20 best movies like Bones (2005)

A slightly unhinged former Navy SEAL lands a job as a police officer in Los Angeles where he's partnered with a veteran detective trying to keep maintain a low stress level in his life.

A Los Angeles detective and his Japanese partner woo an artist while solving a stripper's murder.

In 1939, WBN, a fourth radio network, is about to take to America's airwaves. As if the confusion of the premiere night wasn't enough, Penny Henderson, the owner's secretary, must deal with an unhappy sponsor, an overbearing boss and a soon-to-be ex-husband who desperately wants her back. As the broadcast begins, a mysterious voice breaks the broadcast and suddenly members of the cast turn up dead. It's up to her husband Roger, to find out whodunit as the police chase him through the halls of WBN.

Dr. Jacob Hood is a brilliant biophysicist and special science advisor to the government who investigates scientific crises and oddities. His crusade is to protect the substance of science against those who would abuse and misuse scientific discoveries for their own gain.

In Los Angeles at the turn of the 1970s, drug-fueled detective Larry "Doc" Sportello investigates the disappearance of an ex-girlfriend.

After attending a gathering on a billionaire's yacht during a European vacation, a New York cop and his wife become prime suspects when he's murdered.

An outcast weirdo at a Catholic girls' boarding school. She has a special nose. Unlike the kid in The Sixth Sense, the olfactorily gifted girl Mon (Ploychompoo Jannine Weigel) can't see dead people, she smells them. More specifically, she can sniff out the troubled spirits who are still lurking in our realm. Her unique talent leads her to develop a connection with a boy ghost (Bom Phongsakon Tosuwan) who was a student when the place was a business school in the 1980s, before it was a church convent. Together, they investigate a murder that occurred there some 50 years before, when the school was the palace home of a princess, who was found beaten, bloodied and very much dead in her swimming pool. Her gardener took the fall for the death, but there was more to the case than met the eye.

The series follows Detective Carter, a radical LAPD detective, and Detective Lee, a by-the-book detective from Hong Kong, as they are forced into forming an unlikely partnership

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.

After spending decades living in the shadow of his more famous and successful sibling, Consulting Detective Sigerson Holmes (Wilder) is called upon to help solve a crucial case that leads him on a hilarious trail of false identities, stolen documents, secret codes... and exposed backsides.

Mariano Is a psychologist who must fulfill community service after losing a lawsuit by a traffic accident. He is forced to provide therapeutic support to Alfredo, a policeman depressed over his wife cheating on him. Mariano is then accidentally involved in a double homicide investigation being conducted by Alfredo.

Detective Philip Marlowe tries to help a friend who is accused of murdering his wife.

After her unfaithful husband leaves her, Mildred Pierce proves she can become independent and successful. However winning the approval of her spoiled daughter proves a greater challenge.

Jonathan Ames, a young Brooklyn writer, is feeling lost. He's just gone through a painful break-up, thanks in part to his drinking, can't write his second novel, and carouses too much with his magazine editor. Rather than face reality, Jonathan turns instead to his fantasies — moonlighting as a private detective — because he wants to be a hero and a man of action.

Rita Rizzoli is a narcotics cop with a plethora of disguises. When a drug shipment is hijacked, the thieves don't know that the drug is unusually pure and packs of 'Fatal Beauty' begin turning up next to too many dead bodies. Mike works for the original owner of the drugs and tries to tell himself that since he does not handle the drugs, he is 'clean'. Mike becomes Rita's constant companion.

While on a train, Nikki Collins witnesses a murder as they pass a building. When she tells the police, they think she's crazy since she can't tell exactly where the crime happened. She then enlists a popular mystery writer to help with her sleuthing.

After a woman shoots a man to death, a damning letter she wrote raises suspicions.

When the murdered body discovered by beautiful, vivacious socialite Melsa Manton disappears, police and press label her a prankster until she proves them wrong.

Uncle John revolves around the struggle to keep a mysterious disappearance unsolved

A dark comedy about four self-absorbed twenty-somethings who become entangled in an ominous mystery when a former college acquaintance suddenly disappears.

Maddie, a persona shifting con-artist who is as beautiful as she is dangerous, leaves her unwitting victims tormented when they realize they have been used and robbed of everything – including their hearts. But things get complicated when her former targets, Ezra, Richard, and Jules team up to track her down. While pursuing her newest mark, Maddie meets a potential love interest, Patrick, which threatens to derail her assignment, much to the chagrin of her mysterious boss, The Doctor.

A drama about the local field office that investigates criminal cases affecting military personnel in The Big Easy, a city known for its music, entertainment and decadence.

A young promoter is accused of the murder of Vicky Lynn, a young actress he "discovered" as a waitress while out with ex-actor Robin Ray and gossip columnist Larry Evans.

Nicky, a veteran con artist, takes a novice named Jess under his wing. While Nicky teaches Jess the tricks of the trade, the pair become romantically involved; but, when Jess gets uncomfortably close, Nicky ends their relationship. Three years later, Nicky is in Buenos Aires working a very dangerous scheme when Jess -- now an accomplished femme fatale -- unexpectedly shows up. Her appearance throws Nicky for a loop at a time when he cannot afford to be off his game.

Director Billy Wilder adds a new and intriguing twist to the personality of intrepid detective Sherlock Holmes. One thing hasn't changed however: Holmes' crime-solving talents. Holmes and Dr. Watson take on the case of a beautiful woman whose husband has vanished. The investigation proves strange indeed, involving six missing midgets, villainous monks, a Scottish castle, the Loch Ness monster, and covert naval experiments. Can the sleuths make sense of all this and solve the mystery

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.

Detective Inspector Richard Poole is transferred to Sainte Marie, an island in the Caribbean. Totally unsuited to the Caribbean way of life, Richard hates the sun, sea and sand and isn't used to the Sainte Marie style of policing. Working with the exotic Camille each week Richard investigates intricate and intriguing murders.

In 1934, Frank Hamer and Manny Gault, two former Texas Rangers, are commissioned to put an end to the wave of vicious crimes perpetrated by Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow, a notorious duo of infamous robbers and cold-blooded killers who nevertheless are worshiped by the public.

Art dealer, Charles Mortdecai, searches for a stolen painting rumored to contain a secret code that gains access to hidden Nazi gold.

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.

Bill Pope is a CIA agent on a mission in London tracking down a shadowy hacker nicknamed "The Dutchman." When he gets mysteriously ambushed and killed, an experimental procedure is used to transfer his memories into dangerous ex-convict Jericho Stewart. When he wakes up with the CIA agent's memories, his mission is to find The Dutchman and eliminate him before the hacker launches ICBM's and starts World War III. But complications soon arise and the mission turns personal.

When a geeky, overweight rushee is found dead at the hottest sorority on the campus, the three most popular girls of the house are prime suspects.

A writer of BAD detective novels is in full writers' block. He pretends to be the alibi of a beautiful woman who was arrested for murder at first thinking her innocent, but as she shows more and more interesting abilities (such as knife throwing) he begins to doubt his first assessment.

An FBI agent tracks a serial killer with the help of three of his would-be victims - all of whom have wildly different stories to tell.

Nancy Drew, a smart high schooler with a penchant for keen observation and deduction, stumbles upon the haunting of a local home. A bit of an outsider struggling to fit into her new surroundings, Nancy and her pals set out to solve the mystery, make new friends, and establish their place in the community

A hippie radical, Huey Walker has been a fugitive for decades, accused of a crime that he may not have committed. Finally apprehended, Walker is escorted to trial by uptight 20-something FBI agent John Buckner. While the two seem to be polar opposites, it turns out that Buckner may have more in common with Walker than is initially apparent, a point that is driven home when the pair faces off against a sinister small-town sheriff.

Hours after his release from prison, Jesus Quintana pairs up with fellow misfits Petey and Marie for a freewheeling joyride of petty crime and romance.

A seasoned police detective and his partner have just uncovered a string of unusual murders that lead them to a serial killer, who believes that he is the descendant of Judas.

Five close friends, all of them married, share a loft to meet their mistresses. One day they find the body of a young woman in the loft. Since there are only five keys to the loft, the five men begin to suspect each other of murder.

When a plot against a prominent Middle Eastern politician is uncovered, David Pollock, a professor of ancient hieroglyphics at Oxford University, is recruited to help expose the scheme. Pollock must find information believed to be in hieroglyphic code and must also contend with a mysterious man called Beshraavi. Meanwhile, Beshraavi's lover, Yasmin Azir, seems willing to aid Pollock -- but is she really on his side?

People in an old, dark mansion are menaced by a maniac called "The Black Ace.

A gritty crime saga which follows the lives of an elite unit of the LA County Sheriff's Dept. and the state's most successful bank robbery crew as the outlaws plan a seemingly impossible heist on the Federal Reserve Bank.

When Addison investigates the murder of his friend Kevin with the help of Phoebe, they discover that the truth is darker than they had ever imagined.

A man convicted of murder escapes from jail and hides out in the home of a small town newspaper publisher who has befriended him. She knows who the real killer is.

Echo must deal with the regular dramas of high school, in addition to grappling with the murder of her older sister, Zoë. But when Echo receives a diary from Zoë's boyfriend, she begins to untangle the secret life her sister lived.

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.

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.

Nightclub manager Darnell Wright is a perpetual playboy who is almost as devoted to his job as he is to the pursuit of beautiful women. After he sets his sights on the ultra-classy Brandi Web, he launches an all-out assault to win her heart. Ultimately, charm, lust and passion prevail, but Darnell learns the hard way that when you play, you pay. Brandi is much harder to get rid of than she was to get--especially when she realizes that she has a rival vying for Darnell's affection. When he finally decides to call it quits, Brandi becomes an obsessed femme fatale stalking the new love of her life.

A married woman and a drifter fall in love, then plot to murder her husband.

When a bag filled with money goes missing from a casino, the Hitman (Chris O'Donnell) must retrieve it. While he tracks the stash down, the bag changes hands numerous times, finding its way to the Drifter (Jeremy Davies) and the Waitress (Rachael Leigh Cook), among others. As the bag's journey continues, more characters, including the Cop (Michael Rapaport) and the Sheriff (Keith David), get drawn into the winding crime tale, and the search becomes increasingly desperate.