Movies like The Secret Agent (1996)
The best movies like The Secret Agent (1996) are A Double Life (1947), Night and the City (1950) and The Organization (1971). If The Secret Agent hooked you with its drama and thriller, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedNight and the City (1950)7.5/10 from 301 votes
- NewestOmaha (2025)Released 2025
A Double Life (1947)
A Shakespearian actor starring as Othello opposite his wife finds the character's jealous rage taking over his mind off-stage.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisNight and the City (1950)
Londoner Harry Fabian is a second-rate con man looking for an angle. After years of putting up with Harry's schemes, his girlfriend, Mary, becomes fed up when he taps her for yet another loan.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & thriller
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Organization (1971)
After a group of young revolutionaries break into a company's corporate headquarters and steal $5,000,000 worth of heroin to keep it off the street, they call on San Francisco Police Lieutenant Virgil Tibbs for assistance.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Quiller Memorandum (1966)
After two British Secret Intelligence Service agents are murdered at the hands of a cryptic neo-Nazi group known as Phoenix, the suave agent Quiller is sent to Berlin to investigate.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller & drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisRemember (2015)
With the aid of a fellow Auschwitz survivor and a hand-written letter, an elderly man with dementia goes in search of the person responsible for the death of his family.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & thriller
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe House on Carroll Street (1988)
A reporter, fired after refusing to give names to a 1951 House Un-American Activities Committee, takes a part-time job as companion to an old lady. While working she overhears a noisy argument in the neighboring house, being conducted largely in German and involving her HUAC prosecutor. She begins to investigate, enlisting the help of the FBI Agent initially detailed to surveil her.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & thriller
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 & thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisFelicia's Journey (1999)
Seventeen and pregnant, Felicia travels to England in search of her lover and is found instead by Joseph Ambrose Hilditch, a helpful catering manager whose kindness masks an unsettling secret.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisLittle Nikita (1988)
An FBI agent works to uncover an all-American family as Soviet sleeper agents, and gets caught up in friendship with their oblivious teenage son.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisIntrusion (2021)
When a husband and wife move to a small town, a home invasion leaves the wife traumatized and suspicious that those around her might not be who they seem.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & thriller
SnoozefestMovies like thisCroupier (1998)
Jack Manfred is an aspiring writer who to make ends meet, takes a job as a croupier. Jack remains an observer, knowing that everything in life is a gamble and that gamblers are born to lose. Inevitably, he gets sucked into the world of the casino which takes its toll on his relationships and the novel he is writing.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBlacklight (2022)
Travis Block is a shadowy Government agent who specializes in removing operatives whose covers have been exposed. He then has to uncover a deadly conspiracy within his own ranks that reaches the highest echelons of power.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe MacKintosh Man (1973)
A member of British Intelligence assumes a fictitious criminal identity and allows himself to be caught, imprisoned, and freed in order to infiltrate a spy organization and expose a traitor; only, someone finds him out and exposes him to the gang...
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMinistry of Fear (1944)
Stephen Neale is released into WWII England after two years in an asylum, but it doesn't seem so sane outside either. On his way back to London to rejoin civilization, he stumbles across a murderous spy ring and doesn't quite know to whom to turn.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisLive and Let Die (1973)
James Bond must investigate a mysterious murder case of a British agent in New Orleans. Soon he finds himself up against a gangster boss named Mr. Big.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisOmaha (2025)
A young girl and her brother are awoken by their father and loaded into the car on an early morning in 2008. As they road trip across the American West, she discovers the truth about their seemingly spontaneous journey.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisObsession (1949)
A British psychiatrist devises a devilish revenge plot against his wife's lover.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisNormal (2003)
A Midwestern husband and father announces his plan to have a sex change operation.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisHope and Glory (1987)
A middle-aged man recalls his childhood growing up in and around London during World War II.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisTalhotBlond (2012)
Thomas Montgomery, a married father of two young daughters, gets seduced by the world of online gambling and chat rooms where a virtual romance and sexual obsession ultimately leads to the murder of an innocent man.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisArchie (2015)
A small boy with learning difficulties. He is written off by just about everyone, until he makes an unlikely friendship that changes everything
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & thriller
22 July (2018)
On 22 July 2011, neo-Nazi terrorist Anders Behring Breivik murdered 77 young people attending a Labour Party Youth Camp on Utøya Island outside of Oslo. This three-part story focuses on the survivors, the political leadership of Norway, and the lawyers involved.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & thriller
Worth the HypeMovies like thisHeart of Dragon (1985)
A policeman forsakes his dream of world travel to care for a mentally impaired brother, who is later kidnapped by gangsters.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & thriller
Worth the HypeMovies like thisA Wednesday! (2008)
Prakash Rathod, a retired police commissioner recounts the most memorable case of his career wherein he was informed about a bomb scare in Mumbai by an ordinary commoner.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & thriller
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Radicalization of Jeff Boyd (2017)
A businessman from Switzerland, Jeff Boyd, dreams of living in Australia where his friend Morton, a crazy bakery shop owner, has already settled down. Morton tries to persuade him to join soon and help in the shop. Frank, who lets Jeff stay at his place while he’s abroad, advises to invest money with a commodity trading firm he knows. When Jeff signs the investment contract, he’s full of hope to leave the country with a pocket full of cash. After a phone call with his trader and a heavy argument with his boss at work, Jeff’s world collapses. That’s when he meets Wendy who's also in a delicate state after losing her job. They discover being soulmates. Their worries about the world and what it develops into comes more and more to light. They want to make a change, and develop a dangerous plan.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & thriller
No End (1985)
1982, Poland. A translator loses her husband and becomes a victim of her own sorrow. She looks to sex, to her son, to law, and to hypnotism when she has nothing else in this time of martial law when Solidarity was banned.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisUn Flic (1972)
A Parisian police chief has an affair, but unbeknownst to him, the boyfriend of the woman he’s having an affair with is a bank robber planning a heist.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisK-Town Noir (2024)
Unknowingly under the influence of various drugs and substances, a local private investigator is suddenly tasked with solving a “case” that threatens to breach “national security”.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both thriller
Fanny (1932)
Soon after Marius's departure, Fanny learns that she is pregnant with his child, to the disappointment of her mother and of Marius's father, César. To secure a better life for her unborn child, she accepts a marriage proposal from the aging widower Honoré Panisse.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Vampire Bat (1933)
In the superstitious European village of Kleinschloss, a wave of mysterious deaths take place where victims are found with neck wounds that elders and superstitious locals blame on vampires or bats.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both thriller
SnoozefestMovies like this
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like The Secret Agent?
The closest matches to The Secret Agent are A Double Life (1947), Night and the City (1950) and The Organization (1971). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after The Secret Agent?
Start with A Double Life (1947), the closest match to The Secret Agent.
What is the highest-rated movie like The Secret Agent?
Night and the City (1950), rated 7.5/10 by 301 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like The Secret Agent?
Omaha (2025) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there English movies like The Secret Agent?
Yes: A Double Life (1947), Night and the City (1950) and The Organization (1971).
How are movies similar to The Secret Agent chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside The Secret Agent, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.