Movies like Crocodile Tears (2026)
The best movies like Crocodile Tears (2026) are Room (2015), Mothers' Instinct (2024) and The Truth About Emanuel (2013). If Crocodile Tears hooked you with its drama and thriller, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedRoom (2015)8.0/10 from 9,941 votes
- NewestMagpie (2024)Released 2024
Room (2015)
Held captive for 7 years in an enclosed space, a woman and her young son finally gain their freedom, allowing the boy to experience the outside world for the first time.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & thriller
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisMothers' Instinct (2024)
Housewives Alice and Celine are best friends and neighbours who seem to have it all. However, when a tragic accident shatters the harmony of their lives, guilt, suspicion and paranoia begin to unravel their sisterly bond.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Truth About Emanuel (2013)
A troubled young woman becomes obsessed with her mysterious new neighbor, who bears a striking resemblance to the girl's dead mother.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisLila & Eve (2015)
Lila, a grief-stricken mother reeling from her son’s murder, attends a support group where she meets Eve, who urges her to take matters into her own hands to track down her son’s killers.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Crush (1993)
A precocious and obsessive teenager develops a crush on a naive writer with harrowing consequences.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisNocturnal Animals (2016)
Susan Morrow receives a book manuscript from her ex-husband – a man she left 20 years earlier – asking for her opinion of his writing. As she reads, she is drawn into the fictional life of Tony Hastings, a mathematics professor whose family vacation turns violent.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & thriller
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946)
Three childhood friends, Martha, Walter and Sam, share a terrible secret. Over time, the ambitious Martha and the pusillanimous Walter have married. She is a cold businesswoman; he is the district attorney: a perfect combination to dominate the corrupt city of Iverstown at will. But the unexpected return of Sam, after years of absence, deeply disturbs the life of the odd couple.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & thriller
Worth the HypeMovies like thisLeave the World Behind (2023)
A family's getaway to a luxurious rental home takes an ominous turn when a cyberattack knocks out their devices—and two strangers appear at their door.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisCape Fear (1991)
Sam Bowden is a small-town corporate attorney. Max Cady is a tattooed, cigar-smoking, Bible-quoting, psychotic rapist. What do they have in common? 14 years ago, Sam was a public defender assigned to Max Cady's rape trial, and he made a serious error: he hid a document from his illiterate client that could have gotten him acquitted. Now, the cagey Cady has been released, and he intends to teach Sam Bowden and his family a thing or two about loss.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & thriller
Worth the HypeMovies like thisMagpie (2024)
A couple's lives are thrown into disarray when their daughter is cast opposite a controversial major star.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Experiment (2010)
20 men are chosen to participate in the roles of guards and prisoners in a psychological study that ultimately spirals out of control.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisA Thousand and One (2023)
Struggling but unapologetically living on her own terms, Inez is moving from shelter to shelter in mid-1990s New York City. With her 6-year-old son Terry in foster care and unable to leave him again, she kidnaps him so they can build their life together. As the years go by, their family grows and Terry becomes a smart yet quiet teenager, but the secret that has defined their lives threatens to destroy the home they have so improbably built.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisGirl in the Basement (2021)
Sara is a teen girl who is looking forward to her 18th birthday to move away from her controlling father Don. But before she could even blow out the candles, Don imprisons her in the basement of their home.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller
Worth the HypeMovies like thisHeavenly Creatures (1994)
Precocious teenager Juliet moves to New Zealand with her family and soon befriends the quiet, brooding Pauline through their shared love of fantasy and literature. This friendship gradually develops into an intense and obsessive bond.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisCowboys (2020)
Troy and his young transgender son Joe are on the run from his conservative mother in the Montana wilderness, with a detective in hot pursuit.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like this20th Century Women (2016)
In 1979 Santa Barbara, California, Dorothea Fields is a determined single mother in her mid-50s who is raising her adolescent son, Jamie, at a moment brimming with cultural change and rebellion. Dorothea enlists the help of two younger women – Abbie, a free-spirited punk artist living as a boarder in the Fields' home and Julie, a savvy and provocative teenage neighbour – to help with Jamie's upbringing.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisAlex of Venice (2015)
After her stay-at-home husband leaves her, a workaholic lawyer finds that she is not completely up to the tasks of caring for her young son, ailing father and household all by herself.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisMagnolia (1999)
On one random day in the San Fernando Valley, a dying father, a young wife, a male caretaker, a famous lost son, a police officer in love, a boy genius, an ex-boy genius, a game show host and an estranged daughter will each become part of a dazzling multiplicity of plots, but one story.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisTuesday (2024)
A mother and her teenage daughter must confront Death when it arrives in the form of an astonishing talking bird.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSorry, Wrong Number (1948)
Leona Stevenson is confined to bed and uses her telephone to keep in contact with the outside world. One day she overhears a murder plot on the telephone and is desperate to find out who is the intended victim.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Order (2003)
For centuries, a secret Order of priests has existed within the Church. A renegade priest, Father Alex Bernier, is sent to Rome to investigate the mysterious death of one of the Order's most revered members. Following a series of strangely similar killings, Bernier launches an investigation that forces him to confront unimaginable evil.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both thriller & drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisHannibal (2001)
After having successfully eluded the authorities for years, Hannibal peacefully lives in Italy in disguise as an art scholar. Trouble strikes again when he's discovered leaving a deserving few dead in the process. He returns to America to make contact with now disgraced Agent Clarice Starling, who is suffering the wrath of a malicious FBI rival as well as the media.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisFunny Games (1997)
Two psychotic young men take a mother, father, and son hostage in their vacation cabin and force them to play sadistic "games" with one another for their own amusement.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & thriller
Worth the HypeMovies like thisNightcap (2000)
Mika, heiress to a Swiss chocolate company, is married to celebrated pianist André and stepmother to his son, Guillaume, whose mother died in a car wreck on his tenth birthday. Their lives are interrupted by the unexpected arrival of Jeanne, a young woman who has learned she was almost switched with Guillaume at birth.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both thriller & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Joke (2010)
A bunch of friends are celebrating the birthday of one of them when they decide to play a joke on him. None of them could imagine the consequences that would befall them.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Empire of the Sun (1987)
Jamie Graham, a privileged English boy, is living in Shanghai when the Japanese invade and force all foreigners into prison camps. Jamie is captured with an American sailor, who looks out for him while they are in the camp together. Even though he is separated from his parents and in a hostile environment, Jamie maintains his dignity and youthful spirit, providing a beacon of hope for the others held captive with him.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisDeepwater (2005)
A drifter comes to the town of Deepwater and is seduced into a twisted game of deceit and murder.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both thriller
Stigmata (1999)
A young woman with no strong religious beliefs, Frankie Paige begins having strange and violent experiences, showing signs of the wounds that Jesus received when crucified. When the Vatican gets word of Frankie's situation, a high-ranking cardinal requests that the Rev. Andrew Kiernan investigate her case. Soon Kiernan realizes that very sinister forces are at work, and tries to rescue Frankie from the entity that is plaguing her.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBreaking Pencils (2021)
Sep learns how to navigate high-school life.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Romance (2006)
Yoon-hee is harassed by her husband's excessive obsession and crazy love so much that even breathing is painful. Her sudden suicide attempt fails when someone takes her in his arms and saves her.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Crocodile Tears?
The closest matches to Crocodile Tears are Room (2015), Mothers' Instinct (2024) and The Truth About Emanuel (2013). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Crocodile Tears?
Start with Room (2015), the closest match to Crocodile Tears.
What is the highest-rated movie like Crocodile Tears?
Room (2015), rated 8.0/10 by 9,941 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Crocodile Tears?
Magpie (2024) is the most recent release on this list.
How are movies similar to Crocodile Tears chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Crocodile Tears, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.