Movies like The Pardon (2013)
The best movies like The Pardon (2013) are Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile (2019), Beyond a Reasonable Doubt (1956) and The United States of Leland (2003). If The Pardon hooked you with its crime and drama, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedThe Godfather (1972)8.7/10 from 23,951 votes
- NewestThe Unforgivable (2021)Released 2021
Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile (2019)
A chronicle of the crimes of Ted Bundy, from the perspective of his longtime girlfriend, Elizabeth Kloepfer, who refused to believe the truth about him for years.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & crime
Worth the HypeMovies like thisBeyond a Reasonable Doubt (1956)
A newspaper publisher, wanting to prove a point about the insufficiency of circumstantial evidence, talks his possible son-in-law Tom into a hoax in an attempt to expose ineptitude of the city's hard-line district attorney. The plan is to have Tom plant clues leading to his arrest for killing a female nightclub dancer. Once Tom is found guilty, he is to reveal the setup and humiliate the DA.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe United States of Leland (2003)
A withdrawn young man, Leland Fitzgerald is imprisoned for the murder of a mentally disabled boy, who also happened to be the brother of his girlfriend, Becky. As the community struggles to deal with the killing, Pearl Madison, a teacher at the prison, decides to write about Leland's case. Meanwhile, others affected by the murder, including Becky and her sister, Julie, must contend with their own problems.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisStranger on the Third Floor (1940)
Newspaper reporter Michael Ward plunges into a nightmare of guilt, fearing that his "evidence" has sentenced the wrong man to death.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisHigh Sierra (1941)
Given a pardon from jail, Roy Earle gets back into the swing of things as he robs a swanky resort.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisAppaloosa (2008)
Two friends hired to police a small town that is suffering under the rule of a rancher find their job complicated by the arrival of a young widow.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & crime
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Unforgivable (2021)
A woman is released from prison after serving a sentence for a violent crime and re-enters a society that refuses to forgive her past.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & crime
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Valachi Papers (1972)
When Joe Valachi has a price put on his head by Don Vito Genovese, he must take desperate steps to protect himself while in prison. An unsuccessful attempt to slit his throat puts him over the edge to break the sacred code of silence.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisCleveland Abduction (2015)
A single mother becomes Ariel Castro's first kidnapping victim, and finds herself trapped in his home with two other women for 11 years.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisCool Hand Luke (1967)
When petty criminal Luke Jackson is sentenced to two years in a Florida prison farm, he doesn't play by the rules of either the sadistic warden or the yard's resident heavy, Dragline, who ends up admiring the new guy's unbreakable will. Luke's bravado, even in the face of repeated stints in the prison's dreaded solitary confinement cell, "the box," make him a rebel hero to his fellow convicts and a thorn in the side of the prison officers.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & crime
Worth the HypeMovies like thisPanic (2000)
Alex is going through a midlife crisis and it has become a very difficult time for him. His marriage is struggling, he's worried about his son, and his job of killing people for his family has become the most stressful part of his life. He seeks the help of a therapist and meets a woman in the waiting room that he connects with.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBrubaker (1980)
The new warden of a small prison farm in Arkansas tries to clean it up of corruption after initially posing as an inmate.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisMcVicar (1980)
John McVicar was a London Bad Boy. he graduated to armed bank robbery and was Britain's "Public Enemy No. 1". He was captured and put into a high security prison. Will even the highest security prison be able to hold him? This is the true story of his life, his criminal exploits and his eventual rehabilitation.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Onion Field (1979)
An LA police officer is murdered in the onion fields outside of Bakersfield. However, legal loopholes could keep his kidnappers from receiving justice, and his partner is haunted by overwhelming survivor's guilt.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSouth Central (1992)
During a 10-year sentence for murdering the leader of a rival South Central Los Angeles gang, Bobby Johnson finds religion and rehabilitation with the help of Muslim inmate Ali. Upon his release, Bobby returns home to find that his young son, Jimmie, has joined the Deuces, his old crew. Tensions rise as Bobby struggles to convince Jimmie to leave the gang that was his only family during the painful years his absent father spent behind bars.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime & drama
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 & crime
Worth the HypeMovies like thisTrue Story (2015)
A drama centered on the relationship between journalist Michael Finkel and Christian Longo, an FBI Most Wanted List murderer who for years lived outside the U.S. under Finkel's name.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisDillinger (1973)
After a shoot-out kills five FBI agents in Kansas City the Bureau target John Dillinger as one of the men to hunt down. Waiting for him to break Federal law they sort out several other mobsters, while Dillinger's bank robbing exploits make him something of a folk hero. Escaping from jail he finds Pretty Boy Floyd and Baby Face Nelson have joined the gang and pretty soon he is Public Enemy Number One. Now the G-men really are after him.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Mustang (2019)
While participating in a rehabilitation program training wild mustangs, a convict at first struggles to connect with the horses and his fellow inmates, but he learns to confront his violent past as he soothes an especially feisty horse.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisJane Got a Gun (2015)
After her outlaw husband returns home shot with eight bullets and barely alive, Jane reluctantly reaches out to an ex-lover who she hasn't seen in over ten years to help her defend her farm when the time comes that her husband's gang eventually tracks him down to finish the job.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisThe Good German (2006)
An American journalist arrives in Berlin just after the end of World War Two. He becomes involved in a murder mystery surrounding a dead GI who washes up at a lakeside mansion during the Potsdam negotiations between the Allied powers. Soon his investigation connects with his search for his married pre-war German lover.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & crime
SnoozefestMovies like thisLucky Number Slevin (2006)
Slevin is mistakenly put in the middle of a personal war between the city’s biggest criminal bosses. Under constant watch, Slevin must try not to get killed by an infamous assassin and come up with an idea of how to get out of his current dilemma.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & crime
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Godfather (1972)
Spanning the years 1945 to 1955, a chronicle of the fictional Italian-American Corleone crime family. When organized crime family patriarch, Vito Corleone barely survives an attempt on his life, his youngest son, Michael steps in to take care of the would-be killers, launching a campaign of bloody revenge.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & crime
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisThe Killing (1956)
Career criminal Johnny Clay recruits a sharpshooter, a crooked police officer, a bartender and a betting teller named George, among others, for one last job before he goes straight and gets married. But when George tells his restless wife about the scheme to steal millions from the racetrack where he works, she hatches a plot of her own.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both crime & drama
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 drama & crime
Léon: The Professional (1994)
Léon, the top hit man in New York, has earned a rep as an effective "cleaner". But when his next-door neighbors are wiped out by a loose-cannon DEA agent, he becomes the unwilling custodian of 12-year-old Mathilda. Before long, Mathilda's thoughts turn to revenge, and she considers following in Léon's footsteps.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both crime & drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisBoys Don't Cry (1999)
A young transgender man explores his gender identity and searches for love in rural Nebraska.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both crime & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Interpreter (2005)
After Silvia Broome, an interpreter at United Nations headquarters, overhears plans of an assassination, an American Secret Service agent is sent to investigate.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both crime
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSin City: A Dame to Kill For (2014)
Some of Sin City's most hard-boiled citizens cross paths with a few of its more reviled inhabitants.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both crime
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisCochin Express (1967)
Rajan, a police officer, is in charge of the investigation regarding a murder that took place on a train. He tries by hook or by crook to find the culprit as he has only one witness.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both crime
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like The Pardon?
The closest matches to The Pardon are Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile (2019), Beyond a Reasonable Doubt (1956) and The United States of Leland (2003). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after The Pardon?
Start with Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile (2019), the closest match to The Pardon.
What is the highest-rated movie like The Pardon?
The Godfather (1972), rated 8.7/10 by 23,951 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like The Pardon?
The Unforgivable (2021) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there English movies like The Pardon?
Yes: Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile (2019), Beyond a Reasonable Doubt (1956) and The United States of Leland (2003).
How are movies similar to The Pardon chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside The Pardon, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.