Movies like A criminal on leave (1958)
The best movies like A criminal on leave (1958) are The Trials of Cate McCall (2013), Call Me Crazy: A Five Film (2013) and All Day and a Night (2020). If A criminal on leave hooked you with its drama, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedRashomon (1950)8.0/10 from 2,672 votes
- NewestI Was a Stranger (2025)Released 2025
The Trials of Cate McCall (2013)
In order to be reinstated to the bar and recover custody of her daughter, a hotshot lawyer, now in recovery and on probation, must take on the appeal of a woman wrongfully convicted of murder.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisCall Me Crazy: A Five Film (2013)
A psychotherapist helps a law student cope with schizophrenia in one of five interconnected tales dealing with mental illness.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisAll Day and a Night (2020)
While serving life in prison, a young man looks back at the people, the circumstances and the system that set him on the path toward his crime.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisAbove the Rim (1994)
Story of a promising high school basketball star and his relationships with two brothers, one a drug dealer and the other a former basketball star fallen on hard times and now employed as a security guard.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisCairo Station (1958)
Qinawi, a physically challenged peddler who makes his living selling newspapers in the central Cairo train station, is obsessed with Hanuma, an attractive young woman who sells drinks. While she jokes with him about a possible relationship, she is actually in love with Abu Siri, a strong and respected porter at the station who is struggling to unionize his fellow workers to combat their boss' exploitative and abusive treatment.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisEleanor the Great (2025)
94-year-old Eleanor Morgenstein tries to rebuild her life after the death of her best friend. As a result, she moves back to New York City after living in Florida for decades.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBobby Jones: Stroke of Genius (2004)
The story of golf icon and legend, Bobby Jones, who retired from competition at the tender age of 28.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisI Was a Stranger (2025)
A Syrian doctor and her daughter flee Aleppo, setting off a chain of events that binds five strangers together. A smuggler, a soldier, a poet, and a coast guard captain collide in a crisis that tests their courage, their choices, and their humanity.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisFast Girls (2012)
A street smart runner develops an intense rivalry with an equally ambitious wealthy young athlete.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBurning Sands (2017)
Deep into Hell Week, a favored pledgee is torn between honoring his code of silence or standing up against the intensifying violence of underground hazing.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisHands of Stone (2016)
The legendary Roberto Duran and his equally legendary trainer Ray Arcel change each other's lives.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both 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 drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisRogue Agent (2022)
Conman Robert Freegard poses as an undercover MI5 agent and kidnaps countless victims amidst a high-stakes manhunt, until the woman who fell for him brings him to justice.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisTrue Colors (1991)
Two law school friends find themselves at odds when one becomes a Justice Department lawyer and the other goes into politics.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Girl in the Book (2015)
The story of a young writer's transformation when her past invades her present.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
SnoozefestMovies 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 drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Unforgivable (2021)
A woman is released from prison after serving a sentence for a violent crime and re-enters a society that refuses to forgive her past.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisGoodbye June (2025)
Four siblings' lives change drastically when their ailing mother takes a turn for the worse over the holiday season.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisFaster (2010)
After 10 years in prison, Driver is now a free man with a single focus - hunting down the people responsible for brutally murdering his brother.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Most Hated Woman in America (2017)
The true story of Madalyn Murray O'Hair -- iconoclast, opportunist, and outspoken atheist -- from her controversial rise to her untimely demise.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisRashomon (1950)
Four people recount different versions of the story of a man's murder and the rape of his wife.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisOde To Oblivion (2024)
Dream or Reality ! Two lost souls meet in strange ways through various fragments of dreamlike memories. As we delve into their complicated relationship and their story unfolds, their relationship seems to disintegrate, leaving us to wonder if it will survive this reality or dream.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Diary of a Chambermaid (1964)
Celestine has a new job as a chambermaid for the quirky M. Monteil, his wife and her father. When the father dies, Celestine decides to quit her job and leave, but when a young girl is raped and murdered, Celestine believes that the Monteils' groundskeeper, Joseph, is guilty, and stays on in order to prove it. She uses her sexuality and the promise of marriage to get Joseph to confess -- but things do not go as planned.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Life of Mr. Human (2025)
In the ruins of a world devoured by human greed, the last man plunges into a decadent frenzy: devouring rare plants, octopus flesh, the final drops of water, and eventually blood. But nature is not silent. A mysterious girl with a white rabbit appears like a myth reborn, blurring the line between legend and reality, death and renewal.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Solarium (2021)
Johnny, 16, is a young driver of trot race who start doubting his vocation when he realizes Coquelicot, a young horse, is in danger because he didn't prove himself.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Fiamma (2025)
An assistant director investigates the authenticity of a popular autobiographical novel being adapted into a movie.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
À la poussière (2020)
Fazia is a middle-aged cleaning woman. She appears tired and burdened by personal troubles. For the past few months, she has been starting her days working for the Martin-Pelissard family, a petty bourgeois household reluctant to officially declare her employment. One morning, an unexpected incident heightens the social pressure she endures daily, setting off a race against time to try and keep her job.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Boswellia sacra (2022)
Inspired by true events. "Boswellia sacra" is a short feature film about nature which draws a parallel between the environment and the protection of human rights; about the law of nature that is constantly being violated by man; about Vukasin Drakulic, a thirty-year-old young man who comes to realize this relationship. Can a person escape his own nature and the one that surrounds him.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Perfect Sense (2011)
In Glasgow, Scotland, while a mysterious pandemic begins to spread around the world, Susan, a brilliant epidemiologist, falls in love with Michael, a skillful cook.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like A criminal on leave?
The closest matches to A criminal on leave are The Trials of Cate McCall (2013), Call Me Crazy: A Five Film (2013) and All Day and a Night (2020). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after A criminal on leave?
Start with The Trials of Cate McCall (2013), the closest match to A criminal on leave.
What is the highest-rated movie like A criminal on leave?
Rashomon (1950), rated 8.0/10 by 2,672 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like A criminal on leave?
I Was a Stranger (2025) is the most recent release on this list.
How are movies similar to A criminal on leave chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside A criminal on leave, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.