by Ma Delano (Lucille La Verne). When her son Harry (Cagney) gets involved in a bootlegging operation run by Mitch McKane (Warren Hymer), a fatal shooting on the darkened pier sets off a tense family drama. Joan Blondell also makes her film debut, repeating her stage role as Myrtle. The film is in the public domain.

Crime · Drama

The East Side Kids earn money for baseball uniforms, but their plans collide with gangster Butch Brocalli when Muggs catches the eye of the ex-boxer's gang. Muggs lands in jail for refusing to inform on an old friend, while Danny's sister Ruth desperately needs money for an operation. Former East Side Kid Hank Salko, fresh out of prison, falls back in with the gang before deciding where his loyalties lie. Former light-heavyweight champion Maxie "Slapsie Maxie" Rosenbloom plays Brocalli, and Gale Storm appears as Ruth. The tenth East Side Kids picture, directed by Wallace Fox for Monogram. The film entered the public domain because its copyright was not renewed.

Comedy · Crime · Drama

ZaSu Pitts gets a rare leading role as Emma Bates, a fluttery small-town spinster who comes to the big city to see a prizefight and is promptly mistaken for a notorious gun moll. The mix-up pulls her into the boxing racket, a kidnapping, and a couple of gangland murders, and Emma turns out to be considerably sharper than the mobsters around her. Jean Yarbrough directs for Monogram, with Roger Pryor as a fast-talking reporter and Warren Hymer doing his patented dumb-mug routine. A lightweight but likeable entry in the era's run of little-old-lady comedies. The film entered the public domain after its copyright was not renewed.

Comedy · Crime

A Monogram crime programmer built on a genuinely nasty twist. Warren Hull plays John Randolph, an idealistic newspaper editor crusading against a crime syndicate — not knowing that the gang's secret boss is his own father, long believed dead. When a hit man with a conscience gets involved and a society engagement party turns into a shootout, the crusade becomes very personal. Howard Bretherton, one of poverty row's fastest and most reliable directors, keeps it moving through a tight hour. The film entered the public domain after its copyright was not renewed.

Crime · Drama

A pre-Code crime drama directed by John Cromwell and produced by David O. Selznick, Street of Chance stars William Powell as a jewel thief who suffers amnesia after being struck on the head during a robbery. He awakens to find himself living a respectable life as a wealthy businessman, with no memory of his criminal past — until his old associates resurface. Jean Arthur plays his wife and Kay Francis his former accomplice. The film was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Writing. As a work published in 1930, it is in the public domain in the United States.

Crime · Drama

A professional assassin and his men take over a quiet house in the small town of Suddenly, California, planning to shoot the President of the United States when his train stops there. The family living in the house becomes hostages, and the town sheriff, who is sweet on the daughter, stumbles into the trap and has to find a way to stop it. Frank Sinatra plays the killer as a jittery, sneering psychopath who genuinely enjoys the prospect of murder, a long way from his usual smooth persona. Sterling Hayden is the upright sheriff who matches wits with him. The whole film plays out almost entirely inside one house, which keeps the tension coiled. The film entered the public domain due to non-renewal of its copyright. It is one of the more tense and compact crime thrillers of the 1950s, and Sinatra's performance is the reason it is still watched.

Crime · Noir · Thriller

The first feature directed by Roger Corman. Undercover police officer Lee Hampton (Carole Mathews) infiltrates a women's prison, befriends a trio of convicts led by the hard-boiled Josie Nardo (Marie Windsor), and engineers their escape — all part of a plan to recover a cache of stolen diamonds hidden deep in the Louisiana swamps. Beverly Garland, Mike "Touch" Connors, and Corman regulars Jonathan Haze and Ed Nelson round out the cast of this swampy girls-behind-bars crime picture, shot on location in Louisiana. Also released as "Swamp Diamonds" and "Cruel Swamp," it is in the public domain.

Crime · Thriller

A 1932 American mystery film directed by Frank R. Strayer. When a plane makes an emergency landing during a storm, the passengers take refuge in a deserted house—only to discover that one of them is a killer. After a man is murdered and diamonds stolen, everyone becomes a suspect in this "old dark house" whodunit. The film stars Gene Morgan, Doris Hill, Glenn Tryon, and Vera Reynolds, and was distributed by Mayfair Pictures. The film is in the public domain.

Mystery · Crime

Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson board the London-to-Edinburgh express to guard the Star of Rhodesia, a priceless diamond with a bloody history. When the jewel's owner is murdered and the stone vanishes, Holmes must unmask the killer among a carriage full of suspects — including the eminent Colonel Sebastian Moran — before the train reaches its destination. Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce's thirteenth outing as Holmes and Watson, directed and produced by Roy William Neill for Universal, compresses the series' formula into a brisk, atmospheric hour. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Mystery · Crime · Thriller

A secret society holds a meeting to determine what to do about a powerful and dangerous man whom they have been studying closely for the past three months. They all agree that he deserves to die. Two of the members, Farallone and Forrest, are both in love with Lilith, the group's only female member. But Lilith accepts neither of them, preferring to devote herself to the group's cause. When the group meets again and deals cards to all the members, Forrest draws the ace of hearts, meaning that he will be the one to carry out the assassination. Lilith then suddenly agrees to marry him, in order to give him courage. But after their first night together, both of them begin to feel differently about what they have planned. Lon Chaney stars in this silent crime drama directed by Wallace Worsley, distributed by Goldwyn Pictures Corporation. The film is in the public domain.

Crime · Drama · Silent

A 1960 American science fiction thriller directed by Edgar G. Ulmer, starring Marguerite Chapman in her final feature film. Ex-Army major Paul Krenner forces scientist Dr. Peter Ulof to develop a radiation-based invisibility machine, planning to create an invisible army to sell to the highest bidder. He busts safecracker Joey Faust (Douglas Kennedy) out of prison and forces him to undergo the invisibility treatment to steal more radium. But Faust discovers an unexpected side effect of the treatment and begins to pursue his own agenda. Shot back-to-back with Beyond the Time Barrier in Dallas, Texas on a combined two-week schedule with a budget of approximately $100,000.

Sci-Fi · Crime · Thriller

A D.W. Griffith silent feature inspired by the works of Edgar Allan Poe, particularly "The Tell-Tale Heart" and "Annabel Lee." A young man (Henry B. Walthall) lives under the tyrannical rule of his uncle, whose murder he plots and commits. But guilt gnaws at him—apparitions of Poe's vision haunt his waking hours, and the beating of a dead heart seems to echo from beneath the floorboards. Griffith blends psychological horror with pastoral romance, intercutting the nephew's torment with scenes of courtship with his sweetheart (Blanche Sweet). Cinematographer G.W. Bitzer's inventive use of tinting and irises gives the film a dreamlike, Expressionist quality that anticipates the German Expressionist movement. Released August 2, 1914, the film is in the public domain.

Horror · Drama · Crime · Silent

A 1930 pre-Code mystery film directed by Roland West and produced by Joseph M. Schenck for United Artists. Based on the 1920 play The Bat by Mary Roberts Rinehart and Avery Hopwood, the film follows the mysterious criminal known as "The Bat" who terrorizes the occupants of a lonely country mansion. Notable as one of the first widescreen films, West shot the picture in both standard 35mm and an experimental 65mm format requiring two cameramen. The film stars Chester Morris, Una Merkel, and Grayce Hampton, and is widely cited as an inspiration for Bob Kane's Batman. Long thought lost, a nitrate print was discovered at the Mary Pickford Estate in 1987 and restored by UCLA. The film is in the public domain.

Mystery · Crime · Thriller

A teensploitation crime film written and directed by Paul Frees, better known as a prolific voice actor. Tony Travis stars as Eddy Crane, a young singer discovered by a television producer whose chance at fame is threatened by his hoodlum pals, who drag him back into a world of petty crime and violence. The film was featured on Mystery Science Theater 3000. It is in the public domain.

Crime · Drama

A silent crime-horror film directed by James Young, based on the 1867 French play Le Juif Polonais by Erckmann-Chatrian. Lionel Barrymore stars as Mathias, an innkeeper who murders a wealthy Jewish merchant for his gold on New Year's Eve, then is haunted by the sound of sleigh bells and ghostly visions. Boris Karloff appears in an early role as a sinister mesmerist who arrives to torment Mathias with supernatural visions of hell. The film blends murder melodrama with Gothic horror, and Karloff's menacing presence, years before Frankenstein made him a star, hints at the iconic monster roles to come. The film is in the public domain.

Horror · Crime · Silent

A 1930 pre-Code crime film directed by Frank Tuttle and based on the 1926 novel by S. S. Van Dine. William Powell stars as the aristocratic detective Philo Vance, investigating the murder of a wealthy broker at his Long Island estate. The film co-stars William "Stage" Boyd, Eugene Pallette, Paul Lukas, and Natalie Moorhead. The screenplay was adapted by Bartlett Cormack. The film entered the public domain on January 1, 2026.

Crime · Mystery · Thriller

A carnival boxer (John Darrow) falls for a nightclub girl (Merna Kennedy) who is mixed up with a gangster, and tries to fight his way out — literally, in a fixed fight he is paid to throw. Mickey Rooney, thirteen and billed as Mickey McGuire, turns up in a supporting role on the way to stardom, and J. Carrol Naish plays the heavy. A typical poverty-row crime melodrama of 1933, it is worth watching mainly for Rooney and for the seedy carnival atmosphere Albert Herman shoots on real midway locations. Released the same year as King Kong and Forty-Second Street, this is what the other half of Hollywood was making. The film is in the public domain.

Crime · Drama · Romance

A celebrated film noir directed by Joseph H. Lewis and photographed by the legendary cinematographer John Alton. Cornel Wilde plays Police Lieutenant Leonard Diamond, who obsessively pursues the sadistic gang boss Mr. Brown (Richard Conte) while harboring an infatuation with Brown's girlfriend Susan Lowell (Jean Wallace). The supporting cast includes Brian Donlevy, Lee Van Cleef, and Earl Holliman as Brown's enforcers. Alton's high-contrast chiaroscuro lighting has made the film a touchstone of noir visual style. The U.S. Copyright Office rejected the film's copyright notice in 2007, leaving it in the public domain.

Crime · Thriller

One of the first and most influential prison films. Kent Marlowe (Robert Montgomery), a young man convicted of manslaughter after a drunk-driving accident, is sent to an overcrowded prison and shares a cell with two hardened men: the violent career criminal Butch (Wallace Beery) and the more measured Morgan (Chester Morris), who tries to show the new man how to survive. George Hill directed from Frances Marion's screenplay, which was inspired by a spate of 1929 prison riots. The film's attention to the routines and terrors of prison life set the template for the genre, and its mess-hall riot sequence was widely imitated. Marion won the Academy Award for her screenplay and Douglas Shearer won the first Oscar for Sound. Published in 1930, the film entered the public domain in the United States on January 1, 2026.

Crime · Drama

A 1943 Poverty Row mystery-horror film directed by Sam Newfield and produced by Sigmund Neufeld for Producers Releasing Corporation. On a stormy night, a group of strangers—including an eloping couple, an embezzling bank teller, and a gangster—take shelter at the Black Raven inn, run by the mysterious Amos Bradford (George Zucco), known in the underworld as "The Raven." When a murder occurs and the roads wash out, the trapped travelers begin to suspect each other. The film co-stars Wanda McKay, Robert Livingston, and Charles Middleton. The film is in the public domain.

Mystery · Crime · Horror

A 1950 American film noir Western directed by John Sturges, starring Lew Ayres and Teresa Wright. Lin Vanner, an American oil company manager in Mexico, shoots a man he believes stole the payroll — then learns the suspect was likely innocent. Guilt-ridden, he seeks out the dead man's widow Ellen and her son at their remote ranch, concealing his role in her husband's death as an uneasy romance grows between them. An early credit for Sturges before his run of classic Westerns, the film is a compact psychological study of guilt and expiation. It entered the public domain and is also known by its reissue title, Tar Comes Back.

Drama · Crime · Western

An out-of-work veteran takes a job as a chauffeur to a mobster and falls for the gangster's girlfriend, getting swept into a nightmare of murder, mistaken identity, and a dreamlike escape across Cuba. Robert Cummings and Peter Lorre star in this offbeat Cornell Woolrich adaptation. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Noir · Thriller · Crime

A venal socialite embezzles from a charity and turns to a Burmese ivory trader to cover the loss, only to find he expects her body as payment. When she tries to renege, he brands her with a hot iron. Cecil B. DeMille's 1915 melodrama was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry for its significance and for Sessue Hayakawa's landmark performance, which made him one of the first Asian stars of American cinema and a genuine matinee idol. The film's treatment of race and sexuality was controversial even at the time: a Japanese-American newspaper in Los Angeles campaigned against it, and the 1918 re-release changed Hayakawa's character from Japanese to Burmese to avoid offending a wartime ally. Fannie Ward plays the spoiled wife whose recklessness sets the catastrophe in motion. As a work published before 1930, the film is in the public domain in the United States.

Drama · Crime · Silent

A mysterious Chinese princess is murdered in Charlie Chan's own home, leaving only a large ring and the dying message "Capt K" as clues. Chan traces the ring to a visiting princess and untangles a plot involving stolen fighter planes and a cargo ship bound for China. The Chinese Ring was Roland Winters' first outing as Chan after taking over the role at Monogram, with Mantan Moreland and Victor Sen Yung back as Birmingham Brown and Tommy Chan. Directed by the prolific William Beaudine, the film is in the public domain.

Mystery · Crime

The Cradle of Courage is a 1920 silent drama starring William S. Hart as 'Square' Kelly, a former crook who serves in World War I and returns home to join the police force — only to find himself confronting his old gang. Directed by Lambert Hillyer and produced by Hart through his own production company, the film explores themes of redemption and moral courage. Ann Little plays Hart's love interest, with Tom Santschi as her criminal brother. The film was distributed by Paramount Pictures through the Artcraft Pictures Corporation. As a work published before 1930, it is in the public domain in the United States.

Drama · Silent · Crime

Umberto Scalli (Timothy Farrell) runs an illegal drug ring out of a women's health spa, peddling "bennies" and sleeping pills to teenagers and socialites alike while keeping one step ahead of the judge determined to shut him down. A classic post-war exploitation picture, The Devil's Sleep was directed by W. Merle Connell and produced by George Weiss, who later financed Ed Wood's Glen or Glenda. It is the first of Farrell's three turns as the shady Scalli, and features Lita Grey, Charlie Chaplin's former wife, as the crusading judge. The film was never registered for copyright and is in the public domain.

Crime · Drama

A 1955 American crime drama produced by Roger Corman and co-directed by John Ireland and Edward Sampson. Ireland stars as Frank Webster, a man framed for murder who breaks out of jail and takes a rich woman's Jaguar at gunpoint, with the woman, Connie Adair (Dorothy Malone), still inside. As she tries to escape numerous times, the two soon develop feelings for each other and enter a road race that ends in Mexico. Made on a budget of just $50,000, the film was one of Corman's early productions and was distributed by American Releasing Corporation, the precursor to American International Pictures. The film is in the public domain.

Crime · Drama · Action

The film usually credited with proving movies could tell a real story. Four bandits hold up a railroad telegraph office, board the train, rob the mail car, and escape across the New Jersey countryside with a posse in pursuit — all in about twelve minutes. Edwin S. Porter made it for Edison's studio in 1903, cutting between the telegraph office, the train, and the chase in a way audiences had never seen. Its most famous image is a close-up of a bandit (Justus D. Barnes) firing his revolver point-blank at the camera, a shot exhibitors could place at the start or the end of the reel. Selected for the National Film Registry in 1990. As a work published before 1930, it is in the public domain in the United States.

Western · Crime · Silent

A 1952 American-French film noir directed by Rudolph Maté, starring Glenn Ford as Michael Blake, a World War II veteran who returns to France to recover a priceless jeweled gauntlet — the "green glove" — he found during the Normandy invasion and hid in a village church. The treasure is also sought by suave art dealer Count Paul Rona (George Macready), whose men are willing to kill for it, while Blake is aided by a Parisian tour guide (Geraldine Brooks) and a parish priest (Cedric Hardwicke). Shot on location in postwar Paris and the south of France, the film mixes heist thriller and travelogue. Also known as The White Road and Gauntlet. It is in the public domain.

Crime · Mystery

The High Sign is a 1921 silent comedy short co-directed by and starring Buster Keaton, with Edward F. Cline. Although made first, Keaton shelved it, considering it too close to his earlier Arbuckle-era style, and it was released later the same year. Keaton plays a drifter who joins a secret society called the Blinking Buzzards and is hired to assassinate a wealthy man, only to end up protecting him instead. The short features Keaton's famous homemade newspaper-reading gag. As a 1921 work, the film is in the public domain.

Comedy · Crime

A 1951 film noir directed by Max Nosseck, starring Lawrence Tierney — later famous as Joe in Reservoir Dogs — in one of his signature roles. Tierney plays Vincent Lubeck, an incorrigible ex-con whose own mother begs the parole board to keep him locked up. Released anyway, Vincent works sullenly at his brother Johnny's gas station while casing the armored car that makes regular stops at the bank across the street, and seducing his brother's girl along the way. Tierney's real-life brother Edward plays Johnny. A lean, brutal heist noir, the film is in the public domain.

Crime · Thriller

Chapter one, "The Wrecker," of the twelve-chapter Mascot serial. Pilot Larry Baker hunts the masked saboteur called the Wrecker, who caused the train crash that killed his father and now threatens the Hurricane Express. John Wayne stars in this early sound cliffhanger. The serial entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Action · Adventure · Crime

William Powell's fourth and final outing as S.S. Van Dine's dilettante detective Philo Vance. A Long Island dog-show society gathering ends in a locked-room murder when the universally disliked Archer Coe is found dead — apparently by suicide, except for the bullet in his head and the corpse of his dog found in a closet. Vance unpicks a tangle of rivalries, inheritances, and championship terriers. Directed at speed by Michael Curtiz for Warner Bros., it's widely considered the best of the Philo Vance pictures and one of the cleverest whodunits of the pre-Code era. The film is in the public domain.

Mystery · Crime

Preston Foster plays "Killer" Mears, a condemned man leading a death-row breakout in this adaptation of the Broadway prison play that made stars of its stage leads. The escape attempt goes wrong in stages — a hostage guard, a machine gun turned on the tier — and the film's final act is essentially one long, escalating riot. An early talkie prison drama from Sono Art-World Wide that set the template for every death-row picture that followed. The film is in the public domain.

Crime · Drama

A 1953 British film noir directed by Cy Endfield — one of several crime pictures he made in Britain before Zulu (1964). American veteran Frank Prior (Lloyd Bridges) returns to London to rekindle a wartime romance with actress Pauline French (Moira Lister), only to watch the man standing beside him get shot dead by a sniper on the airport tarmac. Drawn into the investigation, Frank discovers his old flame is entangled in blackmail and murder, and the killer — a marksman who walks with a limp — is still out there. The film ends with one of the most infamous rug-pull endings in B-movie history. It is in the public domain.

Crime · Mystery · Thriller

Alfred Hitchcock considered The Lodger his first true film, the moment he found the themes that would define his career. A mysterious young man takes a room at a London boardinghouse just as a killer called the Avenger begins murdering blonde women in the fog. The landlady grows suspicious, and her daughter falls for the stranger. Ivor Novello stars as the lodger. The film is drenched in the imagery Hitchcock would return to again and again: the wrong man, the blonde in peril, the guilt that cannot be escaped. The Lodger is the earliest Hitchcock film to survive intact. It entered the public domain in the United States on January 1, 2023.

Thriller · Crime · Drama · Silent

A wealthy woman in the middle of a divorce shoots her husband, and calls the one person she trusts to help her cover it up: her boyfriend, a San Francisco police lieutenant. He helps her hide the body, and then has to keep the investigation away from the crime, which is hard because the detective assigned to the case is his own younger brother. Lee J. Cobb plays the lieutenant who bends the law for love and then watches the walls close in, and Jane Wyatt is the woman who pulls him down with her. The film was shot on location in San Francisco, and the city's hills and stairways become part of the chase. It was the first independent production of Phoenix Films, run by Jack M. Warner, the son of Warner Bros. chief Jack L. Warner. The film entered the public domain due to non-renewal of its copyright.

Crime · Noir

A mystery film directed by Ralph Staub for Republic Pictures, loosely based on the Ellery Queen novel The Chinese Orange Mystery. Eddie Quillan plays Ellery Queen, a mystery writer and amateur detective who investigates the theft of a rare Chinese Mandarin stamp from a Manhattan hotel and the murders that follow. Charlotte Henry co-stars as Josephine Temple, the stamp's owner who becomes a suspect. The film also features Franklin Pangborn as the hotel's hysterical manager. The film is in the public domain.

Mystery · Crime

The second of Columbia's eight Whistler films, drawn from the popular radio mystery series in which an unseen narrator who "knows many things" walks the listener through a story of fate and guilt. Richard Dix plays a drifter who stumbles into a dormant bank account left in his name by a dead man, and tries to pass himself off as the depositor's long-lost son to collect the money. The scheme draws in a woman who may know more than she lets on and a killer waiting in the background. William Castle directed, working from a Cornell Woolrich story, and the film carries Woolrich's signature dread of ordinary people trapped by coincidence. Released in 1944, the film is in the public domain in the United States.

Mystery · Noir · Crime

A poor tenement woman is robbed by the Snapper Kid's gang, and when a rival mob moves in on Pig Alley the two hoods collide in a shootout that Griffith films with pioneering close, mobile camerawork. Often cited as the first gangster film. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Crime · Drama

The sinister Chinese mastermind Dr. Fu Manchu vows vengeance on the family of the British officer he holds responsible for his family's deaths in the Boxer Rebellion. Warner Oland stars in the first talking Fu Manchu picture. The 1929 film entered the public domain on January 1, 2025.

Drama · Horror · Crime

Bela Lugosi plays the title role in this Monogram poverty-row thriller, a Chinatown crime lord hunting down the twelve legendary coins of Confucius, which are said to grant their possessor control of a Chinese province. Bodies start turning up across the district as Wong's men retrieve the coins one by one, and wisecracking reporter Jason Barton, played by Wallace Ford, follows the trail into Wong's secret headquarters. Lugosi is clearly enjoying himself in a dual role that lets him be both the suave mastermind and his own humble shopkeeper cover. Directed by William Nigh, a Monogram regular who also helmed several of the studio's Mr. Wong detective films. The film entered the public domain after its copyright was never renewed.

Mystery · Crime · Thriller

A pre-Code crime drama directed by and starring Lowell Sherman, based on the 1927 play Crime by Samuel Shipman and John B. Hymer. Sherman plays Gene Fenmore, a gang boss who takes pity on a young couple robbed by one of his thugs (Hugh Trevor) and brings them under his protection. When the resentful thug is killed in a botched robbery, the police focus their investigation on the innocent couple. Marian Nixon co-stars as Nancy. The film entered the public domain in 1958 when its copyright was not renewed.

Crime · Drama

A powerful psychological thriller crime film starring Lon Chaney and directed by Wallace Worsley. Chaney delivers one of his most memorable performances as Blizzard, the legless crime boss of the San Francisco Barbary Coast underworld. As a child, Blizzard's legs were unnecessarily amputated by Dr. Ferris (Charles Clary) during a botched operation. Now an adult, Blizzard is driven by two ambitions: revenge against Dr. Ferris and the looting of San Francisco. To get close to the doctor, Blizzard poses for a bust of Satan created by Ferris's daughter Barbara (Claire Adams). Chaney's remarkable performance includes wearing leather stumps and using crutches, demonstrating his legendary commitment to physical transformation. The film is in the public domain.

Crime · Drama · Silent · Thriller

A radio-era whodunit from Monogram. Crooner Norman Wilder (Ralph Forbes) is the most popular voice on the air — but the voice isn't his: he has been secretly lip-syncing to a blacklisted singer, the "phantom" of the broadcast. When Wilder is shot dead mid-performance, detectives and rival singers pile into a case where everyone in the station had a motive and nobody is who they claim to be. Phil Rosen, one of Poverty Row's most prolific directors, keeps the mystery brisk. Its copyright was never renewed; it is in the public domain in the United States.

Mystery · Crime · Music

Pete Morgan is a farmer with a bad leg and a dark secret. He has raised his niece Meg as his own and forbids her from going near an abandoned house deep in the woods on his land, warning her that the woods are haunted. When a hired hand starts asking questions and Meg grows more curious, the family's buried past begins to surface. Edward G. Robinson plays against type as the gentle, haunted farmer, and the film leans on atmosphere and dread rather than violence. Miklos Rozsa's score and Bert Glennon's camerawork make the forest feel like a place that does not want its secrets found. The film was the first production of Thalia, the company Robinson formed with producer Sol Lesser. It entered the public domain due to non-renewal of its copyright.

Crime · Mystery · Thriller

The fiendish Dr. Fu Manchu returns from apparent death to continue his campaign of vengeance against the Petrie family, ensnaring a young woman in his web of poison and hypnotism. Warner Oland reprises his role in this sequel to The Mysterious Dr. Fu Manchu. The 1930 film entered the public domain on January 1, 2026.

Crime · Mystery · Drama

The Sadist is a 1963 American thriller written and directed by James Landis, starring Arch Hall Jr. as a psychopathic spree killer patterned after Charles Starkweather. Three teachers driving into Los Angeles for a Dodgers game break down at a remote gas station and find themselves held hostage by Charlie Tibbs, a cheerful, remorseless killer, and his girlfriend Judy, who toys with the captives while Charlie torments them. Made for about sixty-nine thousand dollars and distributed by Fairway International Pictures, the film is a lean, genuinely unsettling piece of exploitation that benefits from the feature debut of the future Academy Award-winning cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond, whose handheld 35mm work gives the picture a queasy you-are-there immediacy. The film is in the public domain.

Thriller · Horror · Crime

A 1959 American heist film directed by Charles Guggenheim and John Stix, starring Steve McQueen early in his career. Based on an actual 1953 bank robbery in St. Louis, the film follows aging criminal mastermind John Egan (Crahan Denton) as he plans to rob the Southwest Bank and retire to Mexico. His crew includes Gino (David Clarke), an ex-convict terrified of returning to prison, and Willie, a longtime minion. When the gang needs a getaway driver, Gino recruits his sister's old boyfriend George Fowler (McQueen), a former college football star with no criminal record. The film meticulously details the planning and rehearsal of the heist before the robbery goes violently wrong. Shot on location in East St. Louis with a gritty, documentary-like realism. Marked Public Domain on Archive.org.

Crime · Thriller

One of the six Charlie Chan pictures Sidney Toler made for Monogram after the series left Fox. When murders pile up around a radio station that is secretly tied to a wartime espionage ring, Chan works the case while his son Tommy and chauffeur Birmingham Brown stumble through the clues beside him. The film is best remembered for the extended comedy routine between Mantan Moreland and Ben Carter, whose rhyming, never-finished conversations became a signature of the Monogram Chans. Directed by series veteran Phil Rosen, it is a brisk poverty-row mystery that keeps the plot moving and the banter constant. The film entered the public domain after its copyright was never renewed.

Mystery · Crime · Thriller

A Poverty Row oddity and proto-noir, this pre-Code melodrama opens with twenty-one-year-old Nora Moran (Zita Johann, fresh from *The Mummy*) in the death house — the first woman executed in twenty years — then unwinds her life in a dreamlike spiral of flashbacks, narrated fragments, and memories within memories. Orphaned, assaulted, and passed between a traveling circus and a married governor, Nora goes to the electric chair for a murder she did not commit, making the film a surprisingly bleak argument against capital punishment. Its fractured structure anticipated noir techniques by a decade, and Alberto Vargas's poster art became more famous than the picture itself. Majestic Pictures collapsed soon after and the film's copyright was never renewed; it is in the public domain in the United States.

Crime · Drama · Noir

A string of murders has witnesses giving identical descriptions of a man seen leaving each scene — Jerome Breen, a wealthy philanthropist who has been deaf and mute since birth and could not possibly have been overheard. Lionel Atwill plays Breen in a Monogram old-dark-house mystery directed by Phil Rosen, with Sheila Terry as the reporter convinced there is more to the suspect than his affliction suggests, and Paul Hurst as the detective working the case. The solution, when it comes, is a genuinely nasty piece of pre-Code plotting. Made the same year Atwill headlined Mystery of the Wax Museum, it shows why he was the era's go-to man for quiet menace. The film is in the public domain.

Mystery · Crime · Thriller

A 1964 American psychological thriller directed by Burt Topper, starring Victor Buono as Leo Kroll, a disturbed hospital lab technician who embarks on a serial killing spree of young women, particularly nurses. Inspired by his dominant, possessive mother, Leo is an overweight loner with low self-esteem whose hatred of women drives him to murder. When he meets Tally, a young woman who works at an amusement park, she briefly curbs his homicidal impulses — but his dark nature ultimately resurfaces. The film was inspired by the real-life Boston Strangler case and went into production while police were still attempting to solve the crimes. Buono, fresh off his Oscar-nominated performance in What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?, delivers a chilling performance as the tormented killer.

Thriller · Crime · Horror

A 1974 Japanese martial arts film directed by Shigehiro Ozawa and starring Sonny Chiba as Takuma Tsurugi, a mercenary karate master. When both the Yakuza and the Mafia plot to kidnap the daughter of a deceased oil magnate, Tsurugi is hired by each side — but when neither will meet his price, he switches sides to protect the heiress. The film was released in the United States by New Line Cinema and became one of the distributor's first commercial successes. It is notable as the first film to receive an X-rating in the US solely for violence, thanks to Chiba's brutally realistic karate techniques. The film spawned multiple sequels and cemented Chiba's status as an international martial arts icon.

Action · Crime · Thriller

A young man waits on death row for a murder he insists he did not commit, while a priest, reporters, and prison officials gather for the execution at dawn. As the hours pass, a reporter pieces together evidence that could exonerate the condemned man — if it arrives in time. A low-budget film noir directed by Paul Sloane, told largely through flashbacks inside the prison. The film is in the public domain through non-renewal of copyright.

Crime · Drama

The final Charlie Chan film starring Sidney Toler, directed by Howard Bretherton for Monogram Pictures. When two members of a showgirl troupe vacationing at a Malibu Beach resort are garroted, detective Charlie Chan is called in to solve the case, assisted by his Number Two Son Jimmy (Victor Sen Yung) and faithful chauffeur Birmingham Brown (Mantan Moreland). Toler was stricken with cancer during filming and was so physically weak he could hardly walk or deliver his lines; he died on February 12, 1947. The film entered the public domain due to the omission of a valid copyright notice on original prints.

Mystery · Crime

The silent original of the story Tod Browning later remade in 1930 as Lon Chaney's only sound film. Three sideshow performers, a ventriloquist, a strongman, and a dwarf, leave the circus and set up a pet shop as a front for a burglary ring. Echo, the ventriloquist, uses his talent to throw his voice and frame an innocent man for the murder he commits. Chaney, in one of his most unsettling roles, plays a man who manipulates others through their voices, and the film is a prime example of the grotesque, circus-inflected material Browning was drawn to throughout his career. This is the silent version; the 1930 sound remake is also in the collection. Published in 1925, it is in the public domain in the United States.

Crime · Drama · Silent

Lon Chaney's only talkie and his final film. He plays Professor Echo, a ventriloquist who, with a dwarf named Tweedledee (Harry Earles) and a strongman, leaves the circus and opens a pet shop as a front for a crime spree, using Echo's talent for voices to impersonate wealthy clients' servants and case their homes. The plot turns on Echo's jealous love for his assistant Rosie (Lila Lee) and her affection for the innocent shop worker Hector (Elliott Nugent). Chaney, already ill with throat cancer during production, demonstrates the vocal range that made him famous, voicing Echo, the parrot, and the elderly Mrs. O'Grady. He died a month after the film's release. Published in 1930, the film entered the public domain in the United States on January 1, 2026.

Crime · Drama · Thriller

The Violent Years is a 1956 American exploitation film directed by William Morgan from a screenplay by Edward D. Wood Jr., who went uncredited. Jean Moorhead, a Playboy Playmate, stars as Paula Parkins, the bored, wealthy leader of a gang of juvenile delinquent high school girls who commit robberies and assault men for thrills. The film follows the gang's escalating crimes and Paula's eventual downfall, framed as a cautionary tale about bad parenting and teenage rebellion. It was the most financially successful film with creative input from Ed Wood, released on a double bill by Headliner Productions. The film is in the public domain.

Crime · Exploitation · Drama

A 1960 American drama film directed by Harvey Berman, starring Jack Nicholson as Johnny Varron, a rebellious Beat Generation punk who spends his days as an amateur dirt track driver between partying and troublemaking. After forcing a motorcycle cop off the road, Johnny's escalating recklessness alienates his best friend Dave, who has found a new girlfriend named Nancy. When Dave decides to leave the gang, Johnny kidnaps Nancy in a desperate bid to maintain control, leading to a tragic conclusion. Executive produced by Roger Corman and released through Filmgroup as a double feature with The Girl in Lovers Lane. An early Nicholson role, made when he was 23.

Drama · Crime

A string of murders of young women baffles Scotland Yard, but Sherlock Holmes spots the pattern: respectable gentlemen are being hypnotized into believing they are the killers, then blackmailed. The trail leads through a society of mesmerists to a glamorous woman in green — and behind her, Professor Moriarty, reported hanged in Montevideo but very much alive. Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce's eleventh Holmes film, with Hillary Brooke and Henry Daniell as a memorably icy Moriarty, directed by Roy William Neill for Universal. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Mystery · Crime · Thriller

A district attorney who uncovered a utilities price-fixing racket is murdered before he can present his evidence, and his successor (Pat O'Brien) picks up the case with a fast-talking reporter (Neil Hamilton) while the killers work through everyone connected to the grand jury. Evelyn Brent plays the dead man's mistress, who knows where the evidence is hidden. Made at Majestic Pictures during the pre-Code window, it moves quickly and lets O'Brien do the cocky, irritable thing he did best, with J. Carrol Naish among the heavies. Released in April 1933, weeks before the studios began enforcing the Production Code. The film is in the public domain.

Crime · Drama · Mystery

John Garfield plays Johnny Bradfield, a champion boxer who flees after a night of partying ends with a dead reporter and his face in the papers. He ends up hiding out on an Arizona date farm run by a schoolteacher (Claude Rains is the detective on his trail) and mentoring the Dead End Kids in the boxing ring. Busby Berkeley — better known for his kaleidoscopic musical numbers — directs this remake of The Life of Jimmy Dolan with surprising grit. The film is in the public domain.

Crime · Drama · Romance

Tom Durling is framed for a bank robbery and a killing he didn't commit, then escapes custody to hunt down the real gang before the police close in. Robert Lowery and Barbara Britton star in this tight hour-long programmer from Pine-Thomas Productions — Paramount's "dollar bills," the B-unit famous for fast, cheap, profitable pictures — directed by William C. Thomas himself. It is in the public domain after its copyright was not renewed.

Crime · Noir · Thriller

An ex-con noir shot on location in postwar Italy. Frank Keeler (Lloyd Bridges) did four years in a military prison for a payroll robbery and never revealed where he hid the money. Now out, he returns to the small Italian town to recover his loot — but the cash has been moved, his old flame Elena (Lea Padovani) has questions, and the gang he double-crossed is waiting. Directed by W. Lee Wilder (Billy's brother), the film pairs Italian neorealist locations with hard-boiled American crime conventions. Released through United Artists, its copyright was not renewed; it is in the public domain in the United States.

Crime · Drama · Noir

A pre-Code proto-noir directed by Josef von Sternberg, notable for its pioneering use of early sound technology and expressionistic visuals. George Bancroft plays Thunderbolt Jim Lang, a condemned gangster on death row who plots to kill the young man (Richard Arlen) in the next cell for stealing his girlfriend (Fay Wray). Bancroft received an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor at the second Academy Awards ceremony in 1930. The screenplay was written by Jules Furthman with dialogue by Herman J. Mankiewicz. As a work published before 1930, the film is in the public domain in the United States.

Crime · Drama

A 1956 film noir directed by, produced by, and starring Mark Stevens. After $500,000 is stolen in a meticulously planned train robbery, insurance investigator Charlie Norman (Stevens) is forced to postpone a vacation with his wife to help railroad detective Joe Armstrong (King Calder) track the thieves. The trail leads through Mexico and into a web of compromised alibis — and gradually reveals that the man investigating the crime knows far more about it than he should. Shot in a lean, semi-documentary style with an early supporting turn by Jack Klugman, Time Table is one of the better-regarded B-noirs of the 1950s. The film is in the public domain.

Crime · Thriller

A bag of stolen cash is thrown into the back seat of a couple's car by mistake, and the wife, hungry for a better life, decides to keep it, dragging her husband into a spiral of deceit and murder. Lizabeth Scott and Dan Duryea star in one of the bleakest noirs of the era. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Noir · Crime · Thriller

A batch of freshly printed counterfeit bills traced to imprisoned counterfeiter Tris Stewart sends the U.S. Treasury Department scrambling, so agents engineer his escape and turn him loose — betting he will lead them to the engraving plates. Stewart plays both sides, rekindling things with his girlfriend Meg while undercover agent John Downey closes in. Lloyd Bridges is the slippery counterfeiter, with Barbara Payton as Meg and John Hoyt as the agent on his tail. Richard Fleischer directs this lean semi-documentary noir in the style of T-Men, shot on location around Los Angeles. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Crime · Noir · Drama

A Monogram crime picture directed by Howard Bretherton. Russell Gleason plays a railway postal clerk whose mail routes keep turning up phony sweepstakes tickets, and when the service can't crack the counterfeiting ring from the outside he goes in undercover — straight into a gang that doesn't hesitate to kill. Shirley Deane plays the reporter who both helps and nearly exposes him, and J.M. Kerrigan co-stars. Brisk poverty-row melodrama with a postal-inspector hook that was timely in an era when mail-fraud rackets were front-page news. The film entered the public domain after its copyright was not renewed.

Crime · Drama

Underworld is the film that launched the American gangster genre. Josef von Sternberg directed it from a story by Ben Hecht, who would win the first Academy Award for Best Original Story the year the awards began. George Bancroft plays Bull Weed, a criminal kingpin whose jealous devotion to his moll, Feathers, drags him into a war with a rival and the law. Evelyn Brent is the woman caught between the gangster and the alcoholic lawyer he befriends. Von Sternberg's camera work is fluid and expressive, already showing the style he would bring to his films with Marlene Dietrich. The film entered the public domain in the United States on January 1, 2023.

Crime · Drama · Silent

Two convicts become friends in prison, then compete for the affections of a woman on the outside, in a comedic tale of reform and romance. Directed by John Ford, starring Spencer Tracy and Humphrey Bogart in their feature film debuts and the only film in which they appeared together. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Comedy · Crime

A botanist with an expertise in fingerprints is mistaken for a detective and sent to San Francisco to investigate a Chinatown tong smuggling ring. Harold Lloyd's first talkie, directed by Clyde Bruckman. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Comedy · Crime

Mary (Ava Gardner) returns to her small whistle-stop hometown and reignites an old rivalry between two men who never got over her — bitter, jobless Kenny Veech (George Raft) and slick nightclub owner Lew Lentz (Tom Conway). When Kenny gets pulled into a robbery scheme aimed at Lentz, old jealousy turns to murder. An early starring role for Gardner and a moody small-town noir from Russian émigré director Léonide Moguy, produced by Seymour Nebenzal (M) for United Artists release. The film is in the public domain.

Noir · Crime · Drama

A crime drama directed by James Whale, better known for his Universal horror classics. Warren William plays District Attorney Jim Stowell, a prosecutor who treats every homicide case as first-degree murder and keeps miniature skull replicas to tally his death sentences. When he himself is beset by the urge to murder, his worldview is challenged in a case that mirrors his own life. The film is a remake of Whale's own The Kiss Before the Mirror (1933), both based on the Ladislas Fodor play. It entered the public domain in 1966 when its copyright was not renewed.

Crime · Drama

A woman who has drifted apart from her husband must track him down through San Francisco after he witnesses a gangland murder and goes into hiding, with a reporter and a killer both following her. Ann Sheridan stars in this tight, location-shot noir. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Noir · Crime · Thriller