20 best movies like The Dancer Upstairs (2002)

List of the best movies like The Dancer Upstairs (2002): Child 44, Everybody Has a Plan, Back Roads, A Walk Among the Tombstones, The Pelican Brief, I Wake Up Screaming, Bad Day at Black Rock, State of Play, Special 26, A Most Violent Year.

Tags: movies similar to The Dancer Upstairs (2002) - full list

Markimdb: 6.5
Genrethriller, drama, crime, detective
CountryCzech Republic, United Kingdom, USA, Russia
Duration02:21

Set in Stalin-era Soviet Union, a disgraced MGB agent is dispatched to investigate a series of child murders -- a case that begins to connect with the very top of party leadership.

Markimdb: 5.6
Genrethriller, drama, crime
CountryArgentina, Spain, Germany, USA

Pedro, a humble beekeeper who lives in the mysterious Argentinian region of the Delta del Tigre, travels to Buenos Aires to visit his twin brother Agustín, a successful but troubled pediatrician with marital issues, to give him bad news and ask him for a favor hard to fulfill, a unexpected arrival which will change Agustín's life forever.

Markimdb: 6.5
Genrethriller, drama, crime
CountryUSA
Duration01:51

A young man cares for his younger sisters after their mother is imprisoned for murdering their abusive father. When he strikes up an affair with a married woman, long-dormant family secrets bubble to the surface.

Markimdb: 6.5
Genreaction, thriller, drama, crime
CountryUSA
Duration01:54

Private investigator Matthew Scudder is hired by a drug kingpin to find out who kidnapped and murdered his wife.

Markimdb: 6.6
Genrethriller, drama, crime, detective
CountryUSA
Duration02:21

Two Supreme Court Justices have been assassinated. One lone law student has stumbled upon the truth. An investigative journalist wants her story. Everybody else wants her dead.

Markimdb: 7.2
Genrethriller, melodrama, drama, crime, detective, film noir
CountryUSA
Duration01:22

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.

Markimdb: 7.7
Genrethriller, drama, western, crime, detective
CountryUSA
Duration01:21

One-armed war veteran John J. Macreedy steps off a train at the sleepy little town of Black Rock. Once there, he begins to unravel a web of lies, secrecy, and murder.

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: 8
Genrethriller, drama, crime
CountryIndia
Duration02:24

In the early 1980s in India, a group of con artists rob well-known businessmen and politicians by posing as officers of the Central Bureau of Intelligence or income tax officials. The gang stages fake raids during which they steal great amounts of money from their targets.

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: 6.5
Genreaction, thriller, drama, crime, detective
CountryUSA

One memorable night in the life of veteran patrol officer Ray Mandel and his trainee, ambitious rookie cop Nick Holland in the LAPD's Olympic Division. With two cop killers on the loose and hunting for more targets, Mandel and Holland must contend with a city about to boil over, as well as Jack VanZandt, an unhinged rogue cop out for payback running wild in their patrol zone.

Markimdb: 7.4
Genrethriller, drama, crime, detective
CountryUSA
Duration01:48

Jack Terry is a master sound recordist who works on grade-B horror movies. Late one evening, he is recording sounds for use in his movies when he hears something unexpected through his sound equipment and records it. Curiosity gets the better of him when the media become involved, and he begins to unravel the pieces of a nefarious conspiracy. As he struggles to survive against his shadowy enemies and expose the truth, he does not know whom he can trust.

Markimdb: 7.2
Genrethriller, drama, crime, detective
CountryIndia
Duration01:53

Prime leader of a campaign against a big government project is killed in what appears to be a road accident. An IAS officer is ordered to probe the incident and the veils of falsehood begin to drop.

Markimdb: 6.2
Genreaction, thriller, drama, crime
CountryUSA
Duration02:35

After a violent encounter, Roy finds Rocky and sees something in her eyes that prompts a fateful decision. He takes her with him as he flees to Galveston, an action as ill-advised as it is inescapable.

Markimdb: 6.9
Genrethriller, drama, crime
CountryUnited Kingdom, France, USA
Duration02:29

Suave, charming and volatile, Reggie Kray and his unstable twin brother Ronnie start to leave their mark on the London underworld in the 1960s. Using violence to get what they want, the siblings orchestrate robberies and murders while running nightclubs and protection rackets. With police Detective Leonard "Nipper" Read hot on their heels, the brothers continue their rapid rise to power and achieve tabloid notoriety.

Markimdb: 7.5
Genrethriller, drama, crime, history
CountryUSA, Hungary
Duration01:43

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.

Markimdb: 6.8
Genrethriller, drama, crime, detective
CountryUSA
Duration01:49

Richard spots a man dumping a body, and decides to expose the man he thinks is the culprit with his friend Alex Cutter.

Markimdb: 6.5
Genrethriller, drama, crime, military, biography
CountryUSA
Duration02:15

Nate Foster, a young, idealistic FBI agent, goes undercover to take down a radical white supremacy terrorist group. The bright up-and-coming analyst must confront the challenge of sticking to a new identity while maintaining his real principles as he navigates the dangerous underworld of white supremacy. Inspired by real events.

Markimdb: 6.6
Genrethriller, drama, crime
CountryUSA, Germany
Duration02:10

A saga centered on a multi-generational family of New York City Police officers. The family's moral codes are tested when Ray Tierney, investigates a case that reveals an incendiary police corruption scandal involving his own brother-in-law. For Ray, the truth is revelatory, a Pandora's Box that threatens to upend not only the Tierney legacy but the entire NYPD.

Markimdb: 6.2
Genrethriller, melodrama, drama, crime, detective
CountryUSA
Duration02:03

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

Markimdb: 6.8
Genrethriller, melodrama, drama, crime
CountryUSA, Canada
Duration01:53

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.

Markimdb: 7.8
Genrethriller, drama, crime, film noir
CountryUSA
Duration01:52

Recently paroled from prison, legendary burglar "Doc" Riedenschneider, with funding from Alonzo Emmerich, a crooked lawyer, gathers a small group of veteran criminals together in the Midwest for a big jewel heist.

Markimdb: 6.5
Genrethriller, drama, crime
CountryUSA, Canada

Keen young Raymold Avila joins the Internal Affairs Department of the Los Angeles police. He and partner Amy Wallace are soon looking closely at the activities of cop Dennis Peck whose financial holdings start to suggest something shady. Indeed Peck is involved in any number of dubious or downright criminal activities. He is also devious, a womaniser, and a clever manipulator, and he starts to turn his attention on Avila.

Markimdb: 7.5
Genrethriller, drama, crime, detective, film noir
CountryUSA
Duration01:35

Gumshoe Philip Marlowe is hired by the oafish Moose Malloy to track down his former girlfriend. He's also hired to accompany an effeminate playboy buy back some jewels. When the exchange results in the playboy's murder, Marlowe can't leave the case alone, and soon discovers it's related to Malloy's. As he gets drawn deeper into a complex web of intrigue by a mysterious blonde, the detective finds his own life in increasing jeopardy.

Markimdb: 5.8
Genrethriller, drama, crime, detective
CountryUSA, Canada, France
Duration01:53

A newspaper photographer, Jean, researches the lurid and sensational axe murder of two women in 1873 as an editorial tie-in with a brutal modern double murder. She discovers a cache of papers that appear to give an account of the murders by an eyewitness.

Markimdb: 4.8
Genrethriller, drama, crime, detective
CountryUSA

6 strangers are kidnapped and through governmental technology have proof they have all killed before and are told 5 will die this night, one may walk, and the six have 2 hours to decide who gets to live.

Markimdb: 6.7
Genrethriller, drama, crime, detective
CountryUSA

A stranger in the increasingly strange city of San Francisco, Japanese crime novelist Aki is unsure of precisely what role she has to play in a real-life murder mystery involving ambiguous MacGuffins and amorphous identities. Unfolding in lonely places such as bookshops and hotel bars, Dave Boyle's moody thriller uncovers exhilarating new takes on genre conventions. Consequently, it's an alluring l'homme fatal who supplies Aki with the breadcrumb trail of clues that entices her into a labyrinthine plot of sinister dealings. In turn, the aging sheriff (veteran character actor Pepe Serna, fantastic in a rare leading role), who should rightfully be riding to her rescue, proves to be equally out of his depth. The game is afoot, the chase is exhilarating and the stakes are perilously high in this inspired neo-noir.

Markimdb: 7.1
Genrethriller, drama, crime, film noir
CountryUSA
Duration01:28

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.

Markimdb: 6.8
Genrethriller, drama, crime, biography
CountryRepublic of Ireland, United Kingdom, USA
Duration01:38

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.

Markimdb: 8.5
Genrethriller, drama, crime
CountryUSA, Hong Kong
Duration02:31

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.

Markimdb: 5.1
Genrethriller, drama, crime, detective
CountryUSA
Duration02:01

Based on true events, The Wannabe, a story about Thomas, a man obsessed with Mafia culture during the 1990s in New York City. When Thomas’s failed attempts to fix the trial of infamous mobster John Gotti gets him rejected by the people he idolizes most, he sets off on a drug infused crime spree with his girlfriend and longtime mob groupie, Rose, by brazenly robbing the local Mafia hangouts.

Markimdb: 6.5
Genreaction, thriller, drama, crime
CountryUSA, Germany
Duration01:53

When a mafia accountant is taken hostage on his beat, a police officer – wracked by guilt from a prior stint as a negotiator – must negotiate the standoff, even as his own family is held captive by the mob.

Markimdb: 7.5
Genrethriller, drama, documentary, crime, biography
CountryUnited Kingdom, USA
Duration01:39

It’s 1994: a 13-year-old boy disappears from his home in San Antonio, Texas. Three and a half years later, he is found alive, thousands of miles away, in Spain. Disoriented and quivering with fear, he divulges his shocking story of kidnap and torture. His family is overjoyed to bring him home. But all is not what it seems. Sure, he has the same tattoos, but he looks decidedly different, and he now speaks with a strange accent. Why doesn't the family seem to notice these glaring inconsistencies? It's only when an investigator starts asking questions that this astounding true story takes an even stranger turn.

Markimdb: 6.9
Genrethriller, drama, crime
CountryUSA, Canada
Duration01:50

A young short-con grifter suffers both injury and the displeasure of reuniting with his criminal mother, all the while dating an unpredictable young lady.

Markimdb: 7.4
Genrethriller, melodrama, drama, crime
CountryUSA
Duration01:52

A sheltered Amish child is the sole witness of a brutal murder in a restroom at a Philadelphia train station, and he must be protected. The assignment falls to a taciturn detective who goes undercover in a Pennsylvania Dutch community. On the farm, he slowly assimilates despite his urban grit and forges a romantic bond with the child's beautiful mother.

Markimdb: 5.7
Genrethriller, drama, crime, detective
CountryUSA
Duration01:41

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.

Markimdb: 7.5
Genrethriller, drama, crime, film noir
CountryUSA
Duration01:28

Burt Lancaster plays Steve Thompson, a man who seals his dark fate when he returns to Los Angeles to find his ex-wife Anna Dundee (Yvonne DeCarlo) eager to rekindle their love against all better judgement. She encourages their affair but then quickly marries mobster Slim Dundee (Dan Duryea). To deflect suspicion of the affair, Steve Thompson leads Dundee into a daylight armored-truck robbery.

Markimdb: 7.6
Genremelodrama, drama, crime, detective, film noir
CountryUSA
Duration01:35

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

Markimdb: 6.3
Genrethriller, drama, crime
CountryUSA
Duration02:13

A gang of criminals and corrupt cops plan the murder of a police officer in order to pull off their biggest heist yet across town.

Markimdb: 7.8
Genrethriller, drama, crime
CountryLuxembourg, West Germany, Spain
Duration01:30

The search for a child murderer drags a once-respected detective into an all-consuming obsession.

Markimdb: 6.6
Genrethriller, drama, crime, detective
CountryUSA
Duration02:07

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.

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: 6.5
Genrethriller, drama, crime, detective
CountrySpain, USA
Duration01:39

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.

Markimdb: 6.9
Genrethriller, drama, crime, detective, history
CountryUSA
Duration01:52

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.

Markimdb: 6
Genrethriller, drama, crime
CountryUSA
Duration01:53

Idealistic young attorney Adam Hall takes on the death row clemency case of his racist grandfather, Sam Cayhall, a former Ku Klux Klan member he has never met.

Markimdb: 7.2
Genreaction, thriller, melodrama, drama, crime
CountryUnited Kingdom, USA
Duration02:09

Terry Noonan returns home to New York's Hells Kitchen after a ten year absence. He soon hooks up with childhood pal Jackie who is involved in the Irish mob run by his brother Frankie. Terry also rekindles an old flame with Jackie's sister Kathleen. Soon, however, Terry is torn between his loyalty to his friends and his loyalties to others.

Markimdb: 7.5
Genrethriller, drama, crime, detective
CountryTurkey

In the absence of Behzat Ç., a superintendent named Himmet gets replaced as the president of the murder Bureau. When the murder of minister of Interior makes a big impact, Himmet decides to take advantage of it and he makes his team help the fight against terrorism bureau.

Markimdb: 5.9
Genreaction, thriller, drama, crime
CountryUSA, United Arab Emirates
Duration01:38

The mysterious murder of a US senator bearing the distinctive trademark of the legendary Soviet assassin 'Cassius', forces retired CIA operative, Paul Shepherson to team with rookie FBI agent, Ben Geary to solve the crime. Having spent his career chasing Cassius, Shepherdson is convinced his nemesis is long dead, but is pushed to take on the case by his former supervisor, Tom Highland. Geary, who wrote his Master's thesis on Shepherdson's pursuit of the Soviet killer, is certain that Cassius has resurfaced.

Markimdb: 6.6
Genrethriller, drama, crime
CountryUSA, United Kingdom, Germany
Duration01:53

Set during the Rodney King riots, a robbery homicide investigation triggers a series of events that will cause a corrupt LAPD officer to question his tactics.

Markimdb: 7.6
Genrethriller, drama, crime, detective
CountryUSA
Duration02:28

Detective Andrea Cornell is a tough, thorough Homicide Detective who leaves no stone unturned. Her unwavering dedication to her job makes her the most formidable opponent - or a highly valuable ally.




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