Movies like San Quentin (1946)
The best movies like San Quentin (1946) are You Only Live Once (1937), The Killer Is Loose (1956) and They Made Me a Fugitive (1947). If San Quentin hooked you with its crime, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedWhite Heat (1949)7.7/10 from 570 votes
- NewestCade & Eugene's Platonic Love Story (2017)Released 2017
You Only Live Once (1937)
Based partially on the story of Bonnie and Clyde, Eddie Taylor is an ex-convict who cannot get a break after being released from prison. When he is framed for murder, Taylor is forced to flee with his wife Joan Graham and baby. While escaping prison after being sentenced to death, Taylor becomes a real murderer, condemning himself and Joan to a life of crime and death on the road.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Killer Is Loose (1956)
A savings-and-loan bank is robbed; later, a police wiretap identifies meek bank teller Leon Poole as the inside man. In capturing him, detective Sam Wagner accidentally kills Poole's young wife, and at his trial Poole swears vengeance against Wagner. Poole begins his plans to get revenge when he escapes his captors.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThey Made Me a Fugitive (1947)
After being framed for a policeman's murder, a criminal escapes prison and sets out for revenge.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThey Live by Night (1949)
An escaped convict, injured during a robbery, falls in love with the woman who nurses him back to health, but their relationship seems doomed from the beginning.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisWhite Heat (1949)
A psychopathic criminal with a mother complex makes a daring break from prison and then leads his old gang in a chemical plant payroll heist. After the heist, events take a crazy turn.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime
Worth the HypeMovies like this20,000 Years in Sing Sing (1932)
Brash hoodlum Tom Connors enters Sing Sing cocksure of himself and disrespectful toward authority, but his tough but compassionate warden changes him.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisYield to the Night (1956)
Locked in her cell, a murderer reflects on the events that have led her to death row.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisNightfall (1956)
An innocent man turns fugitive as he reconstructs events that implicate him for a murder and robbery he did not commit.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisTwo-Way Stretch (1960)
Three criminals plan to break out of prison the day before their release in order to carry out a daring jewel robbery, intending to establish the perfect alibi by returning to jail afterwards. First however they must get out, a task made more difficult by a new, stricter prison officer.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBlack Angel (1946)
A falsely convicted man's wife, Catherine, and an alcoholic composer and pianist, Martin, team up in an attempt to clear her husband of the murder of a blonde singer, who is Martin's wife.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Blue Gardenia (1953)
Upon waking up to the news that the man she’d gone on a date with the previous night has been murdered, a young woman with only a faint memory of the night’s events begins to suspect that she murdered him while attempting to resist his advances.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime
Popcorn FlickMovies like this5 Against the House (1955)
Former war-time Army buddies now students in college decide to rip off a Reno casino.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime
SnoozefestMovies 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 thisHe Ran All the Way (1951)
A crook on the run hides out in an innocent girl's apartment.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Asphalt Jungle (1950)
Recently paroled from prison, legendary burglar "Doc" Riedenschneider, with funding from Alonzo Emmerich, a crooked lawyer, gathers a small group of veteran criminals together in the Midwest for a big jewel heist.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Web (1947)
A brash young lawyer takes a short-term, high-paying job as bodyguard for a slick business exec being threatened by a former partner, and quickly realizes he may be in over his head.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Naked City (1948)
After a former model is drowned in her bathtub, Detective James Halloran and Lieutenant Dan Muldoon attempt to piece together her murder.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime
Worth the HypeMovies like thisKiss of Death (1947)
An ex-con trying to go straight must face a crazed criminal out for revenge.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime
Worth the HypeMovies like thisUnderworld (1927)
Boisterous gangster kingpin Bull Weed rehabilitates his former lawyer from his alcoholic haze, but complications arise when he falls for Weed's girlfriend.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime
Worth the HypeMovies like thisManiac (1963)
When a stranger enters a quiet, country town and is seduced by a sensuous married woman he unwittingly finds himself at the centre of a storm of sexual guilt and murder.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Shanghai Gesture (1941)
A gambling queen uses blackmail to stop a British financier from closing her Chinese clip joint.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both crime
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisWhispering Footsteps (1943)
An Ohio bank clerk's life becomes a nightmare when his descriptions is a fit of a maniac killer.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both crime
Angels Over Broadway (1940)
Small-time businessman Charles Engle is threatened with exposure for embezzling $3,000 for his free-spending wife. Deciding on suicide, he scribbles a note, stuffs it in his pocket and goes for one last night on the town. He is pulled into a poker game by conman Bill O'Brien and singer Nina Barone, but when they discover the dropped note, they resolve to turn the tables, get Engle his $3,000 and save his life.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both crime
Prison Breaker (1936)
A British secret service agent falls in love with the daughter of a leading London criminal, and soon after becoming involved with her father finds himself in prison facing a charge of manslaughter..
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both crime
Tokyo Gate (1950)
Based on a serialized newspaper novel by Taijiro Tamura. People living in the darkness of the city, Tachikawa Maki publishes the Ginza Minpo, a small newspaper that exposes the muggers and gangsters prevalent in the Ginza area.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both crime
Cade & Eugene's Platonic Love Story (2017)
Hungover and struggling to recall the events of the Christmas party they attended, two best friends are called into the police station for questioning. One worries of what could happen to them whilst the other ignores his friend's anxieties in pursuit of love.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both crime
Beware, My Lovely (1952)
A psychopath on the run takes a job as a handyman at the house of a lonely widow.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both crime
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisPortland Exposé (1957)
The owner of a tavern is pressured by the local mob to go into business with them, and figures it's better all around if he does that rather than cause trouble. However, when he starts to see what kind of place his nice little neighborhood bar is turning into, and when one of the mob's goons tries to rape his daughter, he decides to fight them.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both crime
The Dark Past (1948)
A gang hold a family hostage in their own home. The leader of the escaped cons is bothered by a recurring dream that the doctor of the house may be able to analyze.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both crime
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisJealousy (1945)
A female cabbie is suspected of killing her drunken husband.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both crime
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like San Quentin?
The closest matches to San Quentin are You Only Live Once (1937), The Killer Is Loose (1956) and They Made Me a Fugitive (1947). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after San Quentin?
Start with You Only Live Once (1937), the closest match to San Quentin.
What is the highest-rated movie like San Quentin?
White Heat (1949), rated 7.7/10 by 570 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like San Quentin?
Cade & Eugene's Platonic Love Story (2017) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there English movies like San Quentin?
Yes: You Only Live Once (1937), The Killer Is Loose (1956) and They Made Me a Fugitive (1947).
How are movies similar to San Quentin chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside San Quentin, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.