Movies like Heaven's Prisoners (1996)
The best movies like Heaven's Prisoners (1996) are Cutter's Way (1981), A Walk Among the Tombstones (2014) and Righteous Kill (2008). If Heaven's Prisoners hooked you with its drama and mystery, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedDiabolique (1955)7.9/10 from 1,156 votes
- NewestTed Bundy: American Boogeyman (2021)Released 2021
Cutter's Way (1981)
Alex Cutter is a boozy, belligerent and deeply cynical Vietnam veteran whose encounter with a landmine during the war has left him minus an eye, a leg and an arm. When his drifter playboy friend Richard Bone is falsely accused of murder, Cutter sets out for revenge in his own inimitable style.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & mystery
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisA Walk Among the Tombstones (2014)
Private investigator Matthew Scudder is hired by a drug kingpin to find out who kidnapped and murdered his wife.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisRighteous Kill (2008)
Two veteran New York City detectives work to identify the possible connection between a recent murder and a case they believe they solved years ago; is there a serial killer on the loose, and did they perhaps put the wrong person behind bars?
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime & thriller
SnoozefestMovies 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 thisI Am All Girls (2021)
A special crimes investigator forms an unlikely bond with a serial killer to bring down a global child sex trafficking syndicate.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & mystery
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisIn the Electric Mist (2009)
Lt. Dave Robicheaux, a detective in New Iberia, Louisiana, is trying to link the murder of a local hooker to New Orleans mobster Julie 'Baby Feet' Balboni, who is co-producer of a Civil War film. When the star of the film, Elrod Sykes, reports finding another corpse in the Atchafalaya Swamp near the movie set, Robicheaux starts another investigation, believing the corpse to be the remains of a black man whose murder he witnessed 35 years earlier.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Naked City (1948)
After a former model is drowned in her bathtub, Detective James Halloran and Lieutenant Dan Muldoon attempt to piece together her murder.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisBlood Work (2002)
Still recovering from a heart transplant, a retired FBI profiler returns to service when his own blood analysis offers clues to the identity of a serial killer.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller & crime
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Salton Sea (2002)
After the murder of his beloved wife, a man in search of redemption is set adrift in a world where nothing is as it seems. On his journey, he befriends slacker Jimmy "The Finn", becomes involved in rescuing his neighbor Colette from her own demons, and gets entangled in a web of deceit full of unexpected twists and turns.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Big Sleep (1946)
Private Investigator Philip Marlowe is hired by wealthy General Sternwood regarding a matter involving his youngest daughter Carmen. Before the complex case is over, Marlowe sees murder, blackmail, deception, and what might be love.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both mystery & crime
Worth the HypeMovies like thisGone Baby Gone (2007)
When 4 year old Amanda McCready disappears from her home and the police make little headway in solving the case, the girl's aunt, Beatrice McCready hires two private detectives, Patrick Kenzie and Angie Gennaro. The detectives freely admit that they have little experience with this type of case, but the family wants them for two reasons—they're not cops and they know the tough neighborhood in which they all live.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisPayback (1999)
With friends like these, who needs enemies? That's the question bad guy Porter is left asking after his wife and partner steal his heist money and leave him for dead -- or so they think. Five months and an endless reservoir of bitterness later, Porter's partners and the crooked cops on his tail learn how bad payback can be.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & crime
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMurder! (1930)
When actress Diana Baring is found in a daze beside her colleague’s murdered body, all evidence points to her guilt. During the trial, juror Sir John Menier doubts the verdict, but yields to pressure. Haunted by remorse, he launches his own investigation.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both mystery & crime
SnoozefestMovies like thisTony Rome (1967)
Tony Rome, a tough Miami PI living on a houseboat, is hired by a local millionaire to find jewelry stolen from his daughter, and in the process has several encounters with local hoods as well as the Miami Beach PD.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime & mystery
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisGang Related (1997)
After murdering an undercover DEA agent, two corrupt cops scramble to cover up what they've done.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime & thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisL.A. Confidential (1997)
Three detectives in the corrupt and brutal L.A. police force of the 1950s use differing methods to uncover a conspiracy behind the shotgun slayings of the patrons at an all-night diner.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime & mystery
Worth the HypeMovies like thisTightrope (1984)
Wes Block is a detective who's put on the case of a serial killer whose victims are young and pretty women. The murders are getting personal when the killer chooses victims who are acquaintances of Block. Even his daughters are threatened.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both mystery & thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisCrimes of Passion (1984)
Fashion designer Joanna Crane leads a double life. By night she is China Blue, a prostitute who's attracted the attention of a sexually frustrated private detective, and a psychopathic priest in possession of a murderous sex toy.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies 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 thriller & crime
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSecret Window (2004)
Mort Rainey, a writer just emerging from a painful divorce with his ex-wife, is stalked at his remote lake house by a psychotic stranger and would-be scribe who claims Rainey swiped his best story idea. But as Rainey endeavors to prove his innocence, he begins to question his own sanity.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both mystery & thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBlack Mountain Side (2016)
A group of archaeologists working in Northern Canada uncover a strange structure dating over ten thousand years before the present. The team soon finds themselves isolated when their communication systems fail and they begin to feel the effects of solitude.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both thriller & mystery
SnoozefestMovies like thisThe Maltese Falcon (1941)
A private detective takes on a case that involves him with three eccentric criminals, a beautiful liar, and their quest for a priceless statuette.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both mystery & crime
Worth the HypeMovies like thisScarface (1932)
In 1920s Chicago, Italian immigrant and notorious thug, Antonio 'Tony' Camonte, aka Scarface, shoots his way to the top of the mobs while trying to protect his sister from the criminal life.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both crime & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisAll the President's Men (1976)
During the 1972 elections, two reporters' investigation sheds light on the controversial Watergate scandal that compels President Nixon to resign from his post.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & mystery
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: Similar story and style · both drama & crime
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Thomas Crown Affair (1999)
Bored billionaire executive Thomas Crown decides to plan a robbery and assigns a professional agent with the right information to the job. However, Crown is soon betrayed yet cannot blow his cover as he’s fallen in love.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & crime
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBullitt (1968)
Senator Walter Chalmers is aiming to take down mob boss Pete Ross with the help of testimony from the criminal's hothead brother Johnny, who is in protective custody in San Francisco under the watch of police lieutenant Frank Bullitt. When a pair of mob hitmen enter the scene, Bullitt follows their trail through a maze of complications and double-crosses. This thriller includes one of the most famous car chases ever filmed.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both crime & thriller
Worth the HypeMovies like thisDiabolique (1955)
The cruel and abusive headmaster of a boarding school, Michel Delassalle, is murdered by an unlikely duo -- his meek wife and the mistress he brazenly flaunts. The women become increasingly unhinged by a series of odd occurrences after Delassalle's corpse mysteriously disappears.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both thriller & mystery
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisDirty Harry (1971)
When a madman dubbed 'Scorpio' terrorizes San Francisco, hard-nosed cop, Harry Callahan – famous for his take-no-prisoners approach to law enforcement – is tasked with hunting down the psychopath.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both crime & thriller
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe China Syndrome (1979)
While doing a series of reports on alternative energy sources, opportunistic reporter Kimberly Wells witnesses an accident at a nuclear power plant. Wells is determined to publicize the incident, but soon finds herself entangled in a sinister conspiracy to keep the full impact of the incident a secret.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & thriller
Worth the HypeMovies like this
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Heaven's Prisoners?
The closest matches to Heaven's Prisoners are Cutter's Way (1981), A Walk Among the Tombstones (2014) and Righteous Kill (2008). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Heaven's Prisoners?
Start with Cutter's Way (1981), the closest match to Heaven's Prisoners.
What is the highest-rated movie like Heaven's Prisoners?
Diabolique (1955), rated 7.9/10 by 1,156 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Heaven's Prisoners?
Ted Bundy: American Boogeyman (2021) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there English movies like Heaven's Prisoners?
Yes: Cutter's Way (1981), A Walk Among the Tombstones (2014) and Righteous Kill (2008).
How are movies similar to Heaven's Prisoners chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Heaven's Prisoners, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.