Bryan Singer directed and Christopher McQuarrie wrote The Usual Suspects, a 1995 neo-noir mystery thriller film. Stephen Baldwin, Gabriel Byrne, Benicio del Toro, Kevin Pollak, Chazz Palminteri, Pete Postlethwaite, and Kevin Spacey starred in the film.
The plot revolves around the interrogation of Roger ‘Verbal’ Kint, a small-time con guy who is one of only two survivors of a massacre and fire aboard a ship docked at the Los Angeles Port. Kint recounts an interrogator a confusing account of events that brought him and his criminal colleagues to the boat, and of a mysterious crime boss known as Keyser Söze who controlled them, through flashback and narration.
The film’s title was inspired by a column in Spy magazine called The Usual Suspects, which was named after one of Claude Rains’ most iconic lines in the classic film Casablanca, and Singer believed it would make a fine film title.
The film premiered in a few theatres after being played out of competition at the Cannes Film Festival in 1995. It garnered positive reviews and was eventually released to a larger audience. For his performance, McQuarrie received an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay, and Spacey won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. According to the Writers Guild of America, the film has the 35th best script of all time.
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