Mystery & Suspense Movies Online
The plot of a mystery film is usually about a puzzle that needs to be solved, and in most cases that puzzle is a crime. In a typical mystery, a protagonist-or a group of protagonists-tries to solve the puzzle, determine how the crime was committed, and bring its perpetrator to justice. The genre is popular not just in film, but in literature, television and even on the stage.
The key difference between a mystery and a crime thriller is that in a mystery, the audience generally doesn't know the solution to the puzzle until the end of the movie and must try to figure out the answer along with the protagonist. Less commonly, the audience knows the answer before the hero does, and a sense of dramatic irony is introduced into the plot. In any case, the plot builds to a climax where everything is revealed once and for all.
The hero in a mystery may be a police detective or some other law enforcement officer, or he or she may be an amateur detective. Private detectives have historically been popular mystery-film protagonists. Sometimes the sleuth is an ordinary citizen who is forced to become a detective by chance or misfortune, and this type of amateur detective often is reluctant to be involved in the mystery at all.
A police procedural is a particular type of crime drama that may share characteristics with a mystery. This type of film tries to portray the work of law enforcement officers in a convincing and realistic way, following them as they go about the business of investigating crimes and apprehending perpetrators. When the plot hides the identity of the perpetrators from the audience until the end of the investigation, the film could reasonably be argued to be a mystery.
