20 best movies like Diva (1981)


List of the best movies like Diva (1981): Le Cercle Rouge, The Transporter Refueled, Phantom of the Opera, In Their Sleep, Le Samouraï, Max & Jeremie, The Caveman's Valentine, Murders in the Rue Morgue, The Beat That My Heart Skipped, 22 Bullets.

Tags: movies similar to Diva (1981) - full list

Markimdb: 7.9
Genrethriller, drama, crime
CountryFrance, Italy
Duration02:14

When French criminal Corey gets released from prison, he resolves to never return. He is quickly pulled back into the underworld, however, after a chance encounter with escaped murderer Vogel. Along with former policeman and current alcoholic Jansen, they plot an intricate jewel heist. All the while, quirky Police Commissioner Mattei, who was the one to lose custody of Vogel, is determined to find him.

Markimdb: 5.2
Genreaction, thriller, crime
CountryFrance, USA, China, Belgium, Monaco
Duration02:34

The fast-paced action movie is again set in the criminal underworld in France, where Frank Martin is known as The Transporter, because he is the best driver and mercenary money can buy. In this installment, he meets Anna and they attempt to take down a group of ruthless Russian human traffickers who also have kidnapped Frank’s father.

Markimdb: 6.4
Genrehorror, thriller, melodrama, drama, music
CountryUSA
Duration01:32

Pit violinist Claudin hopelessly loves rising operatic soprano Christine Dubois (as do baritone Anatole and police inspector Raoul) and secretly aids her career. But Claudin loses both his touch and his job, murders a rascally music publisher in a fit of madness, and has his face etched with acid. Soon, mysterious crimes plague the Paris Opera House, blamed on a legendary "phantom".

Markimdb: 5.6
Genrehorror, thriller
CountryFrance
Duration01:24

Sarah's life is in pieces after the brutal death of her 18 year-old son. One night, her car accidentally hits Arthur, a young man the same age as her boy who is running from a burglar. Sarah sympathizes with him and takes him in, only to be tracked down by the burglar whose murderous rage towards Arthur forces her to take action.

Markimdb: 8
Genrethriller, drama, crime, detective
CountryFrance, Italy
Duration01:45

Hitman Jef Costello is a perfectionist who always carefully plans his murders and who never gets caught.

Markimdb: 6.1
Genrethriller, drama, crime
CountryFrance, Italy

Even among bombers and murderers, there is a social ladder, a hierarchy to climb. Jeremie is a mere bomber who blows up people and places for mobsters in Paris. He may not look it, scruffy lad that he is, but he is a sensitive fellow, and he feels his lowly status keenly. If only he could graduate to the ranks of hitmen, who are honored in his world, perhaps then he would feel more like somebody. He finally gets his chance when he receives instructions to kill the eminent hitman Max, who knows too much to be left alive. Instead of planning a cool and distant hit, Jeremie gets to know his quarry personally and thereby gets entangled in a mass of conflicting allegiances. Max has one more assignment and has asked Jeremie to help him with it. The hero-worshipping boy can't bring himself to knock of this classy guy. However, just having such an inept apprentice as Jeremie around is enormously dangerous for the soon-to-be-retired killer.

Markimdb: 5.8
Genrethriller, drama, crime, detective, music
CountryUSA, Canada
Duration01:43

In this spine-tingling and visually stunning thriller, Academy Award®-nominee Samuel L. Jackson (Unbreakable, Shaft, Pulp Fiction delivers a "full-throttle performance" (People) as Romulus Ledbetter, a misunderstood musician turned recluse, hiding from personal demons in a New York City cave. When Romulus finds the frozen body of a young drifter in a tree, the authorities - including his police officer daughter (Aunjanne Ellis) - claim the death is accidental. Romulus is convinced the man was murdered by prominent art photographer David Leppenraub (Colm Feore). But how can he prove he's right when everyone thinks he's insane?

Markimdb: 5.2
Genrehorror, thriller, melodrama, crime, detective
CountryUnited Kingdom
Duration01:38

In Paris, in the beginning of the Twentieth Century, Cesar Charron owns a theater at the Rue Morgue where he performs the play "Murders in the Rue Morgue" with his wife Madeleine Charron, who has dreadful nightmares. When there are several murders by acid of people connected to Cesar, the prime suspect of Inspector Vidocq would be Cesar's former partner Rene Marot. But Marot murdered Madeleine's mother many years ago and committed suicide immediately after.

Markimdb: 7.2
Genredrama, crime, music
CountryFrance
Duration01:48

Like his father, Tom is a real estate agent who makes his money from dirty, and sometimes brutal, deals. But a chance encounter prompts him to take up the piano and become a concert pianist. He auditions with the help of a beautiful, young virtuoso pianist who cannot speak French - music is their only exchange. But pressures from the ugly world of his day job soon become more than he can handle...

Markimdb: 6.7
Genreaction, drama, crime
CountryFrance
Duration01:57

Charly Matteï has turned his back on his life as an outlaw. For the last three years, he's led a peaceful life devoting himself to his wife and two children. Then, one winter morning, he's left for dead in the parking garage in Marseille's Old Port, with 22 bullets in his body. Against all the odds, he doesn't die...

Markimdb: 5.6
Genreaction, thriller, crime
CountryUSA
Duration01:33

A fireman takes an unexpected course of action when a man whom he's been ordered to testify against—after being held up at a local convenience store—threatens him.

Markimdb: 5.1
Genrethriller, drama
CountryFrance, Luxembourg, Hong Kong

A sordid and complex series of events unfolds when an ex-prostitute becomes involved with a couple in Hong Kong.

Markimdb: 5.6
Genrethriller, crime, detective
CountryFrance, Belgium, Germany
Duration01:46

Paris, December. A conductor of a choir is found mysteriously murdered, with burst eardrums. Lionel Kasdan, a police inspertor the verge of retirement, and Frank Salek, an official of Interpol, embark together on a hunt for the killer, and also to a secret organization specializing in kidnapping children.

Markimdb: 6.6
Genrethriller, melodrama, drama, crime
CountryFrance
Duration01:53

Mangin, a police inspector in Paris, leans hard on informants to get evidence on three Tunisian brothers who traffic in drugs. He arrests one, Simon, and his girl-friend Noria. Simon's brothers go to their lawyer. He springs Noria, who promptly steals 2 million francs that belong to the Tunisians. They suspect her of the theft; her life as well as the lawyer's is in danger. Meanwhile, Noria is playing with both the lawyer and Mangin's affections. Mangin is mercurial anyway: intimidating and bloodying suspects, falling for a police commission trainee before flipping for Noria, wearing his emotions on his sleeve. Can he save the lawyer and Noria, and can he convince her to love?

Markimdb: 7.1
Genrethriller, drama, crime
CountryUSA, France
Duration01:30

When the quiet life of a beach bum is upended by dreadful news, he sets off for his childhood home to carry out an act of vengeance.

Markimdb: 6.4
Genrehorror, thriller, drama, detective, music
CountryUnited Kingdom

The corrupt Lord Ambrose D'Arcy steals the life's work of the poor musical Professor Petry. In an attempt to stop the printing of music with D'Arcy's name on it, Petry breaks into the printing office and accidentally starts a fire, leaving him severely disfigured. Years later, Petry returns to terrorize a London opera house that is about to perform one of his stolen operas.

Markimdb: 5.4
Genrethriller
CountryBelgium, France
Duration01:40

Director Christophe Blanc delivers a fast-past thriller set to a background of Finland's stunning landscape. High-end car dealership owner Maxime is pursued by Finnish gangsters over unsatisfactory cars his dead partner sold them.

Markimdb: 6.3
Genrethriller, crime
CountryFrance
Duration01:39

In Montreal, the unemployed fashion designer Sophie Malaterre is shown a website, switch.com, where it is possible to switch houses with a stranger for vacation. Sophie seeks an apartment in Paris nearby the Eiffel Tower that belongs to Bénédicte Serteaux and they change apartments. Sophie arrives in Paris on Saturday morning. The next morning, policemen break in the apartment and arrest Sophie while she is having a bath. Detective Damien Forgeat interrogates Sophie believing that she is Bénédicte and she learns that a beheaded body was found in her room and all evidence of her life has been deleted.

Markimdb: 6.8
Genreaction, thriller, drama, crime
CountryUSA
Duration01:33

A young Brooklyn boy witnesses the brutal murder of his mother and grows up obsessed with finding her killer. Thus begins his life as a quiet, straight-A student by day and a self-appointed hero at night. But what is a real hero? And who decides what is right or wrong? As the boundaries blur, Sean's dual life wears on his psyche and his two worlds careen dangerously close to colliding. Like a graphic novel you can't put down, Boy Wonder challenges morality, distorting perceptions of what is right and what is justified, as it races to its shocking conclusion.

Markimdb: 6.3
Genrethriller, crime
CountryUSA
Duration01:25

Two kids find themselves in the centre of a deadly game of cat and mouse after taking a sheriff's cruiser for a joy ride.

Markimdb: 6.1
Genreaction, thriller, drama
CountryUSA, Canada
Duration01:31

While conveying a Porsche from Boston to Atlantic City, student Charlie has to make a stop due to engine trouble. Mistaken as rich, he's invited to a big poker game -- and wins big time. However Denny Halloran, son of a mighty mobster, is a bad loser and starts a fight. But he's also a bad fighter: he falls on his head and is dead. Now Charlie's in trouble; after he flees Halloran's father puts a reward on his head. Even the police won't help him against the mighty man... so Charlie has to run for his life.

Markimdb: 5.4
Genrefantastic, thriller, drama, crime
CountryFrance

Paris 2020, a high tech surgeon and her daughter are involved in a horrific car accident, the surgeon saves her daughter's life at the cost of manipulating her dreams and memories.

Markimdb: 7
Genrethriller, melodrama, drama, crime
CountryFrance
Duration01:37

A small-time con man on the run from the gangster husband of his girlfriend hides out in a strange, brooding mansion run by two mysterious women. There he finds himself trapped in deception between the two women. Shot on location in the French Riviera.

Markimdb: 6.9
Genrethriller, drama, crime
CountryFrance, Italy

The film story depicts Emile Buisson, following the death of his wife and child, escaping from a psychiatric institution in 1947 and returning to Paris. Buisson, who three years later would become France's public enemy number one, begins a murderous rampage through the French capital.

Markimdb: 7.7
Genrethriller, drama, crime, film noir
CountryUSA
Duration01:11

A tough cop meets his match when he has to guard a gangster's widow on a tense train ride.

Markimdb: 7.1
Genrethriller, drama, crime
CountryFrance, Belgium
Duration02:15

Newly transferred to the bustling port city of Marseille to assist with a crackdown on organized crime, energetic young magistrate Pierre Michel is given a rapid-fire tutorial on the ins and outs of an out-of-control drug trade. Pierre's wildly ambitious mission is to take on the French Connection, a highly organized operation that controls the city's underground heroin economy and is overseen by the notorious —and reputedly untouchable— Gaetan Zampa. Fearless, determined and willing to go the distance, Pierre plunges into an underworld world of insane danger and ruthless criminals.

Markimdb: 7.4
Genrethriller, drama, crime, film noir
CountryFrance
Duration01:25

Charlie is a former classical pianist who has changed his name and now plays jazz in a grimy Paris bar. When Charlie's brothers, Richard and Chico, surface and ask for Charlie's help while on the run from gangsters they have scammed, he aids their escape. Soon Charlie and Lena, a waitress at the same bar, face trouble when the gangsters arrive, looking for his brothers.

Markimdb: 6.6
Genreaction, thriller, crime
CountryFrance, Luxembourg, Belgium
Duration01:43

Vincent is a crooked cop whose drug heist goes wrong when he is stabbed and the criminals he is robbing discover his identity. Vincent escapes with a huge bag of cocaine, but discovers his loot belongs to a powerful mob boss who kidnaps Vincent's son. Vincent has until the end of the night to return the stash and save his son.

Markimdb: 7.3
Genrethriller, crime, detective, film noir
CountryUSA
Duration01:27

After years of investigation, Assistant District Attorney Martin Ferguson has managed to build a solid case against an elusive gangster whose top lieutenant is about to testify.

Markimdb: 5
Genrethriller, drama
CountryUSA

When a stunt man dies in Miami, his uncle, a New York mob boss, sends a hit man to tail the stunt coordinator, whom the boss wants dead. The hit man, Eric O'Bryne, gets close to his mark's daughter, and through her he asks her dad to teach him to do stunts. While waiting for the word to kill this mentor, Eric discovers the joy of stunt work and of being part of a family. Meanwhile, several people are looking for the dead man's briefcase of money and a cloth bag of illegal drugs that he stole from an undercover FBI agent now desperate to get the borrowed drugs back to the bureau. The stunt coordinator says that 'we dance in the shadows of death.' Can Eric step out into the sun?

Markimdb: 7.6
Genremelodrama, drama, crime
CountryFrance
Duration01:25

Ex-convict Georges Manda returns to the free world determined to go straight and takes a steady job as a carpenter. Unable to completely shake his connections with the underground, he meets with a former prison mate, older gangster Félix Leca, who introduces him to his mistress, the sweet but guarded Marie "Casque d'Or". Marie and Georges fall into a passionate relationship, driving Félix to do everything in his power to ruin the couple.

Markimdb: 7.1
Genrethriller, drama, crime, detective
CountryUSA, United Kingdom, France
Duration02:07

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.

Markimdb: 4.1
Genreaction, thriller
CountryUSA
Duration01:32

The mayor of a small town hires a bounty hunter to find his daughter's killer, but it turns out to be a very dangerous job.

Markimdb: 7.1
Genrethriller, drama, crime
CountryUSA

When a young boy's family is killed by the mob, their tough neighbor Gloria becomes his reluctant guardian. In possession of a book that the gangsters want, the pair go on the run in New York.

Markimdb: 6.8
Genreaction, thriller, drama, crime
CountryFrance
Duration01:24

Samuel Pierret is a nurse who saves the wrong guy – a thief whose henchmen take Samuel's pregnant wife hostage to force him to spring their boss from the hospital. A race through the subways and streets of Paris ensues, and the body count rises. Can Samuel evade the cops and the criminal underground and deliver his beloved to safety?

Markimdb: 5.7
Genrethriller, drama, crime
CountryUnited Kingdom, France

Charts the headlong fall of Pinkie, a razor-wielding disadvantaged teenager with a religious death wish.

Markimdb: 4.6
Genrethriller, melodrama, crime
CountryCanada, France, Luxembourg, United Kingdom
Duration01:23

Jenny, a young American woman, moves to Paris and gets involved with Jack, who is seemingly the man of her dreams. However, he has a lot to hide and Jenny quickly gets entangled his dangerous lifestyle.

Markimdb: 6.4
Genrethriller, crime, detective
CountryUnited Kingdom, France, Germany, USA
Duration02:03

After Silvia Broome, an interpreter at United Nations headquarters, overhears plans of an assassination, an American Secret Service agent is sent to investigate.

Markimdb: 7
Genrethriller, melodrama, drama, crime, film noir, music
CountryUSA
Duration01:55

Davis and Rains shine in a romantic melodrama set in the world of concert music. Davis is a pianist torn between her wealthy, jealous patron and her cellist husband.

Markimdb: 7
Genrethriller, drama, crime, detective
CountryUSA
Duration01:33

A hit man and his partner try to find out why their latest victim, a former race-car driver, did not try to get away.

Markimdb: 7
Genreaction, thriller, drama, crime
CountryUSA, United Arab Emirates
Duration02:05

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.

Markimdb: 6.6
Genrethriller, drama, crime, detective
CountryFrance

Francois always despised the textile barons who ruled his local town. But he fell in love with the family heiress Gilberte. Ten years ago, he would have married her. Now only hatred holds them together. Francois is accused of murder. A hooker and a football star lie slaughtered. He thinks he has been framed by the mob. Going underground, he finds that the trail leads all the way to the top - to Gilberte's family. He needs friends. And friends are hard to come by in his town.

Markimdb: 5.7
Genreaction, thriller, crime
CountryFrance, Belgium, Italy
Duration01:29

When police is about to apprehend a famous gang of bank robbers, an elite sniper opens fire from a roof, thus facilitating the flee of his accomplices. However, one of them is seriously injured, which compromises the plans of the thieves.

Markimdb: 4.5
Genrethriller, crime
CountryFrance
Duration01:32

Unable to repay their debts, Milan and Victor, best friends and co-owners of a Paris nightclub, are lured into a drug deal that goes bad. Tortured by police, they negotiate their freedom against an overwhelming testimony that condemns their psychotic liaison to prison. Six years later, the men's nightmare begins again when the pyschopath is granted his freedom. Now, not having talked for years, the old friends are united again in order to survive.

Markimdb: 5.8
Genreaction, thriller, drama, crime
CountryUSA
Duration01:36

Mason Storm, a 'go it alone' cop, is gunned down at home. The intruders kill his wife, and think they've killed both Mason and his son too. Mason is secretly taken to a hospital where he spends several years in a coma. His son meanwhile is growing up thinking his father is dead. When Mason wakes up, everyone is in danger - himself, his son, his best friend, his nurse - but most of all those who arranged for his death

Markimdb: 6.5
Genreaction, thriller, adventure
CountryIndia

Khalid, is entrusted with the task of eliminating Kabir, a former soldier turned rogue, as he engages in an epic battle with his mentor who had taught him everything.

Markimdb: 5.7
Genreaction, thriller
CountryFrance
Duration01:34

A police inspector must solve two grisly murders. The problem is that his only suspect is a blind man.

Markimdb: 5.8
Genreaction, thriller, drama, crime, detective
CountryUSA, Spain, United Kingdom, France
Duration02:24

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.

Markimdb: 8.1
Genrethriller, drama, crime
CountryFrance
Duration02:02

Out of prison after a five-year stretch, jewel thief Tony turns down a quick job his friend Jo offers him, until he discovers that his old girlfriend Mado has become the lover of local gangster Pierre Grutter during Tony's absence. Expanding a minor smash-and-grab into a full-scale jewel heist, Tony and his crew appear to get away clean, but their actions after the job is completed threaten the lives of everyone involved.

Markimdb: 7.5
Genrethriller, melodrama, drama, crime
CountryFrance
Duration01:21

A French man spies on a lovely younger woman across the way. When he's spotted by the woman shortly after being questioned by the police about a local murder, the man's simple life becomes more complicated.




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