Film

The Iceman

Michael Shannon is chilling as Richard Kuklinski, a prolific contract killer living a double life with his wife and kids. This isn't a glamorous gangster film—it's coldly intimate, watching a man compartmentalise violence and family with terrifying efficiency. For those fascinated by true crime's moral contradictions and how ordinary monstrosity can hide in suburbia.

TMDb rating3.3

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you like crime stories built around a chilling, quiet central performance and the uneasy split between a calm family life and murderous work.

Skip it if you need a propulsive plot or a sympathetic protagonist, since this is a cold, grim study of a man who is hard to warm to.

What it asks of you: Patience for a deliberate build, long pauses and sudden bursts of violence, with a dark tone that rarely lightens and a runtime of under two hours.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

A Prophet2009

French prison drama with the same lean intensity and moral clarity. Follows a young man's transformation through a criminal system with unflinching realism and no easy answers about redemption.

But Slow, deliberately paced, and entirely in French with subtitles. It demands patience and doesn't offer the conventional arc you might expect.

A Prophet poster

Once Upon a Time in America1984

Sergio Leone's masterpiece charts lifelong friendship across decades of crime, exploring how men become monsters and whether loyalty matters. Visually gorgeous and morally complex in ways that linger.

But Nearly four hours long, deliberately fragmented in its storytelling, and can feel impenetrable on first viewing. Some scenes are brutally difficult.

Once Upon a Time in America poster

Scarface1983

Al Pacino's Tony Montana is the inverse of Kuklinski—all ego and explosion rather than cold compartmentalisation. Both films are about men who choose violence and pay the price, but Scarface shows the theatrical version.

But Deeply misogynistic and increasingly cartoonish. It's stylish but hollow in ways that The Iceman deliberately avoids.

Scarface poster

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from The Iceman

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

The King of Comedy1982

Both are portrait studies of men whose interior reality has completely fractured from how others perceive them. The Iceman thinks he's a good family man; Rupert Pupkin thinks he's a star. Both are deluded in ways that the film never lets us escape.

Scorsese's strangest, darkest film about a delusional man's obsession with a talk-show host. Like The Iceman, it's about a fundamentally broken person who cannot see themselves clearly, but filtered through comedy and humiliation rather than crime.

But Deeply uncomfortable and mortifying to watch. It's not fun, and the protagonist's disconnect from reality makes it an exhausting rather than entertaining experience.

The King of Comedy poster
More like this (8)

The Godfather Part II1974

Parallel narratives of Vito's rise and Michael's fall, showing how ordinary men become ruthless. The moral architecture is perfect and the film trusts you to understand the tragedy of it.

But At three and a half hours, it's a commitment. Some find it slow; the supporting cast can feel thin if you're not attuned to its particular wavelength.

The Godfather Part II poster

Killing Zoe1993

Roger Avary's feverish crime film has similar DNA—a protagonist whose interior life doesn't match his exterior, and a marriage under strain from invisible work. Visually inventive and genuinely unsettling.

But Deeply unpleasant in places and deliberately so. The pacing is fractured and some viewers find it more style than substance.

Killing Zoe poster

In Cold Blood1967

Richard Brooks' adaptation of Truman Capote's true-crime novel has the same investigative chill and refusal to make killers sympathetic. It pioneered this exact territory with documentary precision.

But Black and white, slow, and offers no catharsis. It's austere by design, which some find more depressing than thrilling.

In Cold Blood poster

The Drop2014

Tom Hardy as a quiet, ordinary man whose hidden depths suggest genuine darkness. Brooklyn noir with atmosphere to burn and a similar interest in how violence can coexist with domesticity.

But Plot-light and character-heavy. If you want propulsive action, this will feel like watching someone sit in a bar for two hours.

The Drop poster

City of God2002

Brazilian crime epic that traces how ordinary poverty breeds extraordinary violence. Stylistically explosive but deeply humanistic—it never lets the system off the hook, and neither does its cast.

But Extremely violent and chaotic, with rapid cutting that can feel overwhelming. The subtitles require attention and some sequences are genuinely traumatic.

City of God poster

Miller's Crossing1990

Coen Brothers' Prohibition-era crime film with a similar interest in masculine codes and the gap between public loyalty and private conscience. Tightly plotted and endlessly quotable.

But The dialogue is mannered and stylised to the point of artificiality. Some find it clever rather than moving, and the plot can feel like a puzzle box rather than lived experience.

Miller's Crossing poster

Memories of Murder2003

Both films refuse to make violence exciting or transgressive. They're interested in how killing becomes routine, how men explain themselves, and how systems enable the worst of us.

Bong Joon-ho's Korean serial-killer procedural is about cops hunting a phantom killer in a corrupt system, but the real focus is on how violence corrupts the investigators themselves. Gorgeously shot, morally ambiguous, and infinitely rewatchable.

But Subtitled, lengthy at two and a half hours, and the ending is deliberately anticlimactic. It prioritises mood and moral questions over resolution.

Memories of Murder poster

The Guard2011

Both feature men whose respectable facades conceal moral voids. The Iceman's family-man routine and The Guard's buffoon routine are masks worn for different reasons, but equally convincing to the people around them.

Brendan Gleeson's Irish cop seems buffoonish until he isn't. Like The Iceman, it's about surface and what hides beneath—and how violence can erupt suddenly from ordinary-looking men in ordinary places.

But Tonal whiplash. It opens as a comedy about a charming small-town drunk, then pivots into something much darker. Some find that shift jarring rather than clever.

The Guard poster

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