Corruption stories are about systems that reward the wrong behaviour and the people who notice. This tag collects reviews of films and fiction built on corruption, in institutions and in individuals.
1980sSharky's Machine (1981) rates 7 out of 10 on the rewatch scale. Burt Reynolds directed himself in an Atlanta police thriller with a jazz score, a surveillance structure and a genuinely nasty streak, and it is the best film he…
2000sDark Blue (2002) rates 8 out of 10 on the rewatch scale. Kurt Russell plays a third-generation LAPD officer who plants evidence as a matter of routine, set in the week before the Rodney King verdict. James Ellroy wrote the…
1990sElizabeth (1998) rates 8 out of 10 on the rewatch scale. Shekhar Kapur made a Tudor film that behaves like a political thriller, with Cate Blanchett moving from frightened prisoner to constructed icon across two hours. She lost Best Actress…
2000sErin Brockovich (2000) rates 7 out of 10 on the rewatch scale. Soderbergh made a genuinely good film about a paralegal assembling six hundred plaintiffs against a utility company, and Julia Roberts won Best Actress over Ellen Burstyn in Requiem…
2010sVice (2018) rates 6 out of 10 on the rewatch scale. Christian Bale gained around forty-five pounds and disappeared into Dick Cheney, in a film whose formal tricks keep interrupting a genuinely serious subject. Bale lost Best Actor to Rami…
1990sThe Insider (1999) rates 9 out of 10 on the rewatch scale. Michael Mann made a two-and-a-half-hour thriller about a man giving a television interview, in which the entire plot is legal procedure and corporate liability, and it is one…
2000sTraffic (2000) rates 9 out of 10 on the rewatch scale. Soderbergh shot three parallel drug war narratives himself, gave each one a different film stock, and won Best Director while the film lost Best Picture to Gladiator. Benicio del…
CorruptionHow private equity transformed American commerce from serving customers to extracting value. Thirteen industries documented. The playbook never changes.
1960s
2010sJia Zhangke's 2013 Chinese anthology. Four stories of modern violence in industrial China.
1980sRosenberg's 1980 prison-reform drama. Robert Redford as the warden who arrives undercover as an inmate.
2020sGareth Evans's 2025 Tom Hardy Netflix action thriller. Raid director applies established choreography approach to American institutional material.
Professional ghostwriting for executives, founders, coaches, and authors who want to get the book done right. 113+ books authored. 54+ ghostwritten for clients.
Ready to discuss your book?
BOOK YOUR PRIVATE CONSULTATIONNo pitch. No pressure.
© 2026 Richard Lowe. The Writing King. All rights reserved.
