20 best movies like A Life in the Balance (1955)

FBI agent Matt Graver teams up with operative Alejandro Gillick to prevent Mexican drug cartels from smuggling terrorists across the U.S. border.

A madman captures a young boy and rigs him with explosives. Ray Fitzpatrick, still haunted by the loss of his own son, will defy orders to stop the clock and save a life

Years after a childhood prank goes horribly wrong, a clique of South Central LA teens find themselves terrorized during Homecoming weekend by a killer hell-bent on revenge.

Eight years after fleeing the Congo following his assassination of that country's minister of mining, former assassin Jim Terrier is back, suffering from PTSD and digging wells to atone for his violent past. After an attempt is made on his life, Terrier flies to London to find out who wants him dead -- and why. Terrier's search leads him to a reunion with Annie, a woman he once loved, who is now married to an oily businessman with dealings in Africa.

When someone murders his beloved cat, Clinton, an adult child, demands justice. Taking it upon himself to solve the case, he teams up with an unlikely ally, Greta, and the two set out to find the culprit lurking in their small suburban town. But as Clinton searches for the truth, he begins to uncover a conspiracy that goes far deeper than he anticipated.

As investigative reporter Ward Jansen and his partner Yardley Acheman chase a sensational, career-making story with the help of Ward's younger brother Jack and sultry death-row groupie Charlotte Bless, the pair tries to prove violent swamp-dweller Hillary Van Wetter was framed for the murder of a corrupt local sheriff.

A heinous crime tests the complex relationship between a tenacious personal assistant and her Hollywood starlet boss. As the assistant travels across Los Angeles to unravel the mystery, she must stay one step ahead of a determined policeman and confront her own understanding of friendship, truth and celebrity.

During a Whiton University's pledge week, the carefree partying turns deadly when brutal murders start befalling the students, sending Ellery Scott into a race against time to uncover the truth behind the school's dark secrets and the horrifying meaning of a recurring symbol: a single exclamation mark.

Massachusetts, 1892. An unmarried woman of 32 and a social outcast, Lizzie lives a claustrophobic life under her father's cold and domineering control. When Bridget Sullivan, a young maid, comes to work for the family, Lizzie finds a sympathetic, kindred spirit, and a secret intimacy soon blossoms into a wicked plan.

A Boston police officer goes to Nantucket to investigate the murder of his partner, but he finds more than he bargained for.

An inventive crime thriller told backwards -- reversing day by day through a week -- following a local sheriff's quest to unlock the mystery of three small town criminals and a bank heist gone wrong.

Jack Reacher must uncover the truth behind a major government conspiracy in order to clear his name. On the run as a fugitive from the law, Reacher uncovers a potential secret from his past that could change his life forever.

After Washington DC detective Alex Cross is told that a family member has been murdered, he vows to track down the killer. He soon discovers that she was not his first victim and that things are not what they seem.

The hunt is on to find the murderer of a wealthy glamorous heiress who is found dead in her London townhouse. Based on the short story by Agatha Christie.

Midnight, New Year’s Eve: when all the hopes of new beginnings come to life – except for Lindsey and Jeff Pittman, whose strained marriage faces the ultimate test after they cover up a terrible crime and find themselves entangled in a Hitchcockian web of deceit and madness.

The attempted assassination of the American President is told and re-told from several different perspectives.

Max and Annie's weekly game night gets kicked up a notch when Max's brother Brooks arranges a murder mystery party -- complete with fake thugs and federal agents. So when Brooks gets kidnapped, it's all supposed to be part of the game. As the competitors set out to solve the case, they start to learn that neither the game nor Brooks are what they seem to be. The friends soon find themselves in over their heads as each twist leads to another unexpected turn over the course of one chaotic night.

A C-list celebrity gets kidnapped and held hostage after a night-club appearance. When the police interrogate the man she accuses, they question whether she's after justice or a front-page story.

An inexperienced detective and a psychologist must learn to work together to stop a masked killer who's terrorizing their small town.

In the grim Alaskan winter, a naturalist hunts for wolves blamed for killing a local boy, but he soon finds himself swept into a chilling mystery.

In a world where families are limited to one child due to overpopulation, a set of identical septuplets must avoid being put to a long sleep by the government and dangerous infighting while investigating the disappearance of one of their own.

By 1933, Prohibition has proven a booming enterprise, where average citizens break the law, hide in the shadows and operate at night. The new world order has even lined the pockets of corrupt cops like Jack Malone. He collects a 'luxury tax' from every bootlegger and scofflaw in the small town he has sworn to protect. While shaking down the newest speakeasy in the local underground, Jack and his men uncover a clan of vampires hell bent on taking over the town. Now Chesterfield, an ancient vampire, and his horde must hide their secret at any cost. The bloody result leaves several bodies and innocent townsfolk taken as lambs to await the slaughter. With nowhere else to turn, Jack joins forces with a busboy and a crazy preacher to save the town and make a final stand against Chesterfield and his vampires.

Porter Wren is a Manhattan tabloid writer with an appetite for scandal. On the beat he sells murder, tragedy, and anything that passes for the truth. At home, he is a dedicated husband and father. But when Caroline, a seductive stranger asks him to dig into the unsolved murder of her filmmaker husband Simon, he is drawn into a very nasty case of sexual obsession and blackmail--one that threatens his job, his marriage, and his life.

Mike Kendall, a disgraced ex-cop, is fighting a losing battle with the bottle. When he finds a woman left for dead at the side of a road, Kendall turns private eye to track down her killers, taking one last shot at redemption.

Hotel night clerk Bart Bromley is a highly intelligent young man on the Autism spectrum. When a woman is murdered during his shift, Bart becomes the prime suspect. As the police investigation closes in, Bart makes a personal connection with a beautiful guest named Andrea, but soon realises he must stop the real murderer before she becomes the next victim.

The bonds of brotherhood, the laws of loyalty, and the futility of violence in the shadows of the US Mexico border gang wars.

Sexy New York detective and single mother Harlee Santos fell in with a tight-knit group of dirty cops, taking bribes and protection money that she uses to provide the best life for her honest, talented daughter. But when she's trapped by the FBI and forced to inform on her own "brothers," she'll have to walk the fine line between love, loyalty, honor and betrayal, and try to keep it together for her daughter's future.

In a world where human beings and puppets live together, when the members of the cast of a children's television show aired during the 1990s begin to get murdered one by one, puppet Phil Philips, a former LAPD detective who fell in disgrace and turned into a private eye, takes on the case at the request of his old boss in order to assist detective Edwards, who was his partner in the past.

Two estranged sisters are forced to rob a bank in order to save their brother. But this is no ordinary bank.

A tight-knit team of FBI investigators, along with their District Attorney supervisor, is suddenly torn apart when they discover that one of their own teenage daughters has been brutally murdered.

Erin Bell is an LAPD detective who, as a young cop, was placed undercover with a gang in the California desert with tragic results. When the leader of that gang re-emerges many years later, she must work her way back through the remaining members and into her own history with them to finally reckon with the demons that destroyed her past.

A cerebral revenge film about two adopted siblings who fall in love, and hatch a plan to kill their abusive father.

A surrogate mother harbors a deadly secret desire for a family of her own with the husband who is expecting to raise her child.

Stu Undercoffler (Eric Roberts) is a corrupt CEO whose drive for power has led him to make some highly unethical choices. Once Stu's self-serving decisions have begun to spread darkness through the world, there's no stopping it. After losing his wife, Stu begins to have a crisis of conscience but starts to believe he is being stalked and has been hallucinating. Is he losing his mind or have his former victims come back to wreck havoc on him?

The opening titles explain that American corporations are using the North American Free Trade Agreement by opening large maquiladoras right across the United States–Mexico border. The maquiladoras hire mostly Mexican women to work long hours for little money in order to produce mass quantity products.Lauren Adrian (Jennifer Lopez), an impassioned American news reporter for the "Chicago Sentinel" wants to be assigned to the Iraq front-lines to cover the war. Instead, her editor George Morgan (Martin Sheen) assigns her to investigate a series of slayings involving young maquiladora factory women in a Mexican bordertown.

When a group of friends decides to follow a car they've seen posted on an Amber Alert, things start to go very wrong.