Best movies like American Pastoral

Similar in 87%

The Tenants (2005)

Plot Summary:

The story of a Jewish novelist, Harry Lesser, struggling to complete his latest work, and his antagonistic relationship with a black writer who moves in down the hall.

Similar in 84%

Reservation Road (2007)

Plot Summary:

Two fathers' lives intersect when one of them is involved in a terrible and sudden hit-and-run car accident that leaves the other's son dead. In response, the two men (Joaquin Phoenix and Mark Ruffalo) react in unexpected ways as a reckoning looms in the near future.

Similar in 86%

Palmetto (1998)

Plot Summary:

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

Similar in 81%

The Weight of Water (2000)

Plot Summary:

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.

Similar in 82%

The Hot Spot (1990)

Plot Summary:

A loner moves in to a small Texas town, finds himself a job, and sets about plotting to rob the local bank.

Similar in 82%

The Deep End (2001)

Plot Summary:

With her husband Jack perpetually away at work, Margaret Hall raises her children virtually alone. Her teenage son is testing the waters of the adult world, and early one morning she wakes to find the dead body of his gay lover on the beach of their rural lakeside home. What would you do? What is rational and what do you do to protect your child? How far do you go and when do you stop?.

Similar in 77%

Mulholland Falls (1996)

Plot Summary:

In 1950s Los Angeles, a special crime squad of the LAPD investigates the murder of a young woman.

Similar in 77%

The Chamber (1996)

Plot Summary:

Having survived the hatred and bigotry that was his Klansman grandfather's only legacy, young attorney Adam Hall seeks at the last minute to appeal the old man's death sentence for the murder of two small Jewish boys 30 years before. Only four weeks before Sam Cayhall is to be executed, Adam meets his grandfather for the first time in the Mississippi prison which has held him since the crime. The meeting is predictably tense when the educated, young Mr. "Hall" confronts his venom-spewing elder, Mr. "Cayhall," about the murders. The next day, headlines run proclaiming Adam the grandson who has come to the state to save his grandfather, the infamous Ku Klux Klan bomber. While the old man's life lies in the balance, Adam's motivation in fighting this battle becomes clear as the story unfolds. Not only does he fight for his grandfather, but perhaps for himself as well. He has come to heal the wounds of his own father's suicide.

Similar in 77%

Lost Girls (2020)

Plot Summary:

When Mari Gilbert's daughter disappears, police inaction drives her own investigation into the gated Long Island community where Shannan was last seen. Her search brings attention to over a dozen murdered sex workers.

Similar in 75%

The Boston Strangler (1968)

Plot Summary:

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.

Similar in 77%

Trespass (2011)

Plot Summary:

Kyle (Nicolas Cage) and Sarah Miller (Nicole Kidman) have it all: a huge gated house on the water, fancy cars, and the potential for romance in their relationship. He's just back from a business trip (he brokers diamonds) and their teen daughter Avery (Liana Liberato) is sneaking out to a party, when four thugs in security uniforms and ski masks stage a home invasion. They want what's in the safe: cash and diamonds. As Kyle stalls them, trying to negotiate for Sarah's freedom, the fault lines in Kyle and Sarah's marriage and the pasts of the four robbers come into play. Is there room here for heroism?.

Similar in 81%

Murder in Greenwich (2002)

Plot Summary:

The story of Martha Moxley, 15 year old girl murdered in Greenwich in the 1970's, her murder going unsolved for 25 years.

Similar in 89%

Man on Fire (2004)

Plot Summary:

Jaded ex-CIA operative John Creasy reluctantly accepts a job as the bodyguard for a 10-year-old girl in Mexico City. They clash at first, but eventually bond, and when she's kidnapped he's consumed by fury and will stop at nothing to save her life.

Similar in 87%

Shoot on Sight (2007)

Plot Summary:

Tariq Ali, a Muslim police officer of Scotland Yard, is asked to hunt-down suspected suicide-bombers against the backdrop of July 7 bombings in London. Tariq's task gets complicated as an innocent Muslim is killed by the commando shooters of Scotland Yard. On the other hand, Tariq - a British citizen is himself a suspect in the eyes of his boss, despite his long service in the Scotland Yard.

Similar in 87%

Summer of Sam (1999)

Plot Summary:

Spike Lee's take on the "Son of Sam" murders in New York City during the summer of 1977 centering on the residents of an Italian-American South Bronx neighborhood who live in fear and distrust of one another.

Similar in 82%

House of Sand and Fog (2003)

Plot Summary:

Behrani, an Iranian immigrant buys a California bungalow, thinking he can fix it up, sell it again, and make enough money to send his son to college. However, the house is the legal property of former drug addict Kathy. After losing the house in an unfair legal dispute with the county, she is left with nowhere to go. Wanting her house back, she hires a lawyer and befriends a police officer. Neither Kathy nor Behrani have broken the law, so they find themselves involved in a difficult moral dilemma.

Similar in 87%

The Ghost Writer (2010)

Plot Summary:

A writer stumbles upon a long-hidden secret when he agrees to help former British Prime Minister Adam Lang complete his memoirs on a remote island after the politician's assistant drowns in a mysterious accident. In director Roman Polanski's tense drama, the author realizes that his discovery threatens some very powerful people who will do anything to ensure that certain episodes from Lang's past remain buried.

Similar in 84%

Cassandra's Dream (2007)

Plot Summary:

The tale of two brothers with serious financial woes. When a third party proposes they turn to crime, things go bad and the two become enemies.

Similar in 80%

All Good Things (2010)

Plot Summary:

Newly-discovered facts, court records and speculation are used to elaborate the true love story and murder mystery of the most notorious unsolved murder case in New York history.

Similar in 82%

Little Children (2006)

Plot Summary:

The lives of two lovelorn spouses from separate marriages, a registered sex offender, and a disgraced ex-police officer intersect as they struggle to resist their vulnerabilities and temptations.

Similar in 82%

Inventing the Abbotts (1997)

Plot Summary:

In the 1950s, brothers Jacey and Doug Holt, who come from the poorer side of their sleepy Midwestern town, vie for the affections of the wealthy, lovely Abbott sisters. Lady-killer Jacey alternates between Eleanor and Alice, wanting simply to break the hearts of rich young women. But sensitive Doug has a real romance with Pamela, which Jacey and the Abbott patriarch, Lloyd, both frown upon.

Similar in 75%

Mystic River (2003)

Plot Summary:

A story about friendship and loyalty, guilt and vengeance, and the fateful affect the past has on the present.

Similar in 77%

Zodiac (2007)

Plot Summary:

The true story of the investigation of the "Zodiac Killer", a serial killer who terrified the San Francisco Bay Area, taunting police with his ciphers and letters. The case becomes an obsession for four men as their lives and careers are built and destroyed by the endless trail of clues.

Similar in 77%

The Girl on the Train (2016)

Plot Summary:

Rachel Watson, devastated by her recent divorce, spends her daily commute fantasizing about the seemingly perfect couple who live in a house that her train passes every day, until one morning she sees something shocking happen there and becomes entangled in the mystery that unfolds.

Similar in 79%

Dolores Claiborne (1995)

Plot Summary:

Dolores Claiborne was accused of killing her abusive husband twenty years ago, but the court's findings were inconclusive and she was allowed to walk free. Now she has been accused of killing her employer, Vera Donovan, and this time there is a witness who can place her at the scene of the crime. Things look bad for Dolores when her daughter Selena, a successful Manhattan magazine writer, returns to cover the story.

Similar in 77%

Mississippi Burning (1988)

Plot Summary:

Two FBI agents investigating the murder of civil rights workers during the 60s seek to breach the conspiracy of silence in a small Southern town where segregation divides black and white. The younger agent trained in FBI school runs up against the small town ways of his, former Sheriff, partner.

Similar in 86%

The Life of David Gale (2003)

Plot Summary:

A man against capital punishment is accused of murdering a fellow activist and is sent to death row.

Similar in 89%

22 July (2018)

Plot Summary:

In Norway on 22 July 2011, right-wing terrorist Anders Behring Breivik murdered 77 young people attending a Labour Party Youth Camp on Utöya Island outside of Oslo. This three-part story will focus on the survivors of the attacks, the political leadership of Norway, and the lawyers involved.