Tags: movies similar to Absence of Malice (1981) - full list
Mark | imdb: 7.7 |
Genre | drama |
Country | USA |
Duration | 02:09 |
Frank Galvin is a down-on-his-luck lawyer and reduced to drinking and ambulance chasing, when a former associate reminds him of his obligations in a medical malpractice suit by serving it to Galvin on a silver platter—all parties are willing to settle out of court. Blundering his way through the preliminaries, Galvin suddenly realizes that the case should actually go to court—to punish the guilty, to get a decent settlement for his clients... and to restore his standing as a lawyer.
Mark | imdb: 6.4 |
Genre | thriller, melodrama, drama, detective, military |
Country | China, USA |
Duration | 01:43 |
An American man returns to a corrupt, Japanese-occupied Shanghai four months before Pearl Harbor and discovers his friend has been killed. While he unravels the mysteries of the death, he falls in love and discovers a much larger secret that his own government is hiding.
Mark | imdb: 6 |
Genre | thriller, melodrama, drama, crime |
Country | USA |
In the Philadelphia police department, Emmett Young is a hotshot, a workaholic newly promoted to homicide. He learns he has a disease that will soon kill him painfully, so he hires a stranger to arrange his own death. With one eye on the calendar (he's allowed a few days' grace before his murder), he pursues a final case, the serial killing of young women. Emmett develops a profile of the assailant. Meanwhile, his fixer hires an ex-cop to kill Emmett, a lonely security guard whom the fixer taunts and belittles. In this limited time, can Emmett sort out what's important? Written by
Mark | imdb: 6.8 |
Genre | thriller, drama, crime, biography |
Country | Republic of Ireland, United Kingdom, USA |
Duration | 01:38 |
In this true story, Veronica Guerin is an investigative reporter for an Irish newspaper. As the drug trade begins to bleed into the mainstream, Guerin decides to take on and expose those responsible. Beginning at the bottom with addicts, Guerin then gets in touch with John Traynor, a paranoid informant. Not without some prodding, Traynor leads her to John Gilligan, the ruthless head of the operation, who does not take kindly to Guerin's nosing.
Mark | imdb: 7.1 |
Genre | thriller, drama, crime, detective |
Country | USA, United Kingdom, France |
Duration | 02:07 |
Handsome, unflappable U.S. Congressman Stephen Collins is the future of his political party: an honorable appointee who serves as the chairman of a committee overseeing defense spending. All eyes are upon the rising star to be his party's contender for the upcoming presidential race. Until his research assistant/mistress is brutally murdered and buried secrets come tumbling out.
Mark | imdb: 6.8 |
Genre | thriller, melodrama, drama, crime |
Country | USA, Canada |
Duration | 01:53 |
Seen-it-all New York detective Frank Keller is unsettled - he has done twenty years on the force and could retire, and he hasn't come to terms with his wife leaving him for a colleague. Joining up with an officer from another part of town to investigate a series of murders linked by the lonely hearts columns he finds he is getting seriously and possibly dangerously involved with Helen, one of the main suspects.
Mark | imdb: 5.6 |
Genre | thriller, drama, crime |
Country | USA |
Duration | 01:57 |
A rising young attorney successfully defends a man accused of murder, only to have the same type of murder then happen again. Right away the previously defended man hires the attorney again, and although the attorney is quite certain that he is the killer, he agrees to again defend him... much to the consternation of his friends. However, he explains that by being his attorney he will be better able to catch the man in a mistake... and on this the rest of the film develops, with the killer playing a cat and mouse game with the attorney until, at last, they both must recognize that they are not all that different.
Mark | imdb: 6 |
Genre | action, thriller, drama, crime, detective |
Country | USA |
Police chief Xavier Quinn investigates the gruesome murder of Donald Pater, one of the wealthiest residents on a Caribbean island. He was found decapitated in his Jacuzzi. Although the local political establishment, especially crooked Governor Chalk, insists that small-time thief Maubee is responsible, Xavier has his doubts. This view is complicated by the police chief's personal history with Maubee: The men have been friends since childhood.
Mark | imdb: 5.4 |
Genre | action, thriller, melodrama, drama, crime, history |
Country | USA |
Duration | 01:30 |
House Un-American Activities Committee investigators Jim McLain and Mal Baxter come to post war Hawaii to track Communist Party activities even though belonging to the party was legal at the time. They are interested in everything from insurance fraud to the sabotage of a U.S. naval vessel.
Mark | imdb: 5.4 |
Genre | thriller, melodrama, drama |
Country | USA |
A passionate filmmaker creating a film based upon a true crime casts an unknown mysterious young woman bearing a disturbing resemblance to the femme fatale in the story. Unsuspectingly, he finds himself drawn into a complex web of haunting intrigue: he becomes obsessed with the woman, the crime, her possibly notorious past, and the disturbing complexity between art and truth. From the Smoky Mountains of North Carolina to Verona, Rome, and London, new truths are revealed and clues to other crimes and passions, darker and even more complex, are uncovered.
Mark | imdb: 6.8 |
Genre | thriller, drama, detective |
Country | USA |
Duration | 02:34 |
Mitch McDeere is a young man with a promising future in Law. About to sit his Bar exam, he is approached by 'The Firm' and made an offer he doesn't refuse. Seduced by the money and gifts showered on him, he is totally oblivious to the more sinister side of his company. Then, two Associates are murdered. The FBI contact him, asking him for information and suddenly his life is ruined. He has a choice - work with the FBI, or stay with the Firm. Either way he will lose his life as he knows it. Mitch figures the only way out is to follow his own plan...
Mark | imdb: 5.2 |
Genre | thriller, drama |
Country | Canada |
Duration | 01:30 |
CHRISTIAN SLATER plays a worldly and urbane priest who is forced to challenge his comfortable existence as an ecclesiastical spin-doctor when he comes to believe in the innocence of a young priest accused of murder. His only ally, a journalist, is also his former sweetheart.
Mark | imdb: 6.2 |
Genre | thriller, drama, crime, detective |
Country | United Kingdom, USA |
Duration | 01:36 |
A terrorist attack in London results in the capture of suspect, and the attorney general appoints Claudia Simmons-Howe as special advocate on his defence team. On the eve of the trial, the accused's attorney dies and a new one, Martin Rose, steps in. Martin and Claudia are former lovers—a fact which must remain hidden—and, as Martin assembles his case, he uncovers a sinister conspiracy that places him and Claudia in danger.
Mark | imdb: 7.2 |
Genre | drama, crime |
Country | USA |
Duration | 01:48 |
When reporter Rachel Armstrong writes a story that reveals the identity of a covert CIA operative, the government demands that Rachel reveal her source. She defies the special prosecutor and is thrown in jail. Meanwhile, her attorney, Albert Burnside argues her case all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Mark | imdb: 7 |
Genre | action, thriller, drama, crime |
Country | USA, United Arab Emirates |
Duration | 02:05 |
A thriller set in New York City during the winter of 1981, statistically one of the most violent years in the city's history, and centered on a the lives of an immigrant and his family trying to expand their business and capitalize on opportunities as the rampant violence, decay, and corruption of the day drag them in and threaten to destroy all they have built.
Mark | imdb: 8.5 |
Genre | thriller, drama, crime |
Country | USA, Hong Kong |
Duration | 02:31 |
To take down South Boston's Irish Mafia, the police send in one of their own to infiltrate the underworld, not realizing the syndicate has done likewise. While an undercover cop curries favor with the mob kingpin, a career criminal rises through the police ranks. But both sides soon discover there's a mole among them.
Mark | imdb: 4.5 |
Genre | thriller, drama |
Country | USA |
Duration | 01:38 |
Haunted by memories of his ex-girlfriend Alice, a heartbroken Billy returns home to Northern Virginia seeking solace from old friends. But what he finds there is more disconcerting: his best friend Stanley has become unstable, mysterious and withdrawn from those around him. Billy teams up with another old friend to find out what's going on and as they probe Stanley's recent activities, their friend's behaviour seems more and more bizarre and frightening.
Mark | imdb: 7.3 |
Genre | thriller, drama, crime, biography |
Country | Canada, USA |
"To Catch a Killer" tells the true gruesome story of John Wayne Gacy - a good friend and helpful neighbour, a great child entertainer, a respectful businessman, and a violent serial killer who raped and murdered over 30 young boys.
Mark | imdb: 6.9 |
Genre | thriller, drama, crime, detective, history |
Country | USA |
Duration | 01:52 |
A reporter becomes the target of a vicious smear campaign that drives him to the point of suicide after he exposes the CIA's role in arming Contra rebels in Nicaragua and importing cocaine into California. Based on the true story of journalist Gary Webb.
Mark | imdb: 7.3 |
Genre | thriller, melodrama, drama, crime, military, biography |
Country | United Kingdom, USA, Luxembourg, China |
Duration | 01:37 |
The true story of British intelligence whistleblower Katharine Gun who—prior to the 2003 Iraq invasion—leaked a top-secret NSA memo exposing a joint US-UK illegal spying operation against members of the UN Security Council. The memo proposed blackmailing member states into voting for war.
Mark | imdb: 6.6 |
Genre | thriller, drama, crime |
Country | USA, United Kingdom |
Duration | 02:12 |
A young district attorney seeking to prove a case against a corrupt police detective encounters a former lover and her new protector, a crime boss who refuse to help him.
Mark | imdb: 5.7 |
Genre | thriller, drama |
Country | USA |
Duration | 01:43 |
Upon taking a new job, young lawyer Rick Hayes is assigned to the clemency case of Cindy Liggett, a woman convicted of first degree murder and sentenced to death. As Hayes investigates the background for her case, the two begin to form a deep friendship, while all the while the date for her execution draws nearer.
Mark | imdb: 7.3 |
Genre | action, thriller, melodrama, drama, crime |
Country | USA, France |
Duration | 02:13 |
A married couple's life is turned upside down when the wife is accused of a murder. Lara Brennan is arrested for murdering her boss with whom she had an argument. It seems she was seen leaving the scene of the crime and her fingerprints were on the murder weapon. Her husband, John would spend the next few years trying to get her released, but there's no evidence that negates the evidence against her. And when the strain of being separated from her family, especially her son, gets to her, John decides to break her out. So he does a lot of research to find a way.
Mark | imdb: 7.4 |
Genre | thriller, drama |
Country | USA |
Duration | 02:02 |
While doing a series of reports on alternative energy sources, opportunistic reporter Kimberly Wells witnesses an accident at a nuclear power plant. Wells is determined to publicize the incident, but soon finds herself entangled in a sinister conspiracy to keep the full impact of the incident a secret.
Mark | imdb: 4.4 |
Genre | action, thriller, drama |
Country | USA |
When the son of a successful judge is killed by two police officers and the system sets them free, a hardened veteran detective finds some incriminating files on the officers and the judge teams up with another mourning father to take the law into his own hands.
Mark | imdb: 6.9 |
Genre | thriller, melodrama, drama, crime |
Country | Argentina, Chile, France, South Korea |
Duration | 01:47 |
In Argentina over 8,000 people die in traffic accidents every year. Behind each of these tragedies is a flourishing industry founded on insurance payouts and legal loopholes. Sosa is a lawyer who tours the A&E Departments of the public hospitals and the police stations in search of potential clients. Luján is a young doctor recently arrived from the provinces. Their love story kicks off one night when Luján and Sosa meet in the street. She's trying to save a man's life; he wants him on his client portfolio
Mark | imdb: 4.7 |
Genre | thriller, drama, detective |
Country | USA |
Deadline is the story of the murder of an African American youth in rural Alabama that has gone uninvestigated, unsolved, and unpunished for almost twenty years. That changes when Nashville Times reporter Matt Harper (Steve Talley) meets an idealistic young blueblood bent on discovering the truth. Harper undertakes the investigation despite the opposition of his publisher, violent threats from mysterious forces, a break-up with his fiancée, and his father's cancer diagnosis.
Mark | imdb: 6.6 |
Genre | thriller, drama, crime, detective |
Country | USA |
Duration | 02:07 |
Boozer, skirt chaser, careless father. You could create your own list of reporter Steve Everett's faults but there's no time. A San Quentin Death Row prisoner is slated to die at midnight – a man Everett has suddenly realized is innocent.
Mark | imdb: 6.3 |
Genre | thriller, drama, crime, detective |
Country | USA, United Kingdom, Spain, South Korea |
Duration | 02:32 |
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.