Movies like Symphony for a Massacre (1963)
The best movies like Symphony for a Massacre (1963) are Cry of the City (1948), The Asphalt Jungle (1950) and Unsubmissives (2025). If Symphony for a Massacre 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 ratedLe Samouraï (1967)7.8/10 from 1,337 votes
- NewestUnsubmissives (2025)Released 2025
- In FrenchUnsubmissives (2025)Also in French
Cry of the City (1948)
Petty crook and cop-killer Martin Rome, in bad shape from wounds in the hospital prison ward, still refuses to help slimy lawyer Niles clear his client by confessing to another crime. Police Lt. Candella must check Niles' allegation; a friend of the Rome family, he walks a tightrope between sentiment and cynicism. When Martin fears Candella will implicate his girlfriend Teena, he'll do anything to protect her. How many others will he drag down to disaster with him?
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Asphalt Jungle (1950)
Recently paroled from prison, legendary burglar "Doc" Riedenschneider, with funding from Alonzo Emmerich, a crooked lawyer, gathers a small group of veteran criminals together in the Midwest for a big jewel heist.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisUnsubmissives (2025)
Early 1990’s, south of France. Katy, Hélène, Laurence and Carole have been best friends since childhood. Now in their twenties, they find themselves struggling with hardship and limited opportunities in their sunny small hometown. Despite their challenging circumstances, they have maintained a resilient and cheerful spirit, supporting each other throughout life’s ups and downs. But their lives take a dramatic turn when Hélène, a single mother of three, receives a sudden notification that her welfare checks have been reduced, threatening her ability to support her family.Overwhelmed by this injustice and feeling powerless in the face of societal inequalities, the five women are driven by a fierce desire to change the course of their lives. They make the shocking decision to rob a bank, and soon, commit a series of increasingly daring heists.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & crime
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Color of Lies (1999)
In a small Breton town, a 10-year-old girl is found murdered. René, her art teacher, a professional painter, is the last person to have seen her alive. The inspector in charge of the investigation immediately questions him. In this small provincial town where people all know each other and regularly meet at the Bar des Amis, René is increasingly unsettled by the other inhabitants' suspicions and by the inspector's investigation. Children stop coming to him for lessons. His wife, Viviane, a district nurse, protects him and supports him with her love. However, a self-centred media-star writer adds to René's confusion...
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime & drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisRiot in Cell Block 11 (1954)
A prisoner leads his counterparts in a protest for better living conditions which turns violent and ugly.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThey Made Me a Fugitive (1947)
After being framed for a policeman's murder, a criminal escapes prison and sets out for revenge.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & crime
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Body of My Enemy (1976)
A man accused of murder discovers a trail of corruption leading to the powerful family of his former love. Going underground, he seeks allies in a town where trust is scarce.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Dictator's Guns (1965)
An experienced skipper is hired to buy a boat from an American heiress in the Caribbean, but when the boat vanishes and bodies surface, he realizes he’s been framed for arms trafficking.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & crime
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSaint Omer (2022)
A novelist attends the trial of a woman accused of killing her 15-month-old daughter by abandoning her to the rising tide on a beach in northern France. But as the trial continues, her own family history, doubts, and fears about motherhood are steadily dislodged as the life story of the accused is gradually revealed.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & crime
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Outfit (1973)
A two-bit criminal takes on the Mafia to avenge his brother's death. Earl Macklin is a small time criminal who is released from prison after an unsuccessful bank robbery only to discover that a pair of gunmen killed his brother.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisGangsters (2002)
Franck Chaievski and Nina Delgado are two undercover detectives of a French special force trying to identify two corrupts members of the Paris Police Force. Franck is pretending to be a gangster and Nina a prostitute living with him, and involved in a robbery of a fortune in diamonds, having seven deaths and some injured persons.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisPlace Vendôme (1998)
The story of a woman that remained distracted for a long time from her life, from the passions that made her feel alive. The importance of true love is compared with the material value of diamonds. Only one truly lasts forever. She's got to find the thing that values most for her, the thing that gives psychical stability and real happiness again to her life.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisA Gang Story (2011)
After growing up in a poor gypsy camp, Edmond Vidal, aka Momon, has retained a sense of family, unfailing loyalty and pride in his origins. Most of all, he has remained friends with Serge Suttel, with whom he first discovered prison life - for stealing cherries. The two of them inevitably got involved in organized crime. The team they formed, the Ganf Des Lyonnais, made them the most notorious armed robbers of the early 1970s. Their irresistible rise ended in 1974 with a spectacular arrest. Today, as he nears 60, Momon would like to forget that part of his life. He has found peace by retiring from the "business". He tends to his wife Janou, who suffered so in the past, and to his children and grandchildren, all of whom have great respect for this man of simple and universal values, so clear-headed and full of kindness. But then Serge Suttel, who has disowned nothing of his past, comes back into the picture.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisRedemption: The Stan Tookie Williams Story (2004)
Redemption tells the story of Stan "Tookie" Williams, founder of the Crips L.A. street gang. Story follows his fall into gang-banging, his prison term, and his work writing children's novels encouraging peace and anti-violence resolutions which earned him multiple Nobel Peace Prize nominations. After exhausting all forms of appeal, Tookie was executed by lethal injection.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMaigret Sees Red (1963)
Gangsters from the United States try to kill a key government witness whose testimony could help land an influential mobster in jail. It's up to detective Maigret to deal with the FBI and a series of underworld figures to save the life of the witness...
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Parts You Lose (2019)
An unlikely friendship unfolds between a young deaf boy, Wesley, and a fugitive criminal who takes refuge in an abandoned barn on the family’s rural North Dakota farm.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & crime
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Glass Key (1942)
A crooked politician finds himself being accused of murder by a gangster from whom he refused help during a re-election campaign.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisJoy House (1964)
A small-time con man on the run from his girlfriend's gangster husband hides out in a strange, brooding mansion run by two mysterious women, where he finds himself trapped in deception between the two.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Outside Man (1972)
A French hit man is hired by a crime family to end the life of a rival mobster, but things fall apart when the boss who hired him is killed.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisNightfall (1956)
An innocent man turns fugitive as he reconstructs events that implicate him for a murder and robbery he did not commit.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisShoot the Piano Player (1960)
Charlie is a former classical pianist who has changed his name and now plays jazz in a grimy Paris bar. When Charlie's brothers, Richard and Chico, surface and ask for Charlie's help while on the run from gangsters they have scammed, he aids their escape. Soon Charlie and Lena, a waitress at the same bar, face trouble when the gangsters arrive, looking for his brothers.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & crime
Worth the HypeMovies like thisMississippi Mermaid (1969)
A tobacco planter on Réunion island in the Indian Ocean becomes engaged through correspondence to a French woman he does not know. The woman that arrives does not look like the picture he received, but he marries her anyway.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & crime
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisElevator to the Gallows (1958)
A self-assured businessman murders his employer, husband of his mistress, which unintentionally provokes an ill-fated chain of events.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both crime & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisPurple Noon (1960)
Tom Ripley is a talented mimic, moocher, forger and all-around criminal improviser; but there's more to Tom Ripley than even he can guess.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both crime & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisLe Samouraï (1967)
After carrying out a flawlessly planned hit, Jef Costello, a contract killer with samurai instincts, finds himself caught between a persistent police investigator and a ruthless employer, and not even his armor of fedora and trench coat can protect him.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both crime & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisLe Deuxième Souffle (1966)
A gangster escapes jail and quickly makes plans to continue his criminal ways elsewhere, but a determined inspector is closing in.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & crime
Worth the HypeMovies like thisBreathless (1960)
A small-time thief steals a car and impulsively murders a motorcycle policeman. Wanted by the authorities, he attempts to persuade a girl to run away to Italy with him.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & crime
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Moon in the Gutter (1983)
A dockworker seeking revenge on the killer of his sister finds himself the object of desire for two women.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & crime
SnoozefestMovies like thisThe Champagne Murders (1967)
A champagne tycoon's partner suspects his partner's gigolo husband of murders he's been framed for.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both crime & drama
Casque d'Or (1952)
At the end of the 19th century, during a ball in Joinville, on the outskirts of Paris, Georges, a former delinquent working as a carpenter, meets Marie, a young woman connected to a criminal gang.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & crime
Worth the HypeMovies like this
Like Symphony for a Massacre and something else?
Blend two favourites and we’ll find the films in between.
Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Symphony for a Massacre?
The closest matches to Symphony for a Massacre are Cry of the City (1948), The Asphalt Jungle (1950) and Unsubmissives (2025). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Symphony for a Massacre?
Start with Cry of the City (1948), the closest match to Symphony for a Massacre.
What is the highest-rated movie like Symphony for a Massacre?
Le Samouraï (1967), rated 7.8/10 by 1,337 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Symphony for a Massacre?
Unsubmissives (2025) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there French movies like Symphony for a Massacre?
Yes: Unsubmissives (2025), The Color of Lies (1999) and The Body of My Enemy (1976).
How are movies similar to Symphony for a Massacre chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Symphony for a Massacre, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.