Movies like The Color of Lies (1999)
The best movies like The Color of Lies (1999) are Saint Omer (2022), Winged Creatures (2009) and Monsieur Hire (1989). If The Color of Lies 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 ratedM (1931)8.1/10 from 2,600 votes
- NewestCase 137 (2025)Released 2025
- In FrenchSaint Omer (2022)Also in French
Saint 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 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 thisMonsieur Hire (1989)
A French man spies on a lovely younger woman across the way. When he's spotted by the woman shortly after being questioned by the police about a local murder, the man's simple life becomes more complicated.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime & drama
Worth the HypeMovies 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 thisSymphony for a Massacre (1963)
A band of gangsters devise a plan to steal a game contested between two drug gangs of drug traffickers: the five fraudsters will face bigger problems than them.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMaigret Sets a Trap (1958)
Four women are murdered, each knifed and, despite torn garments, remain virtuous. As famed police inspector Jules Maigret pieces the clues together, he comes to realise that for the elusive man that he suspects to be unmasked, he has to set a trap.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime & drama
Worth the HypeMovies 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 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 thisDaybreak (1939)
After committing a murder, a man locks himself in his apartment and recollects the events that led him to the killing.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime & drama
Worth the HypeMovies 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 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 thisCase 137 (2025)
When Internal Affairs officer Stéphanie investigates a young man severely injured during a chaotic Paris demonstration and finds no police misconduct, the routine case hits close to home upon her discovering the victim is from her native town.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisCry 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 thisThree Days and a Life (2019)
Christmas 1999, in a peaceful little village in the Ardennes. The life of a young boy named Antoine will soon be devastated by three tragic events : the death of a dog, the vanishing of a child, and a big ravaging storm.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & crime
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Young Savages (1961)
A district attorney investigates the racially charged case of three teenagers accused of the murder of a blind Puerto Rican boy.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies 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 thisThe Crook (1970)
A thief known as Simon the Swiss faces up and downs in his criminal profession.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime
Worth the HypeMovies 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 thisThe Caveman's Valentine (2001)
Romulus, a misunderstood musician turned recluse hiding from personal demons in a New York City cave, finds the frozen body of a young drifter in a tree. The authorities, including his police officer daughter, claim the death is accidental. Romulus is convinced the man was murdered by a prominent art photographer but how can he prove he's right when everyone thinks he's insane?
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisDeath of a Corrupt Man (1977)
In the middle of the night, deputy Philippe Dubaye wakes up his old friend Xavier Maréchal with disturbing news: he has just killed Serrano, a racketeer with extant political connections. Serrano kept proofs of Dubaye's involvement in corrupt dealings and was poised to use them against the deputy. Xavier readily agrees to cover up for his old pal Philippe, but he soon runs into difficulties. Nobody believes Dubaye's alibi. And everybody -- influential personalities, powerful businessmen, dubious go-betweens and the police -- wants to get hold of the documents that served to blackmail Dubaye; by all possible means...
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisIt Happened in Broad Daylight (1997)
Several young girls were killed in a rural area. Thus Inspector Matthaei has to travel to the region where it happened and has to search for the killer. When all the people suspect a roamer to be the killer he gets lynched and everybody thinks that the crimes will stop now but not Matthaei who searches for a blond girl that looks just like the ones that were murdered. He finds one and stays with her and her mother, attracting the murderer with the girl trying to catch him this way.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & crime
The Child I Never Was (2002)
A serial killer dispassionately discusses the nuts and bolts of his grisly avocation, as well as the youthful traumas which helped to mold him into a psychopath, in this disturbing independent drama from Germany, based on the true story of of Germany's most famous child murderer Juergen Bartsch who, between the ages of 15 and 19, abused, tortured and killed four schoolboys in the Ruhr region of Germany from 1962 to 1966.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & crime
Sin Nombre (2009)
Sayra, an Indigenous Latina American teenage girl from Honduras, Central America, hungers for a better life. Her chance for one comes when she is reunited with her long-estranged father, who intends to emigrate to Mexico and then enter the United States. Sayra's life collides with a pair of Indigenous Latino American gang members from Mexico, North America who have boarded the same USA-bound train.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & crime
Worth the HypeMovies like thisM (1931)
In this classic German thriller, Hans Beckert, a serial killer who preys on children, becomes the focus of a massive Berlin police manhunt. Beckert's heinous crimes are so repellant and disruptive to city life that he is even targeted by others in the seedy underworld network. With both cops and criminals in pursuit, the murderer soon realizes that people are on his trail, sending him into a tense, panicked attempt to escape justice.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & crime
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisThe Informers (2008)
A collection of intersecting short stories set in early 1980s Los Angeles, depicts a week in the lives of an assortment of socially alienated, mainly well-off characters who numb their sense of emptiness with casual sex, violence, and drugs.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & crime
SnoozefestMovies like thisVigilante (1983)
New York City factory worker Eddie Marino is a solid citizen and regular guy, until the day a sadistic street gang brutally assaults his wife and murders his child. When a corrupt judge sets the thugs free, he goes berserk and vows revenge.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both crime
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Deathmaker (1995)
Fritz Haarmann, who has killed at least 27 boys, is questioned by a psychology professor in order to find out whether he is sane and can be held responsible for his crimes. During this interrogation Haarmann reveals his motives and his killing methods.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisIt Happened in Broad Daylight (1958)
The search for a child murderer drags a once-respected detective into an all-consuming obsession.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both crime
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Virgin Spring (1960)
Devout Christians Töre and Märeta send their only daughter, the virginal Karin, and their foster daughter, the unrepentant Ingeri, to deliver candles to a distant church. On their way through the woods, the girls encounter a group of savage goat herders who brutally rape and murder Karin as Ingeri remains hidden. When the killers unwittingly seek refuge in the farmhouse of Töre and Märeta, Töre plots a fitting revenge.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisLuciano (1965)
A sensationalist television show unravels the sordid story of Luciano Fernández and analyzes the possible motives that led him to murder a child. (Inspired by a real event that occurred in the forest of Verrières, Paris, on May 27th, 1964.)
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like The Color of Lies?
The closest matches to The Color of Lies are Saint Omer (2022), Winged Creatures (2009) and Monsieur Hire (1989). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after The Color of Lies?
Start with Saint Omer (2022), the closest match to The Color of Lies.
What is the highest-rated movie like The Color of Lies?
M (1931), rated 8.1/10 by 2,600 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like The Color of Lies?
Case 137 (2025) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there French movies like The Color of Lies?
Yes: Saint Omer (2022), Monsieur Hire (1989) and The Dictator's Guns (1965).
How are movies similar to The Color of Lies chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside The Color of Lies, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.