There truly is nothing like a good mystery. The genre has captured the hearts and minds of audiences all over the world, no matter whether presented through novel, television, or film. But while mystery & suspense films are centered upon the unsolvable, one thing remains clear: their cast and crew remain un-diverse. Though there have been recent improvements in the racial and gender makeup of mystery/suspense films in general, the same cannot be said for those that are the most critically acclaimed. Even in the past 30 years of the genre, from 1994 to 2019, it is difficult to ascertain whether its diversity has increased. But with the following analysis and discussion of a handful of movies from the era, some light can be shed on this perplexing mystery.
Each film was either selected using the RottenTomatoes Top 100 Mystery & Suspense Movies page (linked below), or by using Movieweb’s list of mystery/thriller movies released in a certain year (for this article, only the year 2004 was researched on the website; also linked below). If there were various top mystery/suspense movies for a particular year, the movies were compared according to their combined rating from the Tomatometer (RottenTomatoes critics) and the audience score. Those with the highest combined scores were further analyzed.
For each film included, the cast/crew roles included in the data analysis include director, writer, lead actors, producers, and executive producers. The data is also formatted into the racial categories of White, Black, Hispanic, Asian, and Middle Eastern, as well as the gender categories of Male and Female. This was all sorted into 2 separate pie charts for each movie analyzed.
Based on the John Grisham bestseller of the same name, The Client (1994) is the kind of legal drama to bring the mystery/suspense genre back to its roots. The film’s depiction of a lawyer’s attempt to do good and protect others with the law drew a 78% rating from RottenTomatoes critics and a 69% rating from viewers. Though it provides new life within the legal drama subgenre, its leadership distribution remains the same, with 100% of the cast/crew roles of The Client occupied by White members. Even with a female lead, only 13% of the cast/crew is made up of female members, with a remaining 87% of male members in its gender diversity.
There are few films that have become as memorable as M. Night Shyamalan’s The Sixth Sense (1999). From Cole’s iconic line “I see dead people,” to the twist ending that everyone should experience for themselves, the ghost story received a 86% rating from critics and a 90% rating from viewers on RottenTomatoes. As mentioned before, with M. Night Shyamalan’s role as director and writer, 14% of the film’s leadership roles went to Asian individuals, while 86% went to White individuals. The film also displays a similar gender distribution, as 14% of its cast/crew is made up of female members and 86% are made up of male members.
A remake of the 1962 thriller starring Frank Sinatra, The Manchurian Candidate (2004) takes a modern twist on the classic political commentary. The movie gained a 80% rating from Rotten Tomatoes critics and a 63% rating from viewers for its story surrounding the manipulation of the truth for power. 91% of the film’s cast/crew members are White, and a remaining 9% are Black, due to Denzel Washington’s lead actor role. In its gender diversity, 18% of its cast/crew are female, while 82% are male, statistics that fare slightly better than the film’s racial distribution.
Both acclaimed and criticized for its brutal portrayal of murder and grief, The Lovely Bones (2009) remains a significant film within the mystery/suspense genre. An unusual addition to Peter Jackson’s repertoire, the movie received an unfortunate 32% rating from critics and a 52% rating from viewers on RottenTomatoes, the lowest rating of the films presented here. Although the rating of the film remains low, and the leadership of the film is made up of 100% White individuals, there is some compensation within its gender composition: 55% of the cast/crew are female, and 45% are male.
There are few films as unique and moral-questioning as 2014’s Nightcrawler. Jake Gyllenhaal’s performance as a siren-following cameraman earned a 95% rating from Rotten Tomatoes critics and a 86% rating from viewers. Though the acting from the film’s leads makes the film stand out, it does lack uniqueness in diversity: 100% of the film’s leadership is White, though 33% of the cast/crew of Nightcrawler is female, a welcome change from most mystery/suspense movies.
A recent fan favorite that has solidified Rian Johnson’s directing and writing capabilities, Knives Out (2019) provides a new perspective on the classic murder-mystery. The “who-dunnit?” film received a 97% rating from Rotten Tomatoes critics and a 92% rating from viewers for its twists and turns in the hunt for Harlan Thrombey’s murderer. Though released fairly recently, the film has a racial distribution of 100% White cast/crew members and a gender distribution of a 100% male cast/crew, making it the most un-diverse film out of those presented here.
Even with a simple data analysis and discussion of the past 30 years of mystery/suspense films, it can easily be deduced that there has been little change towards diversity evident in cast/crew distributions. Though films like The Lovely Bones (2009) have broken away from usual cast/crew distributions that favor white men, the majority of films signal the continuation of this trend. In time, there will hopefully be a change towards mysteries from all walks of life, surrounding all kinds of people.
Sources
“Mystery Movies: 2004 .” MovieWeb, 27 Feb. 2004, movieweb.com/movies/2004/mystery/. “Top 100 Mystery & Suspense Movies.” RottenTomatoes, www.rottentomatoes.com/top/bestofrt/top_100_mystery__suspense_movies/.
