Movies like Cold as Summer (2002)
The best movies like Cold as Summer (2002) are Detective Story (1951), In the Valley of Elah (2007) and Missing (2023). If Cold as Summer hooked you with its drama, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.

Quick picks
- Highest ratedPrisoners (2013)8.1/10 from 13,742 votes
- NewestMissing (2023)Released 2023
Detective Story (1951)
Tells the story of one day in the lives of the various people who populate a police detective squad. An embittered cop, Det. Jim McLeod, leads a precinct of characters in their grim daily battle with the city's lowlife. The characters who pass through the precinct over the course of the day include a young petty embezzler, a pair of burglars, and a naive shoplifter.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisIn the Valley of Elah (2007)
A career officer and his wife work with a police detective to uncover the truth behind their son's disappearance following his return from a tour of duty in Iraq.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMissing (2023)
When her mother disappears while on vacation in Colombia with her new boyfriend, June’s search for answers is hindered by international red tape. Stuck thousands of miles away in Los Angeles, June creatively uses all the latest technology at her fingertips to try and find her before it’s too late.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies 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
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisChangeling (2008)
Los Angeles, 1928. When single mother Christine Collins leaves for work, her son vanishes without a trace. Five months later, the police reunite mother and son. But when Christine suspects that the boy returned to her isn't her child, her quest for truth exposes a world of corruption.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisPrisoners (2013)
After his six-year-old daughter is abducted, a desperate father takes justice into his own hands when he loses faith in the detective leading the investigation, setting both men on a collision course as the search descends into obsession and moral compromise.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisGreta (2019)
A young woman returns a lonely widow’s lost purse, leading to an unlikely relationship between the two — until the young woman discovers the widow might not be all that she seems.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisA Bundle of Trouble: An Aurora Teagarden Mystery (2017)
Aurora Teagarden and her boyfriend Martin are thrilled when they get an unexpected visit from his niece and her new baby. Their excitement is short lived when his niece disappears and the baby is left behind. Once again, Aurora finds herself drawn into a deadly investigation as she risks it all to help Martin reunite with his family.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Interview (1998)
A duel between a suspected murderer and a detective pressed by people who want results. But whose skin is really wanted?
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisA Good Woman Is Hard to Find (2019)
The recently widowed mother of two, Sarah, is desperate to know who murdered her husband in front of her young son, rendering him mute. Coerced into helping a low-life drug dealer stash narcotics stolen from the local Mr. Big, she's forced into taking drastic action to protect her children, evolving from downtrodden submissive to take-charge vigilante.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Captive (2014)
Eight years after their daughter Cassandra's abduction tore them apart, an estranged couple discover disturbing clues that indicate that she is still alive.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisI'm Your Woman (2020)
A woman is forced to go on the run after her husband betrays his partners, sending her and her baby on a dangerous journey.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisAmerican Gigolo (1980)
Julian makes a lucrative living as an escort to older women in the Los Angeles area. He begins a relationship with Michelle, a local politician's wife, without expecting any pay. One of his clients is murdered and Detective Sunday begins pumping him for details on his different clients, something he is reluctant to do considering the nature of his work. Julian begins to suspect he's being framed. Meanwhile Michelle begins to fall in love with him.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Murder at Road Hill House (2011)
In 1860, Inspector Jack Whicher of Scotland Yard is sent to rural Wiltshire to investigate the murder of the three-year-old boy Saville Kent, who was snatched from his bed at night and murdered.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBrooklyn's Finest (2010)
Enforcing the law within the notoriously rough Brownsville section of the city and especially within the Van Dyke housing projects is the NYPD's sixty-fifth precinct. Three police officers struggle with the sometimes fine line between right and wrong.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisA Beautiful Place to Die: A Martha's Vineyard Mystery (2020)
After being forced into early retirement, former detective Jeff Jackson returns to a quiet life on Martha's Vineyard. Quiet, at least, until a body washes up and he's drawn back into crime solving.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisMurder, My Sweet (1944)
After being hired to find an ex-con's former girlfriend, Philip Marlowe is drawn into a deeply complex web of mystery and deceit.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisTriage (2009)
The wife of a photojournalist sets out to discover why he came home from a recent assignment without his colleague.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisAn Inspector Calls (2015)
Northern England, 1912. The dinner of a wealthy family is interrupted by Inspector Goole, who only announces that a young woman has committed suicide. Then, he simply asks everyone present, one by one, if they knew her.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisFarewell, My Lovely (1975)
Private eye Philip Marlowe is hired by ex-con Moose Malloy to find his girlfriend, a former lounge dancer. While also investigating the murder of a client and the theft of a jade necklace, Marlowe becomes entangled with seductress Helen Grayle and discovers a web of dark secrets that are better left hidden.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Stranger (2022)
Two strangers strike up a conversation on a long journey. However, neither is who they appear to be, each carry secrets that threaten to ruin them — and in the background, one of the nation's largest police operations is closing in.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSaturn Bowling (2022)
In a family-owned bowling alley, tension arises between two brothers following their father's death. Meanwhile one of them, a cop, is investigating a series of disturbing murders. Both brothers soon find themselves trapped in a looming darkness.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisCitizen X (1995)
Based on the true story of a Russian serial killer who, over many years, claimed victim to over 50 people. His victims were mostly under the age of 17. In what was then a communists state, the police investigations were hampered by bureaucracy, incompetence and those in power. The story is told from the viewpoint of the detective in charge of the case.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisLooking for Cheyenne (2005)
Cheyenne, a journalist, decides to leave Paris after being laid off and to settle down in the middle of nowhere, far from the society she hates. The trouble is that she leaves Sonia, her true love, behind. The latter, a teacher who loves her job, refuses to give up everything - including her comfort - to follow her. Sonia makes all the efforts in the world to forget Cheyenne, whether in the arms of Pierre, a charming anarchist, or in those of Béatrice, a gay woman who soon proves perverse and dangerous, only to realize that her heart belongs to Cheyenne and nobody else.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
One to Another (2006)
A story about bunch of people who live in a town in provincial France. At the center of it all is Pierre, a conceited and vain bisexual musician in his late teens who acts as a magnet, to varying degrees, for a whole array of characters - from his sister Lucie, with whom he has a heated incestuous relationship, to a city councilor with whom he participates in gay orgies. When Pierre turns up dead, Lucie investigates the reasons for his demise and charts the network of sadomasochistic relationships that crisscross the town.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Man of My Life (2006)
A man vacationing in the country with his wife and children finds ideas he has of himself unexpectedly challenged.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Goldfish Memory (2003)
A small group of friends experience relationships which grow and stumble, involving everything from straight, gay, lesbian, and bisexual relationships. The speed with which these relationships last leads to the Goldfish memory effect, the belief that a Goldfish only has a 3 second memory is a metaphor for the transient nature of the characters relationships.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Hotaru Special (2007)
Hotaru Amami is a female detective who uses her knowledge of the law and her beautiful body as weapons. Together with her assistant, Mizuno , a law student, she works day and night to eliminate crimes that prey on women. Can they successfully trap the powerful con artists who appear one after another and save their clients? Two beautiful women put their bodies on the line in this definitive sexy detective story. (Compiles scenes from the four New Hotaru films).
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
My Father's Glory (1990)
Raised by his science teacher father, Joseph Pagnol, and seamstress mother Augustine, young Marcel grows up during the turn of the century in awe of his rationalist dad. When the family takes a summer vacation in the countryside, Marcel becomes friends with Lili, who teaches him about rural life.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisSuicide Club (2001)
When the bizarre mass suicide of 54 high school girls throwing themselves in front of a subway train appears to instigate a string of suicides around the country, Detective Kuroda strives to find the answer, which isn't as simple as he had hoped.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like this
Like Cold as Summer and something else?
Blend two favourites and we’ll find the films in between.
Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Cold as Summer?
The closest matches to Cold as Summer are Detective Story (1951), In the Valley of Elah (2007) and Missing (2023). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Cold as Summer?
Start with Detective Story (1951), the closest match to Cold as Summer.
What is the highest-rated movie like Cold as Summer?
Prisoners (2013), rated 8.1/10 by 13,742 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Cold as Summer?
Missing (2023) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there English movies like Cold as Summer?
Yes: Detective Story (1951), In the Valley of Elah (2007) and Missing (2023).
How are movies similar to Cold as Summer chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Cold as Summer, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.





























