Movies like The Third Murder (2017)
The best movies like The Third Murder (2017) are Sleeping Dogs (2024), Hollywoodland (2006) and The Client (1994). If The Third Murder 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 ratedDeath Note Relight 1: Visions of a God (2007)7.9/10 from 413 votes
- NewestA Dog Day (2025)Released 2025
- In JapaneseZero Woman: Red Handcuffs (1974)Also in Japanese
Sleeping Dogs (2024)
Roy Freeman, an ex-homicide detective with a fractured memory, is forced to revisit a case he can't remember. As a man's life hangs in the balance on death row, Freeman must piece together the brutal evidence from a decade-old murder investigation, uncovering a sinister web of buried secrets and betrayals linking to his past. With only instincts to trust, he faces a chilling truth - sometimes, it's best to let sleeping dogs lie.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both mystery & crime
Worth the HypeMovies like thisHollywoodland (2006)
When Hollywood superstar George Reeves dies in his home, private detective Louis Simo is hired to investigate his death and gets caught in a web of lies involving a big studio executive's wife. Based on a true story.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Client (1994)
A street-wise kid, Mark Sway, sees the suicide of Jerome Clifford, a prominent Louisiana lawyer, whose current client is Barry 'The Blade' Muldano, a Mafia hit-man. Before Jerome shoots himself, he tells Mark where the body of a Senator is buried. Clifford shoots himself and Mark is found at the scene, and both the FBI and the Mafia quickly realize that Mark probably knows more than he says.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & crime
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisReptile (2023)
Following the brutal murder of a young real estate agent, a hardened detective attempts to uncover the truth in a case where nothing is as it seems, and by doing so dismantles the illusions in his own life.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime & mystery
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 & mystery
SnoozefestMovies 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 thisAnatomy of a Murder (1959)
Semi-retired Michigan lawyer Paul Biegler takes the case of Army Lt. Manion, who murdered a local innkeeper after his wife claimed that he raped her. Over the course of an extensive trial, Biegler parries with District Attorney Lodwick and out-of-town prosecutor Claude Dancer to set his client free, but his case rests on the victim's mysterious business partner, who's hiding a dark secret.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Betrayed (2008)
Kidnappers force a young mother to recover money stolen by her shady husband.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime & drama
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 thisA Fall from Grace (2020)
When a law-abiding woman gets indicted for murdering her husband, her lawyer soon realizes that a larger conspiracy may be at work.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & mystery
Worth the HypeMovies like thisZero Woman: Red Handcuffs (1974)
Agent Zero is a cop that uses her own methods for dealing with criminals. After she unlawfully kills a rapist in a violent fashion, she is sent to prison and stripped of her badge. But very soon after, a rich politician's daughter is kidnapped by a ruthless gang. Agent Zero is let out of prison with the mission of going undercover to find the politician's daughter and return her safely. Using her deadly red handcuffs, she disposes of the criminals one by one.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisDeath Note Relight 1: Visions of a God (2007)
When rogue shinigami Ryuk leaves his Death Note in the human world, he has no idea how far the one who finds it will take his new-found power. With the Death Note in hand, brilliant high school student Light Yagami vows to rid the world of evil. A recap of Death Note episodes 1–26, with alternate footage.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime & drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisConfessions (2010)
Devastated at the death of her four-year-old daughter, a grieving middle school teacher is horrified to discover that her students aren't as innocent as she thinks.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & mystery
Worth the HypeMovies like thisLady Snowblood (1973)
A strikingly beautiful young woman is trained from birth to be a deadly instrument of revenge against the swindlers who destroyed her family.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe World of Kanako (2014)
When Kanako, a model daughter and a brilliant student, disappears, her mother asks her ex-husband, a violent former policeman, to find her. As his investigation progresses, his idealized image of Kanako cracks: the girl hides a dark life that her father can not even imagine.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both mystery & crime
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisVengeance Is Mine (1979)
A thief, a murderer, and a charming lady-killer, Iwao Enokizu is on the run from the police.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisRampage (1987)
Liberal district attorney decides to seek the death penalty for a man who slaughtered a family at Christmastime, then drank their blood. He escapes, though, and starts killing again.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBlood (2012)
When police discover a young girl brutally murdered, brothers Joe Fairburns and Chrissie Fairburns join their supervisor Robert to investigate main suspect Jason Buliegh, a local sex offender and social outcast. Forced to release Jason from police custody, the Fairburns take matters into their own hands in an attempt to coerce a confession.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & crime
SnoozefestMovies like thisThe Blood of Wolves (2018)
Set in 1988 in Hiroshima, Japan, prior to the enactment of the anti-organized crime law. A rumor exists that Detective Shogo Ogami has ties with the yakuza. He is partnered with Detective Shuichi Hioka and they investigate a missing person case involving a financial company employee. Conflicts between opposing yakuza groups become more serious.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisSuspect (1987)
When a Supreme Court judge commits suicide and his secretary is found murdered, all fingers point to Carl Anderson, a homeless veteran who's deaf and mute. But when public defender Kathleen Riley is assigned to his case, she begins to believe that Anderson may actually be innocent. Juror Eddie Sanger, a Washington lobbyist, agrees, and together the pair begins their own investigation of events.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBrigham City (2001)
Wes Clayton is a lawman and a bishop in a Mormon community called Brigham. The town is shaken when a woman from California is found murdered. Clayton and his young deputy work with an FBI agent sent to investigate. As a civil and spiritual leader in the frightened town, Clayton must uncover the town's deepest secrets, find the murderer and keep Brigham from ripping itself apart.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both crime & mystery
Two Seconds (1932)
A condemned murderer, in the process of being executed, relives the events that led to his being sentenced to die in the electric chair. Told in flashback, we witness a sleazy dancehall girl dupe a high rise riveter into marriage so she can live off of him. But when he loses his job and his marbles, she ends up supporting him with money from her side man--and misses no opportunity to rub it in his face that she's now supporting him in his emasculated state. As the animosity grows and things get more and more unbearable, he is eventually driven to desperate measures.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & crime
'G' Men (1935)
James “Brick” Davis, a struggling attorney, owes his education to a mobster, but always has refused to get involved with the underworld. When a friend of his is gunned down by a notorious criminal, Brick decides to abandon the exercise of the law and join the Department of Justice to capture the murderer.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both crime & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisForce of Evil (1950)
Lawyer Joe Morse wants to consolidate all the small-time numbers racket operators into one big powerful operation. But his elder brother Leo is one of these small-time operators who wants to stay that way, preferring not to deal with the gangsters who dominate the big-time.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both crime & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisClay Pigeons (1998)
Clay is a young man in a small town who witnesses his friend, Earl, kill himself because of the ongoing affair that Clay was having with the man's wife, Amanda. Feeling guilty, Clay now resists the widow when she presses him to continue with the affair. Clay unknowingly befriends a serial killer named Lester Long who murders the widow in an attempt to "help" his "fishing buddy."
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both crime & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisWayúu: La Niña de Maracaibo (2012)
A detective, goes from Spain to the Venezuelan Guajira, hired by the king of Wuayuus, to protect her, Niña de Maracaibo (wife of King, who belongs to an aristocratic family in the city) the detective tries to discover a conspiracy greater than initially imagined. Where he is only one piece in a plot which mixes smuggling, power struggles and tribal magic. The clash of two opposite visions, the 'Western' Spanish researcher, and the 'native' the Wuayuu original owners of Caribbean, converts this format film apparently 'police' in a thesis film revealing the mystery of the still existing singular South American identity.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & crime
The Houston Story (1956)
A Texas oil driller schemes to steal millions of dollars in oil.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both crime & drama
Brooklyn'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: Similar story and style · both crime & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisChristmas Holiday (1944)
A young femme fatale realizes that the man she married is an incorrigible wastrel.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both crime & drama
A Dog Day (2025)
A group of Friends find a mysterious gun in a park and decide to sell it to a local drug dealer.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both crime & drama
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like The Third Murder?
The closest matches to The Third Murder are Sleeping Dogs (2024), Hollywoodland (2006) and The Client (1994). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after The Third Murder?
Start with Sleeping Dogs (2024), the closest match to The Third Murder.
What is the highest-rated movie like The Third Murder?
Death Note Relight 1: Visions of a God (2007), rated 7.9/10 by 413 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like The Third Murder?
A Dog Day (2025) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there Japanese movies like The Third Murder?
Yes: Zero Woman: Red Handcuffs (1974), Death Note Relight 1: Visions of a God (2007) and Confessions (2010).
How are movies similar to The Third Murder chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside The Third Murder, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.