Crime and Punishment: Ranking 24 Films Inspired by Dostoevsky's Novel

Case in point, the film topping my ranking doesn't credit Dostoevsky at all--even though it's conspicuously a loose reworking of "Crime and Punishment" transported to contemporary Paris. Like the pickpocket (instead of a murderer) of the film, however, French New Wave filmmaker Robert Bresson steals the credit. The framing device of the pickpocket writing the story, coupled with his voiceover narration, neatly reflects the subjectivity of the book, and non-standard continuity editing supports its subversive subject--until a subtly brilliant ending offers redemption.

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The best of four Woody Allen films on this list, it's also the best of both the worlds of Allen's clever comedy and his darker philosophical musings, which are the atheistic antithesis of Dostoevsky's religiosity. It's one of his most interesting cinematically self-reflexive works, too, including a famous ending and Allen playing a filmmaker to Martin Landau's doctor of viewing.

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One of the two films from the silent era on this list and the one that's a mostly straightforward adaptation, the distinguishing feature of this piece of Weimar cinema is its Expressionist sets. From the director, Robert Wiene, of "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari" (1920), the architecture this time is dimensional and textured rather than the overtly-theatrical settings of "Caligari." Moreover, the Expressionism effectively reflects the subjective experience of Raskolnikov onto the objective world--an ingenious solution for a silent film that couldn't resort to the voiceover tactics employed by some of the talkies on this list.

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An animated short film, this one features a painting style that's reflective of the cutting, destructive and, ultimately, creative subject matter of the novel. Most of the narrative is axed in favor of focusing on Raskolnikov's confession to Sonya, and the plot is presented in a non-linear, dream-like construction. An intriguing curiosity for those familiar with the book, while for those who aren't, at least it's brief and looks wonderful.

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Although little known today, Yevgeni Bauer is arguably the greatest filmmaker of the 1910s. With this early effort (and the earliest film on this list and only example of pre-Soviet Russian cinema), he slyly reworked parts of Dostoevsky's novel and other 19th-century literary tropes into a modern, self-reflexive cinematic piece of art. It's an especially well-composed picture for 1914, with the final scene, of a vamp type character stepping over the idealist man she ruined, being a standout.

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Perhaps best known for star Christian Bale's dangerous devotion to transforming his body to fit his role (and to think, after losing so much weight, he had to bulk up to play Batman only a few months later), this is otherwise a puzzle, or mind-game film. One of its puzzles involves its intersections with three Dostoevsky novels: "The Double," "The Idiot" and, most significantly, "Crime and Punishment."

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From Brazil, this updated reworking's Raskolnikov is the eponymous young goth woman Nina, whose grasp on reality is increasingly tenuous. Few of the films on this list handle this conflict between reality and illusion, or the mise-en-abyme of art-within-art (Nina draws, whereas Raskolnikov wrote), or in adapting the novel's dreams as well as this. That the rest of the narrative has its flaws seems unimportant by comparison.

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Two relatively-straightforward, studio-bound adaptations were released, across the Atlantic from each other, in 1935. This French one--supposedly part of the trend of "poetic realism"--is superior in basically every way. It's decently plotted, occasionally well photographed, and the acting is good.

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A bonkers low-budget film noir and an otherwise loose and uncredited updating of the novel, what it lacks in comprehending the source text it makes up for in cinematic reference. It's essentially a superior remake of the 1935 American version, which adds parts from Fritz Lang's "M" (1931) and "The Woman in the Window" (1944), for some brisk and unusual fun. Judging by its low 5.7 IMDb score as of this writing, it's the most underrated film on this list.

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Although a parody of 19th-century Russian literature in general, as mostly framed through Tolstoy's "War and Peace," there's enough of "Crime and Punishment" here for me to include this rewarding detour in frivolity on this list. Diane Keaton plays a character named "Sonja," a self-described "half saint, half whore," and Woody Allen has an entire conversation at one point entirely comprised of characters and titles from Dostoevsky's novels.

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The second of Woody Allen's three rebuttals of the novel, this one includes a copy of the book within the picture, as the protagonist turns to Dostoevsky for inspiration in dealing with his upset mistress (played by Scarlett Johansson). Besides being similar to Allen's two other "Crime and Punishment" movies, this one takes a cue from the films of Alfred Hitchcock.

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Representing the USSR on this list, this exercise in Soviet realism clocking in at nearly 4 hours may be the most "faithful" adaptation on this list, but it's also a dreary reflection of the totalitarian police state in which it was made.

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A low-budget Hollywood production that introduced George Hamilton in the role of a Beatnik version of Raskolnikov. He even plays on a bongo drum.

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Another updated version that transports the story to the country where it was made, this is the second and less-interesting of the two film-noir treatments of the story I've seen, and it ranks even lower among three French adaptations.

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A loose teen-movie updating of the novel set in the American suburbs. A younger version of Pete Campbell from "Mad Men" plays an amateur photographer and stalker.

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From one of the premiere directors of Mexico's so-called "golden age of cinema," this one is devoutly Hollywood in its studio production values, and although the story is updated and transported to Mexico City, it's otherwise straightforward.

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Originally made shortly after the fall of the Soviet Union, this international production starring Marty McFly's dad is critical of totalitarianism, but, ironically, it wasn't released until during the rise of Putin.

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A piece of arthouse national cinema from Kazakhstan, it lectures on the merits of the country's modern capitalism v. its past with socialism.

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Allen's third and latest atheistic rebuttal to Dostoevsky's religiosity, this is decidedly his most muddled, pretentious and arguably sexist entry despite a strong cast and a narrative that's closer to the novel than his other movies.

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An independent movie from Australia, it updates the story to some vague dystopia, but otherwise struggles to distinguish itself in a field of fairly straightforward adaptations. There's some good production design, though.

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The debut of celebrated Finnish director Aki Kaurismäki, this is an amateurish effort that fails to translate anything intelligent from Dostoevsky to the screen or to come up with anything compelling on its own.

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The worse of the two studio-bound 1935 adaptations, this classical Hollywood version had my hopes up due to its director by Josef von Sternberg and its starring Peter Lorre, but they both phoned this one in.

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From the director of "Russian Ark," this is an obtusely artsy affair, to be sure. A few highlights of the novel are interspersed with naval-gazing visual-effects experimentation and obscure symbolism, including, basically, a sex scene with a statue.

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Another loose reworking of the book, this Filipino example of self-described "slow cinema" rejects continuity editing and entertainment values in favor of hours and hours of static long takes from distance perspectives; in turn, I reject it.

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