Movies like The Island of Lies (2020)
The best movies like The Island of Lies (2020) are Murder on the Orient Express (1974), Triage (2009) and Agatha (1979). If The Island of Lies 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 ratedCaptain Phillips (2013)7.5/10 from 7,794 votes
- NewestThe Woman in Cabin 10 (2025)Released 2025
- In SpanishThe Red Virgin (2024)Also in Spanish
Murder on the Orient Express (1974)
In 1935, when his train is stopped by deep snow, detective Hercule Poirot is called on to solve a murder that occurred in his car the night before.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & thriller
Worth the HypeMovies like thisTriage (2009)
The wife of a photojournalist sets out to discover why he came home from a recent assignment without his colleague.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisAgatha (1979)
England, 1926. An American journalist looks for mystery writer Agatha Christie when she suddenly disappears without explanation, leaving no trace.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & mystery
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Dry (2021)
Aaron Falk returns to his drought-stricken hometown to attend a tragic funeral. But his return opens a decades-old wound - the unsolved death of a teenage girl.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller & mystery
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisAbandoned (2016)
In 1989 the trimaran Rose Noelle set sail from Picton, New Zealand, bound for Tonga with four crew. After a freak wave capsized the yacht, they drifted for 119 days before landing on Great Barrier Island.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & thriller
SnoozefestMovies like thisThe Woman in Cabin 10 (2025)
On a lavish yacht for an assignment, a journalist sees a passenger go overboard. But when no one believes her, she risks her life to uncover the truth.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both mystery & thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisCaptain Phillips (2013)
The true story of Captain Richard Phillips and the 2009 hijacking by Somali pirates of the US-flagged MV Maersk Alabama, the first American cargo ship to be hijacked in two hundred years.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & thriller
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Poseidon Adventure (1972)
When their ocean liner capsizes, a group of passengers struggle to survive and escape.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & thriller
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Red Virgin (2024)
Hildegart is conceived and educated by her mother Aurora to be the woman of the future, to become one of the most brilliant minds of Spain in the 1930s and one of the European references on female sexuality.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & thriller
Worth the HypeMovies like thisEye for an Eye (2019)
Mario, an exemplary man, lives in a village on the Galician coast. In the old people’s home, where he works as a nurse, everyone appreciates him. When the best known narco in the area, Antonio Padín, recently released from prison, enters the residence, Mario tries to make Antonio feel at home. Now, Padín's two sons, Kike and Toño, are in charge of the family business. The failure of an operation will put Kike in jail and cause them to owe a large debt to a Colombian supplier. Toño will turn to the nurse to try to convince his father to assume the debt. But Mario has his own plans.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSky High (2020)
A commentary on Spanish society dressed as a thriller about the misadventures of a gang of young petty criminals after the real estate crash.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMiss Fisher and the Crypt of Tears (2020)
After freeing a young Bedouin girl from her unjust imprisonment in Jerusalem, an Australian adventuress, together with her devoted police detective friend, begins to unravel a decade-old mystery concerning priceless emeralds, an ancient curse and the disappearance of the girl's mother and massacre of her tribe.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & mystery
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Lady Vanishes (2013)
Young socialite Iris Carr befriends an older woman while traveling solo by train. When Iris wakes from a nap, the woman is gone and other passengers claim she never existed.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller & mystery
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisLord of the Flies (1963)
Following a plane crash a group of schoolboys find themselves on a deserted island. They appoint a leader and attempt to create an organized society for the sake of their survival. Democracy and order soon begin to crumble when a breakaway faction regresses to savagery with horrifying consequences.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisA Killer Among Friends (1992)
A teenage girl disappears and later turns up drowned, with a log across her back. Three years later, a former friend comes forward with some answers.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & mystery
Worth the HypeMovies like thisPerdida (2018)
A policewoman whose childhood friend disappeared in Patagonia years ago starts a new search to find answers, and soon finds her own life in danger.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & mystery
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMurder on the Orient Express (2017)
Genius Belgian detective Hercule Poirot investigates the murder of an American tycoon aboard the Orient Express train.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both mystery & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisStowaway (2022)
A tenacious party girl fights to survive after three thieves commandeer her luxury yacht. Unable to escape and trapped on the yacht at high seas, the prey becomes the hunter as she turns the tables on the intruders and takes matters into her own hands.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both mystery & thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMiss Marple: They Do It with Mirrors (1992)
At the insistence of Ruth Van Rydock, an old schoolfriend who is convinced that there is something wrong, Miss Marple agrees to visit 'Stonygates', the country house of Ruth's sister.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both mystery & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisLast Breath (2025)
Seasoned deep-sea divers battle the raging elements to rescue their crewmate trapped hundreds of feet below the ocean's surface.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Clearing (2004)
When affluent executive Wayne Hayes is kidnapped by a disgruntled employee and held for ransom in a forest, Wayne’s wife is forced to reckon with the FBI agents as they negotiate with the kidnapper.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & mystery
SnoozefestMovies like thisHenry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (1986)
Arriving in Chicago, Henry moves in with ex-con acquaintance Otis and starts schooling him in the ways of the serial killer.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both thriller & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBully (2001)
A group of teenagers in South Florida enact a murder plot against their mutual bully, Bobby, who has emotionally, physically, and sexually abused them for years.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisChopper (2000)
The true and infamous story of Australia's notorious criminal Mark 'Chopper' Read and his years of crime, interest in violence, drugs and prostitutes.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like this7 Angels (TBA)
On 15 July 2016, a faction within the Turkish Armed Forces, organized as the Peace at Home Council, attempted a coup d'état against state institutions, including the government and president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Seven female Special Forces officers were paramount in the defeat but lost their lives.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & thriller
Eye of the Needle (1981)
Great Britain, 1944, during World War II. Relentlessly pursued by several MI5 agents, Henry Faber the Needle, a ruthless German spy in possession of vital information about D-Day, takes refuge on Storm Island, an inhospitable, sparsely inhabited island off the coast of northern Scotland.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Sweet Hereafter (1997)
A small mountain community in Canada is devastated when a school bus accident leaves more than a dozen of its children dead. A big-city lawyer arrives to help the survivors' and victims' families prepare a class-action suit, but his efforts only seem to push the townspeople further apart. At the same time, one teenage survivor of the accident has to reckon with the loss of innocence brought about by a different kind of damage.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMy Left Foot: The Story of Christy Brown (1989)
No one expects much from Christy Brown, a boy with cerebral palsy born into a working-class Irish family. Though Christy is a spastic quadriplegic and essentially paralyzed, a miraculous event occurs when, at the age of 5, he demonstrates control of his left foot by using chalk to scrawl a word on the floor. With the help of his steely mother — and no shortage of grit and determination — Christy overcomes his infirmity to become a painter, poet and author.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisMoby Dick (1956)
In 1841, young Ishmael signs up for service aboard the Pequod, a whaler sailing out of New Bedford. The ship is under the command of Captain Ahab, a strict disciplinarian who exhorts his men to find Moby Dick, the great white whale. Ahab lost his leg to that creature and is desperate for revenge. As the crew soon learns, he will stop at nothing to gain satisfaction.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisMy Amish Double Life (2025)
By day Emma is a good Amish girl, but by night she sneaks out with her Amish friend, Rebecca, and together they lead a double life, going to clubs, flirting with boys, and falling in love in the forbidden “English” world. When Emma accidentally witnesses a murder while out, her life and community is thrown into peril.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both thriller
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like The Island of Lies?
The closest matches to The Island of Lies are Murder on the Orient Express (1974), Triage (2009) and Agatha (1979). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after The Island of Lies?
Start with Murder on the Orient Express (1974), the closest match to The Island of Lies.
What is the highest-rated movie like The Island of Lies?
Captain Phillips (2013), rated 7.5/10 by 7,794 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like The Island of Lies?
The Woman in Cabin 10 (2025) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there Spanish movies like The Island of Lies?
Yes: The Red Virgin (2024), Eye for an Eye (2019) and Sky High (2020).
How are movies similar to The Island of Lies chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside The Island of Lies, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.