The Rip was released on Netflix in January 2026. Why a box-office worthy movie with stars like Matt Damon and Ben Affleck was released on streaming is a bit perplexing, but we’ll take it. In the 113-minute film, Damon and Affleck lead a small team of cops who stumble upon a large stash of cash when they investigate a tip about a home outside of their jurisdiction. The money stirs temptation and distrust among the teammates. Add to this the curious events that occur in the surrounding neighborhood, The Rip makes for a stimulating and immersive story. So much so that it got us thinking about the appeal of crooked cop movies. You know the ones I’m talking about: The Negotiator, Training Day, Triple 9, American Gangster, Crash, 16 Blocks, and many, many others.

We live in a violent culture here in the U.S., so it should not be surprising that movies with violence, or more specifically, gun violence, have broad appeal. Other than military films, stories most likely to contain gun violence are those centering cops. We can probably even argue that the more corrupt the cop in the story, the more violent the film will be. After all, the officer has already dispensed with the moral code and the police code of conduct. Layering desperation on top of that just increases the likelihood that volatility in the story will increase as well (think L.A. Confidential, The Departed, and Training Day). Yes, we love these types of movies as evidenced by their critical acclaim and box office success.

A Deep Dive into Cop Films

To dive deep into the appeal of this subgenre, I composed a random list of fifty cop movies using listicles from Looper, SlashFilm, and CBR. In addition to recording each film’s opening weekend box office numbers from IMDB, I tagged each movie as comedy/buddy (i.e., Beverly Hills Cops, Bad Boys), good cop (i.e., Heat, Fargo) or crooked cop story (i.e. Training Day, The Negotiator) based on its synopsis. The charts reflect what I found.

To say the distribution is lopsided is an understatement. Granted my list represents a small, no, infinitesimal sample size, but what if it reflects the distribution of cop-centered films released by studios over the last fifty years? Such lopsided numbers suggest our appetite for crooked cop stories is much bigger than our desires for police comedies and substantially smaller than dramas with straightlaced police officers. Despite our apparent propensity for good cop stories, I have to admit I was disappointed when Vincent, Al Pacino’s character in the movie Heat, captured Neil (Robert De Niro), even though Vincent conducted himself in an ethical and just manner throughout the investigation (well mostly).

The Purpose of Cop Films

Films are ideological apparatuses. The stories and images are not just there to entertain but also to impart lessons and inform our perspective. For instance, while good cop stories comprise the majority of cop films despite bringing up the rear in average weekend box office earnings, they encourage us to think positively about police officers and their intentions. Vincent in Heat was determined to catch murderers and thieves. Samuel Gerard, Tommy Lee Jones’s character in The Fugitive, was committed to bringing in Dr. Kimble to face justice regardless of the good doctor’s claims of innocence.

Earning the highest of the three categories in average weekend box office earnings, comedy/buddy cop stories have varying themes and levels of drama, but their purpose is to make us laugh and have fun. The Hard Way, Beverly Hills Cop, and Hot Fuzz were all crafted primarily to make us laugh and leave us light on our feet as we walked out of the theaters. What is the function of crooked cop stories, though? Owning a healthy slice of the subgenre's pie, these movies earn more on average than good cop stories during opening weekend. Perhaps the difference is not statistically significant, but the raw numbers are what they are.

Allure of Crooked Cop Movies

During the Cup of Tea Critiques podcast on this topic, Terry asserts that the allure of crooked cop movies is in the humanity of the corrupt cop. The officer’s backstory exposes inner conflicts and reveals the motivations for their behavior, helping us, the audience, understand what drives them to boldly violate law enforcement’s code of ethics. Backstory, then, is crucial for helping us appreciate the complexity of the person beyond their identity as a police officer. But let’s use Training Day as an example of this.

Training Day is arguably the most popular corrupt cop movie released in the modern era. Denzel Washington won the Best Actor Oscar for his role as Alonzo, a corrupt Los Angeles police detective. In the movie, he is depicted with a young son and in scenes hinting at intimate moments with his girlfriend. Beyond this, we get no glimpses into his origin story—family and experiences that might explain the drivers of his corrupt behavior. Lacking this backstory, the audience is left with the view of Alonzo as devoid of humanity and thus an unsympathetic individual. He is what even Denzel Washington described as “the worst kind of cop.” The character itself relies on Alonzo’s inhumanity.

The same can be said about the bad officers in all the aforementioned corrupt cop films. For instance, I know nothing about Anthony Mackie’s character in Triple 9 and even less about Josh Brolin’s character in American Gangster, and this is by design in the presentation of the stories. I must concede, however, that there are degrees of corruption. All the bad cops in these films are sold to us on the basis of their inhumanity, but they vary in how far they stray beyond the line of ethics.

Conclusion

Brandon suggests that beyond gawking at the spectacles that are the characters in these films, we carry deep inside of us a secret hope that these corrupt cops are redeemable. Maybe we do this because in real life, we need them to be as close to ethical and just as possible, particularly given the violent culture we live in. Could this be what gets at the deeper allure of crooked cop films? That we want these cops to transform themselves because we need them to help save us from ourselves? And does the abundance of good cop films satisfy this need and give us a sense of comfort?

What do you think explains our seemingly insatiable cinematic appetite for crooked cop films?

Be sure to check out the Cup of Tea Critiques Podcast “From The Negotiator to The Rip: Where’s the straight line through crooked cop movies?,” wherever you get your podcasts.

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