Movies like Lil's Return from Shanghai (1952)
The best movies like Lil's Return from Shanghai (1952) are Golden Slumber (2010), Stowaway (2022) and Detective Conan: Black Iron Submarine (2023). If Lil's Return from Shanghai hooked you with its action and mystery, these 20 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedThe Commuter (2018)6.4/10 from 4,826 votes
- NewestMan with No Past (2025)Released 2025
- In JapaneseGolden Slumber (2010)Also in Japanese
Golden Slumber (2010)
When easy-going Aoyagi meets an old friend for a fishing trip, he ends up drugged, framed for the Prime Minister's assassination, and on the run from corrupt cops. It's only the beginning of what quickly becomes the worst, weirdest day of his life. But he'll get by with a little help from his friends, who include a famous pop diva, a rockabilly deliveryman, a crippled old gangster, and the world's most cheerful serial killer.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both action & mystery
Worth the HypeMovies like thisStowaway (2022)
A tenacious party girl fights to survive after three thieves commandeer her luxury yacht. Unable to escape and trapped on the yacht at high seas, the prey becomes the hunter as she turns the tables on the intruders and takes matters into her own hands.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both action & mystery
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisDetective Conan: Black Iron Submarine (2023)
While visiting Hachijo-jima, Conan sneaks aboard a security boat heading to the Pacific Buoy, an off-shore facility constructed near the coasts built to connect surveillance cameras used by police forces around the world. However, an engineer gets abducted! An eerie sound of a propeller hums underwater as a dark figure begins to creep toward Ai Haibara... When the forbidden Black Box is opened, the sealed-away past will surface above the treacherous waves!
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both action & mystery
Worth the HypeMovies like thisAbsolution (2024)
An aging ex-boxer gangster working as muscle for a Boston crime boss receives an upsetting diagnosis. Despite a faltering memory, he attempts to rectify the sins of his past and reconnect with his estranged children. He is determined to leave a positive legacy for his grandson, but the criminal underworld isn’t done with him and won’t loosen their grip willingly.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both action & mystery
SnoozefestMovies like thisAjin: Demi-Human (2017)
Kei Nagai dies in a car accident, but realises he is a type of immortal known as Ajin. Hunted by humans, Ajin is eventually found by the government and used as a subject in cruel experiments. He finds fellow demi-humans along the way as he escapes and goes on the run.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both action & mystery
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Commuter (2018)
A businessman, on his daily commute home, gets unwittingly caught up in a criminal conspiracy that threatens not only his life but the lives of those around him.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both action & mystery
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisTrigger Point (2021)
Nicolas Shaw is a retired U.S. special operative who becomes part of an elite 'invisible' team that quietly takes out the worst villains around the world.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both action & mystery
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisOverdrive (2017)
Master car thieves square off against French gangsters in the South of France with money, women and lives all on the line.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both action & mystery
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisLast Man Down (2021)
After civilization succumbs to a deadly pandemic and his wife is murdered, a special forces soldier abandons his duty and becomes a hermit in the Nordic wilderness. Years later, a wounded woman appears on his doorstep. She's escaped from a lab and her pursuers believe her blood is the key to a worldwide cure. He's hesitant to get involved, but all doubts are cast aside when he discovers her pursuer is none other than Commander Stone, the man that murdered his wife some years ago.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both action & mystery
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Engineer (2023)
As Israel is rocked by a series of terrorist bombings, a US senator's daughter is killed in one bloody explosion. Now, ex-Mossad agent Etan must lead an elite, covert team of agents and mercenaries to find the man responsible—the elusive “Engineer.” Can they find and destroy the madman before more innocent lives are lost?
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both action & mystery
SnoozefestMovies like thisThe Black Book (2023)
After his son is wrongly accused of kidnapping, a deacon who has just lost his wife takes matters into his own hands and fights a crooked police gang to clear him.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both action & mystery
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisDetective Conan: Quarter of Silence (2011)
The explosion of a new Tokyo Subway line leads Conan and his friends in a snow-clad village. Here, after eight years, the little detective sheds light on the dynamics behind the shocking event that caused the death of a woman and the coma of a 15-year-old boy. Under the beautiful snow, Conan gets involved in something bigger than him.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both action & mystery
Worth the HypeMovies like thisAnother Gantz (2011)
Before finding out the Perfect Answer, discover Another Gantz. Aired on Nippon Television network before the theatrical release of Gantz: The Perfect Answer, this film is an alternate perspective version of the first Gantz film from the same writing-directing team of the two-part theatrical film. In addition to condensed scenes from the Gantz film, Another Gantz features a new subplot that follows an investigative journalist not included in the theatrical film. Delving deep into the mystery, Another Gantz offers another piece towards solving the complex puzzle that is the world of Gantz.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both action & mystery
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMan with No Past (2025)
Waking up in an unfamiliar city, a man with no memory must confront the mysteries of his own identity. However, his desperate search to uncover the past pits him against a powerful enemy, leading to a showdown that ultimately reveals the truth.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both action
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisDetective Conan: Strategy Above the Depths (2005)
Fifteen years ago in a barren stretch of the Pacific, a cruise ship collided with an iceberg and was lost at sea. More than a decade later, Hideto Yashiro—a ship engineer—died in a fatal car accident. The unlikely connection between these events only comes to light on the luxury liner St. Aphrodite during her maiden voyage. Aboard it on a much needed vacation, Kogorou Mouri, his daughter Ran, Conan Edogawa, and the Detective Boys enjoy a trip provided by Sonoko Suzuki's family. But their fun is soon cut short when a game of hide-and-seek leads to Sonoko's disappearance.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both mystery
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisYakuza Graveyard (1976)
A police investigator cracks down on yakuza business, but once he realizes the police are in negotiations with certain factions, he sides with his own syndicate of choice.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both action
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisDetective Conan: Sunflowers of Inferno (2015)
Conan tries to track down Kaito Kid, who supposedly steals a replica of one of Van Gogh's Sunflowers paintings during an auction.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both mystery
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisK-20: The Fiend with Twenty Faces (2008)
In an alternate version of 1949 Japan in which World War II never happened, the Japanese capital of Teito is home to both an ultra rich upper class and the dirt poor masses. The city is thrown into a state of panic when a phantom thief called “The Kaijin (Fiend) with 20 Faces” (K-20 for short) begins to use his mysterious abilities to steal from the rich and give to the poor. One day a circus acrobat named Heikichi Endo (Takeshi Kaneshiro) is framed for K-20’s crimes and becomes determined to clear his name. He teams up with K-20’s next target, a wealthy duchess named Yoko Hashiba (Takako Matsu) and her detective fiancé (Toru Nakamura), to take K-20 down once and for all.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both action
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Marine 5: Battleground (2017)
While working as an EMT back stateside Jake Carter after responding to a distress call, finds himself caught up protecting a person of interest from a biker gang ruthlessly hunting them down.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both action
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisJack Hunter and the Lost Treasure of Ugarit (2010)
Jack Hunter, an adventurous treasure seeker, goes to Syria after his mentor and father figure Professor Fredrick Shaffer is killed. Professor Frederick Shaffer believed that the people of Ugarit, a town in Syria that existed during the Pharoah’s reign, had buried a treasure before they were wiped out by the Pharoahs. Jack Hunter is one of the few archaeologists in the world who can interpret Ugarit writings
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both action
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Lil's Return from Shanghai?
The closest matches to Lil's Return from Shanghai are Golden Slumber (2010), Stowaway (2022) and Detective Conan: Black Iron Submarine (2023). Below are 17 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Lil's Return from Shanghai?
Start with Golden Slumber (2010), the closest match to Lil's Return from Shanghai.
What is the highest-rated movie like Lil's Return from Shanghai?
The Commuter (2018), rated 6.4/10 by 4,826 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Lil's Return from Shanghai?
Man with No Past (2025) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there Japanese movies like Lil's Return from Shanghai?
Yes: Golden Slumber (2010), Detective Conan: Black Iron Submarine (2023) and Ajin: Demi-Human (2017).
How are movies similar to Lil's Return from Shanghai chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Lil's Return from Shanghai, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.