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Movies like Truth Stranger Than Fiction (1915)

The best movies like Truth Stranger Than Fiction (1915) are Each Dawn I Die (1939), Plunder Road (1957) and Cigarettes & Coffee (1993). If Truth Stranger Than Fiction hooked you with its crime and drama, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.

Quick picks

  1. Each Dawn I Die (1939)

    A corrupt D.A. with governatorial ambitions is annoyed by an investigative reporter's criticism of his criminal activities and decides to frame the reporter for manslaughter in order to silence him.

    Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime & drama

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  2. Plunder 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
  3. Cigarettes & Coffee (1993)

    At a desert diner, the lives of five strangers become linked through a single twenty-dollar bill. Shot for $20,000 and starring Philip Baker Hall, the short premiered at Sundance and later inspired Anderson’s debut feature Hard Eight (1996).

    Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & crime

    Popcorn FlickMovies like this
  4. The 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 & drama

    Worth the HypeMovies like this
  5. Johnny O'Clock (1947)

    When an employee at an illegal gambling den dies suspiciously, her sister, Nancy, looks into the situation and falls for Johnny O'Clock, a suave partner in the underground casino. Selfish and non-committal by nature, Johnny slowly begins to return Nancy's affection and decides to run away with her, but conflict within his business threatens their plans. As Johnny tries to distance himself from the casino, his shady past comes back to haunt him.

    Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime & drama

    Popcorn FlickMovies like this
  6. The 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 & drama

    Worth the HypeMovies like this
  7. The Interview (1998)

    A duel between a suspected murderer and a detective pressed by people who want results. But whose skin is really wanted?

    Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime & drama

    Popcorn FlickMovies like this
  8. Framed (1947)

    Truck driver Mike Lambert is a down-and-out mining engineer searching for a job. When his rig breaks down in a small town, he happens upon a venomous seductress. When her boyfriend robs a bank, they intend to frame Lambert.

    Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime & drama

    Popcorn FlickMovies like this
  9. Glengarry Glen Ross (1992)

    An examination of the machinations behind the scenes at a real estate office. Unscrupulous salesmen try to hawk dubious real estate to suckers.

    Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime & drama

    Worth the HypeMovies like this
  10. The Damned Don't Cry (1950)

    Fed up with her small-town marriage, a woman goes after the big time and gets mixed up with the mob.

    Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime & drama

    Worth the HypeMovies like this
  11. House of Bamboo (1955)

    Eddie Kenner is given a special assignment by the Army to get the inside story on Sandy Dawson, a former GI who has formed a gang of fellow servicemen and Japanese locals.

    Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime & drama

    Popcorn FlickMovies like this
  12. They 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 drama & crime

    Popcorn FlickMovies like this
  13. The Assault (2014)

    After a cheerleader is sexually assaulted by the high school football team, she must overcome her shame and use the evidence gathered from the subsequent social media firestorm to piece together the night that she can't remember in her fight for justice. Based on the true story of the Steubenville, Ohio rape case.

    Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime & drama

    Popcorn FlickMovies like this
  14. Redemption: The Stan Tookie Williams Story (2004)

    Redemption tells the story of Stan "Tookie" Williams, founder of the Crips L.A. street gang. Story follows his fall into gang-banging, his prison term, and his work writing children's novels encouraging peace and anti-violence resolutions which earned him multiple Nobel Peace Prize nominations. After exhausting all forms of appeal, Tookie was executed by lethal injection.

    Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime & drama

    Popcorn FlickMovies like this
  15. Little Caesar (1931)

    A small-time hood shoots his way to the top, but how long can he stay there?

    Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & crime

    Popcorn FlickMovies like this
  16. Time Without Pity (1957)

    Alec Graham is sentenced to death for the murder of his girlfriend Jennie, with whom he spent a weekend at the English country home of the parents of his friend Brian Stanford. Alec’s father, David Graham, a not-so-successful writer and alcoholic who has neglected his son in the past, flies in from Canada to visit his son on death row. David then goes on a quest to try and clear his son’s name while battling “the bottle.”

    Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both crime & drama

    Popcorn FlickMovies like this
  17. The 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 this
  18. The 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 this
  19. The Truth About Emanuel (2013)

    A troubled young woman becomes obsessed with her mysterious new neighbor, who bears a striking resemblance to the girl's dead mother.

    Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama

    Popcorn FlickMovies like this
  20. Won't Back Down (2012)

    Jamie Fitzpatrick and Nona Alberts are two women from opposites sides of the social and economic track, but they have one thing in common: a mission to fix their community's broken school and ensure a bright future for their children. The two women refuse to let any obstacles stand in their way as they battle a bureaucracy that's hopelessly mired in traditional thinking, and they seek to re-energize a faculty that has lost its passion for teaching.

    Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama

    Popcorn FlickMovies like this
  21. The Third Ingredient (1917)

    Hetty Pepper (a discharged department store worker) and Cecilie (a starving miniature-painter) try to make a beef and potato stew in a low-rent New York apartment building. While they have the meat and the potatoes, they desperately need an onion to tie the meal together—which serves as a metaphor for the human connection and grace needed to complete their lives.

    Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama

  22. April Showers (1923)

    Danny O'Rourke is the son of a police officer who was killed in the line of duty. Eager to join the police force, Danny fails his exams. The failure causes him to neglect his sweetheart Maggie, whose father is a police lieutenant. His attentions turn instead towards society girl Miriam Welton. When Danny’s sister, Shannon, is arrested for shoplifting, Danny turns to boxing to save her. He works his way towards the championship but discovers the final bought has been rigged. Danny fights anyhow and he is beaten, but it is discovered that a mistake had been made on his exams and he actually was eligible to join the police force after all. Considered a lost film.

    Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama

  23. The Case of Lena Smith (1929)

    A peasant girl goes to great lengths to protect her child in 19th century Vienna. The film is considered lost, and only four minutes of footage are known to remain.

    Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama

  24. After the Fog (1929)

    Millionaire Joshua Barker insists that his daughter, Faith, must marry Phil Langhorne, a man that neither likes, and Faith is in love with and eager to marry her childhood sweetheart, John Temple.

    Why it matches: Similar story and style · both crime

  25. The Big Fight (1930)

    Based on the David Belasco stage production of the Max Marcin play in which heavyweight-champion Jack Dempsey played the role of the fighter, Tiger: This "behind-the-scenes look of a heavyweight-championship fight" looks much like all of the other boxing films in which the Champ gets involved in a frame-up and is asked to take a dive.

    Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama

  26. An Orphan’s Cry (1925)

    Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama

  27. The Glory of Yolanda (1917)

    A Russian peasant girl becomes a member of the Imperial Ballet.

    Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama

  28. The Son of Wallingford (1921)

    A young man's journey into adulthood, love, and ambition, inspired by a serial by George Randolph Chester exploring themes of love, ambition, and self-discovery, set against the backdrop of the Roaring Twenties.

    Why it matches: Similar story and style · both crime

  29. Enlighten Thy Daughter (1917)

    Lillian Stevens was raised without care, attention, or education on the ways of the world. When she becomes pregnant by the reckless Harold Winthrop, her mother takes her to an abortionist. Harold then falls for Ruth Stevens, raised by an attentive and loving mother, who is not so easily taken advantage of.

    Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama

  30. The Gypsy Trail (1915)

    Gypsy Willie Buckland recalls to his friend why he and his wife return each year to that same spot to hear the chimes in the village church. In his youth he and little gypsy maid Jane were friends and sweethearts. When Willie’s father died, he went to the city where he met "The Painted Woman," spending his last cent on her, but they had genuinely fallen in love and he promises to stay with the woman, who is fatally ill, until she dies. Penniless and ill, he wanders out into the street and thence to the meadows, where he is found by Jane and nursed back to health. Fearing his love may not be true, she tells him that if he finds her wherever she may wander, one year from that date, that she will believe him and marry him. A long weary year passes when he arrives in that very village just as the chimes are ringing, and there he finds Jane. His story finished, Buckland points to Jane and their children with a happy smile.

    Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama

Like Truth Stranger Than Fiction and something else?

Blend two favourites and we’ll find the films in between.

Frequently asked questions

What are the best movies like Truth Stranger Than Fiction?

The closest matches to Truth Stranger Than Fiction are Each Dawn I Die (1939), Plunder Road (1957) and Cigarettes & Coffee (1993). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.

What should I watch after Truth Stranger Than Fiction?

Start with Each Dawn I Die (1939), the closest match to Truth Stranger Than Fiction.

What is the highest-rated movie like Truth Stranger Than Fiction?

The Asphalt Jungle (1950), rated 7.5/10 by 562 TMDB users.

What is the newest movie like Truth Stranger Than Fiction?

The Assault (2014) is the most recent release on this list.

Are there English movies like Truth Stranger Than Fiction?

Yes: Each Dawn I Die (1939), Plunder Road (1957) and Cigarettes & Coffee (1993).

How are movies similar to Truth Stranger Than Fiction chosen?

First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Truth Stranger Than Fiction, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.

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