8. The Firm

To sell well, most crime movies have to focus on glamorous criminals: gangsters, master thieves, evil geniuses — people with wealth, power and charisma. The Firm is different. It centers on the sordid and violent lives of a group of “West Ham United” soccer hooligans in 1980s England whose most common crimes are petty theft and beating up the supporters of rival teams. The movie has a fantastic 80s soundtrack and realistically chaotic scenes of battling mobs and the police frantically struggling to separate them. The 2009 movie, directed by Nick Love, was a remake of the 1989 BBC film that starred Gary Oldman, and told a similar story but from a different character’s point of view. If you enjoyed this, it’s also worth catching Love’s 2004 movie The Football Factory, which has a similar story and intense soccer-related violence. After watching this, most English soccer fans will be glad it’s not the 80s any more…