Movies like Effigy: Poison and the City (2020)
The best movies like Effigy: Poison and the City (2020) are The Countess (2009), Agatha and the Midnight Murders (2020) and Despair (1978). If Effigy: Poison and the City hooked you with its thriller and history, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedThe Lives of Others (2006)8.0/10 from 4,359 votes
- NewestBrave Without Boundaries (2026)Released 2026
- In GermanThe Lives of Others (2006)Also in German
The Countess (2009)
Kingdom of Hungary, 17th century. As she gets older, powerful Countess Erzsébet Báthory (1560-1614), blinded by the passion that she feels for a younger man, succumbs to the mad delusion that blood will keep her young and beautiful forever.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both history & thriller
SnoozefestMovies like thisAgatha and the Midnight Murders (2020)
As bombs fall on London, writer Agatha Christie decides it is time to kill off her most famous creation.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller & history
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisDespair (1978)
Berlin, 1930, during the rise of Nazism. Hermann Hermann, a Russian emigrant and chocolate manufacturer, married to the capricious Lydia, loses his temper more and more every day when dealing with his workers and other businessmen; until he meets Felix, a vagrant, who seems to be physically identical to him; a disconcerting fact that leads Hermann Hermann to plot a particular way out of a fake world he actually hates.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Bourne Supremacy (2004)
A CIA operation to purchase classified Russian documents is blown by a rival agent, who then shows up in the sleepy seaside village where Bourne and Marie have been living. The pair run for their lives and Bourne, who promised retaliation should anyone from his former life attempt contact, is forced to once again take up his life as a trained assassin to survive.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Night of the Hunter (1955)
In Depression-era West Virginia, a serial-killing preacher hunts two young children who know the whereabouts of a stash of money.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Odessa File (1974)
Following the suicide of an elderly Jewish man, investigative journalist Peter Miller sets out to hunt down an SS Captain and former concentration camp commander. In doing so he discovers that, despite allegations of war crimes, the former commander has become a man of importance in industry in post-war Germany, protected from prosecution by a powerful organisation of former SS members called Odessa.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisPerfect Sisters (2014)
Tired of their mother's alcoholism and a string of her abusive boyfriends, two sisters plot to kill her.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller
SnoozefestMovies like thisFootsteps in the Fog (1955)
A Victorian-era murder mystery about a parlour maid who discovers that her employer may have killed his first wife.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller
Worth the HypeMovies like thisA Call to Spy (2020)
The story of Vera Atkins, a crafty spy recruiter, and two of the first women she selects for Churchill's "secret army": Virginia Hall, a daring American undaunted by a disability and Noor Inayat Khan, a pacifist. These civilian women form an unlikely sisterhood while entangled in dangerous missions to turn the tide of the war.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both history
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Lives of Others (2006)
In 1984 East Berlin, dedicated Stasi officer Gerd Wiesler begins spying on a famous playwright and his actress-lover Christa-Maria. Wiesler becomes unexpectedly sympathetic to the couple, and faces conflicting loyalties when his superior takes a liking to Christa-Maria.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisAppointment with Death (1988)
Emily Boynton, the stepmother to three children, blackmails the family lawyer into destroying a second will of her late husband that would have freed the children from her dominating influence. She takes herself, the children, and her daughter-in-law on holiday to Europe and the Holy Land. At a dig, Emily is found dead and Hercule Poirot investigates.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisStrangers on a Train (1951)
A charming psychopath tries to coerce a tennis star into his theory that two strangers can commit the perfect crime by exchanging murders—each killing the other’s most-hated person.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller
Worth the HypeMovies like thisTen Little Indians (1965)
Ten strangers are invited as weekend guests to a remote mountain mansion. When the host doesn't show up, the guests start dying, one by one.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBurnt Offerings (1976)
A family moves into a large old mansion in the countryside which seems to have a mysterious and sinister power over its new residents.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Brothers Grimm (2005)
Folklore collectors and con artists, Jake and Will Grimm, travel from village to village pretending to protect townsfolk from enchanted creatures and performing exorcisms. However, they are put to the test when they encounter a real magical curse in a haunted forest with real magical beings, requiring genuine courage.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller
SnoozefestMovies like thisHamlet (1990)
Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, finds out that his uncle Claudius killed his father to obtain the throne, and plans revenge.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both history
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisRagtime (1981)
A young black pianist becomes embroiled in the lives of an upper-class white family set among the racial tensions, infidelity, violence, and other nostalgic events in early 1900s New York City.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both history
Worth the HypeMovies like thisBlack Widow (1987)
Federal agent Alexandra Barnes believes that Catherine Petersen is a serial killer who marries rich men and then murders them for their money. But since Catherine is seemingly a master of disguise and has multiple identities, Alexandra can't prove anything with conventional detective work. With no other option, she goes undercover, pursuing the same man as Catherine, and hoping that Catherine will slip up and reveal her true identity.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Count of Monte Cristo (2002)
Young sailor Edmond Dantès is wrongfully imprisoned, escapes, finds treasure, and reinvents himself as the wealthy Count of Monte Cristo to exact revenge on those who betrayed him.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both history
Worth the HypeMovies like thisRetribution (2023)
When a mysterious caller plants a bomb under his car seat, a bank executive begins a high-speed chase across the city to complete a specific series of tasks — all with his kids trapped in the back seat.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Poughkeepsie Tapes (2007)
When hundreds of videotapes showing torture, murder and dismemberment are found in an abandoned house, they reveal a serial killer's decade-long reign of terror and become the most disturbing collection of evidence homicide detectives have ever seen.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisJudy (2019)
Thirty years after starring in 'The Wizard of Oz', beloved actress and singer Judy Garland arrives in London to perform sold-out shows at the Talk of the Town nightclub. While there, she reminisces with friends and fans and begins a whirlwind romance with musician Mickey Deans, her soon-to-be fifth husband.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both history
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisLady Joker (2004)
Men and women caught up in a downward spiral of corruption, discrimination, poverty and death are the focus of this detective-thriller/social-drama inspired by the unsolved 1984 kidnapping of a Japanese candy company president.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both thriller
5150 Elm's Way (2009)
Yannick moves to a small, quiet town to study cinema. One day when he fell off his bike, he knocked at the door of the Beaulieu residence so he could clean the blood off his hands. But Jacques Beaulieu and his family had other plans for Yannick. Beaulieu is a righteous psychopath and fanatic chess player who wants to rid the world of evil. And even though Ian has done nothing wrong, he is beaten, tortured and tormented before Beaulieu makes him an offer: win at chess and he is free to go. And so Ian is now a pawn in Beaulieu 's game. A game in which he will either lose his mind or his life.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisHero and the Terror (1988)
Danny O'Brien is back in action fighting the notorious Simon Moon, also known as The Terror. Three years earlier O'Brien had single-handedly captured The Terror and was called Hero by the people of L.A. Now Simon has escaped and has started killing women again, and O'Brien is the only man who can stop him.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both thriller
SnoozefestMovies like thisBrave Without Boundaries (2026)
Based on the true story of Luo Shengjiao — one of “100 Touching Chinese Figures” since the founding of the PRC. During the Korean War, Luo, a company clerk, and his fellow volunteers fought fierce battles, endured extreme shortages, and braved brutal cold.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both history
Gie (2005)
Indonesian activist Soe Hok Gie experiences a political awakening during the tumultuous regimes of Soeharto and Soekarno.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both history
Atrocious (2018)
After they're arrested, the horrific crimes of two serial killers are revealed via confiscated videotapes. These tapes contain brutal murders displaying pure human wickedness, the background, paraphilias and psyche of these murderers.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisLa leyenda del tambor (1981)
In June 1808, Napoleon's troops invade Spain. A boy named Isidro will beat his drum in the mountains of El Bruc, making the French army believe that thousands of armed men are waiting to confront them.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both history
The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind (2019)
Against all the odds, a thirteen year old boy in Malawi invents an unconventional way to save his family and village from famine.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both history
Absolute CinemaMovies like this
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Effigy: Poison and the City?
The closest matches to Effigy: Poison and the City are The Countess (2009), Agatha and the Midnight Murders (2020) and Despair (1978). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Effigy: Poison and the City?
Start with The Countess (2009), the closest match to Effigy: Poison and the City.
What is the highest-rated movie like Effigy: Poison and the City?
The Lives of Others (2006), rated 8.0/10 by 4,359 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Effigy: Poison and the City?
Brave Without Boundaries (2026) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there German movies like Effigy: Poison and the City?
Yes: The Lives of Others (2006).
How are movies similar to Effigy: Poison and the City chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Effigy: Poison and the City, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.