Movies like The Painter (2024)
The best movies like The Painter (2024) are Erased (2012), Kandahar (2023) and The November Man (2014). If The Painter hooked you with its action and thriller, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedThree Days of the Condor (1975)7.3/10 from 1,444 votes
- NewestDeep Dive (2026)Released 2026
Erased (2012)
A former agent of the CIA and his estranged daughter go on the run after his employers target them for assassination.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both action & thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisKandahar (2023)
After his mission is exposed, an undercover CIA operative stuck deep in hostile territory in Afghanistan must fight his way out, alongside his Afghan translator, to an extraction point in Kandahar, all whilst avoiding elite enemy forces and foreign spies tasked with hunting them down.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both action & thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe November Man (2014)
An ex-CIA operative is brought back in on a very personal mission and finds himself pitted against his former pupil in a deadly game involving high level CIA officials and the Russian president-elect.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both action & thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisAva (2020)
A black ops assassin is forced to fight for her own survival after a job goes dangerously wrong.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both action & thriller
SnoozefestMovies like thisAnna (2019)
Beneath Anna Poliatova's striking beauty lies a secret that will unleash her indelible strength and skill to become one of the world's most feared government assassins.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both action & thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisA Working Man (2025)
Levon Cade left behind a decorated military career in the black ops to live a simple life working construction. But when his boss's daughter, who is like family to him, is taken by human traffickers, his search to bring her home uncovers a world of corruption far greater than he ever could have imagined.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both action & thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMile 22 (2018)
An elite group of American operatives, aided by a top-secret tactical command team, must transport an asset who holds life-threatening information to an extraction point 22 miles away through the hostile streets of an Asian city.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both action & thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSection 8 (2022)
After avenging the murder of his family, a former soldier is sprung from prison and recruited by a shadowy government agency.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both action & thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMalone (1987)
Erstwhile C.I.A. assassin Richard Malone hopes for a tranquil retirement in the placid Pacific Northwest, but what he gets is a rumble with a right-wing extremist plotting a secret revolution.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both action & thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisCanary Black (2024)
Top level CIA agent Avery Graves is blackmailed by terrorists into betraying her own country to save her kidnapped husband. Cut off from her team, she turns to her underworld contacts to survive and help locate the coveted intelligence that the kidnappers want.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both action & thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisLights Out (2024)
A drifting ex-soldier turns underground fighter with the help of a just-released ex-con, pitting him against corrupt cops and hired killers now gunning for him and all those he cares about.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both action & thriller
Worth the HypeMovies like thisNighthawks (1981)
When one of Europe's most lethal terrorists shows up in New York, an elite undercover cop is assigned to take him down by any means necessary.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both action & thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Gray Man (2022)
When a shadowy CIA agent uncovers damning agency secrets, he's hunted across the globe by a sociopathic rogue operative who's put a bounty on his head.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both action & thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSicario: Day of the Soldado (2018)
Agent Matt Graver teams up with operative Alejandro Gillick to prevent Mexican drug cartels from smuggling terrorists across the United States border.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both action & thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Long Kiss Goodnight (1996)
Samantha Caine is a small-town schoolteacher and mom with no memory of her life before washing up on a beach eight years ago. After a car accident and a violent home invasion trigger flashes of her past, she discovers she used to be a deadly CIA assassin. Teaming up with a wisecracking private investigator, Samantha must return to her old ways to take down the people who tried to erase her.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both action & thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Losers (2010)
On a mission deep in the Bolivian jungle, a team of elite commandos finds itself on the receiving end of a lethal betrayal. Now presumed dead, the men join forces with a mysterious operative named Aisha to hunt down their enemy and even the score.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both action & thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisScorpio (1973)
Cross is an old hand at the CIA who often teams up with Frenchman Jean “Scorpio” Laurier, a gifted freelance operative. After their last mission together, the CIA orders Scorpio to eliminate Cross, leaving him no choice but to obey.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both action & thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThree Days of the Condor (1975)
When bookish CIA researcher Joe Turner finds all his co-workers dead, he, together with a woman he has kidnapped, must work together to outwit those responsible until he determines who he can really trust.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller
Worth the HypeMovies like thisTwilight (1998)
A retired detective accepts a simple task, unaware that it will tear open old, forgotten, but deadly wounds.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe East (2013)
An operative for an elite private intelligence firm finds her priorities irrevocably changed after she is tasked with infiltrating an anarchist group known for executing covert attacks upon major corporations.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSuicide Kings (1997)
Carlo, a former mobster, is abducted by five privileged young men desperate to raise a $2 million ransom to save the sister of a friend. As Carlo plays mind games, however, his captors splinter -- each wondering whether one of their own had a hand in the crime.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both action & thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisParadox Effect (2024)
An innocent woman is forced to confront a dangerous kingpin who has kidnapped her young daughter and is holding her for ransom. She teams up with a corrupt Interpol agent, whose son is also being held hostage, to rip off various criminals to raise the ransom to save their offspring. Together they have one hour to save their families from the wrath of bigwig.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both action & thriller
SnoozefestMovies like thisSkyfall (2012)
When Bond's latest assignment goes gravely wrong, agents around the world are exposed and MI6 headquarters is attacked. While M faces challenges to her authority and position from Gareth Mallory, the new Chairman of the Intelligence and Security Committee, it's up to Bond, aided only by field agent Eve, to locate the mastermind behind the attack.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both action & thriller
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Important Witness (1933)
A freelance stenographer is hired for a job, but when she arrives at the address she was given, she finds that a murder has taken place there--and she is arrested for it.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both action
Wild at Heart (1990)
Young lovers Sailor and Lula hit the road to start a new life together away from the wrath of Lula’s deranged, disapproving mother, who has hired a team of hitmen to cut the lovers’ surreal honeymoon short.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both thriller
Worth the HypeMovies like thisTell No One (2006)
A man receives a mysterious email appearing to be from his wife, who was murdered years earlier. As he frantically tries to find out whether she's alive, he finds himself being implicated in her death.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both thriller
Worth the HypeMovies like thisStakeout (1987)
Two detectives observe an escaped convict's ex-girlfriend, but complications set in when one of them falls for her.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both action
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBabylon 5: The Gathering (1993)
The feature-length pilot for this Emmy award-winning show. Babylon 5 is the latest in a series of space stations built by humans. The Vorlon ambassador, Kosh, has been poisoned. It is the new commanding officer, Jeffrey Sinclair, who has the responsibility of finding the culprit. Otherwise, the space station will fail in its role of bringing many alien races together.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both action
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisJoy Ride (2001)
Three young people on a road trip from Colorado to New Jersey talk to a trucker on their CB radio, then must escape when he turns out to be a psychotic killer.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisDeep Dive (2026)
After her family is murdered, a champion swimmer infiltrates the killer's home-ready to drown his world in vengeance.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both action
Like The Painter and something else?
Blend two favourites and we’ll find the films in between.
Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like The Painter?
The closest matches to The Painter are Erased (2012), Kandahar (2023) and The November Man (2014). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after The Painter?
Start with Erased (2012), the closest match to The Painter.
What is the highest-rated movie like The Painter?
Three Days of the Condor (1975), rated 7.3/10 by 1,444 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like The Painter?
Deep Dive (2026) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there English movies like The Painter?
Yes: Erased (2012), Kandahar (2023) and The November Man (2014).
How are movies similar to The Painter chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside The Painter, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.