The Usual Suspects

For other uses, see Usual suspects.
Not to be confused with Usual Suspects Gang.

The Usual Suspects
Five men in a police lineup
Theatrical release poster
Directed byBryan Singer
Written byChristopher McQuarrie
Produced by
  • Bryan Singer
  • Michael McDonnell
Starring
CinematographyNewton Thomas Sigel
Edited byJohn Ottman
Music byJohn Ottman
Production
companies
Distributed by
Release dates
  • January 25, 1995 (1995-01-25) (Sundance)
  • August 16, 1995 (1995-08-16) (United States)
Running time
106 minutes[1]
Countries
LanguageEnglish
Budget$6 million[3]
Box office$67 million[4]

The Usual Suspects is a 1995 crime thriller film[5] directed by Bryan Singer and written by Christopher McQuarrie. It stars Stephen Baldwin, Gabriel Byrne, Benicio del Toro, Kevin Pollak, Chazz Palminteri, Pete Postlethwaite, and Kevin Spacey.

The plot follows the interrogation of Roger "Verbal" Kint, a small-time con man, who is one of only two survivors of a massacre and fire on a ship docked at the Port of Los Angeles. Through flashback and narration, Kint tells an interrogator a convoluted story of events that led him and his criminal companions to the boat, and of a mysterious crime lord—known as Keyser Söze—who controlled them. The film was shot on a $6 million budget and began as a title taken from a column in Spy magazine called The Usual Suspects, after one of Claude Rains' most memorable lines in the classic film Casablanca, and Singer thought that it would make a good title for a film.

The film was shown out of competition at the 1995 Cannes Film Festival[6] and then initially released in a few theaters. It received favorable reviews and was eventually given a wider release. The praise went towards the mystery elements, the screenplay, the plot twist, and Spacey's performance. McQuarrie won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay and Spacey won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance. The Writers Guild of America ranked the film as having the 35th greatest screenplay of all time.[7]

  1. ^ "The Usual Suspects (18)". British Board of Film Classification. May 26, 1995. Archived from the original on November 29, 2014. Retrieved May 30, 2014.
  2. ^ a b "The Usual Suspects (1995)". British Film Institute. Archived from the original on September 13, 2018. Retrieved August 10, 2018.
  3. ^ Cite error: The named reference Gross was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  4. ^ "Selected Sundance alumni domestic vs international". Screen International. February 17, 1997. p. 18.
  5. ^ "The Usual Suspects". British Board of Film Classification. Archived from the original on January 25, 2024. Retrieved December 7, 2023.
  6. ^ "Festival de Cannes: The Usual Suspects". festival-cannes.com. Archived from the original on August 22, 2011. Retrieved September 8, 2009.
  7. ^ Cite error: The named reference WGA101 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).