Movies like Detainment (2018)
The best movies like Detainment (2018) are Soaked in Bleach (2015), Square One (2019) and The 11th Hour (2007). If Detainment hooked you with its drama and crime, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedThe Godfather Part II (1974)8.6/10 from 14,593 votes
- NewestThe Truth and Tragedy of Moriah Wilson (2026)Released 2026
Soaked in Bleach (2015)
Twenty years ago, Kurt Cobain was found dead of an apparent gunshot wound to the head. The world was told it was a suicide, but evidence would lead many people to believe it might be otherwise. The film investigates the possibilities that exist that Kurt Cobain's death might not have been a suicide, that the Seattle Police Department rushed their verdict, and the global media perpetuated lies and misinformation fed to them by Courtney Love that created the belief in many that Cobain killed himself—but when revealed to be lies—lead many to now question what happened.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & documentary
Worth the HypeMovies like thisSquare One (2019)
An investigation into the original 1993 Michael Jackson allegations brought by the Chandler family.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary & crime
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisThe 11th Hour (2007)
A look at the state of the global environment including visionary and practical solutions for restoring the planet's ecosystems. Featuring ongoing dialogues of experts from all over the world, including former Soviet Prime Minister Mikhail Gorbachev, renowned scientist Stephen Hawking, former head of the CIA R. James Woolse
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisPredators (2025)
In the mid-aughts, Dateline NBC's To Catch a Predator drew millions of weekly viewers to watch sting operations: men planning to meet minors for sex would instead be confronted by polished host Chris Hansen, then by the police — all on hidden camera.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary & crime
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisAll That Breathes (2022)
Against the darkening backdrop of New Delhi's apocalyptic air and escalating violence, two brothers devote their lives to protecting one casualty of the turbulent times: the bird known as the black kite.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisTen Minutes Older: The Trumpet (2002)
Ten Minutes Older is a 2002 film project consisting of two compilation feature films entitled The Trumpet and The Cello. The project was conceived by the producer Nicolas McClintock as a reflection on the theme of time at the turn of the Millennium. Fifteen celebrated film-makers were invited to create their own vision of what time means in ten minutes of film.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & documentary
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Truth and Tragedy of Moriah Wilson (2026)
An intimate, arresting portrait of cyclist Moriah Wilson—raised by a fierce, loving family—whose singular drive becomes her superpower, carrying her to athletic brilliance and, devastatingly, toward a life cut short by murder.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary & crime
Worth the HypeMovies like thisLife in a Day (2011)
A documentary shot by filmmakers all over the world that serves as a time capsule to show future generations what it was like to be alive on the 24th of July, 2010.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Carman Family Deaths (2025)
A young man's dramatic rescue at sea spirals into accusations he murdered two members of his wealthy New England family.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary & crime
Worth the HypeMovies like thisWhat Jennifer Did (2024)
When Jennifer Pan calls 911 to report that her parents have been shot, she becomes the primary focus of a captivating criminal case.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary & crime
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Volcano: Rescue from Whakaari (2022)
A close examination of the Whakaari / White Island volcanic eruption of 2019 in which 22 lives were lost, the film viscerally recounts a day when ordinary people were called upon to do extraordinary things, placing this tragic event within the larger context of nature, resilience, and the power of our shared humanity.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisBobby Fischer Against the World (2011)
The first documentary feature to explore the tragic and bizarre life of the late chess master Bobby Fischer.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisOceans (2010)
An ecological drama/documentary, filmed throughout the globe. Part thriller, part meditation on the vanishing wonders of the sub-aquatic world.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Rescue (2021)
The enthralling, against-all-odds story that transfixed the world in 2018: the daring rescue of twelve boys and their coach from deep inside a flooded cave in Northern Thailand.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary & drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisBully (2011)
This year, over 5 million American kids will be bullied at school, online, on the bus, at home, through their cell phones and on the streets of their towns, making it the most common form of violence young people in this country experience. The Bully Project is the first feature documentary film to show how we've all been affected by bullying, whether we've been victims, perpetrators or stood silent witness. The world we inhabit as adults begins on the playground. The Bully Project opens on the first day of school. For the more than 5 million kids who'll be bullied this year in the United States, it's a day filled with more anxiety and foreboding than excitement. As the sun rises and school busses across the country overflow with backpacks, brass instruments and the rambunctious sounds of raging hormones, this is a ride into the unknown.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Internet's Own Boy: The Story of Aaron Swartz (2014)
Programming prodigy and information activist Aaron Swartz achieved groundbreaking work in social justice and political organizing. His passion for open access ensnared him in a legal nightmare that ended with the taking of his own life at the age of 26.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary & crime
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisThe Social Dilemma (2020)
This documentary-drama hybrid explores the dangerous human impact of social networking, with tech experts sounding the alarm on their own creations.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisKilling Lincoln (2013)
April 14, 1865. One gunshot. One assassin hell-bent on killing a tyrant, as he charged the 16th President of the United States. And in one moment, our nation was forever changed. This is the most dramatic and resonant crime in American history—the true story of the killing of Abraham Lincoln.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisDirty John: The Dirty Truth (2019)
John Meehan created a terrifying trap of seduction, deceit and betrayal for countless victims. The illuminating revelations into his backstory showcase a series of events that flipped switches to create a monster wired for psychopathy. Goffard exposes John’s troubled background that built the foundation for his ominous fantasy world of lies and manipulation. In addition to hearing the Newell family’s terrifying tale, John’s first wife Tonia Bales and her daughters Emily and Abigail Meehan speak out, along with other women from his past who were caught in his web of lies.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary & crime
SnoozefestMovies like thisDreams of a Life (2011)
A filmmaker sets out to discover the life of Joyce Vincent, who died in her bedsit in North London in 2003. Her body wasn't discovered for three years, and newspaper reports offered few details of her life - not even a photograph.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & documentary
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Good German (2006)
An American journalist arrives in Berlin just after the end of World War Two. He becomes involved in a murder mystery surrounding a dead GI who washes up at a lakeside mansion during the Potsdam negotiations between the Allied powers. Soon his investigation connects with his search for his married pre-war German lover.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & crime
SnoozefestMovies like thisLucky Number Slevin (2006)
Slevin is mistakenly put in the middle of a personal war between the city’s biggest criminal bosses. Under constant watch, Slevin must try not to get killed by an infamous assassin and come up with an idea of how to get out of his current dilemma.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & crime
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Godfather Part II (1974)
In the continuing saga of the Corleone crime family, a young Vito Corleone grows up in Sicily and in 1910s New York. In the 1950s, Michael Corleone attempts to expand the family business into Las Vegas, Hollywood and Cuba.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & crime
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisOliver Twist (2005)
An orphan endures a harsh life in a workhouse before fleeing to London, where he falls in with a gang of juvenile pickpockets led by the criminal Fagin, and eventually finds a better life, exposing the cruelties of poverty and child labor in Victorian England.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both crime & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Important Witness (1933)
A freelance stenographer is hired for a job, but when she arrives at the address she was given, she finds that a murder has taken place there--and she is arrested for it.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & crime
Léon: The Professional (1994)
Léon, the top hit man in New York, has earned a rep as an effective "cleaner". But when his next-door neighbors are wiped out by a loose-cannon DEA agent, he becomes the unwilling custodian of 12-year-old Mathilda. Before long, Mathilda's thoughts turn to revenge, and she considers following in Léon's footsteps.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both crime & drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisXavier (2018)
April 20, 2017 - Avenue des Champs-Elysées. During an attack, police officer Xavier, among his injured fellow-officers, was shot dead. There are broken dreams and unanswered expectations of peace. But there is no place for hate, dialogue and tolerance being the only possible solutions.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both documentary & drama
The Interpreter (2005)
After Silvia Broome, an interpreter at United Nations headquarters, overhears plans of an assassination, an American Secret Service agent is sent to investigate.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both crime
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSin City: A Dame to Kill For (2014)
Some of Sin City's most hard-boiled citizens cross paths with a few of its more reviled inhabitants.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both crime
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBraveheart (1995)
Enraged at the slaughter of Murron, his new bride and childhood love, Scottish warrior William Wallace slays a platoon of the local English lord's soldiers. This leads the village to revolt and, eventually, the entire country to rise up against English rule.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like this
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Detainment?
The closest matches to Detainment are Soaked in Bleach (2015), Square One (2019) and The 11th Hour (2007). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Detainment?
Start with Soaked in Bleach (2015), the closest match to Detainment.
What is the highest-rated movie like Detainment?
The Godfather Part II (1974), rated 8.6/10 by 14,593 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Detainment?
The Truth and Tragedy of Moriah Wilson (2026) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there English movies like Detainment?
Yes: Soaked in Bleach (2015), Square One (2019) and The 11th Hour (2007).
How are movies similar to Detainment chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Detainment, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.