Movies like Murder One (1988)
The best movies like Murder One (1988) are Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile (2019), Sleepers (1996) and At Close Range (1986). If Murder One 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 Shawshank Redemption (1994)8.7/10 from 31,800 votes
- NewestThe Whisper Man (2026)Released 2026
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 thisSleepers (1996)
Two gangsters seek revenge on the state jail worker who during their stay at a youth prison sexually abused them. A sensational court hearing takes place to charge him for the crimes.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisAt Close Range (1986)
Brad Whitewood Jr. lives in rural Pennsylvania and has few prospects. Against his mother's wishes, he seeks out his estranged father, the head of a gang of thieves in a nearby town. Though his new girlfriend supports his criminal ambitions, Brad Jr. soon learns that his father is a dangerous man.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Whisper Man (2026)
When his young son vanishes, a widower enlists help from his estranged father, a retired detective who put away the serial killer now linked to the case.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMy Friend Dahmer (2017)
Jeffrey Dahmer struggles with a difficult family life as a young boy. During his teenage years he slowly transforms, edging closer to the serial killer he was to become.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & crime
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisGoodFellas (1990)
The true story of Henry Hill, a half-Irish, half-Sicilian Brooklyn kid who is adopted by neighbourhood gangsters at an early age and climbs the ranks of a Mafia family under the guidance of Jimmy Conway.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & crime
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisMonster (2021)
The story of Steve Harmon, a 17-year-old honor student whose world comes crashing down around him when he is charged with felony murder.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies 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 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 thisWinged Creatures (2009)
A psychotic man opens fire in a diner, murdering numerous people before killing himself. The survivors struggle in different ways following this horrendous event: a doctor doubts his own instincts and elects to use an experimental medical procedure on his wife, while a gambler believes he's on a lucky streak. A waitress begins engaging in promiscuous sex, and a young girl whose father is among the dead gains unexpected fame.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime & drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisThe Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith (1978)
The true story of a part Aboriginal man who finds the pressure of adapting to white culture intolerable, and as a result snaps in a violent and horrific manner.
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 thisIn Cold Blood (1967)
After a botched robbery results in the brutal murder of a rural family, two drifters elude police, in the end coming to terms with their own mortality and the repercussions of their vile atrocity.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisChopper (2000)
The true and infamous story of Australia's notorious criminal Mark 'Chopper' Read and his years of crime, interest in violence, drugs and prostitutes.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Silence of the Lambs (1991)
Clarice Starling is a top student at the FBI's training academy. Jack Crawford wants Clarice to interview Dr. Hannibal Lecter, a brilliant psychiatrist who is also a violent psychopath, serving life behind bars for various acts of murder and cannibalism. Crawford believes that Lecter may have insight into a case and that Starling, as an attractive young woman, may be just the bait to draw him out.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime & drama
Absolute CinemaMovies 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 thisDark Places (2015)
A woman who survived the brutal killing of her family as a child is forced to confront the events of that day.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & crime
SnoozefestMovies like thisThe Shawshank Redemption (1994)
Imprisoned in the 1940s for the double murder of his wife and her lover, upstanding banker Andy Dufresne begins a new life at the Shawshank prison, where he puts his accounting skills to work for an amoral warden. During his long stretch in prison, Dufresne comes to be admired by the other inmates -- including an older prisoner named Red -- for his integrity and unquenchable sense of hope.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & crime
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisTed Bundy: American Boogeyman (2021)
Set in a gritty and decadent 1970s America, American Boogeyman follows the elusive and charming killer and the manhunt that brought him to justice involving the detective and the FBI rookie who coined the phrase ‘serial killer’.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisJust Cause (1995)
A Harvard professor is lured back into the courtroom after twenty-five years to take the case of a young black man condemned to death for the horrific murder of a child.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBad Lieutenant (1992)
While investigating a young nun's rape, a corrupt New York City police detective, with a serious drug and gambling addiction, tries to change his ways and find forgiveness.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both crime & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisEdge of Darkness (2010)
As a seasoned homicide detective, Thomas Craven has seen the bleakest side of humanity. But nothing prepares him for the toughest investigation of his life: the search for his only daughter Emma's killer. Now, he is on a personal mission to uncover the disturbing secrets surrounding her murder, including corporate corruption, government collusion and Emma's own mysterious life.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both crime & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisFrailty (2002)
A mysterious man arrives at the offices of an FBI agent and recounts his childhood: how his religious fanatic father received visions telling him to kill people who were in fact "demons."
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & crime
Worth the HypeMovies like thisSea of Love (1989)
Seen-it-all New York detective Frank Keller is unsettled - he has done twenty years on the force and could retire, and he hasn't come to terms with his wife leaving him for a colleague. Joining up with an officer from another part of town to investigate a series of murders linked by the lonely hearts columns he finds he is getting seriously and possibly dangerously involved with Helen, one of the main suspects.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both crime & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisAn Irrepressible Woman (2020)
1940, Jeanne Reichenbach turns her back on a peaceful life to link her destiny to Léon Blum. She's been loving him since her teenage years, and is ready to sacrifice her freedom to mary him at Buchenwald, where he's held prisoner. They will survive together.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Kolara (2017)
Thangam, known as Mini Veerappan in Kolar, has been cornered by an encounter specialist. He narrates his life story, on how he took to crime and also about the two important women in his life.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both crime
Instinct (1999)
In a prison for the criminally insane, deranged anthropologist Ethan Powell is set to be examined by a bright young psychiatrist, Theo Caulder. Driven by ambition and a hunger for the truth, Caulder will eventually risk everything—even put his very life on the line—in a harrowing attempt to understand the bizarre actions of this madman.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSin querer (1997)
Mario, a young, handsome surveyor, arrives in a small Patagonian town to prepare the overland transport of a passenger ship. The inhabitants eagerly await the trek, some hoping it will establish a better link to the outside world, others just sensing an opportunity to make money. No only by falling in love with Gloria, who runs a garment store, is married to a wealthy hacienda owner, but also has an affair with the town's mayor, Mario gets entangled in a tight web of relations.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
3000 Miles to Graceland (2001)
It was an ingenious enough plan: rob the Riviera Casino's count room during an Elvis impersonator convention. But Thomas Murphy decided to keep all the money for himself and shot all his partners, including recently-freed ex-con Michael Zane. With $3.2 million at stake, the Marshals Service closing in, Michael must track down Murphy.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both crime
SnoozefestMovies like thisDeadly Game (1982)
A hunting party arrives at a lodge in the Tatra mountains in Slovakia, where one woman in the party had “accidentally” shot and killed her first husband some time ago.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Murder One?
The closest matches to Murder One are Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile (2019), Sleepers (1996) and At Close Range (1986). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Murder One?
Start with Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile (2019), the closest match to Murder One.
What is the highest-rated movie like Murder One?
The Shawshank Redemption (1994), rated 8.7/10 by 31,800 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Murder One?
The Whisper Man (2026) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there English movies like Murder One?
Yes: Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile (2019), Sleepers (1996) and At Close Range (1986).
How are movies similar to Murder One chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Murder One, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.