Movies like The Witness (1978)
The best movies like The Witness (1978) are The Color of Lies (1999), In His Shadow (2023) and Winged Creatures (2009). If The Witness hooked you with its crime and drama, these 20 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedIn Her Name (2016)6.8/10 from 341 votes
- NewestAn Ordinary Case (2024)Released 2024
- In FrenchThe Color of Lies (1999)Also in French
The Color of Lies (1999)
In a small Breton town, a 10-year-old girl is found murdered. René, her art teacher, a professional painter, is the last person to have seen her alive. The inspector in charge of the investigation immediately questions him. In this small provincial town where people all know each other and regularly meet at the Bar des Amis, René is increasingly unsettled by the other inhabitants' suspicions and by the inspector's investigation. Children stop coming to him for lessons. His wife, Viviane, a district nurse, protects him and supports him with her love. However, a self-centred media-star writer adds to René's confusion...
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime & drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisIn His Shadow (2023)
After the death of their father, two half-brothers find themselves on opposite sides of an escalating conflict with tragic consequences.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisWinged Creatures (2009)
A psychotic man opens fire in a diner, murdering numerous people before killing himself. The survivors struggle in different ways following this horrendous event: a doctor doubts his own instincts and elects to use an experimental medical procedure on his wife, while a gambler believes he's on a lucky streak. A waitress begins engaging in promiscuous sex, and a young girl whose father is among the dead gains unexpected fame.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime & drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisPanic (2000)
Alex is going through a midlife crisis and it has become a very difficult time for him. His marriage is struggling, he's worried about his son, and his job of killing people for his family has become the most stressful part of his life. He seeks the help of a therapist and meets a woman in the waiting room that he connects with.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSaint Omer (2022)
A novelist attends the trial of a woman accused of killing her 15-month-old daughter by abandoning her to the rising tide on a beach in northern France. But as the trial continues, her own family history, doubts, and fears about motherhood are steadily dislodged as the life story of the accused is gradually revealed.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & crime
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisJudge Fayard Called the Sheriff (1977)
Jean-Marie Fayard is a young examining magistrate in a large provincial french city. He belongs to that generation of judges who are endeavoring to re-adapt the notion of justice to our changing times. His methods are not agreeable to every one. Criticism and pressure are brought to bear upon him but he is aware of his value, professionally, and refuses to make any concessions. He follows an unwavering course. He uses dynamic methods and takes uncustomary initiatives. He behaves like a crusader, a battler, whence the nickname given him by the reporters : the sheriff.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & crime
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisPasha (1968)
Six months before his retirement from the criminal police, inspector Joss finds his colleague Gouvion dead, in a poorly faked suicide attempt. Joss loses his temper, and investigates on his own, which leads him through the bas-fond of Paris...
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & crime
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisAmerican Skin (2019)
A Marine veteran working as a school janitor tries to mend his relationship with his son after a divorce. When his son is killed by a police officer found innocent without standing trial, he takes matters into his own hands.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Bygone (2019)
When a young rancher crosses paths with a Lakota girl from a nearby reservation, her mysterious disappearance sparks a search that uncovers a harrowing past and hints at a dire future.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisTrue Believer (1989)
Eddie Dodd is a burnt out former civil rights lawyer who now specializes in defending drug dealers. Roger Baron, newly graduated from law school, has followed Eddie's great cases and now wants to learn at his feet. With Roger's idealistic prodding, Eddie reluctantly takes on a case of a young Korean man who, according to his mother, has been in jail for eight years for a murder he didn't commit.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisAn Ordinary Case (2024)
Jean Monier is a disillusioned lawyer, appointed to defend Nicolas Milik, a man accused of murdering his wife. While everything points to his guilt, Monier takes up the case, convinced of his innocence.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & crime
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisOnly the Animals (2019)
Following the disappearance of the glamorous and secretive Evelyne Ducat during a blizzard in the highlands of southern France, the lives of five people inextricably linked to Evelyne are brought together to devastating effect as the local police investigate the case.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & crime
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisIn Her Name (2016)
In 1982, André Bamberski learns about the death of his 14 year-old daughter, Kalinka, while she was on vacation with her mother and stepfather in Germany. Convinced that Kalinka’s death was not an accident, Bamberski begins to investigate. A botched autopsy report raises his suspicions and leads him to accuse Kalinka’s stepfather, Dr Dieter Krombach, as the murderer. Unable to indict Krombach in Germany, Bamberski attempts to take the trial to France, where he will dedicate his life to Kalinka’s justice and the imprisonment of Krombach.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & crime
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Dictator's Guns (1965)
An experienced skipper is hired to buy a boat from an American heiress in the Caribbean, but when the boat vanishes and bodies surface, he realizes he’s been framed for arms trafficking.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & crime
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Sound of Fury (1950)
A family man – desperate for a job – latches onto a friend who encourages him into being a criminal.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSiberian Education (2013)
The story of a gang of children growing up in a community of banished criminals, in a forgotten corner of the former Soviet Union. This community rejects the world outside. The only law it obeys… is its own. Against this backdrop two best friends, Kolyma and Gagarin, gradually become fierce enemies as they find themselves on opposite sides of the strict code of honour of the ‘honest criminal’ brotherhood.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & crime
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSymphony for a Massacre (1963)
A band of gangsters devise a plan to steal a game contested between two drug gangs of drug traffickers: the five fraudsters will face bigger problems than them.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisDark Diamond (2016)
Pier Ulmann lives from hand-to-mouth in Paris, between construction work and petty theft that he commits on behalf of Rachid, his only “family”. But life catches up with him the day his father is found dead in the street after a long decline. The black sheep of a rich Antwerp family who deals in diamonds, he has left his son nothing, apart from the story of his banishment from the Ulmann family and a thirst for revenge.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisDossier 51 (1978)
A French diplomat is surveilled by a secret service to find a weakness for political control, his private life becoming 'File No. 51'.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisPlunder Road (1957)
A spectacular heist starts to unravel as the crooks take it on the lam.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like this
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like The Witness?
The closest matches to The Witness are The Color of Lies (1999), In His Shadow (2023) and Winged Creatures (2009). Below are 17 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after The Witness?
Start with The Color of Lies (1999), the closest match to The Witness.
What is the highest-rated movie like The Witness?
In Her Name (2016), rated 6.8/10 by 341 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like The Witness?
An Ordinary Case (2024) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there French movies like The Witness?
Yes: The Color of Lies (1999), In His Shadow (2023) and Saint Omer (2022).
How are movies similar to The Witness chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside The Witness, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.