20 best movies like Killing Words (2003)

When a notorious German serial killer is captured after committing some of the most heinous acts against humanity ever imaginable, a farmer and police officer from a sleepy rural community on the outskirts of Berlin is drawn into the case as he searches for the answers to a murder that has shaken his tight-knit community.

How far will you go to protect your family? Jorge is a peaceful hard-working man who seeks a simple, quiet life for himself and his family. One day, he is mugged and humiliated by a gang of thugs led by Kalule, a delinquent from his neighborhood. This event infuriates his son as much for Jorge’s meek acceptance as for the act itself. The son, looking for retribution, ends up getting himself shot. Kalule is sent to jail and when he gets out 18 months later, begins a campaign of terror against Jorge and his family. The authorities do nothing, so Jorge decides to take matters into his own hands.

Eddie Miller struggles with his hatred of women, he's especially bothered by seeing women with their lovers. He starts a killing spree as a sniper by shooting women from far distances. In an attempt to get caught, he writes an anonymous letter to the police begging them to stop him.

After a perverted impulse drives them to kill, Alice and her boyfriend, Luc, drag the body into the woods, only to find themselves hopelessly lost – much like the fairy-tale plight of Hansel and Gretel. Starving and with no hope of being found, they chance upon a dilapidated cottage where a hulking man takes them prisoner and proceeds to feed Luc's sexual appetite.

After a break-in at their house, a couple gets help from one of the cops that answered their call. He helps them install the security system, and begins dropping by on short notice and unofficial patrol, and spends a lot of time discussing the couple's problems with the wife. The husband begins wondering if they're getting too much help.

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.

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.

After a painful breakup, Leah seems to meet the perfect guy. But she soon discovers his violent side that disrupts her life.

Jordan Turner is an experienced 911 operator but when she makes an error in judgment and a call ends badly, Jordan is rattled and unsure if she can continue. But when teenager Casey Welson is abducted in the back of a man's car and calls 911, Jordan is the one called upon to use all of her experience, insights and quick thinking to help Casey escape, and not just to save her, but to make sure the man is brought to justice.

Hit man Cleve approaches writer/cop Dennis about a story for his next book: How Cleve made a living, working for one of the most powerful politicians in the country. To get the story right, they travel around the country to gather statements and evidence, while strong forces use any means they can to keep the story untold.

A man with the ability to enter peoples' memories takes on the case of a brilliant, troubled sixteen-year-old girl to determine whether she is a sociopath or a victim of trauma.

David Sumner, a mild-mannered academic from the United States, marries Amy, an Englishwoman. In order to escape a hectic stateside lifestyle, David and his wife relocate to the small town in rural Cornwall where Amy was raised. There, David is ostracized by the brutish men of the village, including Amy's old flame, Charlie. Eventually the taunts escalate, and two of the locals rape Amy. This sexual assault awakes a shockingly violent side of David.

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.

When Keller Dover's daughter and her friend go missing, he takes matters into his own hands as the police pursue multiple leads and the pressure mounts. But just how far will this desperate father go to protect his family?

L.A. screenwriter David Sumner relocates with his wife, Amy, to her hometown in the deep South. There, while tensions build between them, a brewing conflict with locals becomes a threat to them both.

The intriguing relationship between three desperados, who try to kidnap a wealthy child in hope of turning their lives around.

Kate and her brutish boyfriend Big Al sell handguns on the streets of New York. She's smart, stylish, and self-confident, but all that leaves her when Al, in a jealous and self-indulgent rage, beats her. Three friends encourage her recovery: Vic, a woman who would like to be Kate's lover; Reilly, who runs with Al but also is attracted to Kate and repulsed by Al's violence; and, Liz, the counselor assigned to Kate from a battered-women's program. Vic and Reilly talk about killing Al, Liz gives pep talks; Kate remains frightened. Will Al's menace and Kate's dependency hold sway?

A frustrated man decides to take justice into his own hands after a plea bargain sets one of his family's killers free. He targets not only the killer but also the district attorney and others involved in the deal.

Boston is being terrorized by a series of seemingly random murders of women. Based on the true story, the film follows the investigators path through several leads before introducing the Strangler as a character. It is seen almost exclusively from the point of view of the investigators who have very few clues to build a case upon.

Based on the true story of a Russian serial killer who, over many years, claimed victim to over 50 people. His victims were mostly under the age of 17. In what was then a communists state, the police investigations were hampered by bureaucracy, incompetence and those in power. The story is told from the viewpoint of the detective in charge of the case.

On his sprawling country estate, an aging writer matches wits with the struggling actor who has stolen his wife's heart.

A woman subject to mental, physical, and sexual abuse on a remote island seeks a way out.

An American bartender and his prostitute girlfriend go on a road trip through the Mexican underworld to collect a $1 million bounty on the head of a dead gigolo.

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.

How can a split-second decision change your life? While investigating noises in his house one balmy Texas night in 1989, Richard Dane puts a bullet in the brain of low-life burglar Freddy Russell. Although he’s hailed as a small-town hero, Dane soon finds himself fearing for his family’s safety when Freddy’s ex-con father, Ben, rolls into town, hell-bent on revenge.

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.

Two speleologists, Esteban and Pedro, travel to a mountainous area located in northern Spain, near a small village, to study a newly discovered cave and determine if it is of scientific interest, while Gabi, Esteban's wife, awaits their return on a lonely road at the foot of the mountain.

In 1960s socialist Hungary, a serial killer targeting young women torments a small town and the determined detective on his trail. Based on true events.

Lila, a grief-stricken mother reeling from her son’s murder, attends a support group where she meets Eve, who urges her to take matters into her own hands to track down her son’s killers.

A law firm brings in its 'fixer' to remedy the situation after a lawyer has a breakdown while representing a chemical company that he knows is guilty in a multi-billion dollar class action suit.

A chronicle of the interaction between college student Jason Moss and the object of his obsession, serial killer John Wayne Gacy.

13-year-old Sinikka vanishes on a hot summer night. Her bicycle is found in the exact place where a girl was killed 23 years ago. The dramatic present forces those involved in the original case to face their past.

It's fire and brimstone time as grieving mother Karen McCann takes justice into her own hands when a kangaroo court in Los Angeles fails to convict Robert Doob, the monster who raped and murdered her 17-year-old daughter.

When a family of four rent a beautiful house for their summer vacation, the price seems too good to be true. Unbeknownst to them, the lascivious owner has set up a series of spy cams throughout the house, documenting their most intimate moments and live streaming them to the dark web.

A woman who survived the brutal killing of her family as a child is forced to confront the events of that day.

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.

The tentative romance between a gentle Madrid labourer and a working single mother becomes a struggle for survival when the woman’s violent boyfriend returns from prison, in the gritty, suspenseful debut feature from Spanish actor Raúl Arévalo.

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

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.

A girl who lost her father to a serial killer, a detective and a killer are intertwined in a chaotic relationship and are met with an unprecedented series of events.

Three teenage friends get in way over their head when they cross a down-home crime syndicate. They hope to make a break for it and escape their dead-end existence in a cotton-mill town but get sucked into the seedy underbelly of organized crime when one of them steals from the wrong man.

A psychological thriller based on the concept of anamorphosis, a painting technique that manipulates the laws of perspective to create two competing images on a single canvas.

A troubled detective travels to Memphis in order to track down a pair of serial killers.

After spending seven years in jail for an art heist, Frenchman Victor Lambert returns to Moscow to uncover the circumstances behind his son Jeremy's brutal murder. He is backed by his lover Alexandra, and by his ex-partner-in-crime, choreographer Souliman.

A psychological thriller about a man who is sometimes controlled by his murder-and-mayhem-loving alter ego.

A conflicted youth confesses to crimes he didn't commit while a man and woman aroused by death become obsessed with each other.

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.

Former undercover police officer Jack Adleth returns to London seeking those who tried to have him killed in Amsterdam.

In Argentina, between 1982 and 1985, the Puccios, a well-established family of San Isidro, an upper-class suburb of Buenos Aires, kidnap several people and hold them as hostages for a ransom.

A drug kingpin's return home touches off a turf war.