Best Corruption
Orson Welles’ *Touch of Evil* (1958) is a seminal film-noir exploring moral decay along the US-Mexico border. The movie's lengthy, unbroken opening sequence remains a technical achievement and highlights themes of police corruption and personal obsession. It’s notable for its dark atmosphere and com...
Collective is a 2019 documentary examining the aftermath of the 2016 Colectiv nightclub fire in Romania. It details two parallel narratives: investigative reporting into systemic corruption within the Romanian healthcare system and the governmental response to the disaster. The film explores the eve...
Red Harvest is Dashiell Hammett's first novel, published in 1929 after appearing serially in Black Mask. Its unnamed Continental Op narrator travels to Personville, a corrupt western mining town nicknamed Poisonville, and manipulates rival criminal and political factions into destroying one another....
House of Cards explores the ruthless rise and fall of ambitious U.S. Congressman Frank Underwood within Washington D.C.’s political landscape. The series gained attention for its realistic portrayal of power struggles and corruption, influencing subsequent television narratives. It’s primarily desig...
“House of Cards (1990) is a BBC television drama exploring the dark side of British politics. The series centers on Francis Urquhart, a Member of Parliament who employs calculated manipulation and deceit to achieve his ambitions within the government. It’s notable for its realistic depiction of poli...
Nikolai Gogol's 1836 Russian satirical play in which officials of a corrupt provincial town lavish bribes on a penniless traveler they mistake for a government inspector, a landmark of world theatre and social satire.
This gripping documentary meticulously investigates the poisoning and subsequent imprisonment of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny. Through leaked documents, interviews with key figures, and stunning visuals, Navalny exposes a network of corruption within the Kremlin and reveals the lengths t...
The UN Convention Against Corruption is an international treaty adopted in 2003. It establishes a global framework to combat bribery of public officials by foreign nationals and domestic officials; corruption of state assets; and transnational organized crime. The convention aims to promote transpar...
Serpico is a 1973 American biographical crime film directed by Sidney Lumet and starring Al Pacino. The narrative details the true story of Frank Serpico, a New York Police Department officer who attempted to expose systemic corruption within the department during the 1960s and early 1970s. The film...
Article 15 presents a gripping police procedural set in rural India. The film explores systemic corruption and the deeply entrenched issue of caste discrimination through the investigation of a murder. It utilizes a unique narrative structure to highlight societal inequalities and injustices. This s...
Otto Preminger’s *Where the Sidewalk Ends* (1950) is a classic film noir exploring moral ambiguity within the Los Angeles Police Department. Dana Andrews portrays a detective wrestling with his conscience after witnessing corruption and engaging in questionable actions. Gene Tierney offers a hauntin...
Benjamin Olken is an American development economist and a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He serves as the director of the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL), a global research center focused on poverty alleviation. His empirical research heavily utilizes ran...
The Phenix City Story is a 1955 American film noir directed by Phil Karlson, blending semi-documentary techniques with traditional crime drama. The narrative is a highly fictionalized account of the real-life cleanup of organized crime and corruption in Phenix City, Alabama, culminating in the 1954...
Asura: The City of Madness is Kim Sung-su's 2016 South Korean neo-noir, centering on a corrupt detective trapped between a mayor and prosecutors.
All the King’s Men is a 1949 political drama based on Robert Penn Warren's novel. The film portrays the trajectory of Willie Stark, a Southern politician inspired by Huey Long, as he ascends to power through increasingly questionable methods. Broderick Crawford stars in this story examining corrupti...
The Bridgegate controversy involved actions by associates of New Jersey Governor Chris Christie in 2013. Lane closures on the George Washington Bridge were allegedly engineered as retribution for rejecting Christie’s re-election bid. This event sparked investigations revealing potential corruption a...
"Nameless Gangster: Rules of the Time" is a 2012 South Korean crime film directed by Yoon Jong-bin. Set in Busan during the 1980s and 1990s, the narrative explores the chaotic rise and fall of a low-level customs official who unexpectedly becomes a powerful crime boss. The film stars Choi Min-sik an...
The Shadow Line is a seven-part British crime and political thriller television series written and directed by Hugo Blick and first broadcast by BBC Two in 2011. Its parallel storylines follow police officers and criminals investigating the same murder while confronting corruption within their respe...
Putin’s Palace is a 2021 documentary examining the construction of a residence near Gelendzhik, Russia. The film alleges that Vladimir Putin commissioned the property, estimated to cost over ₽100 billion, as part of a corruption scheme involving a “largest bribe in history.” It focuses on the claims...
"Republic" is an Indian Telugu-language political thriller film directed by Deva Katta and released in 2021. The narrative follows an idealistic district collector who attempts to dismantle a deeply entrenched and corrupt local political regime. The film explores the friction between bureaucratic du...
Shanghai is a 2012 Indian political thriller directed by Dibakar Banerjee and released in Hindi. The film is an official adaptation of Vassilis Vassilikos's 1967 novel 'Z,' which previously inspired Costa-Gavras's acclaimed 1969 film of the same name. Set in a fictional Indian city, the narrative ex...
The Ides of March is a 2011 political drama directed by George Clooney, who co-wrote the screenplay and co-stars as a Democratic presidential candidate. Based on Beau Willimon's 2008 play "Farragut North," the film follows Ryan Gosling as a campaign press secretary whose idealism erodes over the cou...
Page Eight is David Hare's 2011 BBC political thriller starring Bill Nighy as MI5 analyst Johnny Worricker, and it began the Worricker trilogy.
Pride and Glory is a 2008 crime drama focusing on an NYPD detective investigating allegations of widespread corruption within the department. The investigation threatens the integrity of his family, including his brother-in-law, creating significant familial conflict among several police officers. T...
"The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call - New Orleans" is a 2009 American crime drama directed by Werner Herzog. Nicolas Cage stars as Terence McDonagh, a New Orleans police detective whose back injury leads to a severe addiction to prescription painkillers and cocaine. The film follows McDonagh as he nav...
36th Precinct, originally titled 36 Quai des Orfèvres, is a 2004 French police thriller directed by Olivier Marchal. Starring Daniel Auteuil and Gérard Depardieu, the film follows two rival police chiefs competing for a promotion while attempting to capture a violent gang responsible for a string of...
Suburra is a 2015 Italian neo-noir crime film directed by Stefano Sollima, based on the novel by Carlo Bonini and Giancarlo De Cataldo. The film intertwines the worlds of organized crime, corrupt local politics, and the Vatican over a seven-day period in Rome, leading up to the apocalypse prophesied...
Scott Turow's 1993 legal thriller narrated by a recovering-alcoholic attorney investigating a missing partner who absconded with millions from a Chicago law firm.
John Grisham's 2012 thriller in which a disbarred lawyer serving time in federal prison offers to identify a murdered judge's killer in exchange for his freedom.
