Spike Lee takes the novel writing talent of David Benioff and changes it into a screenplay to bring us this gut-wrenching story of regret, confusion, love, and loss and under Lee’s direction and his actors’ talents brings out a simultaneously heart-breaking and heart-warming story that is infused with a feeling of terrible, terrible regret in 25th Hour.

The best of the best, here are presented the ten best movies about crime which are based on true stories.  They are listed in alphabetical order and each is generally a quite good movie, but what makes them especially interesting, and in some cases, very, very terrifying, is that this is not complete fiction; in fact, most of what is being portrayed really did happen…
1.  Blow 2001 – Directed by Ted Demme
Starring Johnny Depp, Penélope Cruz, Franka Potente, Paul Reubens, Jordi Mollà, and Ray Liotta, this Ted Demme directed picture tells us the story of George Jung (Depp) who goes from being the son of a lower-middle class plumber (Liotta) to drug dealer, to drug trafficker, to basically cocaine king of the United States, to inmate, to parolee trying to get back into his daughter’s life, and finally to permanent inmate.  The movie is heart-wrenching and the kind of movie men will in which men watching will tear up at the end because George finally realizes that the advice his father gave him long ago, when his father’s business was in trouble, was the truth, and George has realized it too late to do anything about it.  It is as tragic as it is brilliant with fantastic acting, a great cast and the never-changing excellence in direction of Demme.

Director Jonas Åkerlund‘s 2002 Spun has the pace and editing style of the drug which is the central theme of the movie: methamphetamine.   For example, while most movies have something like 600 cuts in them, Spun contains a record of more than 5,000 cuts.  It stars Jason Schwartzman as Ross, a naive meth addict with a car; Mickey Rourke as The Cook, who manufactures the meth in very dangerous and hazardous circumstances, including motel rooms and rents weird porn while wearing his cowboy hat and visibly shoulder-holstered gun; Brittany Murphy as Nikki, a stripper who is The Cook’s girlfriend; John Leguizamo as Spider Mike, the dealer who buys what The Cook makes and then sells it from his disgusting house; Patrick Fugit as Frisbee, a spacey meth user who buys from Spider Mike and is often found lurking around his house; Mena Suvari as Cookie, Spider Mike’s live-in girlfriend and meth addict; Peter Stormare as The Mullet Cop, one of the two undercover police officers who use meth and make drug busts; and Alexis Arquette as the Mustache Cop, The Mullet Cop’s partner.

The duo which brought us The Beach in 2000 now brings to theaters a zombie movie that will ultimately change the genre from one predominated by B-movies to one where humanity is examined after society has been removed to help us learn more about how essential socialization is to humanity. If that sounds like something too profound to be jammed into a mere 113 minutes of film, think again.

Phone Booth is a better-than-average psychological thriller, pitting the voice of “The Caller”, wonderfully played by Kiefer Sutherland, against the life of Stu Shepard, played by Colin Farrell. Shephard is an almost stereotypically flamboyant publicist living in New York with his estranged wife, Kelly, percolating a potentially adulterous relationship with a young actress played by Katie Holmes, and stringing along the most current of a long line of unpaid interns.