20 best movies like The Spiral Staircase (1945)

Lt. Dave Robicheaux, a detective in New Iberia, Louisiana, is trying to link the murder of a local hooker to New Orleans mobster Julie (Baby Feet) Balboni, who is co-producer of a Civil War film. At the same time, after Elrod Sykes, the star of the film, reports finding another corpse in the Atchafalaya Swamp near the movie set, Robicheaux starts another investigation, believing the corpse to be the remains of a black man who he saw being murdered 35 years before.

Bernard Salzmann's thriller Assumed Killer tells the tale of a reporter investigating a serial killer. After she suffers an accident and becomes an amnesiac, she begins to suspect her husband may be the person responsible for the brutal slayings

Publisher, Will Atenton quits a lucrative job in New York to relocate his wife, Libby and their daughters to a quaint town in New England. However, as they settle into their home the Atentons discover that a woman and her children were murdered there, and the surviving husband is the town's prime suspect. With help from a neighbor who was close to the murdered family, Will pieces together a horrifying chain of events.

A young woman doctor discovers something sinister going on in her hospital. Relatively healthy patients are having 'complications' during simple operations and ending up in comas. The patients are then shipped off to an institute that looks after them. The young doctor suspects there is more to this than meets the eye.

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.

Matt Lee Whitlock, respected chief of police in small Banyan Key, Florida, must solve a vicious double homicide before he himself falls under suspicion. Matt Lee has to stay a few steps ahead of his own police force and everyone he's trusted in order to find out the truth.

Concentration camp survivor Victoria Kowelska finds herself involved in mystery, greed, and murder when she assumes the identity of a dead friend in order to gain passage to America.

A recently released ex-con gets involved in a fake kidnapping scheme that turns very real.

A Boston police detective investigates a series of gruesome decapitations of various college coeds commited by a helmeted, black-leather clad serial killer which leads him to suspect a well known anthropology professor as well as his female live-in assistant.

An American journalist arrives in Berlin just after the end of World War Two. He becomes involved in a murder mystery surrounding a dead GI who washes up at a lakeside mansion during the Potsdam negotiations between the Allied powers. Soon his investigation connects with his search for his married pre-war German lover.

A dabbler-in-crime and his assistant hire an ex-police reporter to recover some stolen papers.

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 car crash, a criminal psychologist (Halle Berry) comes to, only to find that she's a patient in the same mental institution that currently employs her. It seems she's been accused of murdering her husband -- but she has no memory of committing the crime. As she tries to regain her memory and convince her co-workers of her innocence, a vengeful spirit uses her as an earthly pawn, which further convinces everyone of her guilt.

When 4 year old Amanda McCready disappears from her home and the police make little headway in solving the case, the girl's aunt, Beatrice McCready hires two private detectives, Patrick Kenzie and Angie Gennaro. The detectives freely admit that they have little experience with this type of case, but the family wants them for two reasons - they're not cops and they know the tough neighborhood in which they all live. As the case progresses, Kenzie and Gennaro face drug dealers, gangs and pedophiles. When they are about to solve the case, they are faced with a moral dilemma that tears them apart.

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.

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

A sheriff begins an investigation into the death of a local transsexual after hearing that high ranking politicians may have been involved. Although he is homophobic, his investigation causes him to be rejected by others, forcing him to seek help from the people he once despised.

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.

Radio talk show therapist Sonny Blake (Rose McGowan) moves back to her childhood home on seemingly idyllic Rosewood Lane after her alcoholic father dies. But upon arrival in the old neighborhood, Sonny discovers her neighbors are terrified of the local paperboy (Daniel Ross Owens). She thinks this is ridiculous, until she encounters the boy himself. It turns out that he is a cunning and dangerous sociopath, one who may have gruesomely killed her father - and others.

When a teenage girl says she's the victim of a secret network called The Sisterhood of Night, a quiet suburban town becomes the backdrop for a modern-day Salem witch trial.

A young journalist goes deep undercover within a mountain commune and becomes manipulated by a duplicitous cult leader.

A dark terror has come to the picture-perfect town of Jerusalem's Lot, and it's up to a writer with a haunted past to uncover the horror that has taken over the town.

Leona Stevenson is confined to bed and uses her telephone to keep in contact with the outside world. One day she overhears a murder plot on the telephone and is desperate to find out who is the intended victim.

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.

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.

Young lawyer Iris discovers that she has an older, autistic half-brother Ray, who is in prison for the atrocious murder of his neighbour and her five-year-old daughter. When she meets Ray he reminds her a lot of her own son Aron, who also is autistic, and she starts to believe that he is innocent.

Crystal and her boyfriend Leo embark on a tense and mysterious road trip through the desolate yet hauntingly beautiful landscape of central Florida.

A burned out, abusive, alcoholic writer named Oliviero lives with his wife, Irina, at their estate in Venice, along with his late mother's mysterious black cat, Satan. To pass the time, Oliviero hosts parties for the local hippies, humiliating Irina in front of his guests. When his mistress is murdered, police suspect Oliviero, and things get complicated when his young, beautiful and self-confident niece, Floriana, pays an unexpected visit.

Jeff Bailey seems to be a mundane gas station owner in remote Bridgeport, CA. He is dating local girl Ann Miller and lives a quiet life. But Jeff has a secret past, and when a mysterious stranger arrives in town, Jeff is forced to return to the dark world he had tried to escape.

A bad day gets worse for young detective Murakami when a pickpocket steals his gun on a hot, crowded bus. Desperate to right the wrong, he goes undercover, scavenging Tokyo’s sweltering streets for the stray dog whose desperation has led him to a life of crime. With each step, cop and criminal’s lives become more intertwined and the investigation becomes an examination of Murakami’s own dark side.

When her child goes missing, a mother looks to unravel the legend of the Tall Man, an entity who allegedly abducts children.

A man working for the War Crimes Commission suspects that an important Nazi official has folded himself into a quaint Connecticut town.

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.

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.

Johnny Smith is a schoolteacher with his whole life ahead of him but, after leaving his fiancee's home one night, is involved in a car crash which leaves him in a coma for 5 years. When he wakes, he discovers he has an ability to see into the past, present and future life of anyone with whom he comes into physical contact.

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.

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

Based on the true events of the only case in US History where a spirit caused the death of a man.

Innocent lives hang on the whim of an elusive psychopathic murderer whose strange riddles and impossible timelines force three people into a mission to end the game before one or all of them die.

Alice is a withdrawn 12-year-old who lives with her mother and her younger sister, Karen, who gets most of the attention from her mother, leaving Alice out of the spotlight. When Karen is found brutally murdered in a church, suspicions start to turn toward Alice. But could a 12-year-old girl really be capable of such savagery?